L'état, c'est moi

L'ETAT, C'EST MOI
[SOURCE: The Deal 10/11, AUTHOR: Ron Oral]
My high school and college French is a little rusty, so I'm going with "I am the state." Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin seems to be having a tough time with the entanglements of democracy. In a recent speech, Chairman Martin mused whether the five-person panel that decides the agency's biggest issues should receive their walking papers and be replaced with a one-person administrator who could respond more nimbly to evolving technology and be free from those messy partisan and ideological disputes that can delay critical FCC decisions. "In light of the fast changes that are occurring in technology, a single administrator could be much better at keeping up and responding to technological changes," Martin told attorneys at an American Bar Association Administrative Law Conference luncheon in Washington. "There has been a lot of debate in policy circles about whether the agency's bipartisan nature actually contributes to the lack of response time to technology changes that are occurring today." Converting the FCC into an executive branch administrator, following the structure of the Food and Drug Administration, means one political appointee would ultimately make all decisions affecting U.S. communications interests. Such a "communications czar" would replace the existing FCC, which consists of commissioners of the two major parties who debate controversial issues and hash out compromises. Many communications lawyers so far have jeered Martin's notions. "There isn't anybody who wouldn't rather be the philosopher king than have to negotiate with other people," says Harold Feld, director of Washington-based public interest law firm Media Access Project. "The telecom industry is so critical to our infrastructure and national security that the idea of it being held captive to whoever is running the executive branch is extremely troubling." Chairman Martin is also unhappy with the current system of judicial oversight of the agency. He has indicated that he would prefer to have one U.S. appeals court designated to receive all appeals of agency rules, a change that would replace a complex lottery that can send a challenge of FCC rules to any of 12 different appeals courts around the country.
http://www.thedeal.com/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1162525544531&pagename=TheDeal/NWStArticle&c=TDDArticle