April 20, 2010 2:45PM # Larry Downes on Internet “Reclassification” By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE A few weeks ago, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit [rejected the FCC’s claim](https://www.cato.org/2010/04/06/the-fcc-doesnt-have-authority-to-regulate-the-internet-and-shouldnt/) of authority to regulate Internet service. That was good news—and it sure didn’t [create a crisis](https://www.cato.org/2010/04/06/on-net-neutrality-regulation-suppose-free-press-called-a-crisis-and-nobody-noticed/). It meant that the FCC would have to get authority from Congress if it wanted to regulate the Internet. But a little hiccup in that plan quickly emerged: Congress won’t let the FCC regulate the Internet. Bills to do that have been floating around Capitol Hill for years, and they’ve never gotten traction. So the proponents of government-controlled Internet access services have worked up an end-run around Congress: They want the FCC to try to reclassify Internet access from an unregulated “information service” to a “telecommunications service,” subject to common carrier regulation, like the monopoly phone system used to be (… and still is, generations after the monopoly ended). Well, Larry Downes has been *[kicking the “reclassification” idea up and down the field](http://techliberation.com/2010/04/19/reclassifying-broadband-the-new-york-times-snorts-the-fairy-dust/).* To relax, he’s been jumping up and down on “reclassification.” Recently, Downes had a dream in which he took out a gun and shot “reclassification.” When he awoke, he did not apologize. I recommend reading his post [on the TechLiberationFront blog](http://techliberation.com/2010/04/19/reclassifying-broadband-the-new-york-times-snorts-the-fairy-dust/). ##### Related Tags [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).