Are Trump, Republicans preparing a government takeover of wireless network?
Is the legislation being pushed by Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress a precursor to a government takeover of America’s wireless network? It sure looks that way.
Known as the Proportional Reviews for Broadband Deployment Act (H.R. 2289), the legislation is being promoted as a way to streamline the broadband deployment process by exempting certain modifications to wireless facilities from federal environmental and historic preservation reviews. In other words, the legislation will prevent state and local involvement in the placement of cell phone towers . . . much like Trump’s executive order preventing states from regulating AI doesn’t allow state and local involvement with AI.
Tenth Amendment? We don’t need no stinkin’ Tenth Amendment.
Specifically, if H.R. 2289 becomes law, the federal government will be supreme over state and local jurisdictions in many areas, including (via Children’s Health Defense):
- More antennas and equipment added to cell towers near homes, schools, and parks
- No meaningful environmental oversight
- No historic-preservation review for sensitive or culturally important sites
- Little to no notice before major tower upgrades
- Federal decisions overriding local concerns and community priorities
Health and environmental issues aside, this effort by Trump and the Republican Party has every indication of a move toward a government takeover of America’s wireless network. And for those ready to shoot down my conclusions, consider the following actions taken by the president and his flunkies in Congress during his first term.
In January 2018 — the last time Trump and the Republican Party had full control of Washington — national security officials within the administration proposed nationalizing America’s wireless network with a federal takeover of America’s 5G wireless network as a means to combat Chinese spying on US phone calls.
The proposal included two “options” to be considered:
- The U.S. government pays for and builds the single network — which would be an unprecedented nationalization of a historically private infrastructure.
- An alternative plan where wireless providers build their own 5G networks that compete with one another — though the document says the downside is it could take longer and cost more. It argues that one of the “pros” of that plan is that it would cause “less commercial disruption” to the wireless industry than the government building a network.
According to a source at the time, the only internal White House debate was whether the U.S. government would own and build the network or if the carriers would bind together in a consortium to build it, an idea that would require them to put aside their business models to serve the country’s greater good.
Under the plan, a nationwide standard would be established that would allow government to use the banner of “national security” to create a federal process for installing the wireless equipment, preventing states and cities from having their own rules for where the equipment could go.
Nothing was done with the nationalization idea until February 2020, when Trump was buried in scandals as he tried to figure out a way to win the 2020 election.
In a speech given at the time at an event hosted by Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), then-Attorney General William Barr left no doubt as to the intentions of the White House. Barr stated that “the United States aligning itself with Nokia and/or Ericsson” will go a long way in addressing cybersecurity. And what did he mean by “aligning?” According to Barr, it meant “American ownership of a controlling stake, either directly or through a consortium of private American and allied companies.” (Emphasis mine)
According to Barr, “Putting our large market and financial muscle behind one or both of these firms would make it a far more formidable competitor and eliminate concerns over its staying power, or their staying power.” In reality, it was government picking winners and losers in the free market. At worst was another step towards fascism and authoritarianism.
The Republican Party was still fully behind this idea. It was during this time that then-Senate Republicans Marco Rubio and Richard Burr co-sponsored a bill with Democrat Mark Warner — a guy who made loads of money from the telecommunications industry before becoming a senator — to give over $1 billion to telecommunications companies for “research and development.” While a relatively small amount compared to the money the telecommunications industry spends on R&D, the bribe was designed to give government some skin in the game.
The real intentions of this wireless network scheme by Trump and the Republican Party didn’t go unnoticed by a certain defender of the Constitution:
“For a person who claims to oppose socialism, President Trump spent a lot of time in his SOTU address touting central planning, federal intervention in nonfederal matters, and a big-government spending spree—policies that threaten our rights and undermine our long-term prosperity.”
As Justin Amash pointed out, Trump likes to rail against socialism while simultaneously advocating socialism, but he does so under the banner of America-first Nationalism.
For good reason, many groups like Children’s Health Defense oppose passage of H.R. 2289 for the health and environmental consequences, and I stand with them in their opposition. However, the greater consequences as I see it is the damage liberty will suffer if Trump succeeds in doing with wireless what he has done with AI and the tech industry — the expansion of corporatism and fascism and the eventual destruction of free market capitalism.
So, while Trump and his bought-and-paid-for Republican Party continue to systematically dismantle liberty and they pave the way for tyranny and the loss of liberty, we need to commit ourselves to doing all we can to fight them. In that spirit, let me invite you to go to the Children’s Health Defense website where you can send a letter to your members of Congress to oppose the government takeover of America’s wireless network.
It only takes a few minutes, but it can make a difference.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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