Supreme Court Rejects Industry Challenge of 2015 Net Neutrality Rules (arstechnica.com) 56
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused a request by the Trump administration and the telecommunications industry to wipe away a lower court decision that had upheld Obama-era net neutrality rules aimed at ensuring a free and open internet. The justices' action, however, does not undo the 2017 repeal of the policy. A report adds: The Federal Communications Commission's 2015 order to impose net neutrality rules and strictly regulate broadband was already reversed by Trump's pick for FCC chairman, Ajit Pai. But AT&T and broadband industry lobby groups were still trying to overturn court decisions that upheld the FCC order. A win for the broadband industry could have prevented future administrations from imposing a similarly strict set of rules. The Trump administration supported the industry's case, asking the US Supreme Court to vacate the Obama-era ruling.
But the Supreme Court today said it has denied petitions filed by AT&T and broadband lobby groups NCTA, CTIA, USTelecom, and the American Cable Association. Four of nine justices must agree to hear a case, but only three voted to grant the petitions. Further reading: Reuters and Variety.
But the Supreme Court today said it has denied petitions filed by AT&T and broadband lobby groups NCTA, CTIA, USTelecom, and the American Cable Association. Four of nine justices must agree to hear a case, but only three voted to grant the petitions. Further reading: Reuters and Variety.
Gimme a summary without the double-negatives (Score:3, Insightful)
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No. But nor is it beyond the reach of the FCC to add it (again), which was the point of this ruling.
Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives (Score:5, Informative)
No. But nor is it beyond the reach of the FCC to add it (again), which was the point of this ruling.
There was no "ruling". The SCOTUS simply declined to hear the case. This lets the lower court decision stand, but sets no precedent. The lower court decision only has precedent in the DC circuit.
The SCOTUS can only hear a limited number of cases each year, and they likely declined to hear this case since it is pointless because the regulation in question has already been repealed.
Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives (Score:5, Informative)
Justice Roberts and Kavenaugh recused themselves. That's the only reason that there were not enough votes (4 required) to hear the appeal from the DC Circuit. No guarantee they will recuse themselves again in the future.
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who is going to bring a suit? the DC Circuit already ruled and they are the circuit court with authority to hear cases about administrative agencies of the US government.
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basically it would have to be challenged in every district and then the precedent would be referenced for consideration. Its not binding since its a different district but decisions do carry some weight.
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Uhh.....the DC Circuit has authority over all US government administrative agencies so this does set precedence for how the FCC can govern it's domain into the future.
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No. The 2017 repeal stands but the lawsuit that tried to force the government from implementing NN failed.
The FCC can do NN if it wants and is not bared by the courts is what this decision means. This has no effect on the 2017 FCC decision to repeal it.
Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives (Score:5, Informative)
The courts said the government had the power to enact Net Neutrality through the FCC (without an actual law). Now that never got argued up through to the supreme court yet and the attempt here was to get the SC to decide one way or the other but the SC declined because the issue no longer applies as the FCC reversed direction (which is typical for the FCC).
It's a nothing burger.
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Sometimes you get companies that are too powerful to die quickly even with gross incompetence.
Occasionally the government steps in to save them and the incompetent people who ran it get away without consequence. I believe the term is "too big to fail".
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You start out making sense... but then there's this:
NN would not exist if not for the communication corporations who basically authored the NN regulations and got their paid for politicians in Washington to put them inaction.
You make it sound like it's BECAUSE of (now cancelled) Net Neutrality that corporations are enriched, and able to overcharge their customers. Yet, after repealing NN we have seen REDUCED investment in broadband deployment, OPAQUE and INCREASING customer pricing, exactly the opposite of what promises repealing NN would accomplish according to FCC Chairman Pai (most certainly the most bought-and-paid-for politician in the FCC by even his own "joking" admissi
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Neutrality is not the law of the land, but that wasn't good enough for ATT and various lobbyists groups ---
they wanted to appeal to the Supreme Court seeking a ruling that it is not within the FCC's power to impose network neutrality, or, essentially that it is beyond the FCC's power to regulate their industry in the first place.
However, the Supreme Court's time is precious, therefore, they are one of the only courts in the US that gets to decide whether they will
hear a case in the first place....
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Is net neutrality the law of the land or not?
Not...
It was never a law anyway, it was a regulation.
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NN is not about the Internet being neutral towards nazis, thankfully. Think of this as having two levels: on the first level you have ISPs that control the basic infrastructure for the Internet, then on the second level you have service companies like Facebook, Google, PayPal, etc. that provide the "socioeconomic infrastructure", so to speak. NN is about the first level not being able to throttle or restrict access to the second, but the second level can (and should) still deny infrastructure to white supre
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NN is not about the Internet being neutral towards nazis, thankfully.
In a sense it is, it stops your ISP from routing nazis or anyone else the ISP doesn't like, to /dev/nul.
You're right that it doesn't stop private sites from discriminating, but there are lots of sites and few ISP's. I personally have one practical choice to get on the internet and that choice should just transmit packets.
The way it should be, I suppose (Score:3, Interesting)
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Is that a problem in a democracy? Normal laws people go to jail for should be done in ways that "get the politics out of it?"
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Only forbids traffic shaping on similar content.
Net neutrality does not make QoS illegal, just puts QoS's definition in the hands of lawyers...What could go wrong?
Chevron Deference (Score:1)
I'm not 100% sure it applies here, but there's a legal concept called Chevron deference. Basically it means the court system stays out of regulatory actions. If you have a problem with a regulation by the executive branch of the government, you take it up with the executive branch. Unless the regulation infringes on constitutional rights or is beyond the scope of regulation as set out by laws passed by congress, you can't go to court over it.
The right way to fix it is for congress to pass a law saying FCC m
Zero rating for WhatsApp: negative efects (Score:4, Interesting)
What about the guys with knives? (Score:1)
> The Brazilian elections are a perfect example of why p2p communications are dangerous.
Socialists with knives are even more dangerous, just ask Bolsonaro, who was nearly murdered by one before winning the presidency. Oh, but somehow the fake news about him is not dangerous, right? But I guess someone giving an opinion on WhatsApp that you don't agree with is somehow less concerning than attempted murder of the president of Brasil?
Anyhow, you can't use WhatsApp without internet access, so I have no ide
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remember the joke 'everything you read on the internet is true. I read that on the internet somewhere' ? Nowadays I have to assume most of the shit I read is either outright fake, or seriously worded in a way to discourage critical thought.
This little nugget stood out for me (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA/MPAA would have a field day with this. If you've got editorial control then you're no longer a common carrier. Of course I'm not convinced the current Supreme Court wouldn't let them have it both ways. The above is so crazy on the face of it. "exercising editorial control"? ISP and phone companies don't have editorial control. They're a pipe. If they don't like that they can give up their monopoly to somebody who wants to follow the rules.
??CONFUSED?? (Score:1)
Re:??CONFUSED?? (Score:4, Informative)
Does this mean that we will keep Net Neutrality in place? Does it mean nothing? Does it mean that we may be able to repeal the FCC rules that overturned net neutrality under the heavily bribed and set for life because of industrial lobbying and then congressional appointment staff person known as Ajit Pal?
It means nothing really. It has zero impact on anything about NN, it doesn't force the FCC to enforce NN, undo the repeal or affect any future regulations the FCC may or may not choose to enforce in the future. About the ONLY thing I can imagine this does is give us a pretty good picture of how the SC would chose to not be involved in other such cases. 6 to 3 is pretty open and shut.
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The TDS hysteria continues... (Score:1, Flamebait)
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The Trump administration supported the industry's case, asking the US Supreme Court to vacate the Obama-era ruling.
Reading past the headlines can be pretty tricky for some folks. But it turns out there's more information there.
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People really need to read the FCC's regulations (Score:2)
Ajit Pai's FCC's definition of internet service as an "enhanced service" relies upon a ludicrous claim that DHCP service, which advertises a DNS service, that a user has no obligation to use whatsoever, qualifies it. Everyone is free to use whatever DNS service they wish just by sending DNS requests to someone else, but the FCC definition assumes that an ISP's DNS service is irrevocably bundled with the handling of IP packets. The FCC is simply wrong, and someone, someone, anyone, please, with enough legal