Welcome

Welcome to “Reforming the Federal Communications Commission,” a joint project of Public Knowledge and Silicon Flatirons, a Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado. The purpose of this website is to provide information and solicit your suggestions about what changes need to take place at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the agency to restore the public’s confidence that it will meet its legal obligation to promote the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” As an initial matter, we will submit these suggestions to the new leadership at the FCC as well as the appropriate officials in the incoming Obama Administration. We will also look for opportunities to focus on this issue once the new leadership takes on the challenges of governing.

This website follows up our January 5th conference of the same name. At the conference, former Chairmen, Commissioners and staff members of the agency, along with experts from academia, the public interest community, and industry evaluated how the agency operated in the past, how it operates currently, and how it might operate in the future. The consensus was clear – the FCC has serious procedural, organizational, and cultural problems that must be addressed by the agency’s incoming leaders as soon as practicable.

On this website, we will post the papers related to the conference, including Phil Weiser’s keynote paper, the panelists written responses to it, and former FCC General Counsel Henry Geller’s April 1974 paper entitled “A Modest Proposal to Reform the Federal Communications Commission,” which until now has never been available on line, and which clearly demonstrates that FCC reform is a topic whose time has come. The website also has a comprehensive bibliography of resources related to the topic, many of which were written by the conference panelists.

Again, we are seeking thoughtful input from you, the public. Submit your own response to Phil’s paper or any of the others. Provide brief comments or suggestions. Supplement the bibliography. Offer ideas on how we can continue to spotlight this issue. In short, we want you to become part of a conversation that will surely last well into the next four years and beyond. Thank you!

Thank you!

Gigi Sohn
President and Co-Founder, Public Knowledge

Phil Weiser
Executive Director and Founder, Silicon Flatirons Center