This excerpt originally appeared in Forbes on April 14, 2012.

When the Titanic tragically sank 100 years ago this weekend, it prompted many safety inquiries, one of which concerned the role radio interference might have played in the effort by some to notify the Titanic that they were surrounded by dangerous icebergs that fateful night. That concern eventually led to the adoption of the Radio Act of 1912, which gave the federal government the ability to license wireless operations in the United States.

We’ve been living with the consequences ever since. For much of the past century, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has used this licensing power — which has been expanded in many subsequent laws — to micro-manage this important resource, and even to regulate the speech that flows over the airwaves.