Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The Federal Communications Commission's long-standing effort to establish stronger oversight of the internet was dealt a decisive blow this week when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to regulate wireless and home broadband services under the same set of rules that have traditionally governed telephone service.
The court's decision hinged on the recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Chevron deference, a precedent that had previously granted federal agencies significant leeway in interpreting ambiguous statutory language. This ruling significantly curtailed the FCC's ability to implement and enforce net neutrality regulations.
Net neutrality, a principle that advocates for equal treatment of all internet traffic, has been a contentious issue in American politics for over a decade. The concept aims to prevent internet service providers from favoring certain websites or services over others – a practice that could potentially stifle competition and innovation.
The Obama administration introduced robust net neutrality rules in 2015, which were subsequently repealed in 2017 under the Trump administration. In 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling for the reinstatement of these regulations. The FCC, under the leadership of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, voted to restore net neutrality rules in 2024.
The Sixth Circuit Court's decision effectively nullifies the FCC's Safeguarding Order, which would have reinstated net neutrality regulations. The court declared that broadband internet service providers offer only an "information service" as defined under current US law, and therefore, the FCC lacks the statutory authority to impose net neutrality policies through the "telecommunications service" provision of the Communications Act.
Furthermore, the court ruled that the FCC cannot classify mobile broadband as a "commercial mobile service," which would have allowed the agency to impose net neutrality regulations on those services. The Sixth Circuit explicitly cited the absence of Chevron deference in its ruling, stating that they no longer afford deference to the FCC's interpretation of the statute.
In response to the court's decision, Rosenworcel called on Congress to enshrine net neutrality principles in federal law – an acknowledgment that the FCC's regulatory efforts have reached an impasse.
On the other hand, Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who is set to become the agency's chair later this month, praised the court's ruling. Carr criticized the Biden administration's approach, stating that their plan relied on "persuading Americans that the internet would break in the absence of these so-called 'net neutrality' regulations."
As for the future of net neutrality, the ball is now in Congress's court. However, given the current political landscape and the other pressing issues facing the government, it remains uncertain whether Congress will take up this challenge. With Carr poised to take the helm, it also seems unlikely that the agency will pursue further regulatory action on net neutrality.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday January 08, @03:31AM (20 children)
That feeling of déjà vu, even if Ajit Pai is no longer in today's picture.
Is that real or I only see things that aren't? Like, the 'muricans seems to have a short memory when it comes to the intersection between their actual interests and the politics; and here's the start of the current 4-years painful refresh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aafcac on Wednesday January 08, @03:42AM (18 children)
This sort of thing was inevitable when both parties are captured by corporate interests and oligarchs. People act like the Democrats actually care about things like SCOTUS being bought and paid for, but they don't. They like having the court save them from having to actually help people out.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 08, @11:51AM (1 child)
No, what they like is the system of organized bribery and corruption that has been the hallmark of American politics for decades at least and is very profitable for all participants, regardless of whether they're in the majority or minority party. If you watch what politicians do instead of what they say, it becomes very obvious that most politicians in Washington are in the game to get rich and happy to do whatever they're paid to do. The few that aren't (e.g. Bernie Sanders) are treated as oddities that are carefully blocked from having anything resembling actual power.
Nancy Pelosi is a good example of this system in action: She worked tirelessly in Washington to remain party leader of the Democrats in the House, while not caring all that much whether she was Speaker or minority leader. Why? Because in that position, she got access to classified information that nobody else in Congress got, which she and her husband used to engage in stock trading that gave them tens of millions a year. And she's been a consistent opponent of any effort to make that illegal, which speaks volumes.
And yes, Donald Trump is very obviously playing the same game, very explicitly ignoring the Constitutional clause about the president not running private businesses while in office, and his private businesses just happening to get big piles of money from companies and governments with business they want to discuss with him.
There's basically an unspoken agreement that this kind of thing is effectively no longer a crime in Washington because it is never prosecuted, and the Republicans will typically overlook the Democrats' corruption in exchange for the Democrats overlooking the Republicans' corruption. Also effectively not a crime in Washington for the same reason is male politicians sticking their dicks where they aren't supposed to (kids, employees who believe they can't say no, random people who didn't agree to it, etc).
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Thursday January 09, @06:42PM
No, what they like is the system of organized bribery and corruption...
Not bribery, extortion. "Nice campaign ya got there, Sinator, it'd be a shame if the corporation gave your opponent two million in campaign cash instead of a million for each of you."
The Supreme Court killed democracy in America with the Citizens United ruling. We are now a plutocracy that Elon rules. It should be a felony with mandatory prison time to "contribute" to more than one candidate in any single race.
(the misspelling was deliberate)
A man legally forbidden from possessing a firearm is in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. Have a nice day.
(Score: 5, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday January 08, @02:11PM (14 children)
The primary reason for this decision is SCOTUS' unimaginably fucked up decision about the Chevron Doctrine. Are you seriously trying to put that on the Democrats? Talk about taking bothsidesism to a new level.
(Score: 3, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday January 08, @02:45PM (10 children)
This one just totally blow my mind the more I think about it. People here really do, and should care about net neutrality. Now it could be a thing of the past because the ideological right members of the SCOTUS decided that government has no authority to protect us from corporate anything.
I mean seriously. How does anyone not get where the blame lies there??
(Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Wednesday January 08, @03:54PM (7 children)
People here don't care because they've been conditioned for years that the government doing anything at all is bad. The ironic part is the conditioning comes from one particular party IN the government.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday January 08, @04:05PM (5 children)
Right. I won't deny that corporate lobbies etc very much DO affect both sides. However the fact remains that this one...and almost surely MANY more bad ones to come...clearly came from SCOTUS justices that no Democrat would ever appoint.
That Chevron Doctrine ruling is one of the most dangerous things the court's ever done. This is FAR from the last thing that bullshit will affect. We could have a future where the protections against food, cars, or whatever that might kill you and/or someone in your family all become a very scary "buyer beware" scenario...all in the name of this "no regulation is good regulation" ideology. Not a pretty picture.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aafcac on Wednesday January 08, @04:18PM (3 children)
Failing to fill seats knowing that isn't really better and they could expand and pack the court. The reality is that the Democratic party is just as bought as the GOP. They're just better at pretending.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday January 08, @04:34PM (2 children)
So Trump and the right load(/break) the court with ideological fucking lunatics, but it's the Democrat's fault because they haven't expanded the court? You really have this both sides nonsense honed to a fine art.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Wednesday January 08, @05:26PM (1 child)
Yes, they failed to fill the seat that was open or put any fight up. They failed to elbow RBG out so they could fill that seat with somebody that could reasonably be expected to survive however many terms Trump got. They then failed to expand and pack the court after it became really clear what a disaster they had on their hands.
Just because you don't understand how this works, doesn't make it any less the fault of the Democrats for failing to see this coming and failing to do anything to stop it. The GOP is going to do horrible things, and they get away with it because people like you keep making excuses for them. We don't let property owners off the hook for failing to make repairs if they result in damages or injuries to others, even if the repairs are the result of a 3rd party screwing things up. Why should this be any different?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 08, @08:04PM
>or put any effective fight up
The real failing of the Democratic party is to effect real progress on any of their lofty well described self-consistent and truthy agendae. They serve the same masters as the opposing party, but in a different way.
I believe this is the third time I'm posting this link to SN and I will try to refrain from spamming it excessively in the future, it's an Anarchist paper from 50+ years ago:
https://archive.org/details/illich-conviviality/page/8/mode/2up [archive.org]
As opposed to Communism / Marxism that focuses on revolutionary restructuring of "the state," this flavor of Anarchy is proposing "inverting the social structure" to put power into the hands of the people, and basically neglecting the state as a topic of little importance. I don't agree with the radical "burn it all down and get through the painful transition to a better world" aspects, but some gradual inversion towards the endpoints described therein seems to me like the direction we, the people, should be driving our elected representatives toward. Points like: dismantle the school system - not to diminish learning or general knowledge, but to erase its elitist structure of demanding arbitrary years of service in the school system as a pre-requisite for admission to most roles in society. What is important for serving those roles is relevant knowledge, experience, and abilities. Schools and institutions of higher learning have a relatively poor correlation between degrees awarded and actual ability of graduates to perform well in various roles - they need to lose their gatekeeper status and start actually teaching, and openly admitting their role as babysitters for the workers in the process. Already in 1973 they were proposing a dismantling of the Western medical hierarchy, IMO not to destroy people's access to medical care and knowledge, but rather to open it up and again remove the elitist gatekeepers who demand arbitrarily high payment for access to their services.
Of course, 50 years later we see the complete lack of popular uptake of Anarchist ideals, but when you wrap them in Neo-fascist clothing things like "destroy the school system" and "dismantle the apparatuses of the state" seem popular enough to win elections.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 08, @07:26PM
>"no regulation is good regulation" ideology
That worked great in the 1700s, where everybody knew everybody in the hamlet and if somebody was acting badly word got around before too much damage was done, without formal regulation.
Today, a toy maker on one side of the world can _still_ decide to buy paint from a friend and effectively put lead in the mouths of millions of children on the other side of the world before anyone knows it's happening, because the regulations don't require effective testing along the supply chain, the corporations involved still don't self-regulate adequately, and the end consumers have no realistic way to know of let alone test all possible hazards for themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Shuhong [wikipedia.org]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Thursday January 09, @07:00PM
...they've been conditioned for years that the government doing anything at all is bad.
It started with Ronald Reagan and his "the most terrifying nine words ever spoken are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'."
What kind of government do you get when you vote in people who hate government, or like the president-elect, hate the constitutional rule of law he calls the "deep state"?
For those of you dim enough to believe anything the world's greatest fraudster, President Pinocchio says, I worked in Illinois state government for almost three decades. Bureaucrats, like you at your job, do what they're told. The change from the reasonably "honest" Thompson and Edgar to the slimy George Ryan (same Republican party) was huge. Less than the change to the equally crooked and less competent Democrat Blago. In Illinois, both parties had governors in prison at the same time.
The work you do changes with the leadership, in the public sector as much as the private. The bureaucrat is as powerless at his job as the Supervisor at Ford.
A man legally forbidden from possessing a firearm is in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. Have a nice day.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 09, @07:04PM (1 child)
...the ideological right members of the SCOTUS decided that government has no authority to protect us from corporate anything.
When business is in charge of government, it's called Fascism. When government is in charge of business it's called communism.
I see little difference. Both require dictatorship. Either way, the same people run things.
A man legally forbidden from possessing a firearm is in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. Have a nice day.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 12, @07:51AM
No. There were fascist governments before in history. None of them had corporations in charge. Everything was rigidly controlled by the government. To see further how this is in error, consider that there's a variety of business-run governments out there which have little to no overlap with fascist governments: for example, corporate republic, plutarchy, and oligarchy (run by business/guilds). Fascism strictly holds the state as supreme. Private business exists, but it's owned by subservient allies of the government rather than running the government.
; Fascist governments too are in charge of business. The difference is that they'll allow allies to manage most businesses rather than run everything directly themselves. If they feel like it, they aren't shy about taking over businesses (for example, Nazi Germany's seizure of Jewish businesses in the late 1930s).
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday January 08, @04:14PM (1 child)
Yes, Obama should have been able to name 2 justices, but was too busy playing paddycake with the GOP to elbow RBG out or force the Senate to do their job in terms of voting on his nominee. Rather than 6-3, that would make the court 4-5.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday January 09, @07:07PM
Don't blame Obama for McConnell's evil. McConnell was responsible for the three Fascist justices.
Put me in prison, because I am in contempt of the supreme court.
A man legally forbidden from possessing a firearm is in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. Have a nice day.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 12, @07:33AM
So who is affected?
This region wasn't enabled by legislative law. It was an arbitrary decision made by the Department of Justice in 1955 and never questioned by the Supreme Court.
My point behind this is that there is a terrible misunderstanding in this thread of the law. The Chevron Doctrine has enabled many decades of abuse by federal agencies such as federal law enforcement and the EPA. Its overturning is long overdue. As to the FCC issue, if mandating net neutrality is a good idea, then pass a law. It's that simple a workaround to the current Supreme Court ruling.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 08, @07:18PM
It's our system of cashier's checks and bank balances.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday January 08, @06:41PM
Don't worry. Trump will make Mexico pay for renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
The age of men is over. The time of the Orc has come.