Appeals Court Upholds FCC's Cancelling of Net Neutrality Rules (washingtonpost.com) 58
A federal appeals court on Tuesday affirmed that the Federal Communications Commission acted lawfully when it scrapped the U.S. government's net neutrality rules in 2017, but it opened the door for state and local governments to introduce their own regulations designed to treat all web traffic equally. From a report: In a nearly 200-page opinion, judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals largely sided with the FCC and its Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, who was appointed to his position by President Trump. While the agency must return to the drawing board on some elements of its repeal, the court upheld the legal underpinnings of the FCC's work, finding that net neutrality supporters had made "unconvincing" arguments in their efforts to override the FCC's deregulation of companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. But the ruling still appeared to offer a lifeline to net neutrality supporters: It overruled an effort by the FCC to block states from adopting open-internet protections of their own. The FCC preempted those regulations as part of its prior repeal, but the court determined the telecom agency had overstepped its authority. In unwinding the agency's blockade on such protections, the judges opened the door for states such as California to forge ahead with their plans for regulation. More: Court rules the FCC can't block state net neutrality laws.
Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like the Republicans accidentally did a conservative thing. Now the states suddenly exist again, instead of all their power usurped by the central planning committees in DC. "Noooo, that's not what we wanted!"
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd have to think that this is a worse result for the companies in question than if NN had stood. Now instead of one set of regulations they have to deal with they'll potentially have 50.
While I don't agree with the FCC, I think the court made the correct decision on both counts here. If it's not codified in law, then it is easy for the next administration to reverse it. And if the federal government isn't going to step in protect it's people, then the states should be able to do so if the so choose (and it only impacts things within that state's borders).
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...if the federal government isn't going to step in to protect it is people
FTFY /s
(I have to assume those were a mobile device errors, since the rest of your post is spot on, grammatically.)
As to the substance of your post, I agree emphatically. I think this is a much worse result for the cable oligopoly than if the Court had ruled that the FCC had overstepped by tearing down NN. As such, I can't help but wonder if this was "justice by accident", or a calculated move by the Court to preserve the autonomy of the states.
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Since a lot of providers actually provide CDN services within their datacenters, you could actually argue they are providing information services.
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The terms 'telecommunications service' and 'information service' are defined by the law, not common usage. And the telecommunications act of 1996 says this:
`(41) INFORMATION SERVICE- The term `information service'
means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring,
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I'd have to think that this is a worse result for the companies in question than if NN had stood. Now instead of one set of regulations they have to deal with they'll potentially have 50.
Serves them right. They all probably lobbied for it. No sympathy whatsoever.
And if the federal government isn't going to step in protect it's [sic] people.
You mean like the EPA, the Dept. of Education, the Dept. of Transportation, etc., are doing?
(BTW, I don't believe that we belong to the government. Other way 'round. Not that you'd know it by this administration.)
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Dept. Of Education is unconstitiutional (see Amendment 10.) It's just a lobbying group for teachers' unions. the EPA is quasi-constitutional (stretching interstate commerce to a sliver), same with Transportation.
To claim that _this_ administration has the trappings of Obama's "God Government" complex is a bit of a stretch. If I had a time machine, I'd go back and prevent Wilson from being elected. Maybe, just maybe, we'd have stopped (or at least slowed) the imperial presidency and remained attatched to Fed
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Specious reasoning since an educated populous has a direct impact on neighboring states. The federal government absolutely has the ability to provide for the common good. This is no different that the CDC or FEMA.
The EPA is no stretch over interstate commerce at all. The Ohio River Valley was/is responsible for acid rain in the Adirondacks which was killing the forests. So yes, one state polluting as they like absolutely impacts other states ability to conduct commerce since Vermont for instance derives qu
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I wonder if the consumer will be saddled with more ambiguous regulatory fees now that the companies and FCC have opened this can of worms...
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ISPs have had no problem to this date holding enough sway over state governments to maintain duopolies, ban municipal internet services, etc. I don't imagine they are quaking in their boots over taking the fight away from the FCC and instead to legislative bodies that are already in their pockets.
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Maybe not exactly like this, but like this...
https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]
Seems like this ruling would help provide precedent for states such as CA that wish to maintain their own regulations on emissions despite the federal government not wanting them to do such. As you and the OP wisely stated, this seems to have backfired on them at least in the NN fight.
They'll fix it (Score:3)
As always, Socialism for me and dog eat dog capitalism for thee.
Nope. (Score:2)
They'll fix it with a law to preempt California laws. It'll take another year or two, but it's coming.
That would require Republicans to control both houses of Congress as well as the White House. The window for when they could do this just passed a year ago and the next one is decades away at best.
Third way Dems will side with the GOP on this one (Score:2)
Yes, there are pro consumer Dems like Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren and AOC. But there's also guys like Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris who'll sell you out just as soon as look at you.
did you just say socialism for you? (Score:1, Funny)
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Most failures in life want the government to enforce equality of outcomes. :-) It's a byproduct of not working for a living, near as I can tell.
Well, we are all basing this on the Post report (Score:1)
how do states impose this (Score:2)
If a california ISP is asked to connect to a tennesee ISP and one of them is net neutral and one is not, california laws don't matter.
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I don't think a California ISP will connect to a Tennessee ISP it is a bit impractical. The California ISP may connect to an Arizona ISP. The Arizona ISP to a New Mexico ISP... Arkansas ISP to a Tennessee ISP though. 8^)
The California law would still matter. It would just not apply to any connections outside of the state. Once the connection is in the state (i.e. all state ISPs) the law applies.
States' Rights (Score:2)
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Nice that states can implement their own net neutrality rules, but is this just preparation for the inevitable Republican loss next year allowing red states to opt-out of new net neutrality regulations from a Democratic FCC?
Did any states opt out of the prior FCC-enacted NN rules? Asking sincerely. Because if none did, maybe it's because they couldn't.
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The FCC wasn't correct, and that's the problem with the NN rules as Obama saw them. The internet is not a phone, and it certainly isn't a right. No matter what the UN says. The issue is, packets are _not_ the same, as anyone who works with switches and routers know, and traffic-shaping will and needs to occur in order to have any sense of normalcy within the big tent of the Internet. It's laughable that the pro-NN crowd ignored this technical point in order to prevent "fast lanes". If you pay more, you get
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"The issue is, packets are _not_ the same, as anyone who works with switches and routers know"
Bullshit, at the end of the day it's a fucking stream of 0s and 1s. Why, yes, I used to install the full goddamned physical layer of HIPPA-compliant networks, and design them to boot.
You guarantee my fucking bandwidth, you deliver my requests and responses to me, and you shut the fuck up and stay out of my way. It's that simple. Any ISP that can't play by that ruleset needs to up and die.
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Bullshit, at the end of the day it's a fucking steam of varying electronic voltages, radio waves, pulses of light, etc. Only the ignorant would think that just because some people choose to interpret these things AS '1's or '0's they actually ARE those things, or that there are no other ways of interpreting them. /pedant
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The FCC wasn't correct, and that's the problem with the NN rules as Obama saw them. The internet is not a phone, and it certainly isn't a right. No matter what the UN says
You do realize that there are no "rights" until a group of people say there are?
There really is no natural right to vote, free speech, pursuit of happiness, etc. You only have these rights because someone else stated that you do and as a society we have agreed to abide by that decision.
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If it was inevitable, the dems would just wait for the election next year rather than impeachment attempt 27
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Wow, no Federal pre-emption of state laws? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that's huge!
Until now, the FCC has held sway over state and local regulations for FCC related matters. For example, they preempted land use regulations for broadcast TV antennas. Your HOA cannot even keep you from putting up an antenna to watch TV anymore. But they refused to preempt the same regulations for Ham Radio antennas..
I think this is a huge sea change. Now the FCC doesn't have preemption authority over state rules? That's big.
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Nothing so far reaching. They simply said that they exceeded the authority that they were given by congress in this case.
Time will tell if this ruling can be used to overturn other regulations.
(Congress can also grant them the authority to do this, though that law would almost certainly be subject to a lot of legal challenges too.)
It won't last (Score:3)
Massive Victory (Score:2)
Until now, the FCC has held sway over state and local regulations for FCC related matters
This is a huge victory. Net Neutrality laws at a state level are way more likely to be about open internet, and not protecting ISPs from competition the way the FCC regulations were.
At a state level, more people can pay attention and call out blatant corporatism in the laws.
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Most likely what happened is that when the FCC repealed the net neutrality regulations, their attempt to preempt states was also repealed, because by leaving it unregulated at the federal level they triggered the 10th amendment reservation clause causing the matter to be dropped back down to state's jurisdiction by default.
Be careful what you wish for ISPs (Score:2)
ISPs just earned a boat load of pain. Instead of a single rule to follow, they now will be subject to up to 50 states worth of regulations.
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My guess is, it'll be at most two or three states (California, New York, perhaps Illinois) with heinous rules, and the other states will be like things are now. Like I said earlier, TCP routes around blockages. It's built into its DNA. :) ISPs will just have to weigh the costs of doing business with the states that insist on mucking things up in the name of a blanket, over-politicized term "Net Neutrality".
Well of course! (Score:2)
If they had the power to create them, they have the power to remove them.
The fact that this was considered a problem really shows how cognitively dissonant several folks are.
But hey, just keep shopping for a judge that has an agenda... you should eventually find one willing to write laws that don't exist for you.
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Technically it is not constitutional for any agency to create rules, laws, or regulations of any kind. But its not like we have cared about the Constitution for some time now.
The only folks allowed to create law are those in the legislative branch. The same branch is also allowed to create agencies to enforce laws that the legislative branch passes with the signature of the president.
However, there is no power granted in the Constitution that allows congress the power to give law making power to any agenc
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"That is not true."
yes it is.
"Indeed. And it so follows that the legislative branch is allowed to legislate that certain government agencies have the right to create rules and regulations. This has been true since the beginning of time. "
Nope, lets have the Constitution itself settle it.
"Article. I.
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."
ALL LEGISLATIVE POWERS!
No where does the constitu
Congress (Score:4, Interesting)
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"For anybody who cares about this issue, it is congress' job to set the law."
Except where Congress has delegated that job to someone else, like the Executive Branch. In 1934, Congress abdicated its power to set law regarding all things communications to the FCC. Congress, unless it repeals that Act, does not have the authority to set law with respect to anything covered under the Act.
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We in the West have Net Neutrality (Score:3)
Sucks to be you guys not in BC WA OR CA.
Meantime our Internet is fast and clean.
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Yeah, it's SO terrible out here in the 3rd world without benevolent government oversight and regulation. Wow, I don't know HOW I wake up in the morning with all this non-regulated living I'm doing here. I will have to manage, but I think I'll live.
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False. It's exactly the same.
Personally, my Internet is slow and expensive because the local provider has an effective monopoly. Net Neutrality is a non-factor.
As soon as 5G or LEO satellite broadband competition arrives, it will be better. Again, Net Neutrality does not matter at all.
Just move servers? (Score:2)