Nationalizing the Internet — VOICES for REASON

As we’re seeing with the banks and the auto industry, there is no such thing as accepting government funding no strings attached. Take money from Uncle Sam, and Uncle Sam owns you.

Keep that in mind as you read this story in today’s Wall Street Journal. It describes how the Federal Communications Commission is moving forward with plans to hand over billions to the telecom industry for the putative goal of improving U.S. broadband access.

The plan will raise thorny issues about what sort of requirements, if any, should be imposed on Internet-service providers to share the networks they have built with government help. Phone and cable companies argue that such requirements would likely stifle investment and be counterproductive.

“If the government were to suddenly suggest it will get into the business of deciding how networks should be designed, that would be chilling,” said Walter McCormick, president of the U.S. Telecom Association, the phone industry’s trade group.

Phone and cable companies, which provide a vast majority of the Internet access in the U.S., plan to lobby the agency and Congress to ensure that the FCC’s plan doesn’t require more stringent rules, particularly on how they manage their networks.

Regardless of the telecom industry’s delusions, it is inevitable that once the government has a financial stake in the broadband infrastructure, it will exercise control over that infrastructure. And not just over how networks are designed.

Recall the furor over bonuses for AIG executives? Just imagine what will happen when people discover that your unconventional views or tastes are being transmitted over the network their tax dollars paid for.

Once the government takes over broadband networks, it won’t be long before it starts deciding what content can run over those networks. As I noted in December, the Bush administration’s FCC already put forth plans to do just that.