This is a good principled statement from FCC Commissioner Rob McDowell concerning bureaucratic over-reach into regulating the internet.

I’ve long advocated for keeping taxes and inhibiting burdens off the internet, which is the best invention since the Gutenberg Press for the dissemination of information and ideas for education and commerce.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                      
December 1, 2010                       

STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER ROBERT M. McDOWELL ON CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI’S INTENT TO ADOPT INTERNET REGULATIONS
The following statement should be attributed to FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell:

“Minutes before midnight last night, Chairman Genachowski announced his intent to adopt sweeping regulations of Internet network management at the FCC’s open meeting on December 21.  I strongly oppose this ill-advised maneuver.  Such rules would upend three decades of bipartisan and international consensus that the Internet is best able to thrive in the absence of regulation.

Pushing a small group of hand-picked industry players toward a “choice” between a bad option (Title I Internet regulation) or a worse option (regulating the Internet like a monopoly phone company under Title II) smacks more of coercion than consensus or compromise.  

This “agreement” has been extracted in defiance of not only the courts, but a large, bipartisan majority of Congress as well.  Both have admonished the FCC not to reach beyond its statutory powers to regulate Internet access.  By choosing this highly interventionist course, the Commission is ignoring the will of the elected representatives of the American people.”
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