Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3941
In an interview just prior to leaving the FCC this month, former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn took aim at the agency where she worked for nearly nine years, saying it has abandoned its mission to safeguard consumers and protect their privacy and speech.
Clyburn, a net neutrality proponent who served as interim FCC chief in 2013, equated the FCC's mission to the Starfleet Prime Directive, saying the agency's top priority is to ensure "affordable, efficient, and effective" access to communications—a directive it has effectively deserted under the new administration, working instead to advance the causes of "last-mile monopolies."
Clyburn spoke to Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin during a phone interview shortly before she left the agency this month.
"I'm an old Trekkie," she said. "I go back to my core, my prime directive of putting consumers first."
Clyburn said that, whereas some of her colleagues shied away from their role as a government regulator, she had embraced it, particularly when it came to internet service providers (ISPs).
"Let's face it," she told Ars, ISPs are "last-mile monopolies."
"In an ideal world, we wouldn't need regulation," Clyburn continued. "We don't live in an ideal world, all markets are not competitive, and when that is the case, that is why agencies like the FCC were constructed. We are here as a substitute for competition."
Source: https://gizmodo.com/fcc-commissioner-says-the-agency-is-a-shill-for-isps-as-1826203464
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday May 24 2018, @07:19PM (3 children)
In a free society a person would build something with their own capital or voluntarily invested capital from third parties and sell access to it. In a slave society someone will force you to build something with your own money and then charge you to use it.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @07:24PM
However, that doesn't mean you should try to hack away at the necessary foundation of a free society.
A free society implies caveat emptor, but caveat emptor does not imply a free society.
In practical terms, this means that a Nanny State is not an acceptable solution.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 24 2018, @07:44PM
Even if you build something with your own capital (or voluntarily invested capital) does not mean you can do anything you want. The freedom is not a license to destroy others' freedom, enslaving them through concentrations of capital that are modern mega corporations. If a private enterprise were to really destroy the planetary environment and biosphere, would that be a good thing, because it was profitable?
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 24 2018, @10:45PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves