Summary
A US appeals court ruled that the FCC lacks authority to reinstate federal net neutrality rules, blocking Biden administration efforts to restore open internet protections.
The 2015 rules, repealed in 2017, mandated ISPs treat internet traffic equally and barred content blocking or prioritization.
The court cited a recent Supreme Court decision Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, limiting federal agency powers.
FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel urged Congress to pass federal net neutrality laws, while industry groups praised the decision, claiming it will boost innovation.
The ruling leaves state net neutrality laws, like California’s, intact.
If they lack authority to reinstate… Then didn’t they also lack the authority to remove the Obama era net neutrality protections in the first place?
Several things have changed recently, Chevron being the big one that comes to mind. Federal judges are basically gonna end up making a lot of decisions when these cases end up being pushed. The agencies have been defanged completely.
…no. Agencies operate within prescribed jurisdiction.
industry groups praised the decision, claiming it will boost innovation.
It’s funny how they spell the word profits in a new trendy way.
The innovation is in new ways to screw over the consumer.
Perhaps they meant to say limitation. It’s weird how in my entire life, corpo always uses the same phrases, and learning from history, they have used them for so long. Even back during the AT&T antitrust in the 80s, they were bemoaning how innovation would be stifled if AT&T was broken up.
I can’t wait to see innovations return like, listening to streaming music on your favorite app at work on Verizon, 5pm comes around. For some mysterious reason, your app stops streaming music. Launch Verizon’s preferred streaming app. It works just fine! (Actual thing I experienced with daily frequency before net neutrality suddenly made their network perform like expected.)
But they also insist that competition breeds innovations when you propose the state just seize their unregulated utility
Translation: court over steps boundaries, Trump’s supreme court will uphold it on appeal, rich bastards get richer.
So it’s yet another day ending with the letter Y.
The Federal Communications Commission, lacks the authority? Then who has the authority. This is the same and sets a precedent for, say, cellular companies. Oh, your a Verizon customer, sorry you can’t call this company.
You can thank the Supreme Court’s ‘Loper Bright’ decision in June https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Raimondo
Edit: Actually, you can thank Republicans. The agenda to privatize everything (for the benefit of Wall Street investors) has been in place for over 50 years. Essentially, the constitution says nothing about providing people internet access so that means either the states can do it themselves or it can go to a private corporation. I’m telling you, the next four years are going to be apocalyptic.
The problem is that there is no ambiguity in this case. It’s 100% clear that Congress DID give this specific regulatory authority to the FCC and it takes an incredibly tortured legal argument to say otherwise. You can thank Loper Bright only for giving slight cover to these blatantly unlawful rulings.
Congress. They need to take responsibility and pass an actual law, not let regulatory agencies invent them on their own.
I am a supporter of net neutrality but I can also see a point to this ruling.
They need to take responsibility and pass an actual law, not let regulatory agencies invent them on their own.
How did the FCC come to exist?
It would appear that it was by a law that didn’t give it the authority to implement net neutrality rules.
Again, I am a supporter of net neutrality. I think it’s a good thing. Which is why it behooves Congress to actually implement it. Do it right and then the court won’t keep overturning it like this.
that didn’t give it the authority to implement net neutrality rules
It gave them the authority to regulate communications. Net neutrality rules are well within that scope. The paradigm that you’re asking for is not a sustainable way to run a country of 300 million plus people. Congress has the power to delegate specific policy decisions to said agencies.
SCOTUS can kiss my ass. We shouldn’t recognize any of their decisions anymore.
The paradigm that you’re asking for is not a sustainable way to run a country of 300 million plus people.
Again, I am not asking for this paradigm. I’m describing what the paradigm currently is.
Congress has the power to delegate specific policy decisions to said agencies.
Evidently not. Saying “but they should have that power” isn’t going to get net neutrality actually implemented. Because they don’t, as evidenced by the fact that they got shut down when they tried.
It’s clear you’re arguing from ignorance as your argument is patently absurd.
The judgement is partisan, inconsistent with established case law, and relies on (at best) specious distinctions between “information service” and “telecommunication service”. Griffin creates a distinction without a difference to manufacture the perception of judicial leverage where none exists.
It’s like arguing the DEA has no purview over cannabis because the Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973 refers to “marihuana”. It’s clear what the intention of the law is even if the language is imprecise. To argue that ISPs provide some new class of service that’s legally distinct from all other telecom service and therefore immune to regulation is an argument made out of ignorance, stupidity, corruption, or some combination of the three.
And yet the courts keep overturning these rules. That’s what I’m saying is happening, and that’s what’s happening. What’s “from ignorance” about this?
In some manner or another, that’s what’s happening. If that’s not what’s supposed to be happening then the system that’s allowing that to keep happening needs to be fixed. Either by changing the system or by changing how the system is supposed to work to match what’s actually happening.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here. I’m saying “the way the US government works doesn’t match what the US constitutions says” and I’m getting angry responses saying “no, it’s not working that way!” Yes, that’s what I said.
All of this net neutrality back-and-forth would go away if Congress would simply pass a clear, unambiguous law saying “yes there should be net neutrality.” Is that what’s wanted? If so then do that.
They did pass a law. SCOTUS lied. Again.
I vote somebody set ups a DDOS attack on this judge’s ISP and see how he feels about it after he can’t get his Step-bro porn.
The oligarchs got your interwebs
Ok. So this is definately a seconded of that horrible ruling. ugh.
