Congresswoman Diane E. Watson, who serves as Chair of the House Government Management, Organization, and Procurement Subcommittee, has just introduced new legislation proposing the creation of a “National Office for Cyberspace” within the Executive Office of the President. Rep. Watson’s bill, “The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2010” (H.R. 4900) amends the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002 in an attempt “to strengthen and harmonize the federal government’s efforts to ensure the integrity of its information infrastructure.”
It’s hard to argue against that goal, and I won’t here. Clearly, our government needs to get it’s own house in order when it comes to network and data security. Nonetheless, an “Office for Cyberspace” gives me pause. Although I always try to be careful with slippery slope arguments (per Eugene Volokh’s excellent advice here), I think there are good reasons to fear that any Executive Branch-level “Office for Cyberspace” would quickly come to take on a wide variety of other policy matters beyond just federal cyber-security issues. The Federal Communication Commission’s past and recent history of regulatory mission creep is not encouraging in this regard. The agency has always looked to grow its mission and powers, and it has often succeeded. Of course, to be fair, the fundamental ambiguity of certain clauses and phrases within the agency’s charter document– the Communications Act of 1934 — left the door open to creative readings of things like what was in “the public interest,” or what constituted “fair and non-discriminatory” practices.
If, by contrast, the powers of this new “National Office for Cyberspace” are tightly limited to the mission of simply ensuring that the federal government keeps its own house in order — and doesn’t try to regulate our digital houses at the same time — then perhaps we have nothing to worry about. But, I remain a bit paranoid about these things and fear that the old “Hands Off the Net!” dream dies a little more each day because of bills like this.
Forbes.com has just published an editorial that Berin Szoka and I penned about yesterday’s net neutrality announcement from the FCC.
by Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka
There was a time, not so long ago, when the term “Internet Freedom” actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats. For a few brief, beautiful moments in the Internet’s history (from the mid-90s to the early 2000s), a majority of Netizens and cyber-policy pundits alike all rallied around the flag of “Hands Off the Net!” From censorship efforts, encryption controls, online taxes, privacy mandates and infrastructure regulations, there was a general consensus as to how much authority government should have over cyber-life and our cyber-liberties. Simply put, there was a “presumption of liberty” in all cyber-matters.
Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of “Internet Freedom” would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.
We refer to the gradual but certain movement to have the federal government impose “neutrality” regulation for all Internet actors and activities—and in particular, to yesterday’s announcement by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski that new rules will be floated shortly. “But wait,” you say, “You’re mixing things up! All that’s being talked about right now is the application of ‘simple net neutrality,’ regulations for the infrastructure layer of the net.” You might even claim regulations are not really regulation but pro-freedom principles to keep the net “free and open.”
Such thinking is terribly short-sighted. Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real Internet Freedom—for all Internet operators and consumers, and for economic and speech rights alike—is about to start dying a death by a thousand regulatory cuts. Policymakers and activists groups are ramping up the FCC’s regulatory machine for a massive assault on cyber-liberty. This assault rests on the supposed superiority of common carriage regulation and “public interest” mandates over not just free markets and property rights, but over general individual liberties and freedom of speech in particular. Stated differently, cyber-collectivism is back in vogue—and it’s coming very soon to a computer near you! Continue reading →
It is a difficult thing for me to say, but I am man enough to do it: I must congratulate our intellectual opponents on their amazing victory in the battle to impose Net neutrality regulations on the Internet. With the Wall Street Journal reporting last night that the FCC is on the verge of acting against Comcast based on the agency’s amorphous Net neutrality principles, it is now clear that the folks at the Free Press, Public Knowledge, and the many other advocates of comprehensive Internet regulation have succeeded in convincing a Republican-led FCC to get on the books what is, in essence, the nation’s first Net Neutrality law. It is quite an accomplishment when you think about it.
Even though, as Jerry Brito has noted, “the FCC has no authority to enforce a non-binding policy statement,” it is clear that is not about to stop the activist-minded FCC Chairman Kevin Martin or his allies on the Left from advancing the cause of arbitrary, bureaucratic governance of the Internet. And that means the “Hands Off the Net” era will gradually start giving way to the “Hands All Over the Net” era. As I told Bob Fernandez of the Philadelphia Inquirer when he called to interview me for a story about these developments:
“This is the foot in the door for big government to regulate the Internet,” […] “This is the beginning of a serious regulatory regime. For the first time, the FCC is making law around net neutrality.”
And now that they have that foot in the door, I fully expect that it will be exploited for everything it’s worth to grow the scope of the FCC’s coercive bureaucratic authority over all things digital. The Left is salivating at the prospect of imposing their top-down vision of forced egalitarianism on the the Net, while the Right is figuring out how quickly they can exploit this to impose speech controls on anything they don’t want the public to see or hear.
It is a historic moment in the history of communications and media regulation, and freedom has lost—miserably. The tentacles of the regulatory Leviathan have grown infinitely longer and a little bit more of the Net’s freedom died today. And, again, what’s most amazing about this is that we have a Republican FCC to thank for that. So much for the GOP being for smaller government.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.