Less Government President and StopNetRegulation.org Editor in Chief Seton Motley issued the following statement in response to today’s House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet hearing “Ensuring Competition on the Internet: Net Neutrality and Antitrust”:
“Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski today offered uber-flawed pseudo-arguments in a feeble attempt to justify his December 21st Internet Net Neutrality power grab.
“The Chairman claimed that without his illegal commandeering of the Web, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would go wild and block content. But with but the rarest of exceptions, they have not – and they will not. After all, why would a customer service company…intentionally deny their customers service?
“The Chairman absurdly asserted that his huge regulatory constriction of the broadband market would somehow lead to growth. Sort of like strangling someone helps them to breathe.
“The Chairman engaged in contortionist intellectual yoga to avoid the FCC’s own numbers – that show 98% of Americans having access to one broadband provider and 85% have access to two or more – to attempt to justify his looming broadband market report, in which the Commission ludicrously issues a failing grade. To be issued in yet another failed attempt to justify their unjustifiable Web actions.
“But all of these inane excuses aside, the Chairman failed to address the fundamental underlying fact – that Congress has never authorized the FCC to do anything to broadband. The Commission’s Internet power grab was – plainly and simply – illegal.”
