Salon.com Technology | Getting a lock on broadband What is certain is that by deregulating broadband, the FCC is taking a tremendous risk that could have unforeseen consequences. A risk few people even know they are taking, fewer still understand, and only four get to vote on.
The scenario is not new. In 1981, Congress quietly eased restrictions on savings and loan houses, allowing them to invest their federally insured deposits however they pleased, even in, say, junk bonds. In the mid-1990s, the SEC softened rules that had prevented accounting firms from consulting for their auditing clients. Aside from a few stray government watchdogs, a handful of Beltway bureaucrats, and a clutch of corporate lawyers, those obscure but radical experiments in deregulation went unnoticed -- until it was too late.