ALEXANDRIA, VA – According to reports, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski will seek to reclassify broadband services under New Deal-era "common carrier" laws created for early landline telephone technology, thereby allowing the government to regulate the Internet via outdated rules. 

In response, Center for Individual Freedom Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs Timothy Lee issued the following statement:

“The FCC should not attempt to apply archaic 1930s rules to 21st century technologies.  This move by Chairman Genachowski will do nothing but stifle innovation, investment and growth within the broadband sector.

“Reclassifying broadband will merely allow the government to intervene in a thriving Internet market and hamper the constant service improvement and innovations to which consumers have become accustomed.  It’s the proverbial ’solution in search of a problem.’  This bald partisan move also ignores all of the new technologies that are available precisely due to limited government intervention, and will ultimately move us backward to  old-fashioned rules that once governed telephone services in the early 20th century.

“With everything else going on, do we really need a government take over the Internet?”

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 To schedule an interview with Timothy Lee, please call 703-535-5836.

The Center for Individual Freedom ("CFIF") is a non-profit organization with more than 250,000 grassroots supporters and activists.  Established in 1998, CFIF seeks to safeguard and advance Constitutional rights and free-market principles, and ensure continued American innovation, leadership, economic prosperity and worldwide entrepreneurial preeminence.