FCC Commissioner Pai again Knocks Open Internet Rules While Receiving the Inaugural Herbert Brownell Award

The Internet has flourished precisely because it was kept independent from government control. From Attorney General Brownell’s actions in the 1950s to the Clinton Administration’s decision in 1995 to dissolve the National Science Foundation Network and place the Internet in private, commercial hands, the government consistently preserved the freedom to innovate online.

Indeed, in 1996, Congress decided on a bipartisan basis to “preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet . . . unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” For almost 20 years thereafter, the federal government largely stayed faithful to that approach. Over the years, some wanted to get the public sector’s hands on the Internet. But every FCC Chairman, Republican and Democrat, rejected that approach. They embraced light-touch regulation—regulation that gave the private sector strong incentives to build high-speed broadband networks….

But some disagree. They disdain a free-market approach to the Internet because they believe that every major sector of our economy should be subject to extensive government regulation. They believe that the Internet is too big and too important not to be subject to government control. And unfortunately, they won at the FCC…. By reclassifying broadband Internet access service as a Title II telecommunications service, the FCC seized unilateral authority to regulate Internet conduct, to direct where Internet service providers put their investments, and even to decide what service plans will be available to the American public.