Former FCC chairman, Republican Ajit Pai, is STILL Receiving Death Threats from Liberals over Not Supporting Obama's Internet Take over

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai tends to dress down when he travels and often wears a hat to obscure his appearance. That’s because of the vitriol directed at him for reducing Washington’s control over the Internet.



On a visit to the Journal today, Mr. Pai wore a suit and tie and maintained his usual cheerful demeanor. But he also reported that the threats against him and his family did not end with the Commission’s December vote to restore the freedom that existed for the Internet’s entire history until 2015.



He notes that his in-laws have received angry phone calls at 3 a.m. at home and that his wife has received threatening phone calls at work. The threats come via various media and have included references to slitting the throats of his children.



Today is the expiration date Mr. Pai and his colleagues placed on the 2015 Obama administration rule that applied century-old utility regulation to the Internet. By imposing rules once reserved for the Bell telephone monopoly, the Obama FCC managed to do what had never been done before outside of recessions: reduce the annual amount of money Internet service providers invest in their networks.



This obviously didn’t bode well for customers hoping for fast and reliable service in the future. But Silicon Valley companies like Netflix and Alphabet (owner of YouTube and Google) wanted government to prevent a network operator like AT&T from charging market rates for carrying their enormous video traffic around the Internet.



The fact that the Silicon Valley giants won the lobbying battle within the Obama administration is perhaps not surprising. What has been remarkable is the way that Silicon Valley and its dominant social media companies have managed to sell so many people on the preposterous notion that the survival of the Internet hinges on a rule that didn’t even exist until three years ago—and is antithetical to the regulatory restraint that allowed the Internet to flourish in the first place.