The Best of Times or the Worst of Times: Which Will It Be?

Charles Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities writing that “It was the best of times, it was worst of times”. Therein may lie some helpful context for understanding where our country finds itself today. I don’t propose to cover the entire issues waterfront in this brief piece, but will instead focus on a few of the things I see dragging our country and our government down today. For the purposes of this essay, I will include telecommunications and media, Congress, and the courts. To start off on the positive, there’s some really good news at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). After more than 2-1/2 years of deadlock because there was no majority at that agency, the Senate has finally confirmed the very able and highly-regarded Anna Gomez as the fifth Commissioner, opening the way to restore the vitality of the agency and to tackle issues like network neutrality, media consolidation, consumer protection, privacy, artificial intelligence, and others that couldn’t move with a 2-2 split. All the while, these issues became evermore pressing. Other nations are way ahead of us in designing privacy protections, transparency, and other regulatory oversight to protect their citizens. But thanks to the largely unchecked power of our communications behemoths, we seem unable to move from talk-talk to act-act.

[Michael Copps served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission from May 2001 to December 2011 and was the FCC's Acting Chairman from January to June 2009.]