1) does the FCC have the power to simply declare the entirety of the internet to be under its jurisdiction? The answer, clearly, is no. Would it have gotten away with it under Hillary? Of course.
1.5) Should it have this power? No. The Constitution clearly makes this sort of the thing the exclusive domain of Congress.
2) Would the public benefit from the government taking over the internet–or at least the internet as it is accessed in the United States–rather than allowing it to continue as is?
This is more complicated, but it still seems an obvious no.
AT&T, before breakup, was the natural result of the government controlling a public utility, here telecommunications. Had Reagan not broken it up, we likely never would have had an internet age.
I see the claim made that without regulation, companies can decide–like cable providers–what internet sites you can access. This may well be true, but who, where, is doing it? I have never heard of this anywhere. I have heard of Google altering search results, and YouTube censoring conservative videos (but not demonic Left wing ones), but never an ISP turning off, say, Facebook.
But let us say this is a possibility, that the internet can be reduced by a private company to a list of allowed websites, with added websites only allowed at a premium,
The Leftist solution to this currently non-existent problem–at least in America, and the one Obama attempted to implement by Royal Decree–is to allow the government to TELL private companies what websites they have to provide access to.
But logically, would that same power not allow the government to tell them what websites NOT to provide access to? Could, say, InfoWars, not get shut down as “fake news”, despite the fact that it routinely outperforms the New York Times?
People have short memories. The internet only came into being because of the competition that deregulation enabled. To return, now, to the 1930’s as regards telecommunications, would be to return to the 1930’s politically as well, and the continual threat posed then of a fascist take-over of our national government. Virtually no one remembers the open fascism back then, and how FDR nearly got control over all wages and prices in the country, and was only blocked by the Supreme Court.
As with all things Left, Net Neutrality is really just a Trojan Horse for Net Partisanship and political activism.
It’s really a bit disgusting, honestly, that I can predict the opinions of so many people based on what they are reading today. Yesterday they might not have even heard of net neutrality, but today they consider themselves enlightened gurus on the topic, and all dissenters ignorant.
The basis of this particular form of aggressive stupidity and ignorance is, as I have often said, a matter of emotional psychopathology, not informed reasoning, or the possibility of sustaining their views in an honest debate.