As submitted to every newspaper covering the fourth congressional district of Texas.
By Rick Manning
Ralph Hall should have known better.
Tyrants and corporate crony capitalists around the world have demanded that the United States give up control over the internet to some group of international “stakeholders,” and Ralph Hall had the chance to use his many years of experience to draw a line in the sand against it. But he failed. Worse, he didn’t even try.
Ralph Hall voted something called the DotCom act out of House Committee. What does the DotCom act that Hall supports do? It calls on Obama to wait to give away the Internet to unelected, unaccountable foreigners until a government study can be completed.
A government study? Obama threatens to turn over control of the Internet to an undefined group which neither respects nor are bound by the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantees against censorship of ideas, and the big idea of Hall and his House Committee Republican colleagues is to pass legislation asking the President to wait for the completion of a study?
It is almost unbelievable.
Not once did Hall speak up and argue for maintaining United States control over the Internet, even as the Democrats on the Committee were furiously pushing amendments to support giving away the web.
At a time when President Obama continually flouts congressional Constitutional authority, Ralph Hall and his colleagues had a chance to make a strong statement that Obama cannot break the Internet with a stroke of his pen, and all they had to offer was an embarrassingly tepid response.
It is a shame that even as we have men and women deployed all around the globe protecting freedom, that Hall and his congressional cohorts once again stopped short of defending our basic freedoms here at home.
Rick Manning is the vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government.
