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FTC Says It May Be Unable To Regulate Comcast, Google, and Verizon (arstechnica.com)
The Federal Trade Commission is worried that it may no longer be able to regulate companies such as Comcast, Google, and Verizon unless a recent court ruling is overturned, ArsTechnica reports. From the article: The FTC on Thursday petitioned the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing in a case involving AT&T's throttling of unlimited data plans. A 9th Circuit panel previously ruled that the FTC cannot punish AT&T, and the decision raises questions about the FTC's ability to regulate any company that operates a common carrier business such as telephone or Internet service. While the FTC's charter from Congress prohibits it from regulating common carriers, the agency has previously exercised authority to regulate these companies when they offer non-common carrier services. But the recent court ruling said that AT&T is immune from FTC oversight entirely, even when it's not acting as a common carrier. It isn't clear whether the ruling sets an ironclad precedent preventing the FTC from regulating any company with a common carrier business.
These companies are wireless phone providers, internet service providers, content creators, and cable television companies. When one company owns the full stack of an entertainment channel and can no longer be regulated by a single government agency, then they need to be broken up into their constituent parts. Just like the Ma Bell days of old.
It's nothing more than a different style of monopoly similar to a mafia-run operation. You will buy only their product, from them, at prices they command. They've already killed all real competition, so you don't have a choice.
congress was very clear that the FCC regulates common carriers, not the FTC.
And "common carrier" is a hat that a company wears. If they're not wearing that hat, they're not under the FTC. To say otherwise would put the SEC in charge of a day trader's murder trial.
This was of course not the intent of the law when it was written.
Laws are not supposed to be enforced according to someone's interpretation of their intent. If the law is not performing as intended, then it can be amended by the lawmakers.
Oh yeah -- the courts are not supposed to interpret intent either; they're supposed to make judgements according to the way laws are written. This, of course, is an area where practice often departs from theory.
Juries are.
The legislative branch is supposed to pass good laws. Failing that...
The executive branch is supposed to enforce the law fairly and refuse to enforce bad laws. Failing that...
The judicial branch is supposed to decide whether a law is enforceable and how to do it, or if a law is a bad law that is completely unenforceable. Failing that...
Jury nullification and voters kicking out the bad actors in the legislative and executive branches. Because "We The People" is how this whole thing is supposed to work. Failing that...
Civil disobedience, hopefully influencing the legislative and executive branches to do their jobs correctly. Failing that...
War. An armed revolt. It really is the last option. It's not supposed to have to get that far. There should only be war when someone fails at their job and then 4 more failsafe processes fail in succession. Once this happens, the Constitution has fully failed and is null and void.
And that's the US government in a nutshell.