The 400 pages are just the beginning.
Two weeks after voting to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its first document detailing what will be allowed following its so-called "net neutrality" decision.
While the FCC said its aim is to protect the open Internet, regulation is, in effect, just the opposite. Indeed, the new document states the supposedly independent agency will police Internet privacy issues and will mandate "just and reasonable conduct." Whatever those work out to be will be up to the FCC.
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., also said the agency was picking and choosing certain companies to be exempt from certain rules such as paying to prioritize traffic. Those exemptions are similar to what occurred with Obamacare, where various groups were allowed to skirt the rules that govern the rest of the nation.
As more rules are handed down, broadband Internet is likely to become just one more aspect of society controlled by nameless, faceless bureaucrats with the power of government behind them.
"Telecom lawyers in Washington popped the corks on the champagne [with the news]," Boston telecommunications expert Roger Entner said in an Associated Press report. "It will be at least a hundred million [dollars] in billable hours for them. This will go on for a while."