The Courts v. Obama - Round 1

In what perhaps may be a harbinger of things to come, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned an effort by the Federal Communications Commission to enforce “net neutrality” on internet service providers. Wow!! What……?

This is certainly not the most compelling of issues facing America. Most Americans probably were unaware that this was even going on, or cared. But for the Obama administration, it is the first setback in its effort to rapidly expand the scope and power of the Federal government, and may have significant consequences in any future efforts to regulate other activities in the name of “fairness.”

Obama’s head of the FCC is one of his radical buddies that made it clear that his goal is to expand the use of the Commission to account for “fairness” in all of America’s communication channels. His ultimate goal is muzzle talk radio. But the first salvo was an attempt to regulate the internet.

Americans may put up with government in health care, but techies by nature have consistently opposed any government interference in the operation of the internet. In this case, ISP’s control who and what has access to its pipes. For the most part, access has been equitably distributed among users. However, Obama has contended that ISP providers may limit access of non-paying entities, or entities that use large amounts of bandwidth, in favor of paying or more streamlined entities. The limitation of access could manifest itself in several forms, including delaying, slowing down, or simply denying access to ISP pipes.

Actual problems have been minimal, although some have popped up over the years in peer to peer file sharing services which use large amounts of bandwidth. Most of these problems, however, were eventually resolved between the ISP and its client without government interference.

This is not a broad based court decisions. The court said the FCC, under current law, did not have the authority to unilaterally impose regulations on the internet. It would require authorizing legislation from Congress, which will now try to provide that to the FCC. Given Scott Brown’s election to the Senate, that probably won’t happen.

But what it shows is that the courts are not afraid to stand up to Barack Obama’s attempt to takeover America by uber centralization of everything either directly in the White House or in Washington generally. The news media can fawn and members of Congress and private citizens can be bullied, but this court has landed the first jab showing that the judiciary will not relinquish its role as a separate but equal part of our government, and is not willing to toss out the Constitution.

The Fairness Doctrine, which has been held to be constitutional once, may be opened to review given the massive proliferation of media outlets should the FCC try to reinstate it. Contrary to media wishful thinking, the individual mandate in health care reform may sink the entire reform effort.

Franklin Roosevelt, like Obama, also had an ambitious agenda expanding the role of central government, and had most of his efforts reversed by the Supreme Court. Obama, like Roosevelt, will also learn there are limits.

Of course, from Obama’s perspective, there is no harm in trying. The worst that can happen is the courts will say no. But what happens if the court says yes?