Michael Copps

Op-ed

Taking Care of America: Whose Job Is It?

While we should be investing in expanding our communications infrastructure, many legislators are at work to cut the budget of the FCC

We live in an exceptional country, we like to tell ourselves. If that’s really so, why are we letting it crumble around us? Let’s take a quick and random look around.

Benton Editorial

Missing Charles

Charles Benton left this world much better than he found it

Charles Benton has been gone less than a week, but I miss him already. I miss him as friend, as a thoroughly delightful person, and—apropos to this testimonial—a dauntless and effective champion of the public interest. I could not have admired this good man more. Charming and gentle, yes, but tenacious and indefatigable too, he left this world much better than he found it.

Op-ed

Victory

Chairman Tom Wheeler said it best at last week’s historic FCC meeting: “The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules.” Amen.

Op-ed

The Biggest FCC Vote Ever

We start off the new year with the good news that the Federal Communications will likely vote on net neutrality at its late February meeting. So we might—just might—be on the cusp of a decision to reverse the disastrous misclassification of broadband that the FCC made in 2002 for cable modem and a couple of years later for the rest of telecommunications.

Op-ed

A Book for Now

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” philosopher George Santayana once said. It’s an old adage but apt as ever—particularly pertinent for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as it sets about deciding the fate of the Open Internet.

Op-ed

The Internet's Future is Now

So 2014 will pass into history without the Federal Communications Commission stepping up to the plate to ensure an Open Internet. Think of the good history the Commission could have made for itself. Instead we got more delay and more uncertainty about whether Title II net neutrality will ever see the light of day.

Op-ed

Setting the Chicken Little ISPs Straight

The opponents of a truly Open Internet are spending millions of dollars to transform the debate over what should be a no-brainer regulatory finding into something analogous to dropping a hydrogen bomb. The big Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would have us believe that Title II net neutrality is regulatory strangulation, government-by-dictatorship, wholesale infringement of their First Amendment rights, and on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Op-ed

Decision Time: Fast Lanes for the 1% and Slow Lanes for the 99%?

TESTIMONY OF HON. MICHAEL J. COPPS
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE FIELD HEARING
“PRESERVING AN OPEN INTERNET: RULES TO PROMOTE COMPETITION
AND PROTECT MAIN STREET CONSUMERS”
BURLINGTON, VT
JULY 1, 2014

Op-ed

No Fast Lanes For The Few

Just about everybody understands the Internet to be the most opportunity-creating tool of our time. The question now is opportunity for whom? Is the Net going to be the tool of the many that helps us all live better -- or will it be the playground of the privileged few that only widens the many divides that are creating a shamefully stratified and unequal America? Are we heading toward an online future with fast lanes for the 1% and slow lanes for the 99%?

Op-ed

Net Neutrality and Civil Rights: No Closer Connection

The most important decision the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has had to make in years is upon it. How this decision comes down will significantly affect the future of our nation’s communications networks. It will profoundly affect each of us as individuals -- and no one more profoundly than America’s minority and diversity communities. That’s because this is not only a communications issue. It is also a critically important civil rights issue. All of us who support the expansion of civil rights need to be in the thick of this decision.

Op-ed

The Long Arm of the National Security-Communications Industry Complex

[Editor's note: Kevin Taglang is traveling today so instead of our normal weekly round-up we share instead the latest op-ed from former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. The Benton Foundation publishes articles penned by Commissioner Copps each month for our Digital Beat Blog.]

This is a story about more than just the national security implications of government surveillance, but it begins there.