Breaking down the government’s bizarre router ban ↦

The Verge’s Sean Hollister with just an excellent article breaking down the administration’s total nonsensical ban on consumer level routers made outside of the country. The article’s structured as a Q&A, and here are just a couple of my favorite excerpts:

Sounds bad. But if they’re not recalling the routers, and they’re not fixing them… what the heck is the government actually doing?

It’s banning future routers that haven’t been made yet.

You’re not making a lot of sense.

I warned you this was a story about Brendan Carr, known dummy and anti-consumer FCC chairperson! Specifically, the FCC is keeping new, previously unannounced, foreign-made consumer routers out of the US… unless it decides to exempt them. For reasons. We’ll get to those.

Hollister classifies this as a shakedown to somehow force more manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Gee, I wonder if there could possibly be any…let’s say exploitable…loopholes to this brilliantly concocted plan:

What if I buy one of those newer routers in Canada and bring it back home?

The FCC’s magic 8 ball says, “no,” but good luck enforcing that, Brendan.

Go to the linked site.

Read on Six Colors.