More Shameful Days at the FCC

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Lauren Weinstein [lauren () vortex com]
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 3:28 AM
To: David Farber
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: More Shameful Days at the FCC

                        More Shameful Days at the FCC

                http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000406.html


Greetings.  The FCC's approval of the XM / Sirius merger with only
trivial conditions required, in direct contradiction to their
explicit license grant terms that the two services *never merge*,
has again shown the Federal Communications Commission to be a paper
tiger, a political pawn, and a shameful example of promoting
absolute monopolies while ignoring genuine public interest
considerations.

One hopes that the National Association of Broadcasters proceeds to
take this decision to court, where there's at least a chance that
some element of concern over the public's standing in this matter,
as opposed only to the wallets of satellite radio stockholders, will
have some chance of receiving fair play.

Simultaneously, word has come down that the Commission will shortly
issue their official "condemnation" of Comcast's P2P blocking
procedures, but in a manner that apparently won't even rise to the
level of a "slap on the wrist" punishment -- just a bit of minor
tongue lashing that most likely won't require Comcast to so much as
dip into petty cash.

Such decisions by the Commission are a disgrace.  They demonstrate
again that the public should have no faith in the FCC to care about
most public concerns within the official FCC purview, and why in
particular it would be foolish to depend on the Commission to
protect consumers against most predatory or intrusive ISP practices.

The ball is moving rapidly into Congress' court.  Let's hope that
the next Congress (and President) are not only up to the challenge
of undoing much of the damage that the current FCC has already
imposed, but also are ready and willing to help prevent a new series
of shameful FCC episodes.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
   - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com




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