This is but the latest in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski’s ongoing terrible interpretation of his self-appointed role as Captain Transparency.
As we have much discussed, the FCC has decided to power grab Internet authority on December 21st. The Commission must seize said authority because it does not have it unless and until Congress writes a law saying so – which The Chairman himself admits Congress has not done.
The Chairman will do so via a three unelected bureaucrat Democrat Party-line vote (that’s counting him). He intends to do so under cover of Christmas – slamming it through less than 96 hours before the Big Day.
The Chairman will do so by writing (and rewriting, and rewriting some more, and rewriting again) an 80-plus page “order” – which sounds an awful lot like he’s appropriating Congress’ job and writing law. (Because, again, Congress has never written a law that allows him to do this.) He is in perpetual revision mode to continue to capitulate to the demands – and induce the vote – of the FCC’s most Leftist member – Commissioner Michael Copps – driving this Web takeover to the outer limits of illegal usurpation.
The Chairman will do so without a new Public Comment period on this (law and) order. A new Public Comment period would be most appropriate given the continuing newness and dramatic scope of the Internet control he is writing and voting for himself. (The Internet is now 1/6th of our nation’s entire economy – and [for now] growing.)
The Chairman will do so without having made the (law and) order available to the public on the Internet over which he is about to commandeer control. This after his Day One proclamation that his FCC would be “fair, open and transparent.” And his once upon a time description of his Net Neutrality emplacement process (which has, again, become a Congress-free rewrite of communications law):
“I will ensure that the rulemaking process will be fair, transparent, fact-based, and data-driven. Anyone will be able to participate in this process, and I hope everyone will. We will hold a number of public workshops and, of course, use the Internet and other new media tools to facilitate participation. Today we’ve launched a new website, www.OpenInternet.gov, to kick off discussion of the issues I’ve been talking about. We encourage everyone to visit the site and contribute to the process.”
And the Chairman will do so after accepting over 2,000 pages of last minute document-dump filings, which no one on Planet Earth could properly pore over, get through and understand the ramifications of in time for the December 21st vote.
If we could even access them – which for 60 of the last 88.5 hours before the vote we could not. For if you went to the FCC’s website on Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, or early Monday morning – the weekend before the Tuesday vote – at the very top of the page you saw:
This was an FCC almost Web-wide shut down. If you clicked on any of the links to the last minute document-dump, and you got this:
Not to mention that when you tried to go to OpenInternet.gov – you got a “Closed” sign:
The irony would be amusing, were the ramifications of this un-transparency from Captain Transparency – I mean Chairman Genachowski – not so dire.
The timing of this “scheduled maintenance” is either incredibly unfortunate – or intentional.
If it is the former, and you later decide to have a vote of this magnitude in such close proximity to said maintenance – you reschedule the maintenance. So as to allow the public the “fair, open and transparent” access to the vote-relevant information The Chairman has all along promised.
If it is intentional, it means The Chairman never intended to be “fair, open and transparent” – or anything else but a stooge for the Media Marxists and the Net Neutrality campaign-promising White House.
Which means The Chairman is either incredibly incompetent – or deceitfully secretive in every conceivable way about this extraordinarily important vote.
Either way, Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn was right:
“There is no doubt they (and we) need new leadership at the FCC.”
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