It’s been stated many times before that bitcoin is unstoppable or ungovernable and the only way to stop it is to shut down the entire internet. While none of us ever want to believe that could ever happen, on November 15 2023, 5 FCC commissioners voted on a plan for the FCC to takeover the entire internet infrastructure in The United States of America. This has far-reaching implications for the internet as a whole such as internet privacy and the future of internet usability. Since bitcoin is a protocol that runs entirely online, how will the FCC internet takeover affect bitcoin in The United States and beyond?
The FCC Internet Takeover
While the world seems to be distracted with conflict in the middle east, there is a lot of other news that seems to be getting little to no media attention. On November 15th, 2023, 5 unelected FCC commissioners voted on a plan that would grant the FCC unprecedented power over the control over all of the internet infrastructure in the United States.
While the details of this are difficult to comprehend for those of us who are not lawyers or don’t have any sort of a legal background, some of the details are actually very easy to understand. Luckily for us, one of the FCC commissioners, Brendan Carr, has been vocal about pushing back on this particular plan and published an official statement. You can read commissioner Carr’s entire statement here but I will also go into some detail on the key points that he highlights.
What’s In The Plan?
As is often the case with legal documents, they are written in a way that the general public has difficulty understanding them. There are a lot of caveats, paragraph long sentences, citations, clauses, unfamiliar symbology, misleading rhetoric, relative definitions, and to top it all off, there is also a lot of blatant deception.
One of the most blatantly deceptive things about this order is that it claims to be about “Preventing Digital Discrimination” and that the FCC should have complete power to regulate the entire internet infrastructure all in the name of “preventing digital discrimination”.
I will do what I can go into some of the details of this newly adopted plan and how the FCC internet takeover affects bitcoin.
You can find the entire plan here: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-397997A1.pdf
Commissioner Carr’s Pushback
If it wasn’t for a random post that I saw somewhere online, chances are that I would have never heard of this plan or the impending vote by 5 FCC commissioners that nobody voted for. I began doing some searching as soon as I heard about it only to find that there was almost no coverage of it anywhere. It wasn’t until I searched for a few keywords that I came across a public statement from one of the FCC commissioners named Brendan Carr who has publicly made statements against this power grab from by the FCC. If it wasn’t for this statement, I probably wouldn’t have been able to make much sense of the original document. That being said, here is just some of what Carr opposed in this plan.
Again, you can read commissioner Carr’s entire statement here
The text of the order expressly provides that the FCC would be empowered, for the first time, to regulate each and every ISP’s:
“network infrastructure deployment, network reliability, network upgrades, network maintenance, customer-premises equipment, and installation”; “speeds, capacities, latency, data caps, throttling, pricing, promotional rates, imposition of late fees, opportunity for equipment rental, installation time, contract renewal terms, service termination terms, and use of customer credit and account history”; “mandatory arbitration clauses, pricing, deposits, discounts, customer service, language options, credit checks, marketing or advertising, contract renewal, upgrades, account termination, transfers to another covered entity, and service suspension.”
The concentration of internet services and power within the hands of a single entity poses significant challenges to the principles of a free and open internet. When the FCC has this much much control, it can manipulate and dictate the flow of information, influencing public discourse and stifling competition. This concentration of power raises concerns about issues such as censorship, privacy infringements, and the potential misuse of user data. Moreover, the monopolistic tendencies of a singular governing body in control of internet services can limit innovation and suppress the diversity of principles and ideas. A centralized authority over the internet contradicts the ethos of a free and decentralized digital realm, threatening the very foundation of a democratic and accessible global network.
This new legislation seems to grant pretty much unlimited power to the FCC to regulate and control the equipment that you run on your home, when contracts can and cannot be renewed, service termination terms, account termination, service suspension, and even financial history related to your internet service provider. It seems like an awful lot of power being granted to a single entity that does not have any market competition.
President Biden’s plan sweeps entire industries within the FCC’s jurisdiction for the first time in the agency’s 90-year history. It would be one thing if the FCC cabined its intrusive new regime to ISPs or even businesses within the communications sector. It does not. The draft FCC order says that “we are not explicitly tasked with regulating entities outside the communications industry” (a rare moment of regulatory humility) but it then goes on to say that the FCC will do so in this case nonetheless (the moment passed). Landlords are now covered, construction crews are now covered, marketing agencies are now covered, banks are now covered, the government itself is now covered—all newly regulated by the FCC and liable for any act or omission that the agency determines has an impermissible impact on a consumer’s access to broadband. Congress never authorized the FCC to regulate these industries or entities. So, to all the businesses and individuals that will be subject to FCC regulation for the first time ever, welcome, I hope you have good lawyers.
Commissioner Carr highlights that anyone and everyone who uses the internet is now subject to their jurisdiction and even goes on to mention that landlords, construction crews, and marketing agencies could be subject to fines if they don’t meet new and arbitrary requirements put forth by the FCC.
President Biden’s plan allows the FCC to impose unfunded build mandates on ISPs and unlimited monetary fines on every covered entity…Nonetheless, the FCC’s draft order determines that the agency will apply the full suite of the Communications Act’s enforcement powers to any act or omission that violates its new Section 60506 regime, although it will do so with one minor deviation from the Communications Act norm: it imposes no ceiling on the level of potential fines. This means that ISPs could very well be compelled to build out Internet infrastructure without any compensation. And every decision from the C-Suite to the call center will be subject to FCC second-guessing.
Under this new order, the FCC would have the ability to impose unlimited monetary fines on every covered entity. In the last paragraph we saw that pretty much every business that uses the internet is now a “covered entity” so could these unlimited fines be imposed on companies that relay bitcoin traffic or anyone running a VPN or Tor? Will it become prohibitively expensive to use the internet in the United States if they deem that you are sending and receiving information that governments or corporations don’t like?
President Biden’s plan includes price controls. Last month, at the eleventh hour, the FCC slightly softened its proposal to use its Title II proceeding to regulate broadband rates. Now we know why. The Section 60506 order that the FCC will vote on next week expressly states that the FCC can use it to regulate broadband pricing and even an ISP’s profitability.
You don’t need to be a history or economics major to understand that price controls result in shortages and a deterioration in quality of service. If companies are prohibited from making a profit, then they may need to stop providing service altogether. This could have a devastating centralizing effect for bitcoiners across the United States. In order to serve more rural communities, ISPs have to deploy more infrastructure which naturally comes at a greater cost which often needs to be passed on to the end user. If price controls are implemented, it’s possible that bitcoiners might not be able to get reliable internet service to their citadels and homes outside of centralized metropolitan areas.
If you want to review the complete FCC order, that can be found here: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-397997A1.pdf
How Will An FCC Internet Takeover Impact Bitcoin?
While we all know that bitcoin is not bound by any single jurisdiction, this is still troubling for internet freedom and privacy in the United States. Since bitcoin is a natively digital money that relies on the internet to function, this is incredibly concerning for any bitcoiners who call the United States home.
If you read any of the points outlined above, you can see that the FCC will have the ability to regulate customer-premises equipment, pricing and service suspension.
If you are not in control of which hardware you are allowed to use in your own home, that could create some substantial security or privacy threats for all of the traffic that your router relays. It’s also possible that if your traffic is somehow labeled as “problematic” they could change your price or charge you a fee for sending encrypted information or bitcoin transactions. What if they prevent any traffic being relayed through Tor?
You don’t need to be a history or economics major to understand that price controls result in shortages and a deterioration in quality of service. If companies are prohibited from making a profit, then they may need to stop providing service altogether. This could have a devastating centralizing effect for bitcoiners across the United States. In order to serve more rural communities, ISPs have to deploy more infrastructure which naturally comes at a greater cost which often needs to be passed on to the end user. If price controls are implemented, it’s possible that bitcoiners might not be able to get reliable internet service to their citadels and homes outside of centralized metropolitan areas.
If you take the time to read just some of what is outlined in the FCC’s plan, it’s clearly a power grab that will have implications beyond much more than just bitcoin. When you consider that this is happening at the same time as FinCENs attack on privacy enhancing tools like CoinJoin, it’s obvious that bitcoin is under attack in the United States. When you also consider that none of the Bitcoin ETF applications have been approved, one can’t help but wonder if the fiat powers that run the world are closing all of the exits before they make their ultimate push to control bitcoin.
This plan has gone completely unannounced by the mainstream media and mainstream social media. The mindless droves of Americans are completely unaware that the last bastion of free speech in the world is about to fall into the hands of the most powerful and centralized government in all of history. As long as Americans keep their heads buried in the sand, the future of bitcoin within US borders could face new challenges at the hardware level and infrastructure level.
This plan has not been completely ignored by everyone. FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, has been sounding the alarm and vocally expressed his thoughts in this public statement. If it was not for his statement, it’s possible that the American people wouldn’t ever know that such a plan was even voted on.
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