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FCC Tells Court it has no "Legal Authority" to Impose Net Neutrality Rules:
FCC defends repeal in court, claims broadband isn't "telecommunications."
The Federal Communications Commission opened its defense of its net neutrality repeal yesterday, telling a court that it has no authority to keep the net neutrality rules in place.
Chairman Ajit Pai's FCC argued that broadband is not a "telecommunications service" as defined in federal law, and therefore it must be classified as an information service instead. As an information service, broadband cannot be subject to common carrier regulations such as net neutrality rules, Pai's FCC said. The FCC is only allowed to impose common carrier regulations on telecommunications services.
"Given these classification decisions, the Commission determined that the Communications Act does not endow it with legal authority to retain the former conduct rules," the FCC said in a summary of its defense [pdf] filed yesterday in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The FCC is defending the net neutrality repeal against a lawsuit filed by more than 20 state attorneys general, consumer advocacy groups, and tech companies. The FCC's opponents in the case will file reply briefs next month, and oral arguments are scheduled for February.
Then why not let the states implement it?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:42PM (1 child)
Non-American here, but it seems odd that a federal branch can interpret the law in such a significant fashion... isn't that the sole domain of the judicial branch?
I understand at a micro level you do that, i.e. police officers have to interpret it in the field, but this is a different situation and there's no exigent circumstances here. The FCC could have easily discuss with the judicial branch first before it made such a drastic interpretation.
Now the deliberation seems to be more about whether the repercussions, i.e. States et el, makes sense rather than the fundamental issue of the FCC doing stuff like that, i.e. focus on the cause rather than the symptoms.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday October 15 2018, @06:09AM
Actually, that's exactly what the FCC is *supposed* to do.
A little history: It used to be that Congress would pass a bill with specific requirements and, assuming the bill was then signed by the president (or have his veto overrriden). Now that's the law of the land and the Executive branch is bound to implement it.
Decades ago, however, congress started passing bills with language similar to "...hereby create [executive branch agency] which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act." That gives legislators the ability to crow about how much they've accomplished, while being able to claim that anything their constituents don't like is the fault of those triple-damned regulators. Which makes a great deal of sense if you want to protect your incumbency and the power and privilege that go with it.
To be fair, there are some sets of issues which are both very complex and dynamic. In those cases, it doesn't make sense to require that a law include every single contingency, making regulatory agencies necessary
The Communications Act of 1934 [wikipedia.org] (as amended numerous times since), gives the FCC authority to define what is a "telecommunications service" and what is not. Specific requirements of the law places different providers under their purview into different categories, each with different regulatory regimes [wikipedia.org].
The courts have been involved in this particular debate, most recently in Verizon v. FCC (2014) [wikipedia.org] where the US Supreme Court ruled that the FCC could not impose net neutrality rules because "broadband providers" were classified as "Information providers" rather than "common carriers." (cf. Title I vs. Title II of the Communications Act of 1934)
As such, the FCC reclassified broadband providers as "common carriers" (which had been the case until 2002). This allowed them to implement net neutrality regulation. Ajit Pai's FCC has since changed the classification *again*. Doing so allows them to say they don't have the authority to implement net neutrality because broadband providers aren't "common carriers."
It's a shell game, where the corporate boot lickers at the FCC take away their own authority and then claim they have no choices.
As for the California law, those same boot lickers, trying hard to please their corporate masters, are now attempting to keep this under Federal purview. This is primarily because their corporate masters, having already bought one set of legislators and regulators, don't want to have to buy 50 more sets.
The above isn't comprehensive or a deep dive into this. If you want that you can take my course on the subject (sadly, that doesn't exist) or do your own research on the topic.
In a nutshell, the FCC implemented needed (to prevent censorship, added barriers to entry into various industries and a host of other issues) rules to give a modicum of consumer protection to ISP customers. There are a variety of other issues which can't be addressed this way (abusive TOS/T&Cs, port blocking, server restrictions, etc., etc., etc.) as well.
Those rules restricted ISPs from charging third parties for carriage of data that their customers pay them to carry. the technical term is "double dipping." It's a bit more complicated, but that's the short version.
The corporate boot lickers at the FCC got a majority and proceeded to do their masters' bidding and dismantle these needed rules.
As such, all three branches of the Federal government have been involved and have weighed in on the issues.
That said, despite the Supremacy Clause [wikipedia.org], state and local governments can, and do, implement their own laws all the time. When there is disagreement, as there is in this case, the courts get involved. And that's where we are now.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr