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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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:13PM
VPN
That's enterprise, and will always be excluded from manipulation. You have execs (1st class citizens) that require business connections in residential areas. Nothing new about it.
The ISPs can't see jack diddly shit to block anything, without hugely expensive realtime deep packet inspection on heavily encrypted connections with multiple layers involved.
Only drawback is that you pay more for the connection, but freedom these days is only available to the upper classes anyways.
All of my packets leaving my residence exit my office before going on the Internet, and that is a direct tap not monitored or manipulated. All the really interesting activity exits northern Europe, and is sent back to me across two VPNs.
Comcast can burn in hell and they will never succeed in controlling my packets. They are forced to be a common carrier.
-- ediii