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While Americans have been fixated on the Swift-Kelce romance and wondering what really happened to Matthew Perry, the Biden administration has quietly made an audacious move to take over the Internet as we know it and regulate it in the name “Equity.”
That’s right: The fate of the Internet as we know it hangs in the balance. And it’s set to come to a vote at the Federal Communications Commission on November 15.
FCC Commissioner Brandon Carr earlier lambasted the Biden administration for its attempted Internet “takeover” in a memorandum on the Wednesday meeting.
“So last month, President Biden gave the FCC its marching orders,” Carr said. “The President called on the FCC to implement a one-page section of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Infrastructure Act) by adopting new rules of breathtaking scope, all in the name of ‘digital equity.’ For the first time ever, those rules would give the federal government a roving mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions—from how ISPs allocate capital and where they build, to the services that consumers can purchase; from the profits that ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise services, to the discounts and promotions that consumers can receive. Talk about central planning.”
“Needless to say, Congress never contemplated the sweeping regulatory regime that President Biden asked the FCC to adopt—let alone authorized the agency to implement it,” he added. “Nonetheless, the Commission will vote next week, on November 15th, to put President Biden’s plan in place. A draft of the FCC order implementing President Biden’s plan is available here. I oppose the plan for several reasons.”
The FCC Commissioner then laid out the reasons he opposes the Biden Internet takeover, namely, “President Biden’s plan hands the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the country.”
He notes that the text of the order expressly provides that the FCC would be “empowered, for the first time, to regulate each and every ISP’s”:
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- “network infrastructure deployment, network reliability, network upgrades, network maintenance, customer-premises equipment, and installation”;
- “speeds, capacities, latency, data caps, throttling, pricing, promotional rates, imposition of late fees, opportunity for equipment rental, installation time, contract renewal terms, service termination terms, and use of customer credit and account history”;
- “mandatory arbitration clauses, pricing, deposits, discounts, customer service, language options, credit checks, marketing or advertising, contract renewal, upgrades, account termination, transfers to another covered entity, and service suspension.”
“As exhausting as it is to read that list, the FCC itself says it is not an exhaustive li,” Carr continues. “The Biden Administration’s plan empowers the FCC to regulate every aspect of the Internet sector for the first time ever. The plan is motivated by an ideology of government control that is not compatible with the fundamental precepts of free market capitalism.”
“But it gets worse,” he adds. “The FCC reserves the right under this plan to regulate both ‘actions and omissions, whether recurring or a single instance.’ In other words, if you take any action, you may be liable, and if you do nothing, you may be liable. There is no path to complying with this standardless regime. It reads like a planning document drawn up in the faculty lounge of a university’s Soviet Studies Department.”
Carr also extensively fact-checked the alleged “myths” being put out by the Biden administration to further its bid to tightly regulate the Internet.
In his fact check, Carr notes the hysterical claims that the end of Net Neutrality turned out to be just that — hysterical claims.
Biden in February quietly issued an executive order stating his administration’s intention to regulate the Internet based on the goals of promoting “diversity” and equity.
It is called the “Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government.”
A phrase from the executive order caused a number of people to become concerned:
When designing, developing, acquiring, and using artificial intelligence and automated systems in the Federal Government, agencies shall do so, consistent with applicable law, in a manner that advances equity.
The implementation of the executive order would entail a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) board that would supervise the rollout of AI to promote “equity” — an anomalous term that can be defined to fit any bureaucratic action.
