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Anti-Competitive Behavior Is A First Amendment Right
The cable industry's new talking point pops up again...

Last week you'll recall that the cable industry's chief lobbying and policy group, the NCTA, unveiled a new talking point suggesting that network neutrality protections would violate the cable industry's First Amendment rights. It's a weird and incoherent argument for anybody who has actually bothered to read the First Amendment. That isn't stopping the cable industry from using the argument as their new rallying cry against new FCC neutrality rules. Randolph May, and his cable-industry funded "think tank" Free State Foundation, loyally repeats the new talking point in today's Washington Times:

quote:
The First Amendment's language is plain: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." ISPs possess free speech rights just like newspapers, magazines, cable operators, movie and CD producers - and the man preaching on a soapbox. They are all speakers for First Amendment purposes. And under traditional First Amendment jurisprudence, it is as much a free speech violation to compel a speaker to convey information that the speaker does not wish to convey as it is to prevent a speaker from transmitting information it wishes to make available.
The argument still doesn't make any sense. By "compelling a speaker to convey information that the speaker does not wish to convey," May means forcing an ISP to carry content or services that might compete with its own. In other words, the cable industry is seriously trying to argue that being anti-competitive is a Constitutional right. There's plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose network neutrality protections without having to completely make them up.

Despite being one of the dumbest telecom arguments we've ever seen made, the various policy and lobbying tendrils of the phone and cable industry are running with this First Amendment gag as their latest logistical assault on network neutrality laws. Paid AT&T and Verizon policy wonk Scott Cleland, frequently called to DC as a leading telecom "expert" despite being little more than a walking press release, blogs and bleats his support for the bizarre premise in loyal unison.

Nonsensical rhetoric has been a mainstay of the network neutrality debate since it really took off in 2005 with AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre insisting people who already pay for bandwidth should pay more to use his "pipes." While their arguments still don't make any sense, at least industry lobbyists, policy wonks and pseudo-scientists are staying consistent in the level of idiocy they're applying to the discussion.

Most recommended from 78 comments



karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
Moscow, ID

2 recommendations

karlmarx

Member

Why does a corporation even HAVE rights?

Can a corporation send their child off to war? Can a corporation be sent to jail? If not, then why in the world do they think they have the same rights a CITIZEN has? The problem stems from the simple fact that we treat the corporation as a person, instead of a legal entity. A non-moral, non-ethical artificial person having the same rights as a REAL person, means that the artificial person, by definition, will NOT follow the same rules and morals that the rest of society follows, because it can't