It’s not just governors who are questioning net neutrality rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. Here are just a few examples of what America’s newspapers are saying on their editorial pages:

Washington Post, 9/28/2009: Mr. Genachowski will “stifle further investments by ISPs with attempts to micromanage what has been a vibrant and well-functioning marketplace.”

Wall Street Journal, 9/22/2009: “Internet service providers manage their networks to give quality service to the greatest number of people, which is as it should be. If the Obama Administration really wants unfettered ‘competition, creativity and entrepreneurial activity,’ the best policy is to stay out of the way.”

Orange County Register, 9/27/2009: “More government control of the Internet isn’t neutral. It’s the nose under the tent everyone will come to regret, save perhaps those politically connected interests who manage to “game” the system.”

The Washington Times, 9/24/2009:“The administration should leave well enough alone. Red tape stifles innovation, and government regulators don’t have a clue what new inventions their regulations might destroy.”

These aren’t the only voices. In a column headlined “Hello Net Neutrality, Goodbye Internet”, ComputerWorld‘s Johna Till Johnson wrote:
“Unfortunately, by imposing legislation designed to keep things that way, net neutrality proponents run a real risk of destroying the very Internet they want to protect.”

In a piece for the Financial Times titled “Net Neutrality at a Crossroads,” Richard Epstein, a distinguished law professor at the University of Chicago, wrote:
“All in all, the presumption against state interference holds up. The explosive growth in broadband in the absence of net neutrality has continued to confound the doomsayers. But the old maxim, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, surely applies with special force to an FCC whose toolkit is filled with expensive, blunt, and broken instruments.”

Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece titled “Neutering the Net” in which he stated:
“The idea of broadband carriers nefariously blocking access to Web sites, for all its longevity, is perhaps the most talked-about, least-seen bogeyman in the history of bogeymen.”

David Nicklaus of St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that:
“New regulation could lead to the loss of “the very freedom that makes the Internet so successful and so valuable.”

Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Professor and “Grandfather of the Internet” Dave Farber, in an interview with the Washington Post, depicted Internet regulation as “attacking a problem which doesn’t seem to exist.”

Ryan Young of the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote for the Examiner:
“Neutrality regulations would channel innovation in unnatural directions. Companies will concentrate on regulatory compliance, when they should be working on customer compliance.”

And Adam Thierer and Berin Szoka of the Progress and Freedom Foundation wrote in a Forbes column headlined “The Day Internet Freedom Died” that:
“Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real Internet Freedom–for all Internet operators and consumers, and for economic and speech rights alike–is about to start dying a death by a thousand regulatory cuts.”

It’s obvious that the FCC’s plan is flawed. We wonder how many more publications will need to weigh in before everyone gets the message.

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