An Open Letter To Congressman Jim Himes

Dear Congressman Himes:

I was unable to stay and talk to you at [Monday’s] brown bag lunch meeting in Weston. I am writing this letter instead.

It is my opinion that national technology policy, law and regulation are headed in the wrong direction. The [United States] is fast becoming a nation where a few, very large companies — telecommunications and big content providers — control most if not all communications in the United States. Furthermore, we are allowing these entities to merge, e.g. Comcast and NBCUniversal. I believe this is detrimental to the people’s interests and the longterm economic vitality of the United States.

We should regulate or legislate so that companies are either in the content business or the Internet service provider business, but not both.

We had an opportunity with the return of the standard definition TV radio spectrum to create an Interstate Highway System for the Twenty First Century. Instead, the FCC sold this precious asset to Verizon, AT&T and a few other companies. These companies don’t innovate. These companies don’t create jobs. In fact large corporations are almost always net destroyers of jobs.

We allow for software patents. This is not in the public good. Software patents benefit a few large companies and patent trolls. They do not benefit the American people.

We are not properly regulating against discrimination on Internet packets (a/k/a net neutrality) instead we have FCC policy which is both toothless and carves out huge exceptions for wireless carriers.

Broadband access in rural areas is non-existent and there is no real hope that this will be remedied under current federal or state programs.

We allow [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to seize domain names without due process.

The Obama administration appoints people to federal industry regulatory positions who come from large content providers or industry associations like the RIAA or the MPAA [who] ignore the public interest.

The federal government has negotiated ACTA under an inappropriate veil of secrecy.

We have legalized warrantless searches if the search is for electronic information.

We have become atavistic in our national technology policy. Important legal precedents like Hush-A-Phone, Carterphone and the breakup of AT&T are ignored or effectively reversed.

The consequence of this current direction will be reduction in innovation, new business, and new jobs, high prices for communications services and a shrinking number of jobs in the technology sector.

Respectfully,

Richard  H. Frisch

(Editor's note: The writer, a Weston resident, maintains a blog.)