Open letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler

May 5, 2014

Dear Chairman Wheeler,

Ordinary Americans have had a hard run over the last 13 or 14 years. We’ve seen economic bubbles burst, our retirements and savings lost, and our tax dollars squandered on expensive foreign wars. Successive waves of banking and media consolidations have left banks too big to fail and the media with interests conflicting with those of the public. In this time we’ve been compelled to accept increasingly invasive security measures in our airports, in our shopping centers, and even our schools and homes. With each passing month, new leaks of classified documents add evidence for the regrettable conclusion that we, the United States of America, are now a surveillance state. And now a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions have irreversibly shifted the balance of ultimate authority in this country from the broad base of the public to a small, but deep-pocketed and well-connected elite. The one thing we really had going for us has been the widespread adoption and of the greatest tool for the promotion of intellectual freedom, free thought and free speech, since the movable-type printing press: the Internet.

In no time in history has human kind ever come so close to realizing John Stewart Mill’s ideal of an efficient marketplace of ideas. All that we have achieved in this venture, from the vast repositories of universally accessible knowledge to communication tools which have given voices to the voiceless, have been made possible through the historic enforcement of so-called Net Neutrality rules. It is the digital expression of the democratic ideal that something revolutionary, something wonderful, can come from anyone anywhere. And time after time it has.

Mr. Chairman, as you consider the adoption of new rules undermining the principle of Net Neutrality, please keep in mind that this decision could very well be the hammer that drives the nail into the Democracy’s coffin. The long term consequences of such an institutional change are always difficult to predict, but we know that enormous corporations lobbying for the changes will be in a position to remake the Internet in a way that disproportionately reflects their narrow economic interests. We can expect fewer people making decisions over what and how people access information, which will inevitably translate into diminished access for the little guys. Perhaps worse, the presence of such “gate keepers” creates opportunities for corruption and collusion between large power brokers who desire to influence the content of public discourse to suit their interests.

Our legislators are unresponsive, now firmly in the grip of corporate power and can no longer be counted on to do anything in the public interests that runs against the interests of their patrons. In court, our rights are only as good as our lawyers, and they have better ones. So many of us don't even realize how important this issue is the future of our country. Not coincidentally, the cable and public airwaves are dominated by a handful of unimaginably wealthy companies that control virtually everything that passes through them, save the Internet. It’s our last bastion of true equality and freedom. Save the Internet. No "fast lanes". Treat all data equally

Thank you for your time.

Submit your own comment to the FCC (14-28) proceeding number : http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=hvz4a

McCutcheon v. FEC is a blow to American democracy.

In the McCutcheon v. FEC decision (download here) the Supreme Court argues that people would be "delighted to see fewer television commercials touting a candidate's accomplishments or disparaging an opponent's character." The decision continues "[m]oney in politics may at times seem repugnant," tolerating speech we don't like is just the price we have to pay for our First Amendment rights. This seems to reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what people are concerned about. No, nobody likes the endless campaign ads, but we're not upset because they're interrupting Dancing with the Stars. The proper conception of the problem that respectfully acknowledges the concerns of ordinary citizens is that unlimited campaign donations as free speech implies that people with more money get a bigger voice. We cannot ignore the embedded moral hazard, i.e,. the perverse incentives that encourage politicians to screen out the masses in favor of a handful of really, really big donor fish. Rather, the Supreme Court argues talk of corruption must be constrained to clear cases of quid pro quo, dollars-for-influence transactions. I'm sure these Justices are not so naive that they don't realize such claims, like perjury, are virtually impossible to prove.

What's most worrisome is how accepting we, collectively, have become of this practice. Enshrined in the court's decision is the argument that the current aggregate limit on campaign contributions from individuals to candidates ($48,600) allows individuals to contribute the per-candidate maximum of $5,200 to a mere nine candidates! According to data acquired by OpenSecrets (cited at FiveThirtyEight), this deeply unfair limitation on free speech applies to fewer than 600 people. Setting all the high-sounding legal philosophical debate aside for a moment, why are the Supreme Court's priorities such that they are willing to gamble with the liberty of hundreds of millions, for fear that one of these precious few 600 should be denied the opportunity to buy themselves entire legislatures? I argue that this is because this kind of corruption goes well beyond quid pro quo. In politics--as in most everything--priorities follow money. Money has the power to set priorities, by "taking something all the way to the Supreme Court!" Could you do that if you felt your rights weren't respected? No, because you don't have money, and as long as money is equated with free speech nobody will have time to listen to you. Competition ensures that those who attempt to defy this rule lose out to those who heed it. Natural selection.

This 5-4 decision (along party lines) is yet another blow to the integrity of American democracy. It's a hack from the most undemocratic branch of government (by design) that shifts the allegiances from the (by design) most democratic branch of government away from their popular constituencies to a small club of landed patricians.