I have expressed deep skepticism towards Clinton's commitment to net neutrality and internet freedom. I am not sure what Clinton's presumptive FCC Chair, Susan Ness, believes about the issue, but I have gone through some of her writings and she was intently focused on deregulation in the 1990s. Perhaps that attitude has changed in the intervening years, and I am trying to get in touch with her to ask her some questions.
The problem with corruption in our politics is organized around the relationship between the advocates of wealth interests - lobbyists - and politicians. Specifically, what concerns me here is Clinton's commitment to a telco lobbyist written broadband plan called 'Connect America'. In contrast to both Edwards and Obama, who have well-constructed models for expanding access of an open internet, Clinton's plan is simply a rehash of something called Connect Kentucky, a public-private partnership in Kentucky whose purpose is entirely unclear (data on Connect Kentucky is reported by telecom companies). Notorious telecom shill Scott Cleland explains Clinton's allegiance to telecom lobbyists better than I could with considered eloquence.
Understandably, the glaring exclusion of net neutrality from the Senator's Innovation agenda -- after the radical left's rhetoric claimed net neutrality was essential to "innovation" -- signals to me that the Senator and her campaign have a pretty solid, practical and intuitive understanding of sound broadband policy.
Clinton's policies are not set in stone. While she is unduly influenced by telecom lobbyists in her policy prescriptions, I imagine she just hasn't paid that much attention to this arena and is being led astray by policy advisors within her campaign. She did after all cosponsor the net neutrality bill in the Senate, the Media Ownership Act of 2007, and is deeply aware of media consolidation problems. You can read more about the candidates' positions in Katrina vanden Heuvel's smart post on the Nationa's blog.
Hopefully, I can find a way to talk to Ness and learn more about what kind of FCC Chair she would be. Meanwhile, I would hope Clinton realizes how dangerous it is to have listed as her core broadband strategy a Connect America policy prescription written for the benefit of telecom companies by their lobbyists.
There is already a negative narrative about Clinton that started at Yearlykos, when she argued that lobbyists represented good industries as well as bad ones, and so she would not refuse their contributions. I believe she could be playing with fire here.
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