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Yep, that's all most of us want. Transparency. The FCC is un-elected, that's always scary. Not that our elected officials know better. Haha.

unprepare 12y ago
I agree On one hand- the FCC is non-elected and thus the people have less control of them On the other hand, this also means they don't need to seek funding for running a campaign which theoretically could insulate them from what we see with our elected officials currently pandering to business interests. Time will tell with this decision i suppose, whats important from my perspective is that change happens quickly if there are any major objectionable pieces of these new regulations
- supergeek133 12y ago
  Agreed. It's safe to say public pressure got this into place, so hopefully we come back around when we see the rest.
- protomyth 12y ago
  "this also means they don't need to seek funding for running a campaign which theoretically could insulate them from what we see with our elected officials currently pandering to business interests" Check the employment history of FCC folks after their term. It is very much like other staff members in various regulatory bodies in DC, they get high paying jobs in the industry for their work.
  - unprepare 12y ago
    Couldn't this be more because politicians appoint people to the FCC? Thus an entrenched politician would appoint (or recommend) a corporate-vetted candidate. The advantage (and again i'm not claiming this to be the reality) would be that that the new FCC employee doesnt need to rely on the corporation to continue working at the FCC, Once they have left the corporation, why would they seek to push pro-corporate regulations? Of course this is all muddled when you see that these people then go BACK to the corporation after their time in the FCC, which leads to well grounded suspicions. Its really a complicated mess; I only meant that there is a logical reason why having non-elected persons creating regulations can be advantageous
    - protomyth 12y ago
      "I only meant that there is a logical reason why having non-elected persons creating regulations can be advantageous" We elect people to do that. Perhaps if they were forced to do the actual rule making we would not get 1,000 page bills with all of the rule making to be done later[1]. Perhaps they would pass less bills that need regulation if they had to put them in the bill. The staffers at various agencies are doing their apprenticeship for their big payday when they join lobbying organizations or the companies that they were supposed to be watching. It happens enough that it has been suggested multiple times that employment restrictions (basic conflict of interest) should be put in place. The DoD is famous for a lot of this (check Boeing's hiring). "I only meant that there is a logical reason why having non-elected persons creating regulations can be advantageous" Because those folks are their friends and future employers (again). 1) yes, I read the ACA because I needed to know the ruling on a specific situation and it was one of those rule making later. It was very frustrating but not very surprising.
      - unprepare 12y ago
        I definitely agree that the 'revolving door' between lobbyists and regulatory positions needs to end. But i disagree that pushing regulation onto elected officials would be better. My point is that non-elected officials are shielded from many aspects that lead to corruption in elected officials. Namely having to re-up on funding every couple years. Non-elected officials do not have to raise money to keep their position. Is there still corruption with non elected officials? yes I am not saying otherwise nor am i satisfied with the current state of things. But to say that the solution to that corruption is to place the power into the hands of an already corrupt congress seems backwards to me. Also, I totally agree with you on the language and length of bills. I would go further to say that the congress people should be the ones AUTHORING the bills, let alone reading them. Nothing smells like corruption more than a corporation drafting a bill to regulate themselves and stamping a congress person's name on it.
        protomyth 12y ago
        "My point is that non-elected officials are shielded from many aspects that lead to corruption in elected officials" My point is that the non-elected officials are not shielded and have a different corruption path going. In a lot of ways, a rich elected official is probably better insulated than a high level bureaucrat. We elect people to make the laws. Regulations are the laws and they should be the responsibility of the people we elect. I cannot vote out of office a bureaucrat. If you believe your congress person is corrupt then vote them out. This whole rule-making process is a corruption of the system.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Yep, that's all most of us want. Transparency. I'd certainly be interested in general proposals for improving regulatory transparency, but I don't see what basis there is for painting this particular decision as something special in that regard, and find it interesting that the people prominent in the media that have been concerned about "transparency" in this process (a) are consistently people that were opposed to net neutrality, (b) became concerned with "transparency" only after it was clear that anti-neutrality policy arguments were failing to gain traction, either at the FCC or with the public, and (c) have not generally voiced similar transparency concerns over any of the other processes (e.g., every other regulatory action of the US government) that uses the same basic process, including not publishing intermediate drafts between an NPRM and a final action on the matter covered by the NPRM that incorporates changes based on subsequent analysis and the public comment on the NPRM.
wpietri 12y ago
That is definitely not scary to me. There are a number of things that absolutely shouldn't be directly elected, like the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the Supreme Court. Politicians spend much of their time getting re-elected, and they have to focus a great deal on whatever the electorate's current opinion is. That is excellent for things that should respond relatively quickly, and terrible for things that should move deliberately or be countercyclical. It would be way more scary to me to have the FCC commissioners out fundraising from industry all the time like our elected officials do. Right now they're appointed on staggered 5-year terms, which is intentionally longer than the election cycle of the President who appoints them. No more than 3 can be members of the same political party, and none can have a financial interest in any regulated business. It's not perfect, but I think it's a great example of how to minimize the ills of direct election while still having it be (indirectly) accountable to the people.
- TheHypnotist 12y ago
  John Oliver did a nice piece on judges getting elected in the U.S. as opposed to getting appointed. Basically, what you said. Judge's elections turn into politics as usual (money, political ideology, various other unrelated banter) as opposed to, you know, law. While in theory it seems like a good idea, in practice it's not and all of a sudden you have judge's (or in the case at hand, FCC officials) with "interests" other than the law (communications).

unprepare 12y ago

I agree On one hand- the FCC is non-elected and thus the people have less control of them On the other hand, this also means they don't need to seek funding for running a campaign which theoretically could insulate them from what we see with our elected officials currently pandering to business interests. Time will tell with this decision i suppose, whats important from my perspective is that change happens quickly if there are any major objectionable pieces of these new regulations

supergeek133 12y ago
Agreed. It's safe to say public pressure got this into place, so hopefully we come back around when we see the rest.
protomyth 12y ago
"this also means they don't need to seek funding for running a campaign which theoretically could insulate them from what we see with our elected officials currently pandering to business interests" Check the employment history of FCC folks after their term. It is very much like other staff members in various regulatory bodies in DC, they get high paying jobs in the industry for their work.
- unprepare 12y ago
  Couldn't this be more because politicians appoint people to the FCC? Thus an entrenched politician would appoint (or recommend) a corporate-vetted candidate. The advantage (and again i'm not claiming this to be the reality) would be that that the new FCC employee doesnt need to rely on the corporation to continue working at the FCC, Once they have left the corporation, why would they seek to push pro-corporate regulations? Of course this is all muddled when you see that these people then go BACK to the corporation after their time in the FCC, which leads to well grounded suspicions. Its really a complicated mess; I only meant that there is a logical reason why having non-elected persons creating regulations can be advantageous
  - protomyth 12y ago
    "I only meant that there is a logical reason why having non-elected persons creating regulations can be advantageous" We elect people to do that. Perhaps if they were forced to do the actual rule making we would not get 1,000 page bills with all of the rule making to be done later[1]. Perhaps they would pass less bills that need regulation if they had to put them in the bill. The staffers at various agencies are doing their apprenticeship for their big payday when they join lobbying organizations or the companies that they were supposed to be watching. It happens enough that it has been suggested multiple times that employment restrictions (basic conflict of interest) should be put in place. The DoD is famous for a lot of this (check Boeing's hiring). "I only meant that there is a logical reason why having non-elected persons creating regulations can be advantageous" Because those folks are their friends and future employers (again). 1) yes, I read the ACA because I needed to know the ruling on a specific situation and it was one of those rule making later. It was very frustrating but not very surprising.
    - unprepare 12y ago
      I definitely agree that the 'revolving door' between lobbyists and regulatory positions needs to end. But i disagree that pushing regulation onto elected officials would be better. My point is that non-elected officials are shielded from many aspects that lead to corruption in elected officials. Namely having to re-up on funding every couple years. Non-elected officials do not have to raise money to keep their position. Is there still corruption with non elected officials? yes I am not saying otherwise nor am i satisfied with the current state of things. But to say that the solution to that corruption is to place the power into the hands of an already corrupt congress seems backwards to me. Also, I totally agree with you on the language and length of bills. I would go further to say that the congress people should be the ones AUTHORING the bills, let alone reading them. Nothing smells like corruption more than a corporation drafting a bill to regulate themselves and stamping a congress person's name on it.
      - protomyth 12y ago
        "My point is that non-elected officials are shielded from many aspects that lead to corruption in elected officials" My point is that the non-elected officials are not shielded and have a different corruption path going. In a lot of ways, a rich elected official is probably better insulated than a high level bureaucrat. We elect people to make the laws. Regulations are the laws and they should be the responsibility of the people we elect. I cannot vote out of office a bureaucrat. If you believe your congress person is corrupt then vote them out. This whole rule-making process is a corruption of the system.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Yep, that's all most of us want. Transparency. I'd certainly be interested in general proposals for improving regulatory transparency, but I don't see what basis there is for painting this particular decision as something special in that regard, and find it interesting that the people prominent in the media that have been concerned about "transparency" in this process (a) are consistently people that were opposed to net neutrality, (b) became concerned with "transparency" only after it was clear that anti-neutrality policy arguments were failing to gain traction, either at the FCC or with the public, and (c) have not generally voiced similar transparency concerns over any of the other processes (e.g., every other regulatory action of the US government) that uses the same basic process, including not publishing intermediate drafts between an NPRM and a final action on the matter covered by the NPRM that incorporates changes based on subsequent analysis and the public comment on the NPRM.

wpietri 12y ago

That is definitely not scary to me. There are a number of things that absolutely shouldn't be directly elected, like the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the Supreme Court. Politicians spend much of their time getting re-elected, and they have to focus a great deal on whatever the electorate's current opinion is. That is excellent for things that should respond relatively quickly, and terrible for things that should move deliberately or be countercyclical. It would be way more scary to me to have the FCC commissioners out fundraising from industry all the time like our elected officials do. Right now they're appointed on staggered 5-year terms, which is intentionally longer than the election cycle of the President who appoints them. No more than 3 can be members of the same political party, and none can have a financial interest in any regulated business. It's not perfect, but I think it's a great example of how to minimize the ills of direct election while still having it be (indirectly) accountable to the people.

TheHypnotist 12y ago
John Oliver did a nice piece on judges getting elected in the U.S. as opposed to getting appointed. Basically, what you said. Judge's elections turn into politics as usual (money, political ideology, various other unrelated banter) as opposed to, you know, law. While in theory it seems like a good idea, in practice it's not and all of a sudden you have judge's (or in the case at hand, FCC officials) with "interests" other than the law (communications).