FCC: Federal Government Must Approve Your Software
“The Federal Communications Commission thinks you have the right to use software on your computer only if the FBI approves.”
This amazing and appalling statement comes from Declan McCullagh, the chief political correspondent for CNET Networks' News.com and a highly respected journalist on issues of
technology and privacy. He bases it on a document just released by the FCC, and he backs it up with off-the-record quotes from reputable sources within the FCC.
The FCC made their remarkable pronouncement -- the kind of thing you'd expect from North Korea, not the U.S. -- quietly, in an obscure policy document released discreetly around 9 p.m. ET Friday, September 23.
McCullagh writes:
“According to the three-page document, to preserve the openness that characterizes today's Internet, "...consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." Read the last seven words again.
“The FCC didn't offer much in the way of clarification. But the clearest reading of the pronouncement is that some unelected bureaucrats at the commission have decreed that Americans don't have the right to use software such as Skype or PGPfone [free software that allows you to have secure telephone conversations on the Internet] if it doesn't support mandatory backdoors for wiretapping. (That interpretation was confirmed by an FCC spokesman on Monday, who asked not to be identified by name.)
“Nowhere does the commission say how it jibes this official pronouncement with, say, the First Amendment's right to speak freely, not to mention the limited powers granted the federal government by the U.S. Constitution.
“What's also worth noting is that the FCC's pronunciamento almost tracks the language of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Almost.
“But where federal law states that it is the policy of the United States to preserve a free market for Internet services "unfettered by federal or state regulation," the bureaucrats
have adroitly interpreted that to mean precisely the opposite of [what] Congress said. Ain't that clever?”
Sources:
CNET’s VOIP Blog:
news.com.com;
FCC document:
hraunfoss.fcc.gov |
