Reboot the FCC

Mr. Lessig,
Your proposal, while it appears to address your concepts, fail to recognize the result. What you have proposed is sheer chaos in the wireless business.
You simply can not have a free-for-all, 'anyone can have anything-anywhere' policy. Technology is great and we need to have R & D along with advancement but the wireless spectrum must be regulated and tightly controlled or we will be 'stepping on each other'.
You have not been in the technical side of wireless, I have for 43 years in the commercial businesses; I can assure you that your concept will only create chaos.

M B, New Jersey

Here we go again, it didn't take long. We are suffering thru a financial crisis wrought by imbeciles and greed, who bought off politicians to eliminate regulation of the financial markets. And now Lawrence Lessig proposes to do the same to an already corrupt FCC - weaken it further. It is apparent from his article that he doesn't understand the physical nature of the spectrum, either. The FCC should be strengthened, not weakened. God save us from these fools. His writing is dishonest, he states untrue conclusions "the FCC was designed to ensure stability" (which is incorrect, he should read history on why the FCC was created, but perhaps he knows the truth) followed by his proposals. I wonder who stands to benefit from his proposals, and if he has received some benefit, or been promised one, to start advancing these ideas. The ideas he supports (globalization, free trade (the US was protectionist for its first 180 years, and it served us well; when a 1st worlder trades with a third worlder, it isn't in the first worlder's long term interest)) and destroying us as a nation; he is part of the problem, not the solution.

This argument seems to have relatively little to do with deregulation, and more with a professor's desire to conduct an experiment. It is an interesting experiment, but government agencies are for implementing policies, not speculating about them. The FCC has many faults, but giving them a blank check to guarantee innovation, whatever that means, only befuddles the issues even more. Go back to the ivory tower Prof. Lessig.

What a load. Can sometime show me a single case where we the people actually benefited from the deregulation religion of the last thirty years? Just one -- and please, don;t dare mention air travel which is now more monopolized and thoroughly unpleasant than 30 years ago.

Anytime we can revamp a government agency from an enemy of the state, to a protector of the people, it is a good idea. Criminalize special interest influence in every governmental department, not just the FCC. Centralizing government power is not the intent of our constitution, while pushing power down to smaller state and local government is. With large centralized power, we get large scale abuse, and even smaller, more elusive targets of responsibility. What regulation? We are still asking the fox to guard the hen house.

The Internet is our last source for independent information (TV, radio, and printed news is government sanctioned). The power brokers have identified it as a threat. We the people must resist control of the Internet by the government and all their tricks to do so. And make no mistake, control of the Internet is an explicit strategy for those vying for world domination.

Lessig is proposing that the FCC become an <i>anti-trust</i> organization, and when that small step succeeds, everything will be fine. This is indeed abandoning the regulatory approaches of the twentieth century - for the approaches of 1890, which died unmourned in 1941

I agree with Professor Lessig

ClearChannel and Rupert Murdoch own everything. The sheeple masses don't care about anything, they simply believe whatever they are told. If people can actually accept the propaganda that comes out of Faux News then none of this matters and we are all doomed in the long run.

And we are.

Jesus Christ!
Its because of extremist ideas like this we are witnessing the chaotic collapse of the financial sector.
Challenging the status quo is a good academic exercise, no doubt, but implementing them is a matter of pragmatism and prudence not of a wild aggressive idea that sees the world in black & white. We have to balance regulation with deregulation, not by throwing out what we have, but by making nuanced arguments for changing the bits and pieces of the system we have put in place. I am glad real policymakers would continue to take your extreme ideas with a grain of salt (at least Id hope so).

Jesus Christ!
Its because of extremist ideas like this we are witnessing the chaotic collapse of the financial sector.
Challenging the status quo is a good academic exercise, no doubt, but implementing them is a matter of pragmatism and prudence not of a wild aggressive idea that sees the world in black & white. We have to balance regulation with deregulation, not by throwing out what we have, but by making nuanced arguments for changing the bits and pieces of the system we have put in place. I am glad real policymakers would continue to take your extreme ideas with a grain of salt (at least Id hope so).

From reading the comments, it becomes apparent that the FCC has some very purposeful functions - making sure different radio frequencies don't overlap so we have discrete emergency services, and regulating the amount of toxic chemicals such as lead and mercury that can go in different components are two examples.

And it becomes equally apparent that there are some major FCC excesses - allowing radio and cable entities to consolidate power at the expense of smaller independents is an example.

It sounds like what may be needed is not the demise of the FCC, but a division by division review.

Not allowing anyone with any ties to the industry to work at the FCC invites incompetence and disaster - there will always be people needed with technical expertise. However, a moratorium against hiring anyone with lobbying ties, similar to what the Obama transition team has done, might be very helpful indeed.

Like everything else in the 21st century, the FCC needs review and revision, but let's not throw the good out with the bad.

The FCC is too powerful and needs to be reformed. One problem is they get a lot of their $ from private companies, which means lobbyists encourage the FCC to do unethical things. An example of this is the big pharmaceutical companies, who make sure a natural herb advertisement that competes with its drugs gets squashed. The FCC does not care about the first amendment, they care about $.
Also, when I was in Europe I found out that many places there do not censor women's breasts on TV. Many Americans have never been to Europe so they still have conservative Christian views???America is still heavily influenced by its Christian past. The FCC is even more resistant to progress.

I think this article is misguided the emerging monopoly in the news media would have happened sooner if it wasn't for the FCC. The problem with the FCC is that is has become a bureaucracy, but if fact all government agencies become that over time. I guess, for different reasons maybe it would be good to revamp the FCC, if only to keep it from getting too big!

This article does a good job of addressing the FCC but an equally large, and maybe larger, problem is the Patent & Trademark Office. Patents don't regulate everything "made by man" -- they regulate anything "imagined though never produced" by sleazy lawyers -- including even ways of doing business, instead of things -- then approved by lazy and incompetent reviewers at the USPTO. Trademarks allow people to trademark the name of a URL after somebody else owns, open a website, then sue for the domain they didn't buy. The US system of IP regulation is as out of control as the system of financial regulation, albeit backwards; the financial regulators allowed anything (because donors want to stile small investors) where the FCC/PTO over-regulates (because donors want to stifle small inventors and innovators).

Amen, brother Lessig. Only very few, those of us that suffer from the abuse, understand the real problem at FCC is the entrenched ???career level??? employees in areas like the Media Bureau are the ones that actually determine what FCC does and does not do. As president of the national leased access programmers association I stand ready to offer proof to any Congressional hearing to show how the lower level staff have thwarted, even penalized, those entrepreneurs that have attempted to exercise the right to local cable channels as created by law. They do ???protect the most powerful instead???.
One good example is the refusal of the Media Bureau to release their decision involving delivery of leased access content to cable headends via the Internet. Even though the bureau was provided evidence the MSO in question in this uses the Internet for their own internal purposes, the bureau refuses to rule on whether or not they are to provide Internet signal reception for leased access at the same charges they apply to non-leased signal providers that deliver content to headends.

Amen, brother Lessig. Only very few, those of us that suffer from the abuse, understand the real problem at FCC is the entrenched ???career level??? employees in areas like the Media Bureau are the ones that actually determine what FCC does and does not do. As president of the national leased access programmers association I stand ready to offer proof to any Congressional hearing to show how the lower level staff have thwarted, even penalized, those entrepreneurs that have attempted to exercise the right to local cable channels as created by law. They do ???protect the most powerful instead???.
One good example is the refusal of the Media Bureau to release their decision involving delivery of leased access content to cable headends via the Internet. Even though the bureau was provided evidence the MSO in question in this uses the Internet for their own internal purposes, the bureau refuses to rule on whether or not they are to provide Internet signal reception for leased access at the same charges they apply to non-leased signal providers that deliver content to headends.

If the FCC were "Blown Up", who would take up the mundane technical tasks of setting standards for communication equipment and service personnel? A government agency is made up of 'suits' in the executive suits and 'geeks' in the trenches. When the 'suits' decide to deregulate it's the 'geeks' who get cut. Then the foxes get into the hen house.

The FCC especially needs to be removed because it is irrelevant. How much value can regulations have when content can be produced and hosted outside the US, then easily viewed inside? The world is an infinitely bigger place now than in the thirties. Any group like the FCC which seeks to lock the borders should be viewed as irrelevant and treated accordingly.

A quick look @ cable/sat tv ends this arguement the big cities were carved up into sections so Minorities could partake the fruits Yet to day not a single Minority cable venture remains and the Minority neihborhoods would have not had any service so to get the other cable co's to take over a "BAD" area the rate went up withfree market some areas would be avoided the Minority contractors couldn't work it and make money so the system became subsidized
and with an open Internet we get? id theift spam stolen passwords etc without Gov't oversite the internet would collaps And go the way of the CB "couldn't get on and nothing was private and someone always cut in the internet would be like the wild west of technol