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FCC Insists Feds Should Regulate VoIP
prostoalex writes "FCC Chairman Michael Powell insists federal officials should be the only ones regulating VoIP, as trusting the Internet phone regulations to states would result in patchwork of conflicting legislature. Powell is a strong proponent of VoIP (and a Skype user), and considers it the technology that ignites (not competes with) telecom industry. Research shows that fewer than 1 mln Americans use VoIP today, but that's expected to increase 12x by 2009."
Any company that were to do as such would be guilty of RESTRAINT OF TRADE. That's already a crime. You don't need 'regulation' to be protected from that...you need a government that enforces its own fucking laws.
Because they want to wiretap everyone. You know... to stop the *TERRORISTS*. They're everywhere man.
Any smart terrorist cell / drug ring won't use a PSTN for their personal communications anyhow, they'll just setup their own private telephone network like Free World Dialup, or Skype, only on a much much smaller scale. Point being, VoIP works with or without some huge company in the middle. I can pick up a phone and call my terrorist buddy, and his actual analog phone can ring.. the only difference being am I calling a telephone number I can reach from a pay phone to get him, or am I calling from a phone system that only he and my other terrorist buddies can reach me at. That being the case, if you're going to regulate how VoIP systems connect to the public switched telephone network primarily for the sake of wiretaps, why not wiretaps the public telephone networks that they already have procedures in place to tap. Man, why can't they just do real detective work instead of this spying crap, you know catch the bad guys, not wait for the nutural guys do do/say something bad.
The FCC rarely seems to be acting in the public interest these days. Here is an interesting article about how they're reducing access to the internet for the benefit of corporations.