News broke just before the weekend that California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina opposes the absurd notion known as Internet Network Neutrality (NN).
“The principle sounds fantastic, but the principle is not the problem,” Fiorina said in an interview at the Technology Policy Institute’s conference in Aspen, Colo. “The problem is how companies and regulatory bodies are trying to translate that principle into policy, which would have a bad effect.”
A spokeswoman later added that Fiorina “opposes Net neutrality and thinks government intervention and more regulation will not be helpful where the Internet is concerned.”
It’s really helpful to have someone running for office publicly standing opposed to NN who is as knowledgeable on it as is Fiorina – she is a former (1999-2005) chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard (HP).
Fiorina’s opponent is a big NN proponent.
Fiorina’s position contrasts greatly with that of her opponent, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who previously cosponsored legislation that would have set open Internet rules firmly in place.
In a statement, Boxer reaffirmed her support for Net neutrality. Her office later added that Boxer felt it was “premature to comment” on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s efforts to mandate Net neutrality using its own rule-making process.
(Emphasis mine.)
“Premature to comment?”
In other words, Boxer is an elected official willing to cede her responsibility to write laws authorizing the FCC to regulate the Internet – so as to achieve her desired NN outcome via FCC regulatory fiat.
In this Machiavellian mindset Boxer joins with a handful of other Democrats – Reps. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Anna Eshoo of California, Jay Inslee of Washington and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania among them.
In this way, they are no different than Congressmen who are pro-Cap & Tax energy control – but who can’t pass the Cap & Tax bill. So they are more than willing to sit idly by while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unilaterally takes domination of our energy sector.
The end justifies the means – lather, rinse, repeat.
And on Net Neutrality, Boxer and Co. are woefully outnumbered in their will to abrogate their Constitutional obligation – as 299 members of Congress have thus far demanded the FCC stop their unilateral Internet reclassification process and allow the Congress to do what it is supposed to do.
Perhaps Fiorina will point out that Boxer no longer wishes to do the job of Senator – and that the people of California should alleviate her of the wearying responsibility.
Before her HP gig, Fiorina was an executive vice president at AT&T (where she successfully coordinated the spinoff and initial public offering of Lucent Technologies). You would think this would lead the pro-NN Media Marxists like Free Press to dismiss her as just another tool of the Evil Industry, but I perused their website and as of this writing there’s no mention of her anti-NN announcement.
Perhaps they’re a bit distracted, what with their pro-Net Neutrality “coalition” collapsing and all. Or they may not wish to drag Boxer down along with the sinking pro-NN ship.
It will be interesting to see how big a role Net Neutrality plays in the California Senate race going forward. It is empirically useful to have a national race with the candidates clearly staked out on opposite sides of the issue.
In an electoral environment as anti-big government (no pun intended, Mr. Breitbart) as this one is, Boxer being in favor of an FCC land grab of 1/6th of the economy can’t bode well for her come Election Day.
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