In reading the many posts on net neutrality, I was delighted to see that a man who's work in the Clinton White House I greatly respected, Mike McCurry, took the time to post on MyDD the other day. He responded to Matt Stoller's Attack with a response outlining why he opposes regulating net neutrality.
I have sat on the sidelines of the net neutrality arguments here on MyDD so far because it is a very confusing issue that I am still trying to fully understand. However, I enjoyed reading McCurry's response, because it presents a lot of good arguments that many of us here at MyDD may not have been exposed too since the blog has taken a very strong position in favor of net neutrality.
While McCurry's comments are already out there on record, I feel this issue is well worth writing a diary about, in order to provide a forum in which to debate McCurry's arguments, particularly about why we should oppose government involvement in regulating the internet. The points he raises are, at the very least, worthy of debating on their merits, rather than just selectively quoting McCurry to imply he is only motivated by money. It's always nice to consider both sides of an argument especially when loyal Democrats like McCurry and Stoller have opposing viewpoints.
Mike McCurry's response to Matt Stoller LINK
Matt, I guess I should get a few words in on this subject in my own defense. You are correct that net neutrality is not a partisan issue, therefore Democrats even good Clinton Democrats can disagree because the debate is about what is best for the future of the Internet.I joined the effort opposing regulated net neutrality because, contrary to what you write, it's absolutely consistent with the Clinton Administration's policies toward the Internet. The Internet became a true mass-market medium during our eight years. As the President once said, "When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the World Wide Web ... Now even my cat has it's own page."
During this time, there were repeated attempts to bring Internet regulation under the federal government's umbrella. To the Administration's credit, we consistently resisted the temptation - see Ira Magaziner's 1997 report, "A Framework for Global Electronic Commerce." Also, in 1998, the President signed a moratorium on conflicting state and local Internet taxes that helped promote the explosive growth of online commerce.
These so-called "net neutrality" regulations would completely undercut this legacy. And for what purpose? Are networks being degraded? Is content being discriminated against? Is there a clear problem that government needs to address? In fact, the only clear definition of "net neutrality" itself was put forth in the principles laid down last year by the Federal Communications Commission and my Coalition supports those. Companies have agreed to abide by them.But once you try and define what is to be regulated, unintended consequences will surely result. If broadband providers are made liable in court for the way their pipes "carry" digitized information, you're going to have Congress and FCC regulators writing rules that cover the basics of Internet traffic. Do we really think the Internet will benefit by having government officials write rules on caching, collocation, packet reassembly and the like? And when these rules are challenged in court (meaning more delays), will that help or hurt efforts to improve America's broadband deployment?
Trying to guess at a regulated formula for network neutrality that would protect the public interest and not impede innovation and investment for the Internet is a high-risk proposition. I'd rather try and get a 100% perfect NCAA basketball bracket together because your chance of success is about the same. Can you give your audience a clear idea of how you would define and regulate neutrality on the net? (And if not, why not leave it to the FCC principles that have already been articulated?)
There's another aspect of net neutrality that's even more problematic: the way it mixes two separate entities, namely the public Internet and private networks. For twenty years, private networks have been helping business, government, universities, and others that need specialized communication. There's nothing wrong with groups that are willing to pay a little extra because they need a specialized service - think of UPS vs. the postal service. So if net neutrality regulations are passed, would federal regulators have to write separate rules for public vs. private networks? Would there be different federal rules for low-bandwidth IP services that use the public Internet and high-bandwidth services that don't?
Entire forests will be sacrificed to produce all the legal and technical filings that would surround these and other neutrality questions. In my view, we're far better off continuing on the sound path the Clinton Administration established. Having federal regulators and Congressional staff writing Internet regulations is not the best way to promote online diversity. Letting the technology continue to evolve unfettered is.
Network companies are going to spend billions developing the infrastructure necessary to bring us the Internet of the future. We will get in the way of that robust deployment if we make it harder for those companies to get a return on their investment. (If you don't trust me, listen to the Wall Street analysts who said exactly that in their congressional testimony recently - the unintended consequences of regulated net neutrality will make investors skeptical about providing the capital needed to make the net capable of what we are soon going to demand of it.)
How will the "little guy" with interesting content or a good idea or the next "new, new thing" succeed if he or she finds a clogged Internet that can't get the job done? How does that help the constituencies we Democrats need to represent? How does that enhance free speech on the web? Look, I have to make a buck sure. But I am happy to be on my side of debate and not yours.
--Mike McCurry
CoChair, Hands Off the Internet
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