Net Neutrality Vets Join Obama FCC Transition Team

circleid writes "The Obama-Biden transition team on Friday named two long-time net neutrality advocates to head up its Federal Communications Commission Review team. Susan Crawford, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, member of the board of directors of ICANN, and OneWebDay founder, as well as Kevin Werbach, former FCC staffer, organizer of the annual Supernova technology conference, and a Wharton professor, will lead the Obama-Biden transition team's review of the FCC. 'Both are highly-regarded outside-the-Beltway experts in telecom policy, and they've both been pretty harsh critics of the Bush administration's telecom policies in the past year.' The choice of the duo strongly signals an entirely different approach to the incumbent-friendly telecom policy-making that's characterized most of the past eight-years at the FCC." Reuters has a related story about Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who plans to introduce net neutrality legislation in January.

Comments

Re:So...

[Jerry Beasters]

What bullshit. I have no responsibility to anyone's kid. And yes, in fact, I do seriously like hearing little kids swear. It's hilarious and as an adult I see nothing wrong with it. Take your morality elsewhere. And if I'm cursing near someone's kids and the father calls the cops I would hope he gets arrested for wasting police time. I have every right to curse in public, we have a thing called freedom of speech. We don't run the world for fucking children. We are the adults, we rule, not them.

Re:Why do "net neutrality" advocates

[InsertCleverUsername]

More importantly, why do we mark as "Insightful" dishonest (or perhaps just inept) attempts to make others think that the ignorance of some Republican politicians proves that all politicians are idiots? One might also point out that the smart, qualified people, from outside Washington, being tapped to re-examine policy are NOT politicians, but experts on the subject.

On Deregulation

[DesScorp]

Deregulating Wall Street has done wonders for the US economy, unleashing the creative powers of the investor class unto the world. Deregulating the telecom industry is working just as well!

And what deregulation caused this financial crash? Be specific, and how it did. The repeal of Glass-Steagall? How did that cause the subprime crisis, the root of all of the problems? Oh that's right, it didn't. What did? One of your beloved regulations, the Community Reinvestment Act. I'll also remind you that many politicians tried to enact new regulations on Fannie and Freddie to keep the subprime mess from exploding. The same politicians that claim this came from lack of regulation, among others, your buddy Barney Frank, are the same people that blocked and killed the Fannie/Freddie reforms.

And tell me, what kind of economic model are you in favor of? Free markets are too mean and unfair for you? Well, there's that system where the state owns all large industry, or favors private firms with a monopoly. What's the track record for those kind of systems? The US, in a bad recession, has 6.5 percent unemployement. But that's better than Europe during the good times. So how about a little perspective, eh? The awful, bad free market system is what allowed you to buy that computer that you post stupid things on Slashdot with. Free markets aren't all fun and games, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system in the world... except for all the others.