FYI: The Rights of the Public

"Does The Public Have The Right To See The FCC’s Net Neutrality Proposal?"
By Elizabeth Woyke
Published December 8, 2010



According to Forbes author, Elizabeth Wok, “One of the ironies about the Federal Communications Commission’s recent clarification of its Net Neutrality stance is that everyone has an opinion on the issue despite the fact that virtually no one has seen the commission’s actual proposal. The FCC reserves the right to keep documents private until the issues they concern go into formal rulemaking. That day, for Net Neutrality, will be December 21st. That’s when the FCC plans to hold a meeting and set its policy regarding the ability of Internet service providers to discriminate between different kinds of content and applications online. So in other words, the general public won’t see the FCC’s detailed Net Neutrality proposal until December 21st when the issue comes up for vote—or, more likely, after the vote is tallied.”

This is maddening, and is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that I don’t trust the FCC and would never want to give them any more power than they already have over my life! The crazy thing is that this is standard operating procedure for the FCC; this is how they always do it.

A telecommunications analyst, Peter Pratt believes that this issue is important enough that people deserve the right to see the initial proposal as well as the alterations that are made before December 21st. He is concerned that if people don’t know or don’t understand exactly what’s in the plan that they won’t step forward to question it, and it will pass without any opposition.

“Indeed, Net Neutrality probably ranks as the most controversial issue in the communications sector right now. The FCC’s policies will have the power to affect both how the average consumer experiences the Internet and the future of the multi-billion-dollar telecom industry.”