Documents Show FCC Coordinated With Leftist Group

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

...on "net neutrality"

washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/conn-carroll-documents-show-fcc-coordinated-net-neutrality-effort-outside

That "crazy" Glenn Beck alerted me to this how long ago???

The coordination between FCC officials and Free Press, the advocacy group, supported a proposal for the agency to regulate access to the Internet as if it were a public utility, in the interest of ensuring "Net Neutrality."

Proponents said doing so would assure equal access for all Internet users by barring companies from offering preferred rates for higher delivery speeds. Other users, especially in communities with limited Internet access, would be forced to accept poorer service.

But critics said the proposal would actually give the FCC a tool to regulate content, and they argued that the FCC has no authority over the medium in the first place. It would be akin to forcing FedEx and UPS to treat all packages the same way the U.S. Postal Service does.

Free Press is the most vocal of a number of far-left and liberal advocacy groups that for nearly a decade have pushed numerous proposals for vastly increasing government regulation of the Internet.

The evidence of coordination between FCC Democrats and Free Press uncovered by Judicial Watch includes:
•Emails between former Free Press president John Silver and Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps from October 2010, coordinating "how we'd like to proceed during these next three months on NN [net neutrality]."
• Documents summarizing a phone call between Silver and Copps in which, before an FCC vote on the proposal in November 2010, Silver "emphasized that a strong net neutrality rule is critical to preserving the Internet as a vibrant forum for speech, commerce, innovation and cultural expression."
• Correspondence between FCC Special Counsel David Tannenbaum and Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott coordinating speakers for a taxpayer-funded series of FCC "internet workshops" that were intended to generate public support for the proposal.

Free Press was co-founded by Monthly Review editor Robert McChesney and the Nation contributor John Nichols. The Monthly Review is "an independent Marxist journal," while the Nation has long described itself as "the flagship of the left." Free Press is partially funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/conn-carroll-documents-show-fcc-coordinated-net-neutrality-effort-outside#ixzz1OEkwezo4