The head of the Agency HATES Net Neutrality - (Fox in the Hen house)

The Bush administration’s top telecommunications official reportedly tried to “shout down” Net Neutrality and open access supporters after they called him out for spinning America’s Internet market as a wonderland of competition and consumer choice.

John Kneuer, assistant secretary of commerce and head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), “quickly lost his temper and began shouting” after an audience of technology experts pressed him to explain how the U.S. had fallen so far behind other developed countries in providing Internet access to citizens.

According to The Register on Friday, Kneuer claimed that free market competition was the reason for the Internet’s “great success,” dismissing the history of Net Neutrality protections that have fostered new innovations and public participation online.

Kneuer, who previously served as a top phone company lobbyist for Washington law firm Piper Rudnick, told the audience that the “free market” (by which he means the current duopoly of large phone and cable companies) should be unencumbered by consumer protections and basic Internet freedoms.