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President Trump's Supreme Court nominee argued last year that net neutrality rules violate the First Amendment rights of Internet service providers by preventing them from "exercising editorial control" over Internet content.
Trump's pick is Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The DC Circuit twice upheld the net neutrality rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, despite Kavanaugh's dissent. (In another tech-related case, Kavanaugh ruled that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone metadata is legal.)
While current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai eliminated the net neutrality rules, Kavanaugh could help restrict the FCC's authority to regulate Internet providers as a member of the Supreme Court. Broadband industry lobby groups have continued to seek Supreme Court review of the legality of Wheeler's net neutrality rules even after Pai's repeal.
[...] Consumers generally expect ISPs to deliver Internet content in un-altered form. But Kavanaugh argued that ISPs are like cable TV operators—since cable TV companies can choose not to carry certain channels, Internet providers should be able to choose not to allow access to a certain website, he wrote.
"Internet service providers may not necessarily generate much content of their own, but they may decide what content they will transmit, just as cable operators decide what content they will transmit," Kavanaugh wrote. "Deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN and deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN.com are not meaningfully different for First Amendment purposes."
Kavanaugh's argument did not address the business differences between cable TV and Internet service.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:47AM (3 children)
My bad, didn't answer your last question. There are plenty of ways you could go about it; some absolutely vile, some less so. For starters, there are plenty of anti-trust laws on the books that could easily be used to claim authority or you could use the Commerce Clause for something that actually is interstate commerce for a change. Myself, were I Grand High Dictator, I'd forbid and invalidate exclusive contracts, exclusive laws, and exclusive architecture (all architecture going forward should be designed in such a way that multiple providers could easily operate on the same hardware in the area). I'd also require anyone who'd already engaged in such foot the bill for revamping the architecture where needed if they cared to continue operating there. Their option entirely.
You might think this sounds very anti-libertarian but it's really not. Libertarians are not anarchists. There are plenty of laws we're peachy keen with. If what you're doing is no-debate-about-it intended to harm others for your own gain, pretty much nobody is going to say we shouldn't have a law against it. And that's exactly what exclusive contracts and regulatory capture are both designed to do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Sunday July 15 2018, @03:57PM (2 children)
I don't think you can do that - one of the things the Constitution is pretty clear about is that you can't pass a law with consequences for actions in the pass.
Do you want to be a fucking king? Well I suppose the statement Grand High Dictator indicates you aren't saying this is suitable for something like POTUS. But then also it isn't even suitable for the US at all since no retroactive bill would be legal.
What do we do in the US to unfuck it?
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:01PM
That only applies to criminal laws (see Cader v. Bull [wikipedia.org]). And even in criminal cases, it's not absolute.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 16 2018, @05:53PM
Not remotely. I don't even want to admin the site here. I'm sick to death of having responsibility that isn't absolutely necessary for me to take on. That was a "for the sake of argument" clause.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.