Telcos, Spying and the Internet: A Bad Mix

It seems as if the only time Republican policymakers care about our poor telephone companies is when they want to protect the companies from liability from illegal spying or when they want to allow the companies to strengthen their hold over the economy.

Neither approach is particularly helpful, although anytime telecom issues get into the news, well, that's news. If the Republican presidential debate last night showed anything, it was that both the moderators and the contestants are woefully ignorant about the trends and issues in the industry that makes a lot of this economy go.

Take that new "Internet" thing that seems barely to exist within the world of politics and economic policy. The only question last night in the Republican presidential "economics" debate on the topic, which came from MSNBC talking head Chris Matthews, was to Rudy Giuliani. Matthews wanted to know: "How would you police the Internet culturally? You know, the whole question about the stuff that's going on, predators, that sort of thing..." That question reflects as poorly on Matthews for asking it as on Giuliani for answering by combining the two great GOP issues - crime and taxes. Online child predators are "it's a new serious area of crime," Giuliani said - although experts might call the problem at least a decade old. He then devolved into saying that the Internet shouldn't be taxed.

Matthews then asked, "Should we have an FCC-style agency for the Internet?," a question that boggles the mind. Giuliani responded by citing his crime-reduction record in New York, while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), jumped on the anti-porn bandwagon by calling Internet child pornography "a terrible evil." That's not exactly groundbreaking news.

That was it, the only discussion for the medium that made the debate available to viewers who, in the middle of the day here in the East, couldn't see in on cable. (Note: The video only worked with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, not with Firefox. But that's a separate issue.) It is very disappointing that with so much controversy swirling around the behavior of the telecom companies these days that the issues involved get such neglect. Is the Internet the Willy Loman of issues? Attention must be paid.

Few of the candidates have even bothered to recognize the role the Internet has in everyday life, from shopping to campaigning, much less stake out a position on telecom or Internet issues, in large part because there has been no public demand that they do so. As the campaign heats up, creating that demand should be a new priority for interest groups of whatever political or issue affiliation. Do we want Verizon or AT&T or Comcast to have the ability to determine what information gets transmitted online, and in what priority? Or are we more comfy with the old way of preventing telephone companies from getting involved in content?

Matthews lives in Washington. He should be familiar with the stories from the New York Times and Washington Post about Verizon blocking NARAL Pro Choice America from sending text messages to people who signed up for them. The fact that a front-page Times story shamed Verizon into a change in policy is irrelevant. Control is control.

The other moderator, Maria Bartiromo, must know about the consolidation in the telecom industry from her coverage of Wall Street. Yet there was not even a hint of a discussion about how Internet companies, much less individual consumers, will fare in a world controlled by a few giants which have the regulatory-given ability to squeeze out competition. In fact, this may have been one of the only forums in recent memory in which the word, "Google," was not mentioned. Also not mentioned was the U.S. slippage down the slope of world rankings in Internet acceptance, how that statistic bears on our economic standing in the world.

The candidates don't need to get into the weeds on the Internet issues. A simple recognition that the Internet exists and that there are issues of control might be good enough. FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein held hearings around the country on the question of who should control our broadcast media. Perhaps a similar set of hearings could raise the temperature of who wants to control the Internet. If those hearings happen, candidates would be well advised to pay attention.

Then the next time we see the telecom companies doing something illegal, everyone will have a better idea about what they are. Should they get immunity from spying charges? Perhaps, with some conditions. They shouldn't be given a "Get Out of Jail Free" card without having to give up something. Let negotiations ensue. Giving up control of Internet content and letting competition flourish might be a good couple of places to start.

Let's hear from the candidates, assuming they, and their would-be questioners, discover that the issues exist.