Yesterday’s Q&A session at the House Communications and Internet Subcommittee felt a little bit mockumentary, a little bit reality TV show with a few movie stars making appearances.
Yes, the Republicans were playing “we’re just folks”, taking on the bumbling and possibly evil (socialist) Harvard-trained regulator. But even crusty Open Internet opponent, Texas’s Representative Joe Barton (Ned Beatty?), was impressed by Mr. Genachowski’s intellect.
I think Barton’s respect had to with the FCC’s overall footnote ability as displayed in the order (over 1000 of them.) At one point Barton openly remarked on the subscript prowess of dissenting Commissioner McDowell.
There were times I had to wince at Mr. G’s incredible earnestness and optimism over the prospects of the OI order in the courts. But he took the questions with only one “right” answer in stride and had some good moments.
World-weary Commissioner Copps (Frederic March, “Best Days of Our Lives”) was unflappable. He, along with Massachusetts’ Ed Markey, heroically attempted to introduce something called h i s t o r y into the proceedings.
If you’re looking for a sleep aid, you can watch C-SPAN’s video of yesterday’s session in its entirety (below). For those with better things to do, I noted some of the more interesting segments:
(17:08) Rep. Markey reminds Barton that not all candidates running on net neutrality lost in November. He also explains “ancient” telecom history, including how regulations related to the Carterfone decision may have, um, actually increased our freedom of choice.
(1:06:19) Commissioner Copps tells a favorite story of his—the long history of media concentration. Get the feeling he’s tired of playing GrandPa.
(1:14:00) Copps quickly summarizes the twisty court and regulatory history (Brand X, FCC’s cable modem order) that led to reclassification of broadband Internet as a Title I-ish information service.
(1:39:35) Rep. Shimkus has real problems with the FCC’s open government initiatives.
(2:01:55) Mr G: We did do a marketing analysis. But apparently not OMB-approved, darn.
(2:06:50) Mr G: “Almost everything the FCC does ends up in litigation.” Leading up to that remark you can see Mr. G in full force as a rational consensus builder.
(2:57:00) New Hampshire’s Rep. Bass waxes fondly for the old times when you had rotary phones in 1964 but blames regulations, which were needed unfortunately.
Then Bass asks to introduce former Solicitor General Seth Waxman’s paper that Internet access was never regulated as a telecommunications service.
(Huh? I read this thing, and it centers on the Supreme Court’s Brand X decision in 2005—Justice Thomas’s nutty ideas on transmission and information services. And what about DSL transmission under Title II?)
(3:13:50) Rep. Eshoo: The Pope supports Open Internet rules.
Related articles
- House Communications and Internet Subcommittee video (cspan.com)
- Gearing Up for Open Developer Day (fcc.gov)
- Seth Waxman’s letter (ustelecom.org)
