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Does OSS Make The FCC Irrelevant?

Posted by Zonk on from the not-irrelevant-if-uncle-sam-doesn't-want-it-to-be dept.

JordanL writes "Daniel Fisher over at Forbes.com wonders whether or not OSS makes the FCC irrelevant. From the article: 'The agency might have made sense in the 1920s, Moglen says, when it was formed to assign specific frequencies to broadcasters so they wouldnt try to drown each other out by cranking up the transmitter power. But a new generation of intelligent radios, combined with equally clever computer networks, is making it possible for anybody to use the airwaves without interfering with anybody else.'"

1 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. Argh! by rovingeyes · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From TFA - "You cannot regulate code without going through the First Amendment-type balancing tests we have for any other type of speech," says Cindy Cohn, a lawyer at the Electronic Freedom Foundation in San Francisco. "Code is speech."

    Yeah right. If I go by your same logic and just for the sake of argument let us also assume that Napster was Open Source. Do you really think RIAA still wouldn't have crushed it? First Amendment my ass. Our "friendly" (and genius) lawmakers will find a loophole or make a law that First Amendment will violate. Yup the greenback has a voice, and it is fuckin' loud!