The government has moved closer toward implementing unprecedented new rules regarding the Internet that will supposedly “ensure net neutrality.”
Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), announced at Wired.com on Feb. 4, that he would ask his colleagues to implement “the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC.” Wheeler said he wanted to bring the Internet under the same regulations that govern public utilities, a move he said would protect the “rights of internet users.”
Wheeler said he planned to circulate his official proposal to his colleagues at the FCC sometime that same week. Members of the FCC are expected to vote on the proposal Feb. 26, according to The New York Times.
Numerous Republicans and business leaders have opposed the proposal. Bloomberg Business reported that Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., called Wheeler’s proposal a “power grab.” Thune also claimed that Wheeler had “succumbed to the bully tactics of political activists and the president himself.”
After President Barack Obama urged the FCC adopt such regulations on Nov. 10, 2014, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the proposal was like “Obamacare for the Internet.”
Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and numerous entertainment outlets, tweeted on Nov. 14, 2014, that he thought Obama’s proposed policy was like something “straight out of Ayn Rand,” the pro-capitalist philosopher and author of such novels as “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
“In my adult life i have never seen a situation that paralleled what I read in Ayn Rands books until now with Net Neutrality,” Cuban also tweeted.
