Wednesday, February 25, 2015

"Orwellian"

Judge Andrew Napolitano has spoken out against Obama's proposal to use the FCC to take over the internet.
"Net neutrality," which is being pushed by President Barack Obama, will eventually lead to control of content on the Internet, says Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano.

"This is so Orwellian that they want to call it 'net neutrality.' It's anything but neutral," Napolitano said Tuesday on Fox Business Network's "Cavuto."

The administration wants to regulate the cost of the Internet by allocating the cost to servers rather than having the free market allocate it, "which has worked magnificently and with near perfection," Napolitano said. "Once he is able to regulate costs, then the next step would be to regulate content."

Obama has had no success getting Congress to pass a net neutrality law, so he is trying to get the Federal Communication Commission to take over the issue. The problem, Napolitano said, is that the FCC can regulate only what Congress has authorized it to regulate.

"It doesn't regulate cable television, it doesn't regulate the Internet. They will have to aggregate to themselves, the commissioners, out of nowhere the authority to regulate the Internet," he said.

The FCC regulates broadcast television and radio and also controls content, Napolitano said.

Individual stations, in exchange for a broadcast license, have "agreed not to say certain things, and to say certain things," Napolitano said. "Who the heck wants to see the Internet become that?"

No comments: