Vint Cerf Wonders If We Need To Nationalize the Internet[Eric Schonfeld reports “it’s a bad idea”]
[ My overview:
Once full-blown socialism becomes acceptable in open congressional panels and hearings, it’s only natural that other’s would decide it’s time for the whole grab-bag of Marxism. The totalitarian temptation _*never* goes away.
Mr. Schonfeld isn’t directly claiming that Mr. Cerf is fully in line with nationalizing the Internet, just musing out loud, but it’s a big-ass warning light, nevertheless.
Expect it: Now that the Dem candidate is calling for so many socialist policies, and we’ve heard about more than one aspect of “nationalizing big oil” you know it’s only going to get worse. ]
Excerpts:
“His [Cerf’s] comment was in the context of a bigger discussion about the threat to Net neutrality posed by the cable and phone companies, who are making moves to control the amount and types of bits that can go through their pipes. It was made almost in passing and the discussion quickly moved to other topics.
Maybe I didn’t fully understand him (I wasn’t taking notes), and he certainly is better versed in the issues at hand than everyone else who was in that auditorium combined. But nationalizing the Internet is bad idea. (I can’t believe I even have to say this). It would set a horrible precedent, would undermine confidence in the American economy, and would be difficult to pull off.
I tried to press Mr. Cerf on how exactly such a scheme would work without making Internet service even less competitive than it is today. He offered that the government could put the actual running of the service out to competitive bidding. It’s still a bad idea.”