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Can the FCC's 'Net Neutrality' Decision Be Overturned in Congress? (newsweek.com)
"Cancel the funeral and get ready to fight: Net neutrality is far from dead," argues Evan Greer, the campaign director for the pro-net neutrality group Fight for the Future in Newsweek:
Our elected officials in Congress have the power to reverse what is swiftly becoming one of the U.S. government's most unpopular decisions ever. And if they don't, they'll pay for it come election season... 26 senators have already signed on to a Resolution of Disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a vehicle to overturn the FCC's net neutrality repeal with a simple majority vote in both the Senate and House. [UPDATE: 28 Senators have now co-sponsored the resolution]. It's not going to be easy, but it's increasingly within reach with Democrats in lock step against the FCC rollback and half a dozen Republicans already publicly criticizing the move.
Outside of Washington, DC, net neutrality is not a partisan issue. Voters from across the political spectrum overwhelmingly agree that they don't want their cable companies controlling where they get news, how they stream music and videos, or which apps they use to pay for things, get directions, or communicate with friends and family. Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T poured money into misleading advertisements, ghost written op-eds, and astroturf campaigns, to fool customers into thinking that they would voluntarily abide by the principles of net neutrality... But after all of that, they've completely failed to build any real grassroots support for their attack on net neutrality, from the left or the right. And every member of Congress knows that. 75 percent of Republican voters support the net neutrality protections the FCC just slashed... No matter how hard they try, telecom lobbyists will just never convince a meaningful number of Republican voters that killing net neutrality, and ending the internet as a free market of ideas, is a good thing. And that's what gives us a unique chance to get our normally gridlocked Congress to take action and overrule the FCC's politically toxic order.
Lawmakers in every state have been getting hammered for months with millions of phone calls, emails, protests, constituent meetings, media requests, and pressure from small businesses at volumes that just never happen. Net neutrality is becoming one of the most talked about political issues in recent human history... The FCC did something that a supermajority of people in this country oppose. Our elected officials have to decide whether to rubber stamp that betrayal or overturn it. The internet makes the impossible possible. If we harness our anger and direct it strategically, we can get the votes we need to restore the net neutrality protections that should never have been taken away in the first place. Any lawmaker who refuses to listen to their constituents will have to go on the record right before an election as having voted against the free and open web. They would be wise not to underestimate the internet's power to hold them accountable.
Outside of Washington, DC, net neutrality is not a partisan issue. Voters from across the political spectrum overwhelmingly agree that they don't want their cable companies controlling where they get news, how they stream music and videos, or which apps they use to pay for things, get directions, or communicate with friends and family. Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T poured money into misleading advertisements, ghost written op-eds, and astroturf campaigns, to fool customers into thinking that they would voluntarily abide by the principles of net neutrality... But after all of that, they've completely failed to build any real grassroots support for their attack on net neutrality, from the left or the right. And every member of Congress knows that. 75 percent of Republican voters support the net neutrality protections the FCC just slashed... No matter how hard they try, telecom lobbyists will just never convince a meaningful number of Republican voters that killing net neutrality, and ending the internet as a free market of ideas, is a good thing. And that's what gives us a unique chance to get our normally gridlocked Congress to take action and overrule the FCC's politically toxic order.
Lawmakers in every state have been getting hammered for months with millions of phone calls, emails, protests, constituent meetings, media requests, and pressure from small businesses at volumes that just never happen. Net neutrality is becoming one of the most talked about political issues in recent human history... The FCC did something that a supermajority of people in this country oppose. Our elected officials have to decide whether to rubber stamp that betrayal or overturn it. The internet makes the impossible possible. If we harness our anger and direct it strategically, we can get the votes we need to restore the net neutrality protections that should never have been taken away in the first place. Any lawmaker who refuses to listen to their constituents will have to go on the record right before an election as having voted against the free and open web. They would be wise not to underestimate the internet's power to hold them accountable.
Congress can certainly pass law that makes the net neutrality decision illegal going forward, and thus FCC must replace it. That's not overturning it, though.
The problem is that congress has turned into a binary partisan farce where votes are cast not based on what the congressman thinks, but whether it opposes the adversary. So it won't happen. There's really no way out of this quagmire either, from within the system itself.
The problem with the 2015 approach is that it only covered the bottom 3 of the 7 layers of the OSI model of modern networking. So neutrality only applied to about 43% of the layers.
What we need is 100% net neutrality, all the way up to the Application layer, where social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Hacker News, and even Slashdot would be classified.
Social media platforms like those aren't really any different from ISPs, conceptually. Both are just conduits for getting information from a sender to one or more receivers. ISPs transmit IP packets between computers. Social media platforms transmit ideas in the form of comments and submissions between people.
When we transmit data via an ISP, we should expect it to be delivered to the destination in a neutral manner, irrespective of its content.
The same standard should apply for social media providers. When we transmit an idea through a social media platform, we should expect it to be delivered to any and all recipients in a neutral manner, irrespective of what this particular idea is.
The main result is that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Slashdot could no longer censor, hide, or delete any comments, submissions or other content that are otherwise legal.
It also means that such platforms could no longer censor users acting in a legal manner by banning, shadow-banning, or silencing them.
The 43% "net neutrality" of the 2015 approach is nearly useless as it ignores the partiality that we see at higher layers within the network.
We can only have true net neutrality when neutrality is guaranteed for all 7 layers of the OSI model. We need 100% net neutrality, not the 43% net neutrality of the failed 2015 approach.
Of course it can
Indeed. For one, Betteridge's Law of Headlines fails us. The FCC might have been over-reaching their congress-assigned power when the attempted net neutrality, and it was certainly in their power to stop doing that. But that was without any law to back them up. In fact, that was one reason libertarian opponents were worried about the whole thing - it seemed like such an extra-legal extension of their charter.
Pass an actual law, though? Totally different situation. Then the FCC would be unquestionably justified in enforcing that law, without the specter of unelected bureaucrats deciding how ISPs work.
Of course - the same is true about abortion. There's still nothing in the Constitution that remotely protects that right, total fabrication by the court to reflect the changing views of Americans. But not that long ago we had a pro-choice President, Senate, and House - where was the law protecting "a woman's right to choose"? Total lack of courage for a law that was certain to pass, and would end the worry about Justices that love the constitution overturning Roe v Wade.
tldr: do your damn job, Congress.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Of course it can. Congress created the FCC, so it can make whatever law it wants to override FCC's decision
Couldn't Comcast then sue the government claiming it violates the rule of JOBSJOBSJOBS and then see the ruling get overturned by the conservative judges the GOP is filling the judiciary up with?
The GOP and corporations have been playing a long game to weaken the government, and they're aware they might not hold onto power forever, they're not stupid.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) needs to be passed in both the House and Senate, which both have Republican majorities (or to put it differently, Democrats do not have a definitive majority in either House or Senate). To get a perspective on the chances of this passing look at the 28 cosponsors of the bill NONE of which are republican. Suppose that somehow there are a few republicans do end up voting for this, then it heads to President Trump who can veto it.
Trump is the person that appointed Ajit Pai to head the FCC, and of course Trump knew that Pai would repeal net neutrality and undoubtedly they have discussed the issue in detail. Trump has praised Pai, so we know that Trump has no problems with net neutrality being repealed. It is virtually certain that if this reaches the Presidents desk, it will be vetoed.
Of course Congress can overturn a veto, with a 2/3 supermajority. While there is a slight chance in a republican congress that a simple majority can be found to overturn the repeal of net neutrality, there is *NO* chance that the hard line far-right will vote to repeal. Recent elections have purged moderate or "soft" politicians of both political parties. There aren't enough moderates to overturn a veto.