Honoring in the Observance

It’s Constitution Day (http://constitutioncenter.org/ncc_progs_constitution_day.aspx), and Free State Foundation President Randolph May has taken that opportunity to remind the FCC of the constitutional implications of its decisions on things like property rights, due process and free speech.May points to the “inherent tension” between communications regulation and First Amendment speech guarantees, suggests the FCC continues to pull on its side of the rope from a shore located in another millennium, and makes a Rodney Dangerfield-like plea to the FCC to pay due homage to constitutional freedoms.

May takes aim at the FCC’s preservation of must-carry rules, its ongoing inquiry into the future of media, network neutrality regs and more, saying the FCC is clinging to an analog mindset in a digital age.

The argument appears in full in this magazine piece. Agree or disagree, the FCC should add this to the outside input its policymakers regularly say they are seeking on important issues of the day. These are some of the most important.