Will California Gut Its Net Neutrality Law to Comply with Trump Admin Demands? (arstechnica.com) 56
In 2021, America approved $65 billion to fund broadband internet services as part of President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But Trump's administration announced they'd withhold funds from states with net neutrality protections...
States could object and sue the government, Ars Technica reported last October, "but even a successful lawsuit could take years and leave unserved homes without broadband for the foreseeable future." So where does that leave California's net neutrality laws? Ars Technica asks. California expect to spend about $1.4 billion to deploy broadband to 270,571 locations... Similar to federal net neutrality rules repealed during the first Trump administration, California's law prohibits ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful traffic and says ISPs may not require fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to Internet users. While the first Trump administration lost its attempt to preempt state net neutrality laws, the second Trump administration is trying to achieve a similar result by making federal broadband money conditional on whether states agree not to enforce net neutrality...
California and Illinois are the only states that haven't finalized their funding, according to the BEAD progress dashboard maintained by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)... California could try to continue enforcing its net neutrality law even while accepting the federal funding, a strategy that would involve another long court battle over its right to regulate broadband providers. This would be difficult, as the Trump administration is requiring states that accept grant funding to commit that they won't enforce net neutrality rules... [N]early 30 advocacy groups that focus on access to technology are treating the vote as a significant milestone and urged state leaders to defend California's net neutrality law in a letter yesterday...
Winning a court battle would become much more difficult after the state accepts the money [according to Paul Goodman, legal counsel for the Center for Accessible Technology]. Goodman said the CPUC should delay the vote and that California should file a lawsuit arguing that the NTIA-imposed condition is illegal. In addition to net neutrality, Goodman said California may be giving up other regulatory authority over companies, like AT&T and Verizon, because the NTIA requirement forbids rate regulation and "utility-style rules on broadband Internet service" in general... Goodman said the exemption from state laws would last for up to 14 years. This is because ISPs receiving grants would have four years to deploy the required broadband networks, and the extended period of performance lasts another 10 years... AT&T is already trying to get out of state obligations related to its basic phone service in California, as we've reported... [Also at stake is whether "ISPs themselves get to pick the price of the mandated low-cost broadband offerings," the article points out.]
The letter from 30 advocacy groups to California state leaders argues accepting the money "would set a dangerous precedent for the federal government to use federal funding as a cudgel that forces states in line with its agenda... If California were to allow this funding to be used as leverage, there is no telling what other resources the administration would confidently seek to exploit."
Thursday California's Public Utility Commission did vote to approve the plan, but a spokesperson earlier told Ars Technica their vote "does not address subgrantee agreements, or the conditions the NTIA requires be included in subgrantee agreements."
States could object and sue the government, Ars Technica reported last October, "but even a successful lawsuit could take years and leave unserved homes without broadband for the foreseeable future." So where does that leave California's net neutrality laws? Ars Technica asks. California expect to spend about $1.4 billion to deploy broadband to 270,571 locations... Similar to federal net neutrality rules repealed during the first Trump administration, California's law prohibits ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful traffic and says ISPs may not require fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to Internet users. While the first Trump administration lost its attempt to preempt state net neutrality laws, the second Trump administration is trying to achieve a similar result by making federal broadband money conditional on whether states agree not to enforce net neutrality...
California and Illinois are the only states that haven't finalized their funding, according to the BEAD progress dashboard maintained by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)... California could try to continue enforcing its net neutrality law even while accepting the federal funding, a strategy that would involve another long court battle over its right to regulate broadband providers. This would be difficult, as the Trump administration is requiring states that accept grant funding to commit that they won't enforce net neutrality rules... [N]early 30 advocacy groups that focus on access to technology are treating the vote as a significant milestone and urged state leaders to defend California's net neutrality law in a letter yesterday...
Winning a court battle would become much more difficult after the state accepts the money [according to Paul Goodman, legal counsel for the Center for Accessible Technology]. Goodman said the CPUC should delay the vote and that California should file a lawsuit arguing that the NTIA-imposed condition is illegal. In addition to net neutrality, Goodman said California may be giving up other regulatory authority over companies, like AT&T and Verizon, because the NTIA requirement forbids rate regulation and "utility-style rules on broadband Internet service" in general... Goodman said the exemption from state laws would last for up to 14 years. This is because ISPs receiving grants would have four years to deploy the required broadband networks, and the extended period of performance lasts another 10 years... AT&T is already trying to get out of state obligations related to its basic phone service in California, as we've reported... [Also at stake is whether "ISPs themselves get to pick the price of the mandated low-cost broadband offerings," the article points out.]
The letter from 30 advocacy groups to California state leaders argues accepting the money "would set a dangerous precedent for the federal government to use federal funding as a cudgel that forces states in line with its agenda... If California were to allow this funding to be used as leverage, there is no telling what other resources the administration would confidently seek to exploit."
Thursday California's Public Utility Commission did vote to approve the plan, but a spokesperson earlier told Ars Technica their vote "does not address subgrantee agreements, or the conditions the NTIA requires be included in subgrantee agreements."
deploy broadband? (Score:2, Informative)
AFIK, ATT has NO plans to provide fiber to the entire state.
They lie and label wireless as broadband.
The law seems to be useless.
Re:deploy broadband? (Score:5, Informative)
AFIK, ATT has NO plans to provide fiber to the entire state.
That's not relevant to net neutrality, though yes, you're right. And they have taken literally hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars for that purpose (government grants, not customer payments) which they then clearly handed out to shareholders and/or executives because they obviously didn't spend them on last mile internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is pretty fast for ATT.
Re:deploy broadband? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: deploy broadband? (Score:5)
Oh good, I always wanted the world's Internet access to be controlled by a space Nazi
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently his family has actual ties to Nazis from his original country too. Can't say I'm surprised but here we are
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
AFIK, ATT has NO plans to provide fiber to the entire state.
Of course not, because providing fiber to small towns and isolated homes is not profitable and arguably not efficient. However, they are aggressively rolling out fiber to homes now in many areas, including Silicon Valley. The homes less than 0.5 miles from us had fiber many years ago. This past summer, AT&T not only installed fiber but send hordes of salespeople knocking on all homes in our neighborhood. I'm glad that we now have an alternative to Comcast to provide some price competition. I just s
Why bother, they won't care anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
The premise is already flawed, by putting the restriction on the funds in the first place they are already violating the law as written or at least torturing it's language to death.
The NTIA is interpreting this law in an expansive way by categorizing net neutrality rules as impermissible rate regulation and by demanding statewide exemptions from state laws for ISPs that obtain grant money.
By the rules the Trump admin plays by any state should take the money, agree to comply and once the funds are in hand give em the old "lol jk" and do net neutrality anyway. Make them sue you instead. If the admin can violate every trade agreement unilaterally and against the law what good is their word anyway?
Besides, in about 45 days the makeup of the government could look very different. [votehub.com]
Re: Why bother, they won't care anyway (Score:1)
Does it matter? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: Does it matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The threat of net neutrality laws has done most of the work of ensuring net neutrality.
Nobody has implemented direct charges for content delivery because that would instantly trigger a reaction when the government is working properly.
But now, with an insanely autocratic federal government? Some things may change.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're saying is that the law was never needed and remains unneeded.
No I am not. Please don't pretend to speak for me.
Infrastructure monopolies and oligopolies are a thing, and they are very common among ISPs. Your simplistic 'markets will fix it' mantra ignores the fact that there may not be a market.
Re: (Score:3)
Forget government, any ISP that tried it would lose all their business customers the next day. Basic economics and game theory say that won't happen.
Basic economy says that limited consumer choice of goods and/or services, creates a distorted market that leads to higher prices, products that doesn't actually fit what the consumer needs, lack of availability because it isn't "profitable enough", stagnation in product development and infrastructure investment.
How many actually have a choice in an ISP? And it also seems you missed or forgot that before the federal net neutrality law that came into effect in 2015 some ISP's actually introduced zero-rating w
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Does it matter? (Score:2)
Hahhahahahahhahha
Your theory is that consumers know what's going on with their Internet access
Or anything else
Hahahahhahahha
Basic economics [Re:Does it matter?] (Score:2)
Forget government, any ISP that tried it would lose all their business customers the next day. Basic economics and game theory say that won't happen.
Wrong. Go learn some real economics.
Basic economics says that internet businesses, who will do anything to grab more eyeballs reading their stuff instead of somebody else's, will pay money to have their content prioritized.
This will tend to drive small, low-cost internet businesses, who can't afford to bribe ISPs, out of business, but from the point of view of the big players, that's a feature, not a bug.
Re: Does it matter? (Score:3)
Netflix pays ISPs to put a CDN server on their premises.
Re: (Score:3)
Not changing anything was the point (Score:4, Interesting)
The purpose of the law was to put isps on notice that they would have a fight on their hands if they started violating net neutrality. And while they have poked at the edges laws like this have mostly prevented them from doing the really nasty stuff.
What you have here is called a chesterton's fence. It is a fence that you don't take down unless you understand why it was put up. I'm not talking about net neutrality I think at this point we all know it. I'm talking about this specific law. You don't take this law down without knowing why it was put up and I explained that above so I think it's safe to say we don't want to take this law down.
I am of course taking for granted the Trump is wrong but I think that's one of the safest bets in human history. The Man known as the king of debt who is bankrupted everything he's ever touched and is only not homeless because he was laundering money for the Russian mob is not someone I would seek legal advice from.
Re: (Score:1)
Anyhow, you don't put laws into effect to maintain a status quo that nobody is interested in challenging. That's a stupid reason to waste time and create unnecessary red tape. And since the law was clearly unnecessary, it should be repealed. Otherwise, it just makes things more expensive while providing no benefit. Companies have to waste time and money showing that they aren't doi
Re: Not changing anything was the point (Score:3)
Nobody is seeking any advice from a maggot
Re: (Score:3)
It wasn't hard. The isps are pretty open about wanting to do away with net neutrality and what they're going to do if they pull it off.
Companies have these things called industry groups where they get together and talk about all the nasty things they want to do to us. It is generally out in the open because a lot of folks, yourself included, don't like to think about all the nasty things that they would do to us if we didn't have a huge number of laws agai
Re: (Score:2)
Amzn leo was created in part to build themselves their own fast lane.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump's approach to negotiation has been in the past very reactionary and completely irrational. If CA complies with this, he'll come back and tell us to stop our mail in ballots. There's really no scope to how he works.
Trump and those who support him believe in the absolute authority of the office of the President. They believe in a unitary executive. And that states are to be subordinate to the national government. Contrary to the Constitution, contrary to the essays the Framers wrote, and contrary to cen
Re: (Score:2)
Trump and those who support him believe in the absolute authority of the office of the President. They believe in a unitary executive. And that states are to be subordinate to the national government. Contrary to the Constitution, contrary to the essays the Framers wrote, and contrary to centuries of jurisprudence. .
This picture captures MAGA perfectly. https://imgflip.com/memegenera... [imgflip.com]
Re:Trump doesn't like CA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Trump doesn't like CA (Score:4, Insightful)
You're mis-identifying the problem (Score:5, Informative)
The federal government has always (for at least several decades) used the threat of removing federal funding to force states to do things that they don't want to do. This is nothing new, and is not, as this summary implies, setting a dangerous precedent.
The difference is that normally, this is used to do things that add standards intended to make things better/safer for the general public or serve some legitimate public need.
This is being done to remove standards intended to protect the general public. As a general rule, states have always been allowed to have stricter laws than the federal government, just not more lax laws. Using the threat of removing federal funding to take away laws intended to protect the public's rights, reduce competition among content providers, and push the Internet more and more towards a content monopoly is doing the opposite of that.
It's not the federal government using the threat of withdrawing funding to push its agenda that is bad. It is the agenda itself that is bad. It is fundamentally antithetical to the rule of law, fundamentally contrary to the regulatory powers required to maintain a functioning capitalist system, and fundamentally contrary to the public interest. It is putting greedy corporations ahead of the American people.
Additionally, the executive branch taking such an action without authorization from Congress is also bad. The long history of doing this has, to my knowledge, been limited to the executive branch acting on laws passed by Congress that give them the authority to withhold funds for specific non-compliance reasons. Doing so in the absence of such laws is likely a violation of the separation of powers.
But unfortunately, the current administration has a long history of violating that separation of powers, doing various illegal acts, knowing full well that it will take months for the courts to strike down those acts, and that the damage will have been done by then, and using the threat of such illegal executive orders as a way to extort concessions out of states, government agencies, corporations, nonprofits, and individuals. And that right there — the repeated willful commission of unconstitutional acts for borderline felonious purposes — is a fundamental abrogation of their oath of office.
So the way I see it, there are only three ways to fix the problem:
A. Pass laws clarifying that Congress has exclusive power of the purse, and that the executive branch shall not retract funding to any state, any agency, or any individual for any reason unless the right to retract funding for that specific reason is explicitly codified in the relevant law as an executive power, and that this rule shall apply to all government agencies, without exception, superseding all previously assumed authority, and providing criminal liability for anyone acting in contravention of this law, with no statute of limitations. That way, federal agency heads who act on such executive orders will no longer be protected by any assumption of legality or constitutionality, and will risk future criminal charges if they act on an executive order that violates the separation of powers in this way.
B. Remove the people who are pushing this agenda, whether through the ballot box, through impeachment, or both.
C. Do both A and B.
Re: You're mis-identifying the problem (Score:2)
How... (Score:5, Interesting)
...is this fucking legal to withhold federal funding to strong arm states into anti-consumer policies?
Oh wait, it isn't.
Congress itself wrote into the BEAD statute that states must ensure that prospective subgrantees can carry out their projects “in compliance with all applicable Federal, State, and local laws.” And also “Nothing in this subchapter may be construed to authorize” the excutive branch's NTIA to regulate broadband. Trump is abusing a grant agreement to do something Congress explicitly declined to authorize because state laws were already expected to be a part of getting the grant money.
So, as per usual, Trump is just being a bully and making shit up.
Re: (Score:2)
No, so far most of those attempts have been blocked by Temporary Restraining Orders that require the funds to be disbursed, and the administration just delays the cases because they'll eventually lose them.
Uh, no (Score:4, Interesting)
Voters will get angry at democrats for doing nothing but not at Republicans for actively harming the country.
This is something Democrat strategists have been complaining about. Specifically if you're a republican you can get up on stage and yell God and country! And get votes.
The exact same thing does not work for democrats. Democrat voters could care less about your religious affiliation or how stupidly patriotic you might be. Democrat voters expect results and that would be fine if the Democrats could deliver results but it's really hard to do that when the other party is actively sabotaging the country and has been since newt Gingrich created the contract with America as a unified policy of blocking the Democrats from doing any good while doing active harm whenever the Republicans happen to get any power
And because we have all been conditioned to revile partisan politics when you point this out people just dismiss it. Almost as if someone was actively trying to do that for a reason
I'm not a conspiracy theorist I'm a conspiracy analyst.
That is Republicans in TX (was Re:Uh, no) (Score:2)
Fixed that for you.
https://t2m.co/yopDVU2R [t2m.co]
Re: (Score:2)
Write out a proper (direct) fucking link. URL shorteners have no place here. Why the fuck do you think a single person is going to waste their time with some god awful site that you are somehow are convinced makes a good point and makes you look smart, against an anonymous troll post! I won’t know, cuz I wouldn’t click that s
Never invite the vampire in (Score:1)
It demonstrates weakness, is interpreted as submission, and Stumpy be back with more demands. If you grow a pair you might have a fight, but probably not - he's a fucking coward, but more relevantly, he's desperate to avoid people publicly standing up to him.
The answer is "Eat shit you goofy fuckup, give us the money you're illegally withholding."
Being doing this forever... (Score:3)
"would set a dangerous precedent for the federal government to use federal funding as a cudgel that forces states in line with its agenda..
That's hilarious. This has been how the Federal government has done things for decades. The 'precedent' was set and accepted long ago. Go lookup the 'national Minimum Drinking Age Act" of 1984 for a great example of the feds forcing states to give up their constitutional rights in exchange for money. Money is power...