Declan McCullough is the Oliver Hardy of technology. He complains about the messes everyone else makes, but his proposed solutions are usually guaranteed to just make things worse.

Take his latest brainstorm: abolish the FCC.

Now he has a point. The FCC has become the national censor, while at the same time abandoning the requirement that broadcasters serve the real public interest. I happen to find Michael Savage far more obscene than, say, Howard Stern, but political obscenity is considered fine by the regulators, while sexual suggestion is absolutely verboten.

Instead of dumping the FCC, let's change its nature.

Right now the FCC is a legislative and executive body. It's selected through a political process, one tilted toward the majority party, and the decisions that result are like executive orders -- firm but quite fungible. (The picture is from one of Hardy's many fan sites -- he was born in Georgia, you know.)

The real function of the FCC should be quite simple -- to prevent interference in the use of radio signals. Everything else can be delegated -- phone and cable to the Justice Department and FTC, obscenity to the courts.

But the nature of the radio waves is not what we first thought. They are not, physically, a set of adjoining railroad lines, or licenses to print money we should dole out based on political whim. Spectrum is an ocean. Millions can share it, if power is controlled, if the range of signals is kept low.

The solution is to make the FCC a judicial body.

Issue some final regulations on the usage of spectrum. Devolve authority into districts, along the lines of the federal courts. Appoint commissioners to each district who will also appoint arbitrators, and adjudicate disputes that can't be resolved through negotiation. Have the main body act as an appeals' court, subject only to review by the Supreme Court.

I don't think we get to this directly, through one grand "Telecommunications Act of 2005." But I do think this is where we should evolve toward, over time, as new industries emerge that take advantage of shared spectrum. In the process we'll be able to ask, and hopefully answer, some other key questions, such as:

• If spectrum is indeed unlimited, what rights does anyone have to impose speech restrictions beyond those based on the First Amendment?
  
• Why should broadcasters have any free spectrum, when they're liable to sell the resulting broadcasting rights for hundreds of millions or billions of dollars?
  
• How do we assure fair dealing in the less-regulated areas of spectrum, when some companies will always be huge and other players small?
  

Feel free to add your own questions. As I said, there's plenty of time to discuss them. No one is seriously going to get rid of the FCC, right?