Net neutrality’s court fate depends on whether broadband is “telecommunications”::We dig deep into how Supreme Court’s “major questions doctrine” could affect FCC.
Nope, it’s definitely not telecommunications. I consider it more of a soft cheese, heavy in dairy.
What in the absolute fuck would it be other than telecommunications?
I had the same question, so for anyone who doesn’t want to dig through the article:
To defend its 2017 repeal of net neutrality rules, the Pai FCC argued that broadband isn’t a telecommunications service because Internet providers also offer DNS (Domain Name System) services and caching as part of the broadband package. A judge said the Pai FCC was entitled to deference on this opinion—even if it didn’t make a lot of sense.
Basically, Trump’s lackeys legally classified broadband as an “information service” to screw the American people and the question is whether the Supreme Court will go along with this blatant nonsense.
And telephones use numbers and they print phone books. Lol. That’s just ridiculous. It seems on the face of it to be a purposeful misinterpretation to skirt the law. Could there be consequences for that?
Could there be consequences for that?
In theory, yes. In practice… Ajit Pai is a lawyer and he’s probably smart enough to avoid doing anything that is blatantly illegal. Or at least, avoid doing anything that would leave behind an evidence trail that could see him taking the fall for anything illegal.
Plenty of lawyers don’t really know what they’re doing, especially in Trump’s orbit. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just betting on being on the side of political power and being able to get away with it.
And cell service isn’t telecommunications because they offer caller ID and voicemail.
What stupid logic.
Why does offering DNS somehow matter?
I’m not saying I agree with it, but it kind of makes sense in a roundabout way. If you’re resolving domain names and routing traffic to those domains, rather than simply routing traffic, then you’re providing a more complete service.
I’d equate it to a phone company that includes a human operator as part of the service bundle, as opposed to you having to dial the numbers manually.
Why didn’t anyone sue when this ridiculous reclassification happened under Pai? If there was a lawsuit and it failed, I should hope this sane reclassification prevails. But we don’t have a very partisan court system right now.
In what world could it not be considered some form of telecommunications
MAGA world.
Sounds like anyone using third party DNS has a telecommunications provider.
Anyone using ISP DNS has an information service provider…
It 100% is. All the technology used is essentially the same as ones used for telephonic telecommunications. Including the electromagnetic spectrum - visible light in fiber optic cables in a pineapple under the sea.
My eyes rolled back in my head so hard I gave myself a concussion.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
With the Federal Communications Commission preparing to reimpose net neutrality rules and common-carrier regulation on Internet service providers, the broadband industry is almost certain to sue the FCC once the decision is made.
Federal appeals courts upheld previous FCC decisions on whether to apply common carrier rules to broadband, a fact that current agency officials point to in their plan to revive Obama-era regulation of ISPs under Title II.
But some legal commentators claim the FCC is doomed to fail this time because of the Supreme Court’s evolving approach on whether federal agencies can decide “major questions” without explicit instructions from Congress.
It would be folly for the Commission and Congress to assume otherwise," two former Obama administration solicitors general, Donald Verrilli, Jr. and Ian Heath Gershengorn, argued in a white paper last month.
The certainty expressed by Verrilli and Gershengorn is less surprising when you consider that their white paper was funded by USTelecom and NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, two broadband industry trade groups that sued the Obama-era FCC in a failed attempt to overturn the net neutrality rules.
The FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which is pending a commission vote, will seek public comment on how the major questions doctrine might affect Title II regulation and net neutrality rules that would prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.
The original article contains 795 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Am I in the same room as all of you guys? Speak up, who of you ate the last Oreo?
It was so good
We know it’s gonna be some bullshit if the major questions doctrine is being rolled out.
TL;DR right-wing judges made this up to strike down presidential actions they don’t like. Conveniently, there’s no real test for what a major question is.
