The FCC's minority report

[Commentary] In the 2002 film Minority Report, Tom Cruise arrests innocent people because they will, at some point in the future, commit a crime. While the Federal Communications Commission's methods are considerably less egregious, there is a striking parallel between the sci-fi flick and the FCC's recently announced intention to reclassify broadband as a Title II service.

The motivation behind this decision appears to be that without strong regulatory oversight, broadband operators will inevitably lapse into a range of bad behaviors that will harm consumers and web operators. So like the pre-crime unit in Minority Report, the FCC's mantra seems to be that it is better to stop them now than wait until they actually do something wrong. [Kevin Walsh Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Zeugma Systems, a privately held telecommunications equipment supplier.]