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Congressman Introduces Bill To Limit FCC Powers
An anonymous reader writes "Representative Bob Latta (R-OH) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would limit the FCC's power to regulate ISPs in a supposed effort to keep the internet free. The bill's text is currently not available on the Library of Congress webpage or on congress.gov, but a purported copy has been spotted on scribd. Representative Latta's press release nevertheless indicates that the bill is intended to prevent the FCC from re-classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II. Latta is one of the 28 representatives who lobbied the FCC earlier this month and were shown to have received double the average monetary donations given to all House of Representative members from the cable industry over a two year period ending this past December."
I don't understand why Congress doesn't run afoul of the conflict of interest laws when they are allowed to write legislation that favors the ones funding their campaigns. It is a clear conflict of interest when you are writing laws that puts money in your own pocket. They should have to recuse themselves just like judges have to when they have a conflict of interest in a case. Can someone explain why this isn't a worse case than judges with a conflict considering how it is the law that judges are supposed to be interpreting?
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This has nothing to do with capitalism. It is about legalized bribery. When you have someone profiting off the rules they make that is actually anti-capitalism since it is skewing the playing field for other entities in the market.
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I agree that the cable companies aren't as regulated as the telcos however you left out one big thing in your rant above...
Cable companies=telecom=phone company+Internet service provider+Content provider.
They are indistinguishable these days since most if not all cable companies are providing VoiP as well as all the other internet related services. It is called "bundling". And the telcos are doing the same thing especially in the cellular area.
So you are correct that to level the playing field you either should lift the regulation on the telcos or bring the cable providers under the same regulation.
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