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Congress To Investigate FCC
SirLurksAlot writes to let us know that Congress is planning to question the FCC on the way the commission is run. From the article: "The FCC — and Chairman Kevin Martin in particular — are in hot water with Congress... While Martin was at CES, telling all who would listen that the FCC will investigate Comcast's traffic-shaping practices, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced a formal investigation of the FCC. The news couldn't be more welcome to the industries that the FCC regulates.'"
Yeah, I heard that Congress was concerned the FCC wasn't corrupt enough.
Or perhaps this is just a remedial course on how to milk your cash cows.
Every so often congress has to look like it's investigating something when a source of income is threatened. Is anything ever done about it? Not really.
But magically, without fail, the citizen is screwed in the end. Congress just wants to make sure some of that money ends up back at the top.
My work here is dung.
"The FCC is structured about broadcast, cable and telephone," he said. "That isn't the world we are live in, and it isn't the world we are going to. The FCC has to be overhauled for the Internet world."
This make me feel nervous, because if they start monitoring the internet all the stuff we like on it will be gone.
The news couldn't be more welcome to the industries that the FCC regulates.
Probably true.
They probably don't like the way the FCC is regulating them, so a few "campaign contributions" later, their bought-and-paid-for, em, concerned Representatives and Senators just "happen" to investigate the FCC.
When are Pelosi and Reid getting around to earmark reform, anyway? Or will they be too damn busy investigating steroid use in baseball?
Meh, no wonder their approval rating is half of W's.
The article has lots of speculation about who wants what, but it doesn't mention whether Congress is trying to intervene on behalf of the telcos and such, or against them. Kind of makes a big difference.
For all of those who doubt that the Democratic and Republican party aren't just the same wolves in different sheepskins...I present to you exhibit A.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I don't know about that. In a recent action, the FCC gave away the store to "the industries that the FCC regulates". In spite of overwhelming outcry from consumers, the FCC handed industry what they wanted.
One corrupt organization investigating another. What could possibly go wrong?
That's good, but I'd like to see them work on fixing advertising. I'm of the opinion that we should go back to the old stance (80s or so?) that drugs shouldn't be able to be advertised on TV. I think that would help quite a bit with healthcare costs. But I'd also like them to investigate the ads we have now. I remember reading something in the last week or so that someone was pushing them to do that over the Lipitor ads with Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the artificial heart, testifying about how good Lipitor is.
The problem is that he has never had a license to practice medicine in the US. He dropped out of a US medical school because of his grades and got his degree from a school outside this country. It's really questionable that he is qualified to talk about the drug.
I wish they'd work on advertising. So much of it is so blatantly wrong. Just deal with a few of the worst offenders, and the rest will self-correct before they get investigated.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Well that's exactly what the article implies if you read it to the end. They are investigating FCC for not being corrupt enough: The cable operators are upset about the FCC's attempt to regulate their industry, along with the Commission's decision last year to nullify many of their exclusive contracts with apartment buildings. The telephone companies aren't thrilled about the FCC's 700MHz auction conditions (Verizon even sued), and everyone wants the FCC to keep away from their traffic monitoring and shaping practices. That would please the industries regulated by the FCC. Multichannel News reports that AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast all bashed the agency in a CES panel yesterday, with each group wanting to see major changes in the way that the FCC operates Perhaps the strongest criticism came from Verizon's Tom Tauke, who argued that the FCC just isn't set up to deal with the modern world. "The FCC is structured about broadcast, cable and telephone," he said. "That isn't the world we are live in, and it isn't the world we are going to. The FCC has to be overhauled for the Internet world."
Some of the things that the Congressmen are investigating in the article seem to be the only good things the FCC has done...
1) Regulating the Cable industry (ok, that's a bad one if it falls under censorship. But they do have the power to force a la carte services, which would be a good thing for most people).
2) Putting conditions on the 700Mhz auction (which is a good thing overall)
3) Net neutrality (The FCC is actually for net neutrality, to the detriment of internet providers).
So 2/3 are clearly meant to help consumers, and the other one could help consumers (although it is just as likely to harm us).
So once again it looks like the industry paid off the right Congressmen to shake down a government commission just before it actually did something right.
Remember kids, these congress critters are the people that you and I, our familes, friends, and neighbors all elected.
Unless you don't vote. In that case, feel free to bitch-slap the rest of us.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
Committee on Energy and Commerce has a subcomittee for this:
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
14 reublicans
18 democrats
1 vacancy
and the chairman is a democrat
You can see all their names and voting records http://energycommerce.house.gov/Subcommittees/telint.shtml Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
success often occurs in private, failure in full view
What we first need to do is change the FCC so that it's not headed by appointed officials, but rather by elected representatives.
The FCC's power has grown far beyond it's original intention (regulating airwaves frequencies in the U.S.). Apparently they only do things in response to complaints. Or at least that's how it once was. But the really fucked up thing is 99% of complaints come from one organization.
So essentially this one single organization is responsible for most of the - detrimental in my opinion - changes to what is allowed to be broadcast or not.
It's not the popular decision. People just think it is because this one fucked up organization has such broad powers and people just assume that it's the popular opinion. It is not.
The organization responsible for all this? The Parent's Television Council. The sick thing is they're proud to be the nation's most influential advocacy organization yet have barely a million members. That's right one million up tight fucks are responsible for 99.8-99.9% of all FCC regulation that affects 303 million people.
And the FCC allows it.
Question everything
Obviously you are a government educated moron. This county (USA) has NEVER been a democracy. If you think it is, that is the problem with idiots like you. Look up the word representative republic. [Quote] Some day, I hope that democracy starts working again...let's see if this is a start?
Congressional investigations are about agenda setting, political capital (getting more people on board), and/or chicken.
1) Congress can elevate issues of policy/culture into the media when conducting an "investigation." Whether about steroids or blowjobs or whether the family network can have an a la carte anti-abortion show.
2) Senators and Reps can get an ass-ton of sound bites out to interested parties--citizens, corporations, and their monied representatives (lobbyists, family groups, net neutrality folks). In this case you can get your message out to a VERY diverse set of groups...from family issues to tech issues, without pissing either group off. Goldmine.
3) Chicken. Ohhhh chicken, how I love the: "Dear corporation, if you don't a) give us more money or b) clean up your act, we will be forced to pwn you." That is not an exaggeration when it comes to regulatory action. The gov't can and does wield immense power over corporations through taking control of processes--and it is a simple risk analysis for a corp to decide whether or not to change behavior or play fast and loose. After all, the longer it takes for congress to act, the more profit you can make.
Examples of the tit for tat:
Industry blinks: Movie Ratings, Health Care reform (portions of clinton's 90s playbook was used by the medical industry), Big Pharma advertising on TV about free medicine for poor people (avoiding price controls).
Industry runs congress over: Ummm, automakers, tobacco
Congress runs em over: safety, but mainly because competitive industry players actually want gov't regulation on product safety issues.
Congress blinks: MPG standards (we could have been at 50 mpg in 2000-2002, according to the auto industry), anything involving financial services
Note that congress never "wins," they just change the rules of the game by cutting off a profit option and their actions are rarely draconian because many of them are concerned about jobs lost in their state.
The article says Congress is investigating the FCC for being too close to the industries they are regulating, giving them an inside track to getting favorable decisions.
It goes on to say that the companies are pissed off because of the decisions they do make. What that demonstrates is that the companies would like even more influence over the decisions the FCC takes. It does not mean that Congress is investigating the FCC to make it so.
If the article is to be believed, Congress wants to make it harder for the companies to manipulate the FCC, not easier. If so, the companies will not be rejoicing over Congress's actions.
Squirrel!
The one certain way of telling that the FCC is doing its job protecting consumer interests is when Congress gets involved. I do want to see more about the abuse of FUSF funds though because with all the money we've paid into that system we should have 21st century phone and net access EVERYWHERE!