Posted by David Post:
Reboot the FCC:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_21-2008_12_27.shtml#1230134571
Larry Lessig has [1]an interesting column in Newsweek today calling
for the dismantling of the FCC:
The solution here is not tinkering. You can't fix DNA. You have to
bury it. President Obama should get Congress to shut down the FCC
and similar vestigial regulators, which put stability and special
interests above the public good. In their place, Congress should
create something we could call the Innovation Environment
Protection Agency (iEPA), charged with a simple founding mission:
"minimal intervention to maximize innovation." The iEPA's core
purpose would be to protect innovation from its two historical
enemies�excessive government favors, and excessive private monopoly
power.
Lessig has always been a hard guy to pin down politically (a
compliment). Though he is sometimes caricatured as something of a
doctrinaire liberal, his views are usually much more nuanced and
interesting than that label suggests, and this is a good example.
While people on "the right" have been calling for abolition of the FCC
for years, it's interesting (and possibly important, given that Lessig
probably has, if not Obama's ear directly, certainly the ear of those
who have Obama's ear ...) that those more closely aligned on "the
left" are making the argument now. I think he's on to something --
minimal intervention to maximize innovation and to curb monopoly power
(whether government-created or not) sounds like good policy to me
(though the devil, here as elsewhere, is probably in the details).
References
1. http://www.newsweek.com/id/176809
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