by Dr. Roger I. Roots, J.D., Ph.D., founder and President of Lysander Spooner University I first heard the words “net neutrality” a few years back when I noticed that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was promoting it. I have been a card-carrying ACLU member for more than 15 years, and I generally support the […]
An astounding story was published by Reuters reporters last week. In most countries, “the internet” is a multidimensional thing emanating and maintained by thousands of different businesses, people and institutions. But in some African countries, “the internet” may depend on a single cable system. “Since the start of 2016, governments in 13 African nations have […]
The Daily Caller is out with a report on the FCC’s 400-page ‘Net Neutrality’ proposals. It is emerging that the FCC majority was lobbied heavily behind the scenes by overt Marxists and government-supremacist billionaires such as George Soros and the trustees of the Ford Foundation. The ideology behind the FCC’s ‘net neutrality’ takeover is overtly […]
From the book, “Roads in a Market Economy” by Gabriel Roth (1996, page 63): A more modern example of efficient but’unfair’ pricing . . . was related by P.F. Amos at a conference in 1979: Having taken a bus to the Nepal-India border from Kathmandu, and being first through customs, Mr. R.G. Bullock . . […]
Last week, 3 of 5 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioners voted—without the slightest enabling legislation by Congress and in the face of substantial case law against their position—for the government to take over control of the internet and to treat the internet as a “public utility.” The two dissenting commissioners offered the following observations: Commissioner […]
In the wake of this week’s takeover of the internet by the FCC, paleolibertarian economist Gary North points to a 2013 Economist article reporting that the government of China employs 100,000 government workers to monitor and regulate Chinese internet users. (We think that number is probably quite low.) Gary North writes today that “The FCC […]
In the wake of yesterday’s powergrab of the internet by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), we should all refamiliarize ourselves with the way innovation in telecommunications was arrested by FCC control over telephone companies. For decades, the telephone industry has been under FCC regulation. And for much of the 20th Century, Bell Telephone enjoyed something […]
For several years, trusters of expansive intrusive government have sought to impose what they call “net neutrality”–a government regulatory structure–upon the internet. Ridiculously, some of them claim they are trying to “free” the internet and keep it “open.” Who exactly is threatening to enslave or close the internet? Why, the private sector; or capitalism; or […]