Top Action: Rebooting the FCC

While economic growth certainly requires a lot of innovation, Washington is actually designed to resist it. As it has been built right smack into the DNA of what could be the most important agencies that have been created to protect their own innovation, it is quite a very irresistible urge to look after the most powerful one instead.

The Agency Known as the FCC

Such an agency is the perfect example for this. It had been inaugurated in the 1930s, which was a time when there had been utmost premium placed on stability and that the agency had actually been the focal point of practically all the important innovations that were made for technology. Many have seen it as the presumptive protector of what is known as the Internet and that it continues to be the regulator of satellite communications, television and radio. In the succeeding decades, it could very well be known as the default regulator which will act on the newer communications technology – which includes new ways of using wireless technology (at present includes radio, television, internet and signals from cellular phones that are sent through the air and subsequently. High spend access on the internet).

Technology at Risk

If we were to trace history of technology, it would show that these later innovations are actually at risk – these and others which they actually make possible. Because so much is encapsulated in its reach, it is not surprising to note that the FCC ended up becoming a target for so many campaigns regarding its influence. Its many commissioners who are meant to be independent and act as experts in their respective fields are quite open to embracing such a political role in which they participate in. Some issues of these commissioners also include their being able to tout their own policies, which are quite personal in nature. Many lobbyists, as a result, ended up spending many years working their relationship with the members of this Congress.

There used to be a storm that surrounded the former chairman of FCC, who is Michael Powell, including his decision to relax the hold on media ownership rules. This invariably caused him to get a green light when it comes to the concentration of newspapers as well as television stations into even less hands. This is a policy set by the committee and is influenced by both power and money - which unfortunately no one could even be held responsible should failure in any way ensue. Since the solution is not to tinker with such a thing, the main agenda is to bury it. The newly-elected president Obama must be able to get the entire Congress to agree shutting down the FCC as well as other vestigial regulators.