It would be hard to top the hype that accompanied Rachelle Chong into her job as the youngest of five commissioners at the FCC. The 35-year-old Republican lawyer from San Francisco beamed up to Washington last spring by donning a pair of Spock ears during her swearing-in party, and wore a brightly lit Trek communicator pin during her first press conference.
So far, Chong, the first commissioner to publicly utter the words "surfing the Net," has been maddeningly vague about how she intends to vote on Net issues. For example, on the crucial question of freedom of expression in cyberspace, she said: "At present, because I'm an admirer of the First Amendment, I advocate free speech. I wouldn't want to characterize my position as absolute, however." Maybe we should call in Spock for a Vulcan mind meld.
ELECTRIC WORD
FCC: The Next Generation
