Why the FCC should die

[andyjackson1828]

Its justification for existence was weak 70 years ago, but advances in technology since then have eliminated whatever arguments remained. Central planning didn't work for the Soviet Union, and it's not working for us. The FCC is now an agency that does more harm than good.

Consider some examples of bureaucratic malfeasance that the FCC, with the complicity of the U.S. Congress, has committed. The FCC rejected long-distance telephone service competition in 1968, banned Americans from buying their own non-Bell telephones in 1956, dragged its feet in the 1970s when considering whether video telephones would be allowed and did not grant modern cellular telephone licenses until 1981--about four decades after Bell Labs invented the technology. Along the way, the FCC has preserved monopolistic practices that would have otherwise been illegal under antitrust law.

These technologically backward decisions have cost Americans tens of billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the FCC is hard at work, trying to figure out how to muzzle Howard Stern and make a national example of Janet Jackson's right breast. Commissioners are planning how to order voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) companies to comply with arguably unlawful wiretapping requests from the FBI. There's already talk about higher telephone bills becoming a campaign issue this fall.
In a sop to Hollywood, the FCC has decided that any device capable of receiving digital television signals must follow a complicated set of "broadcast flag" regulations. When those rules take effect in mid-2005, they will put some PC tuner card makers out of business.

The rest at...

http://news.com.com/2010-1028-5226979.html

[IrateCitizen]

1. But since the airwaves technically belong to the public...

... who should then determine who is able to gain access to those airwaves, considering there is a finite amount of bandwidth.

Are you comfortable with a single company owning all TV news outlets in a metropolitan area? Without the FCC, that's what you'd have.

And before you start talking about the way the internet has changed the game and all that, it's important to note that 80% of Americans STILL get ALL of their news from television. That fact makes me shudder each and every time I see the infotainment that currently passes for "news".

The FCC has been screwing the pooch lately, but that's mostly due to the incompetence and cronyism of Chairman Michael Powell. Advocating for its demise is the stuff of "libertarian" dreamers and charlatans who yield to ideology each time it comes into conflict with reality.

[I thought so.]

2. Gosh.

Things are so bad lets make them 10 times worse. This is another Libertarian wet dream. Selling the spectrum is a really bad idea.