Cuccinelli: ‘It Is My Duty To Take Action’

Washington -- Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is trying to get his counterparts in other states to
join his fight against network-neutrality rules, has made no secret of his disdain for the FCC and is clearly not
neutral on the issue, as evidenced by excerpts from speeches supplied by his office.

• “Anyone who thinks that the government should not be above the law should oppose the Federal Communications
Commission’s recent power grab to regulate the Internet.”

• “When the FCC previously attempted to regulate the network-management practices of Internet providers,
a federal court told the agency it had no authority to do so; in other words, such regulation would be illegal.
Yet the FCC now presses ahead with regulations, displaying a willful disregard for the law and the court. That a
group of unelected bureaucrats would act without congressional authorization and in defiance of a court ruling
threatens the very core of our representative democracy.”

• “It is my job to see that Virginians are protected by the rule of law. When agencies of the federal government treat
that law a s an inconvenience not binding on them, and their actions affect Virginians, it is my duty to take action.”

• “The proposed Internet regulations are also an affront to private property rights: A government
agency without authority to do so is attempting to dictate to private parties how they must use their own
property — the pipelines and technology that bring
us the Internet.

• “This is the most egregious overreach yet of the
federal government, when an executive agency refuses
to honor the ruling of a federal court. When an agency
does not even respect the decision of a federal court,
how can we expect the government to respect the
rights of the people and the states?”

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.