Report: President Trump Picks Former Verizon Lawyer Ajit Pai To Head FCC

from the populism-schmopulism dept

As many expected, Donald Trump has chosen former Verizon lawyer and current FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai to head the FCC, according to a report by Politico. According to two anonymous insiders "familiar with the decision," Pai, who met with Trump on Monday, should be formally announced as FCC boss in short order. Pai recently proclaimed that net neutrality's "days are numbered" under Trump, while stating that the reformed FCC would be taking a "weed whacker" to "unnecessary regulations" like the FCC's net neutrality rules and its new consumer broadband privacy protections.

Politico rather soft sells the controversy that Pai will represent to those who don't think technology policy should be dictated by Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Charter Communications:

"Pai is already a familiar name in tech and telecom policy debates. He’s a fierce and vocal critic of many regulations passed by the commission's Democratic majority, including the 2015 net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally and are opposed by the major broadband companies."

Let's be clear here. Pai has supported the incumbent duopoly providers on nearly every issue of substance. He has vilified net neutrality to an often-comic degree, falsely claiming the rules encouraged dictators in North Korea and Iran and led to a massive slowdown in industry investment. He has consistently refused to even admit the U.S. broadband market has a competition problem. He's made it abundantly clear he wants to eliminate every FCC consumer protection function, and, alongside fellow Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, has even repeatedly voted down holding AT&T accountable for outright fraud.

If you're looking for somebody who will rubber stamp every Comcast request shoveled in his general direction, Pai is certainly your man. If you're looking for an FCC leader who's going to care about consumer issues or the plight of the startup or small business in a word dominated by massive, ever-consolidating telecom conglomerates, you're about to get a master class in disappointment. The irony, of course, is that Pai is about as far from the "populist" rhetoric President Trump leaned on to get elected as one can get:

Yes, nothing quite says "man of the people" like a former Verizon lawyer who has fought tooth and nail against every single effort to hold large ISPs accountable to the public. On any given day, if the wind is right and with enough pressure, Pai may just be convinced to occasionally do the right thing. But as the leader of an agency tasked with keeping Comcast from viciously savaging both consumers and the competition, it's not really physically possible to make a more controversial and uninspired selection.

Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, fcc, net neutrality, privacy
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon