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Julius Genachowski To Head FCC
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The US President-elect, Barack Obama, has selected Julius Genachowski to lead the Federal Communications Commission. This appears to bode well for a forward-looking (or at least clued) Internet policy, since Genachowski is credited with running Obama's internet-based election campaign, and, according to 'Fierce Telecom,' 'has an impressive record working with technology and communications companies: He was Chief of Business Operations at InterActiveCorp; he's co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures, which currently backs 11 internet-based start-ups, and he's also served on the boards of numerous technology and new media companies, including The Motley Fool, Web.com, Truveo, and Rapt'."
With the ridiculous fines being handed down on censorship, I'd like to know where our new FCC chief stands. Are we to continue being the ass backwards country when it comes to censorship (nudity is bad, but violence is ok!), or will he take steps to allow parents to determine what their kids can and cannot see?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
You, and the no-doubt +5 Insightful modding to follow will lead to crushed expectations.
1. This poor bloke doesn't stand a chance against the telco's lobbying. His years running VC are not comparable to years running government, defending attacks from the Telcos and Cable Co's.
2. Government changes very slowly. This is part of the human condition more than anything else. One guy, even with the temporary backing of an Administration doesn't have much to work with.
3. The political system we have will create a great deal of friction preventing it from changing. Telco's and cable co's will screw this guy out of a job if he runs too far afield of their goals to capture the media distribution market.
Don't be disappointed when it doesn't go well.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
The FCC is probably the least competent of all our federal government's departments right now. Have you ever filed an FCC complaint? I have (against a toll-free RespOrg, and then against another one when the owner of the number in question moved). When you file a complaint, the response is a form letter telling you the FCC cannot do anything. And then when you call the FCC for more information on how they came to that conclusion you wait for half an hour on hold before someone tells you they can't do anything, either; and they won't tell you if you can find out who read your complaint (if it was read at all).
Frankly they could put a lobster in charge of the FCC and it would be just as well off as it is at this moment. So any sentient being will likely be an improvement.
The FCC is so frustrating I went to go stand in line at the DMV afterwards because I wanted to feel like I accomplished something that day.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Wait, competent people from the startup-world with real success are "extreme leftists" but Bush's pick of fucking lawyer with no tech business experience is "good business sense?" Get off it already, no one but the Rush Limbaugh echo chamber believes these talking points.
How about Obama surprise everyone by doing something radical like announcing that he is going to make the FCC's only responsibility the licensing of spectrum and enforcement of (future?) federal cable and telecom franchising laws?
Simply abolish the FCC and replace it with a citizen run mod point system.
Respect the Constitution
You'd make an awful manager.
Graduated from Columbia College and Harvard magna cum laude, was a senior official in the FCC, was on the board of directors for various companies, some utilizing the internet heavily (expedia.com), and was part of the working group that created Obama's technology and innovation plan. That's hardly what you portrayed, that he's a purely political pick without any credentials.
On a perusal of Common Sense Media's site, it seems that they offer ratings and tools for parents to help parents control what their kids watch. Oh the horrors! I can see how that's super-left-wing *eye roll*. A private org focusing on parental responsibility is EXACTLY the sort of thing I'd like to see from an FCC official.
In summary, I see nothing here that would suggest that he was a bad pick, and on the contrary, by your own link, he seems to be a good pick. I get it: you don't like Obama. But the amount of spin you're throwing into this is intellectually dishonest at best.
Bluntly stated -- does this guy give two sh*ts about consumer interests?
The guy pretty much wrote Obama's tech plan, the motto of which is "Open Government, Open Networks, Open Market." And he's an advocate for 'Net Neutrality.
The FCC isn't charged with creating standards and products, it's about policy. Technology policy, but policy nonetheless. It is a regulatory body. Nothing more, nothing less.
I know it's the cool thing today to be cynical about Obama's decisions, and I haven't agreed with many of them lately as well, but this is a good pick.
You guys are all giving each other high fives over Obama's FCC pick, and what you do not get is that commercially, he's going to be a very strong IP guy and a lot of you are going to be disappointed in that.
Think, people! How does a man who does venture capital for web startups NOT wind up being strongly in favor of copyright enforcement, software patents, and all the litigation that this board has come to despise?
I see a lot of media companies that did Obama a lot of favors, and Obama's bill for them is coming due. I would expect to see an Obama administration have -stricter- regulation than Bush's administration ever did, all to protect the big city newspapers, publishing houses, record companies, movie studios and other enterprises that form the economic backbone of what we would call the "liberal economy". I would expect to see increased liability on telcos for copyrighted content, a federal bureacracy to handle copyright claims, greater pressure on the rest of the world to get on board, and what's France going to do, when their own newspapers, movie studios, and more, are telling them to do the same thing. Bush had to sell out to Exxon and Halliburton, but Obama is a sellout to Time Warner and the New York Times. Every President, regardless of political party, has a business constituency that they whore out too, and in Obama's case, its the publishing industry. Bush brought us $4/gallon gasoline to appease his corporate masters, and Obama's going to kill the open internet, to do the same.
This is my sig.
Frankly they could put a lobster in charge of the FCC and it would be just as well off as it is at this moment.
It occurred to me after writing that rant that if a lobster were indeed in charge of the FCC, it could then be the Federal Crustacean Commission.
Thank you, and don't forget to tip your server.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You have a dim view of this. How is it that I see the link you posted of his biography entirely different than you?
Harvard Law grad, with honors. Not everyone can say this. Might be a friend of Obama's but doesn't necessarily exclude him from being qualified.
Your statement on clerking is off the mark. My wife clerked for two judges, both of them pretty conservative guys, one at the district level and one on the circuit level (my wife, btw, is not even close to being a conservative). Clerking for any judge is a competitive position, usually sought after by hundreds of applicants. Clerking for the USSC is a highly sought after position and a huge honor. Wouldn't serving for a conservative and a liberal judge at least show an ability to work across the aisle? Plus, having clerking experience really can pay off to know how the court thinks and what they demand in terms of what arguments make the grade.
Did you skip over the part about Barry Diller and IAC? You know Barry, the guy who helped start Fox Broadcasting? His involvement with Common Sense Media seems somewhat balanced out with some of the other companies who's boards he has served on.
Of course you skipped right over the part where it said he previously worked for the FCC as General Council and all, denoting a level of experience with the organization he's being appointed.
The ultimate judge of this guy will be the positions he takes and the moves the FCC make during his reign, but to say that he only got this because he was Obama's buddy (which he is) and that he's not qualified (he's far more qualified than the last few FCC chairs we've had) is missing the forest for the trees.
Sorry, but, you know, this whole hippy thing of nudity is love and violence is evil is just stupid.
Nudity has nothing to do with love. Sticking your dick into some slut's snatch and gushing it around until she says she loves you doesn't do anything for the country at all. Unless she decides she's up for breeding some good old babies for Jesus, otherwise, it's useless.
On the other hand, violence is plenty useful. It can get you more oil, access at the bargaining table with the great powers, AND, most of all, it can get your more broads to ram that fuckstick of yours into.
I know what Jesus said and all, but, the reality is different. If you want to be a big pussy and wish you had a girlfriend, value nudity. But, if you want to have tons of oil and power, then be violent, as you'll get tons of pussy to boot, and, they'll all be cranking out your genetic destiny in the form of children.
Who would you rather be, Ghandi, living impoversished in a tent, and getting shot in the end by some punk. Or, would you rather be Ghengis Khan, with an empire the size of Asia and the Middle East, tons of loot, and more women than you can name colors?
This is my sig.
If you read the article you just posted, she simply didn't want to be in a position where she would be accountable for what she said. Sounds bad right?
My dad works in a high position in an international company and me, getting into the working world the last year, and him sat down to have one of our many talks about office politics. I showed him some of my many notebooks I use to document all the projects I have to do. He responded in kind of a story about his company being sued over a project he had been involved in; at the time he kept similar paper notebooks. He was terrified at being called in to testify.
Now I should explain, my dad is about as straight shooting, honest son-of-a-gun you ever knew. To this day he does not allow people to put mp3s on his computer. He paid a speeding ticket when he went to Panama, a country where it's common and accepted as Status Quo to bribe the cop who pulled you over. So why would be he scared to be called to testify?
Lawyers for one, they're professionals at twisting words and documents to their stories. You just don't know how they'll take your simple notebooks and use it against you; and you could then be held PERSONALLY liable. Needless to say, after the trial, my dad destroyed those notebooks.
Point is, just because you have nothing to hide, doesn't mean you won't be found at fault.
Posting with out proof reading since 2001.
There's been far too little scrutiny of a number of Obama appointees... he seems to be stacking the cabinet with nothing but extreme left-wingers every chance he gets.
Aside from low-level appointments to things like HUD and the EPA, this is pretty much backwards. The major positions are being filled by some moderate Democrats (with Napolitano and Richardson being the only thing to approach "extreme left-wingers"), some independents, and some Republicans.
More than half of the major defense, foreign affairs, and economic appointees served in significant positions in Republican administrations (mainly under George W. Bush and/or Ronald Reagan)
Of the "big 3" cabinet positions, 2 are Bush appointees:
Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton (D). Leftie, but hardly extremist.
Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates (R). Republican, Bush cabinet member
Secretary of Treasury: Timothy Geithner (I). Generally conservative. Bush appointed him chairman of the New York Fed.
Of the "next 2", one's a Reagan appointee:
Attorney General: Eric Holder (D). A moderate Democrat, Holder is a Reagan appointee (Superior court) most famous for prosecuting Dan Rostenkowski (D).
Secretary of Commerce: Bill Richardson (D). Somewhat of a leftie.
Other major appointments
The other major names on his economic team are Reagan CEA member Lawrence Summers and Reagan Fed Charman Paul Volcker
The other major defense names are 4-star general Jim Jones (recipient of multiple Bush administration appointments and special Middle East envoy under Condaleeza Rice) and Arizona Gov Janet Napolitano.
Napolitano, Richardson, and Hillary Clinton are the 3 most "leftie" of the major appointees.
The other 6 (Gates, Geithner, Holder, Summers, Volcker, and Jones) are all significant Reagan/Bush adminstration figures.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Eric Holder was Janet Reno's right hand man that went on a rampage against all forms of private firearms ownership.
Holder filed an amicus brief in support of DC's right to regulate gun ownership in DC vs. Heller. That's clearly a liberal position, but it's also far from going on a rampage against all forms of private gun ownership.
He also supports closing Gitmo.
Those positions are well within the mainstream wing of the Democratic platform. You can disagree with them (and I do disagree with the stance on gun control), but trying to paint him (or any of the nominees for major cabinet/advisory positions) as "extreme left wingers" is completely polemical.
I'm not saying he's a staunch conservative. He's very far from being some crazy lefty. The guy's career in public service started with a Ronald Reagan appointment to Superior Court.
The media consensus has been similar, whether you look at FOX News or the Washington Post or sources ideologically in between.
FOX News wrote: "Barack Obama's Cabinet lineup, completed Friday with a month to spare, sends a signal that the fresh-faced president-elect will lean on experienced hands and moderate voices to steer the nation through turbulent times."
CBS's Bob Schieffer wrote "...a lot of people said this is going to be a very extremist president and all that, that he's a very liberal Democrat, but as we have seen in appointment after appointment, he's hewing to the center. He's picking a bunch of flaming moderates here".
Politico wrote "President-elect Barack Obama spent the campaign fighting the notion that he's an unabashed liberal. Now he can point to Exhibit A: a Cabinet that's a middle-of-the-roader's dream".
The Washington Post wrote: "But many of Obama's other picks reflect his apparent preference for practical-minded centrists who have straddled big policy debates rather than staking out the strongest pro-reform positions. Their reputations as moderates have won Obama plaudits from even some Republicans"
rage, rage against the dying of the light