Thomas Donlan of Barron’s invokes the ghost of one of America’s most criticized presidents in a column on the potential problems tied to federal net neutrality restrictions.

Blame Herbert Hoover. many Americans still blame him for the Great Depression; why should they not also blame him for the astonishing variety of rules and regulations that the federal government has inflicted on electronic communication?

Hoover was secretary of commerce before he was president, and his political dream was to engineer prosperity the way he had engineered mines and famine relief. He saw radio, the nation’s newest and potentially most powerful industry, as greatly needing federal leadership. He believed there were too many stations, generating too much interference and competition.

“Radio has passed from the field of an adventure to that of a public utility,” Hoover said at a 1924 conference on radio’s future. “Nor among the utilities is there one whose activities may yet come more closely to the life of each and every one of our citizens, nor which holds out great possibilities of future influence, nor which is of more potential public concern. It must now be considered as a great agency of public service.”

He could have been speaking next month, at some national conference on the future of broadband and wireless communication. Many people believe the Internet now must be considered a great agency of public service, rather than a technology that creates wealth for those clever enough to use it well. …

… The FCC has been walking in circles on the issue of Net neutrality for a decade, issuing studies, making rules, fighting lawsuits, and sustaining two defeats in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On the third try, the Circuit Court went along last month and gave its blessing to the principle of Net neutrality and the principle of rule by expert commission. The two judges in the majority acknowledged that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 promised the Internet would be “unfettered by federal or state regulation,” but they said they are also supposed to defer to the expert judgments of federal agencies.

If the Supreme Court agrees, the FCC will be the highway patrol on what used to be called the information superhighway. It will enforce speed limits, making sure that telecom companies give every user the same service at the same speed. Network owners will not be allowed to charge users or programmers for super-speed or to give discounts to those who don’t burden the network with lots of high-definition movies.

The principle rests on the same foundation as the tired old natural monopoly theories that govern electric and natural-gas utilities, but reality is different.