Court Rejects FCC Request To Delay Net Neutrality Case (thehill.com) 73
A federal appeals court denied the FCC's request to postpone oral arguments in a court battle over the agency's decision to repeal its net neutrality rules. The FCC had asked for the hearing to be postponed since the commission's workforce has largely been furloughed due to the partial government shutdown. The hearing remains set for February 1. The Hill reports: After the FCC repealed the rules requiring internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally in December of 2017, a coalition of consumer groups and state attorneys general sued to reverse the move, arguing that the agency failed to justify it. The FCC asked the three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to delay oral arguments out of "an abundance of caution" due to its lapse of funding. Net neutrality groups opposed the motion, arguing that there is an urgent need to settle the legal questions surrounding the FCC's order.
How about (Score:1)
Repeal of legal torture?
Do we need a whole bunch of fucking assholes to talk about that?
Or could we just repeal it?
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The intent of the Second Amendment is to guarantee one's right to protect oneself from harm, not to engage in extrajudicial punishment.
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There are not essential people available to approve food labeling changes so companies are making the case that regulatory agency cannot put them on hold as it impacts freedom of speech.
I predict "the same side" arguing the op topic should proceed also argue the government should be able to stop the latter in its tracks.
Commence sophistry at this point.
Summary? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've poked around and I can't find a good summary of the lawsuit. The claimants are saying it was unlawful for the FCC to repeal the network neutrality rules? Under what basis? There weren't rules, then there were, then there weren't. Did congress pass something instructing them to regulate network neutrality? Otherwise it seems pretty clear it's entirely up to the FCC.
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Informative)
There are quite a number of lawsuits pending on the subject, I'm not sure which one this story applies to.
But most of them seem to hinge on arguing that (1) the FCC has a duty to protect consumers (the FTC having already announced that it can't do it, contrary to the FCC's assertion), and (2) it failed to follow proper procedures when it repealed the former regulation. At least one claimant also argues that (3) the FCC's justifications for abandoning NN vary from meaningless gibberish to outright lies, although it's not quite clear to me why that should be considered as a legal point rather than a political one.
Whether these complaints have legs, I guess we'll find out - eventually.
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Making policies based on theoretical possibilities is beyond the scope of their mandate. You would have to prove that the consumer was being harmed. Even these theoretical worst case scenario‘s only serve to harm companies like Facebook and Netflix not the end-user. I’m not saying that rule shouldn’t be made to prevent a problem, but that’s where Congress steps in and not the FCC. In theory someone could violate every FCC rule on issues of language and nudity during a live broadc
Re:Summary? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first problem is tribalism. It's okay when their side illegally or unconstitutionally does something... just not okay when those not on their side do the same.
The second problem is...
Congress cannot constitutionally grant any agency power to write regulations... they may only regulate with the laws congress wrote.
Agencies at best can only ask/recommend for Congress to make regulations for them to enforce.
Article 1 section 1
"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
Many people have ignorantly and maliciously caused people to think that section 8 sub-section 18 allows congress to let agencies like the FCC to actually create regulation they can then enforce without Congress having to pass them and signed by the President.
It is pretty much the same as if the Police were allowed to create laws to enforce whenever they like. Just imagine how much value there would be in corporations to buy police departments... like they currently like to "buy" agencies like the FCC?
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Informative)
The second problem is... Congress cannot constitutionally grant any agency power to write regulations... they may only regulate with the laws congress wrote.
Agencies at best can only ask/recommend for Congress to make regulations for them to enforce.
Reality disagrees with you. Congress has, through laws legitimately passed by Congress, delegated the authority to make certain rules to executive agencies. You can go ahead and file lawsuits to get courts to agree to dissolve every executive agency, but I wouldn't bet any money on your success.
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Reality disagrees with you. Congress has, through laws legitimately passed by Congress, delegated the authority to make certain rules to executive agencies. You can go ahead and file lawsuits to get courts to agree to dissolve every executive agency, but I wouldn't bet any money on your success.
Sometimes ultimate power, or close to it, allows ethical people to get good things done, but the problem is those like Donald Trump are hardly unique, and when you funnel more and more power into fewer and fewer hands, things turn real bad when someone like Donald gets power. We need less power effectively put at the whims of a few people. Probably we also need to stop allowing the speaker of the house or senate to stop votes on legislation.
Maybe if you represent say 3/7ths of a body of congress then 3/7t
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That does not mean that an agency can act arbitrarily. I'm not an expert on US law, but at least in my country every agency is duty bound to administer their respective areas in a transparent way and to be able to argue coherently for any policy they enact or procedure establish. You can't just go around changing things however you feel like without any factual basis - that's implicit in the mandate.
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That does not mean that an agency can act arbitrarily. I'm not an expert on US law, but at least in my country every agency is duty bound to administer their respective areas in a transparent way and to be able to argue coherently for any policy they enact or procedure establish. You can't just go around changing things however you feel like without any factual basis - that's implicit in the mandate.
You are correct. See my post below regarding the Administrative Procedure Act.
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And youre OK with this? They are elected officials. If they go around passing laws to delegate the rights to legislate, which is outside the scope of the constitution, you fucking fire their ass and replace them with somebody who will not do that shit. Why are so many people so eager to piss away their democracy? If your senator or congressman does something unconstitutional you fucking call them on it. If they continue to do that you fucking replace them. Why is this so hard to understand? Because too ma
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Look at the breakup of ATT. Once the experts decide its bad they go back to congress and congres passes the laws and or directs the agency. The FTC did not break up ATT by themselves. You somehow think doctors can’t be bribed by corporations? It’s amazing how many pharmaceuticals get approved that later get taken off the market because they faked the drug trials you somehow think doctors can’t be bribed by corporations? It’s amazing how many pharmaceuticals get approved that later ge
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Reality disagrees with you. Congress has, through laws legitimately passed by Congress, delegated the authority to make certain rules to executive agencies. You can go ahead and file lawsuits to get courts to agree to dissolve every executive agency, but I wouldn't bet any money on your success.
But you can't have it both ways. Now Trump is able to use that same power to get rid of everything put into place without an actual law.
That's a good reason why we shouldn't have given so much power to the agencies.
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Now Trump is able to use that same power to get rid of everything put into place without an actual law.
That's weird. I wonder why the FCC is suing CA it prevent it from passing a law re-instating NN.
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Makes you wish there wasn't an agency that could just override states wishes, right?
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Makes you wish there wasn't an agency that could just override states wishes, right?
Like all the states that sued to get rid of NN. Oh wait, there weren't any.
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Live in the past pal
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I could not agree more with your statement about tribalism. Though I try to not use –ism. The other word they used to describe this is whataboutism. That’s just the way of vilifying your opponent when he exposes you for being a fucking hypocrite. Just use the original word for it, hypocrisy. There used to be this proverb about people living in glass houses and throwing stones. All I ever see now is a bunch of shattered ass windows. It’s that tribal mentality that removes accountabil
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Here's the court documents
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/business/state-government-net-neutrality-brief/3178/
Lets look at facts first.
1: You have the FCC Chariman, a previous Verizon lobbyist, dancing in a christmas costume last year taunting the public on a youtube video which I believe was paid for with taxpayer money.
2: You have a public comment period inwhich the FCC's website was flooded with bogus comments which the FCC has refused to release under FOIA so the public can inspect the data t
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Why are you idiots playing sides with this issue when Net Neutrality was found to consistently have bipartisan support in many polls, unlike so many other current issues?
We've all lost if we can't actually talk about issues anymore without saying "go away, [PERSON/GROUP I DON'T LIKE HERE], you're fucking crazy and you always will be."
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The correct action is to impeach Ajit just on the Taunt video alone
He is appointed, not elected. You'll have to impeach the guy that appointed him.
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Informative)
I've poked around and I can't find a good summary of the lawsuit. The claimants are saying it was unlawful for the FCC to repeal the network neutrality rules? Under what basis? There weren't rules, then there were, then there weren't. Did congress pass something instructing them to regulate network neutrality? Otherwise it seems pretty clear it's entirely up to the FCC.
The Administrative Procedure Act [wikipedia.org] defines the rules and processes for an executive agency to enact, modify, or repeal regulations. If an agency does not follow the APA, the changes can be struck down by a court. That's why, for example, the EPA's removal of certain regulations was reversed by the courts; the EPA failed to show any fact-based reasoning for the changes. Whether or not the courts will rule same way regarding these changes by the FCC remains to be seen.
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So Congress has, with the acquiescence of the courts, delegated its constitutional lawmaking to the executive branch, and for its judgement instead, and the courts, the third branch, issue judgement on whether the assigned executive branch, apolitical branch, exercised judgement is good enough to satisfy it, said value weighting, assigned by The People to the most closely controlled branch, now two freaking branches removed from what they specified, in writing.
Just wondering if we were in a democracy anymor
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It is my understanding that the EPA rules were based on actual environmental disasters not theoretical what if‘s. Each policy that they created was based on the case study of an actual environmental event. The net neutrality rules were based on a fear that stemmed from a patent filing to charge for faster access. Microsoft filed a patent for the Xbox One that would count how many people are in the room watching a pay-per-view. If the number of people exceeded what was deemed the size of a family, i
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(And a thousand murderous dictators cheer your sentiment.)
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They should have NEVER existed in the first place. This was another classic example of Obummer thinking he was elected King, going around making new rules and side stepping the legislative branch every chance he got. It has set a precedence that should have never been allowed and now every president thereafter is constantly bypassing congress. Just like the Dreamers act. If you want something to be so, then legislate it. Period. Stop shirking your responsibilities and expecting the executive branch to be th
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If you want something to be so, then legislate it.
California is trying, but the the justice dept. is suing them to prevent it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... [nytimes.com]
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Otherwise it seems pretty clear it's entirely up to the FCC.
Agreed. The correct solution is to elect a president that you trust to appoint an FCC head that isn't in telecom's back pocket.
As for today, we got what we voted for. Wait out the term and then do something about it.
On what basis? (Score:2)
What is all this "sue whenever you don't like something" carp?
It's actually not illegal (yet) just to disagree with past democrat presidents.
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But an agency cannot change regulations when those changes are in conflict with the laws that allow them to regulate.
That is the point that is being argued, and when NN was passed, the R AGs sued just as quickly.
This is the messy soup that is democracy. As Churchill said:
It is the worst for of government imaginable, other than everything else we have tried.