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No, Net Neutrality Doesn't Violate the 5th Amendment
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday we discussed the theory that net neutrality might violate the 5th Amendment's 'takings clause.' Over at TechDirt they've explained why the paper making that claim is mistaken. Part of it is due to a misunderstanding of the technology, such as when the author suggests that someone who puts up a server connected to the Internet is 'invading' a broadband provider's private network. And part of it is due to glossing over the fact that broadband networks all have involved massive government subsidies, in the form of rights of way access, local franchise/monopolies, and/or direct subsidies from governments. The paper pretends, instead, that broadband networks are 100% private."
People are using the same argument that "Government can't make me buy health insurance!" in order to kill the already-law health care reforms. But the pseudo-code looks like this.
function HealthCareTax($BoughtInsurance)
{
$HealthTax = $money;
If $BoughtInsurance == True {$HealthTax = 0;}
return $HealthTax;
}
The government most certainly has the power to tax, and also has the power to create tax deductions for those who qualify. So, this challenge is going to go nowhere fast.
Back to Net Neutrality, the way to implement this is a tax on what we consider unfair network activity. If they want to do what they want with their property, sure... but then they've got to pay a tax that makes that behavior less profitable or perhaps even unprofitable.