Congress Jumps The Shark To Protect Big Telecom Empires

[Commentary] No matter how many times the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says he has no intention of "regulating the Internet," there will always be politicians using the talking points of the big telecommunications empires to attack him for wanting to "regulate the Internet."

Even though the FCC reported that millions of people are left without broadband, the politicians keep mouthing the same old scare lines. No matter how many thousands of jobs the telecom industry cuts, industry front organizations are ready to spend millions of dollars to further the mistaken notion that jobs will be lost if the FCC institutes some modest rules of the road to protect the open Internet and further innovation. The big Internet companies have the best of all the worlds. They don't need any more help from their friendly legislators. It's the constituents of those legislators who need help to make sure the FCC has the authority to help bring broadband to rural areas, to act as a cop on the beat in case of corporate abuse and to make sure the Internet stays open for all of us to use. Let the FCC do its job and enact the modest changes they proposed to fix the Bush-era mistakes that did away with any consumer protection and oversight. It's the least the shark jumpers could do.