I hope today's news today that Google has written a formal letter to the Federal Communications Commissions requesting permission to use so-called "white space" spectrum on an unregulated basis is the first shot in a long overdue legal fight to free our nation's airways from unnecessary, counterproductive over-regulation that primarily benefits a handful of enormously powerful, well-connected media and telecommunications corporations.

As I explained in a column some years ago, the federal government's current spectrum allocation policies, which were established decades ago, have long since become technologically obsolete and completely unnecessary for the purposes that were originally intended and that were narrowly permitted under the Constitution, namely, to prevent signal interference that would otherwise have made commercial broadcasting impossible. That was true at one time. But it has not been true for many years, perhaps decades now. If Google puts up its dukes and really fights this fight it is hard to see how the U.S. Supreme Court will have any rational choice other than to throw out the fed's current rule-making authority in the spectrum allocation business in favor of requiring the FCC to enact regulations that permit spread spectrum or spectrum sensing technologies that enable anyone to use the airwaves without hurting anyone else and, most importantly, without government permission. In the end, it's a free speech issue. If the federal government does not have to restrict the use of the airwaves to enable broadcasting then why on earth should it do so?

Up til now, the big money has all been behind allowing the federal government to allocate spectrum that just a few huge companies can then control. Google and its high-tech allies, including, in this case, Microsoft, have the financial resources to prevail against against the big telcos and media companies in the federal courts and, if needed, in Congress. So kudos to Google for taking the first step in what could be a long but very worthwhile legal battle. If Google pushes the spread spectrum/spectrum sharing issue in the courts the only way they and the American public can lose is if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to shred constitutional protections for free speech and freedom of the press.