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The Internet United States Businesses Communications Government Network The Courts

Lawmakers Are Fighting For Net Neutrality (theverge.com) 215

Posted by BeauHD from the never-gonna-give-you-up dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Lawmakers and public officials are responding to the FCC's decision to gut net neutrality with promises of action. In the hours following the FCC hearing, officials from around the country announced lawsuits and bills intended to counter the FCC's decision. In New York, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said that he's leading a multi-state lawsuit to challenge the FCC's vote, though he didn't give further details on the suit or who would be joining him. Calling today's decision an "illegal rollback," he described it as giving "Big Telecom an early Christmas present."

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson also announced he would sue alongside Schneiderman and other attorneys general across the country, saying that he held "a strong legal argument" and that it was likely the government had failed to follow the law with this vote. Other officials from Santa Clara, California, including county supervisor Joe Simitian, are also suing the FCC to block the decision. "We believe the depth of your ideas should outweigh the depths of your pockets," Simitian said at a press conference.

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-CA) announced plans to introduce a bill to adopt net neutrality as a requirement in his state. He wrote in a Medium post, "If the FCC won't stand up for a free and open internet, California will."

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) tweeted that he will be submitting net neutrality legislation, saying that this was a decision better left to Congress. Coffman was the first Republican to ask the FCC to delay the vote, citing "unanticipated negative consequences" on Tuesday. Furthermore, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) are supporting Sen. Ed Markey's (D-MA) plan to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the FCC vote. Even Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who had previously announced on Twitter her support for Ajit Pai and the FCC, tweeted a video, saying, "We will codify the need for no blocking, no throttling, and making certain that we preserve that free and open internet." We're likely to see many others express their disappointment with the FCC's decision over the next few hours and days.
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Lawmakers Are Fighting For Net Neutrality More

Lawmakers Are Fighting For Net Neutrality

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  • We need to start an Internet 2.0 (Score:3)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @06:55PM (#55742783) Homepage Journal

    And sign an a worldwide agreement to never allow AT&T, Verizon, et al to connect to it.

  • So the democrats are going to run the midterms on restoring Net Neutrality... Good luck! (You are going to need it.)

    Let the demagogues on the issue continue!

    Um.. Word of advice, if you care to listen. You need something else other than "Trump Bad, we oppose" and this.

    • Re:It's a Mid Term Campaign issue! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Patent Lover ( 779809 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @07:41PM (#55743001)
      Wrong. Trump won because "Hillary bad, Trump good". I'm pretty sure that the internet is WAY more popular than Trump.

      • The bottom line is the democrats chose what might have been the only person that could possibly lose to Trump... I think Kim Jong-un might have been more palatable to a lot of voters than Hillary.

        • The corporations that paid to have network neutrality removed have 2 full years to show everyone how badly they were sold out.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I think you meant "Trump bad, Hillary worse"

        • I think you meant "Trump bad, Hillary worse"

          I can live with that... My choice during the primaries was NOT Trump, but once he won it was a pick the lessor of two evils for me.

    • Um.. Word of advice, if you care to listen. You need something else other than "Trump Bad, we oppose" and this.

      If writing it only made it true. The sad truth is that democrats will definitely do well just going for the anti-Trump angle. Look at the man's approval ratings. In the dumpster. Opposing the Harasser-In-Chief is plenty to get votes.

      The really sad truth is, we could end up with some pretty shady democrats that don't need to run on issues, they can just say 'I hate Trump' and that's it. Done.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Memnos ( 937795 )

        Or, we could just forget about any stupid party affiliations and vote for someone who is not notably evil, has a fairly adult viewpoint, and just possibly has the chops to become statesman-like. Such people do exist, and if we reward such behavior, even someone a fair bit short of that mark would come off as fucking Abraham Lincoln right now.

    • "So the democrats are going to run the midterms on restoring Net Neutrality... Good luck!"

      You think this because you believe that everything a politician does is about personal gain, and you think that because you are a Trotard.

    • Word of advice, if you care to listen. You need something else other than "Trump Bad, we oppose" and this.

      1994 and the Contract with America Republicans beg to differ. They basically ran on a platform of "Bill Clinton sucks, vote for us" and it mostly worked. They formed a large enough voting bloc in the House to control not only the legislation that their own party could pass, but the entire House. It made a lot of career politicians really nervous until they figured out how to marginalize and control them

      • Have at it if you think it's going to work... I'm not saying it won't be effective, I'm saying it won't be effective enough for either the House or Senate.

        Looking at the house elections, democrats gain some seats, but not enough to gain control. I'll give them 15-20 pickups, far short of the 32 they need. Ryan remains the speaker and the republicans still control the house come 2019.

        The Senate is a horse of a totally different color. At first blush, democrats lose seats overall. They have 10 seats at ris

    • my take on what the D's should do to regain control:

      - ignore the extreme right. they are brain-dead and incapable of unlearning all the crap their church leaders told them, all their lives. these people are not reachable and its not worth the time (sorry)

      - activate YOUR OWN BASE. I'm willing to bet that if as many D's were angry enough to get out and vote (in states that matter; many, sadly, do not) that they'd regain the majority

      so, its not about converting the 'right', its about having enough of the 'l

      • In Alabama the issue was the primary that put Moore on the ticket with less than a majority. We had the same issue in the last presidential primary that got us Trump, who I supported over HRC in the general, but wasn't anybody's choice in the party.

        What happened in both cases was that the "right" diluted their votes by splitting them among multiple candidates which matched their views much better than the eventual winner. In both cases, the process selected the middle of the road candidate, flaws and all

  • ***Some faith in our system of government restored*** We're not totally left swinging in the breeze on this one, there's some people with some fight in them that aren't willing to just sit back and let the Internet burn.

  • Why is this so misunderstood? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14, 2017 @07:10PM (#55742847)

    This isn't about net neutrality mostly.

    This is largely about Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

    The FCC in 2015 said broadband providers are common carriers under Title 2. This made 400 pages of onerous regulations applicable to all broadband providers, some of the regulations are ridiculous and very subjective. See this link: https://www.redstate.com/diary/freedomworks/2014/09/16/title-ii-regulation-internet-actually-means/

    So Title II fosters pointless litigation and excessive regulation.

    So, Title II was required for the FCC to implement net neutrality -- otherwise the FCC wouldn't have been able to mandate net neutrality because they can only do that to common carriers under Title II.

    With the FCC undoing the Title II requirement, broadband providers will now instead be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission instead of the FCC.

    So the Federal Trade Commission will be overseeing the business practices of the telecoms, just like before. Like when the FTC got on Comcast's case for throttling bit torrent back in 2009.

    Much ado about the wrong thing. This has little to do with Net Neutrality and a lot to do with Title II having hundreds of pages of regulations that didn't previously apply to broadband.

    • So, Title II was required for the FCC to implement net neutrality -- otherwise the FCC wouldn't have been able to mandate net neutrality because they can only do that to common carriers under Title II.

      This has little to do with Net Neutrality and a lot to do with Title II having hundreds of pages of regulations that didn't previously apply to broadband.

      Maybe you're right and maybe now we'll get a real bill that directly addresses net neutrality. I'm not going to hold my breath but it would be awesome if we got a clear cut law and/or constitutional amendment that clearly spelled out net neutrality and outlawed stuff like fast lanes, zero rating, bundling, port blocking, download/upload ratios, and all the other stuff that tries to screw with the open internet. It would be ironic if by caving to the ISPs and dropping net neutrality from the FCC we got a l

    • Pretty much this. The FCC tried Net Neutrality-lite regulations and it was shut down by the Supreme Court in 2005. These rules were the latest attempt to use the Communications Act to regulate ISPs but the problem is because the law is so outdated it cannot properly address the fact that an ISP is an telecommunications service provider (able to be regulated as Title 2) and an information service provider (not able to be regulated under Title 2).

      If NN is the answer through Title 2 then Congress is precisely

    • Re:Why is this so misunderstood? (Score:4, Informative)

      by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @07:42PM (#55743005) Homepage

      This is largely about Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

      The FCC in 2015 said broadband providers are common carriers under Title 2. This made 400 pages of onerous regulations applicable to all broadband providers, some of the regulations are ridiculous and very subjective.

      Sigh. This again? How many times do we have to tell you? The FCC rules regarding Net Neutrality did indeed classify ISP's as Title II common carriers. Along with a whole slew of exemptions to that law, as to not apply silly telcom rules to ISPs. Everything was fine as it was.

      Quit with the stupid already.

      • Re:Why is this so misunderstood? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by penandpaper ( 2463226 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @07:48PM (#55743045) Journal

        Everything was fine as it was.

        No it was not fine as it was because the Supreme Court in 2005 said that ISPs couldn't be classified to be regulated under Title 2. These rules were the latest attempt to bypass that court ruling and get back to the precedent established by the Ninth Circuit that could classify the ISPs as Title 2. IOW, an attempt to ignore the Supreme Court.

        Congress is the only one that can fix the law to fix the problem.

        • Congress is the only one that can fix the law to fix the problem.

          This we agree on. Congress needs to pass new NN law, but this congress? Dunno about that. Let's hope the ISPs don't fuck everything up in the meantime, cuz they got a free hand to do whatever they want now. All they gotta do is tell us they're doing it.

          • Well, I think on the general principles both sides agree. From there I want to be an optimist on enshrining those principles to law.

        • Re:Why is this so misunderstood? (Score:4, Informative)

          by truedfx ( 802492 ) on Friday December 15, 2017 @01:42AM (#55744019)

          because the Supreme Court in 2005 said that ISPs couldn't be classified to be regulated under Title 2

          Is this about NATIONAL CABLE & TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION et al. v. BRAND X INTERNET SERVICES et al.? What it looks to me like the Supreme Court actually said in 2005 was that the FCC was allowed to determine whether ISPs should be classified as such. At the time, the FCC didn't, but the Supreme Court decision didn't set the FCC's choice in stone.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DerekLyons ( 302214 )

      The FCC in 2015 said broadband providers are common carriers under Title 2. This made 400 pages of onerous regulations applicable to all broadband providers, some of the regulations are ridiculous and very subjective. See this link: https://www.redstate.com/diary... [redstate.com]

      Yep, as expected of Slashdot of late - the ill educated right wing moron crowd weighs in with "pity the poor corporations and all those pesky regulations".

    • Yeah I'm sure redstate.com is a bastion of impartiality.
  • This entire issue of net neutrality being repealed will end up being much ado about nothing. The mounting legal challenges will make this another failure of the Trump administration. Since net neutrality is now a bi-partisan issue, it will become codified into law and Ajit will shrink back to obscurity.

    • Those mounting legal issues won't accomplish much except for hot air and waste of time. Because the Supreme Court in 2005 has already ruled that ISPs cannot be regulated by Title 2 under the current law because the law is fundamentally flawed and outdated because it cannot properly classify modern ISPs.

        Congress is the only one that can do anything and rightly so.

      • Those mounting legal issues won't accomplish much except for hot air and waste of time. Because the Supreme Court in 2005 has already ruled that ISPs cannot be regulated by Title 2 under the current law because the law is fundamentally flawed and outdated because it cannot properly classify modern ISPs.

        That's actually the opposite of the actual Supreme Court decision in 2005 [wikipedia.org]. The Supreme Court wrote that the agency is the arbiter of what is and is not Title II and barring a compelling argument that the rules were unambiguous and not being followed (which the court ruled they were ambiguous), the courts should not force any regulatory agency to re-assign their classifications.

        Nice work. Everything you've written on this topic is completely wrong because you don't even understand the basics of your own po

  • orly? (Score:3)

    by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Thursday December 14, 2017 @07:35PM (#55742967) Homepage

    State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-CA) announced plans to introduce a bill to adopt net neutrality as a requirement in his state. He wrote in a Medium post, "If the FCC won't stand up for a free and open internet, California will."

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't part of the new FCC rules to say that states can no longer implement their own NN rules? FCC covered their ass to ensure this atrocity can't be overturned by states?

    • You're not wrong about what the new rules are. It's not clear that this particular rule is legal and that it will survive the courts. Generally speaking, regulatory agencies don't have the authority to dictate what levels of additional regulation states are allowed to enact. Even congress may not have that level of authority.

  • If we as a people decide that it is a good thing to regulate these businesses, then it should be so. If these companies do not want to be in this business, they can all go somewhere else... or so by their logic, they would tell the people.

    The comment period was a joke, and the comments that were made were not taken seriously. The entire point of a government is for the people to come to some consensus, and when a leader of an agency blatantly doesn't care, the agency needs to have its feet held to the fi

  • Furthermore, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) are supporting Sen. Ed Markey's (D-MA) plan to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the FCC vote.

    Why don't they introduce a bill allowing the FCC to regulate broadband throttling? The FCC board's (and Patel's) issue with the previous legislation was it was introduced under common carrier requirements.

  • State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-CA) announced plans to introduce a bill to adopt net neutrality as a requirement in his state. He wrote in a Medium post, "If the FCC won't stand up for a free and open internet, California will."

    As I already commented, this can't happen cuz interstate commerce and FCC rules and all that. So to achieve this, there will need to be a separate internet in California.

    Now look I'm not saying the sky is falling, but this is the crack in the egg. Maybe nothing comes of it, or maybe internet starts to fragment.

    This is what the repeal bought us. This could happen. Maybe not right away, but as networks become increasing competitive with each other, it's going to start to make sense to shut out your compet

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • how all lawmakers are exactly the same on every issue.

    Go on, say it.

    I dare you.

  • Good thing corporations are legally people these days.

  • This is nothing more that lip service trying to appease public rage, knowing full well citizens have less attention span than a 2 year old. They know Humpty-Trumpty will perform some even more egregious act, diverting attention and none of them will have to give back the $101 Million our "representatives" pocketed from the communications cabal.
    https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]
    Bottom line is the leaches and oligarchy want NN dead, it will stay dead because we the people no longer matter.

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