Slashdot Mirror
Tim Wu: Why the Courts Will Have to Save Net Neutrality (nytimes.com)
Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia who first coined the term "net neutrality," writes for the New York Times: Allowing such censorship is anathema to the internet's (and America's) founding spirit. And by going this far, the F.C.C. may also have overplayed its legal hand. So drastic is the reversal of policy (if, as expected, the commission approves Mr. Pai's proposal next month), and so weak is the evidence to support the change, that it seems destined to be struck down in court. The problem for Mr. Pai is that government agencies are not free to abruptly reverse longstanding rules on which many have relied without a good reason (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled), such as a change in factual circumstances. A mere change in F.C.C. ideology isn't enough. As the Supreme Court has said, a federal agency must "examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action." Given that net neutrality rules have been a huge success by most measures, the justification for killing them would have to be very strong. It isn't. In fact, it's very weak. From what we know so far, Mr. Pai's rationale for eliminating the rules is that cable and phone companies, despite years of healthy profit, need to earn even more money than they already do -- that is, that the current rates of return do not yield adequate investment incentives. More specifically, Mr. Pai claims that industry investments have gone down since 2015, the year the Obama administration last strengthened the net neutrality rules.
For one : 2015 is not "Long standing rules". If anything, the "Long standing rules" apply more to the 1996 Telecommunications Act which labeled ISPs as Information Service Providers.
For two : Courts making laws and forcing regulatory bodies to enforce them is a path you don't want to go down. If a sitting judge can just decide whatever he wants, and make up new law and regulations on the spot, then they effectively become Legislative, Executive and Judicial all in one.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
From what we know so far, Mr. Pai's rationale for eliminating the rules is that cable and phone companies, despite years of healthy profit, need to earn even more money than they already do -- that is, that the current rates of return do not yield adequate investment incentives.
CEOs of various telecoms have been asked during quarterly earnings calls how the implementation of net neutrality and later its repeal would affect their bottom line. They have said it would not. They are legally required to provide accurate information during such calls (and can be sued for breach of fiduciary duty if they don't).
Such statements will be used against Pai when the FCC gets sued over this.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
in addition, the gop controlled Congress, which refused to seat hundreds of judges under Obama is packing the courts with incompetent republican partisans, so the activism from the bench will be decidedly pro-business
Right... I'm sure a law professor at Columbia has no idea about how laws and judges work, and that you certainly must know more about it because you are an official Denizen Of The Internet.
"The problem for Mr. Pai is that government agencies are not free to abruptly reverse longstanding rules on which many have relied without a good reason"
Well no, he gets this exactly backwards. Network Neutrality was EXACTLY such a reversal, and here's Pai simply undoing what the FCC wasn't free to do in the first place. Pai is correcting the very transgression Wu is citing here.
It was previously a longstanding rule--supported by law--that the FCC would have a hands off approach to the internet. Wheeler reversed that policy drastically. Pai is saying the FCC can't make such reversals.
Anyway, in the end Wu is complaining that he's not getting his own way. It's akin to throwing a tantrum when he's just not managed to convince lawmakers that his perspective is the right one.
Why Hillary failed? You need a BOOK for that? For real?
The US population is used to their presidential elections to be a dog-and-pony show. This time it was worse. It was a bitch-and-jackass show. BOTH of them were unfit for the office and both of them also knew what we all knew: We can't simply say "no, fuck you". One of them WILL be president.
The main reason Hillary failed is that for most people it doesn't matter whether a bitch or a jackass is president, they want neither.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Try to guess the number I'm thinking of.....
It's the number of people who voted for Trump based on his Net Neutrality stance.
It is also the number of people who voted against Trump based on his Net Neutrality stance.
Can you guess this magic number? I'll give you a hint-- It's between ZERO and ZERO.
Say what you want about whether NN is being "destroyed", or if it never existed in the first place... but don't fabricate a public mandate when 99.9999% of people who give a fuck disagree with what is happening.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
This is another reason she lost. People like you tried to make this a sexism thing. It wasn't. It was that she was unlikable and stunk of corruption. All I could think about when seeing her was "man, the teflon don could have taken lessons from her". Seriously, how did she never land in prison?
You can claim it was sexism, just like with obama you claimed it was racism, but failure to see the actual reasons just dooms you. You have to stop throwing around "isms" to demonize people you disagree with. It will backfire, as it did in 2016.
For what crime? Please, be specific, and don't waste our time with unproven allegations and accusations...
How much will Democrats force the federal government spend to investigate the Steele dossier, which they themselves funded the creation of and never bothered to corroborate or vett any claims within it before 'leaking' it to the press?
Ken
I am puzzled at your reaction
I would have thought it clear enough but I'll endeavor to clarify.
What Tim Wu is suggesting is not "interpretation of law" and thus as you state, making case law, it is literally forcing the FCC to enforce regulations they are planning on repealing.
Because sometimes repealing regulations is not legally justified or proper or handled appropriately. It's not exactly difficult to make the argument that the FCC is being arbitrary and capricious in changing their policies nor is it difficult to argue that there would be real and tangible harm to consumers and content makers from their actions. There also seems to be some disagreement about what the FCC's role in this should be. This all absolutely is interpretation of law which at the end of the day is case law. You don't need to invoke the specter of judges inventing law out of whole cloth here because that isn't what is happening.
Courts interpret current laws and can only rule on the legality and constitutionality of a law. They cannot force regulating bodies to enforce specific policies, just because people on the Internet signed a petition.
The courts absolutely can, do, and should force regulating agencies to enforce specific policies provided there is a legal basis to do so. Regulators don't get to enforce and/or ignore and/or undermine rules as they see fit without limits. This has nothing to do with whether people signed a petition and everything to do with law. If the FCC makes regulations that they were authorized to make and people depend on those regulations then it is entirely reasonable and proper for a court to hold the FCC to keeping those regulations in place. It's absolutely the job of courts to help ensure that regulators are not allowing arbitrary and capricious changes of policy when such changes clearly result in favoring the narrow interests of a few over the wider interests of most of the populace.
Let's not pretend here that Mr. Pai is attempting to be a neutral and honest arbiter of the law here. He's clearly got an agenda and it is perfectly reasonable to question his actions in a court of law.
With all due respect, are you sure you've not had some of that Trump kool-aid? He's flip-flopped on even his promises more than a Northern Pike that just got reeled in. You cannot put much credence to what he promises any more than you could trust him if he said "the check is in the mail, trust me!"
I have seen a lot of demonization of Hilary Clinton. Decades worth of it. Bengaaaaazzzzziii!! Butheremails!!!! Nothing significant ever stuck, but yes, this demonization produced the stink of corruption. It is very disappointing.
What amazes me is that almost issue-by-issue there were similar allegations against Donald Trump, and in his case there is a lot of substance, but somehow it doesn't seem to matter. Just take the supposed corruption with the charity foundation of the Clintons. A lot of mud has been thrown, but nothing substantial was ever proved. Whereas Donald Trump's charity foundation was used to pay off a prosecution and buy a portrait of Donald Trump; this is fairly well documented.
Similar for that stupid pizzagate versus DJT harrasment of lots of women; the uranium nonsense versus foreign diplomats staying in Trump hotels to please the president; Trump's 'original' way to handle state secrets; and there is Trump's past history as a shady business man, and I haven't even used the word Russia or Twitter yet...
Given all that, I try to understand why so many people still go for Trump, and all those 'isms' seem to be the most plausible explanation. And despite all evidence I still hope that enough people now realise what a danger to the country (and indeed the world) the current president is, and that THAT will backfire on him.
By a wide margin. He won because our system of government was set up to give wealthy rural landowners a disproportionate amount of voting power. So yeah, I can argue will o the people because America isn't really a Democracy, we just play one on TV.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How much will Democrats force the federal government spend to investigate the Steele dossier, which they themselves funded the creation of and never bothered to corroborate or vett any claims within it before 'leaking' it to the press?
I don't know how much the federal government will spend investigating the Steele dossier but I will bet that it winds up being significantly less that the Republicans spent of investigating "Bengazi". And please address the contents of the dossier not where it originated, because if true then the contents are a damn-sight more important than who paid for it.