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Montana To FCC: You Can't Stop Us From Protecting Net Neutrality (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Montana governor's office has a message for the Federal Communications Commission and Internet service providers: the state can't be stopped from protecting net neutrality, and ISPs that don't like it don't have to do business with state agencies. Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order to protect net neutrality on Monday. But with questions raised about whether Bullock is exceeding his authority, the governor's legal office prepared a fact sheet that it's distributing to anyone curious about potential legal challenges to the executive order. ISPs are free to violate net neutrality if they only serve non-government customers -- they just can't do so and expect to receive state contracts. "Companies that don't like it don't have to do business with the State -- nothing stops ISPs from selling dumpy Internet plans in Montana if they insist," the fact sheet says.
The FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules attempts to preempt states and localities from issuing their own similar rules. But Bullock's executive order doesn't directly require ISPs to follow net neutrality rules. Instead, ISPs that accept contracts to provide Internet service to any state agency must agree to abide by net neutrality principles throughout the state. Bullock's fact sheet is titled, "Why Isn't Montana's Executive Order Preempted?" and it offers numerous answers to that question. "Through the order, the State of Montana acts as a consumer -- not a regulator," the fact sheet says. "Because there's no mandate, and no new regulations, there's certainly no federal preemption. Companies that don't like Montana's proposed contract terms don't have to do business with the State."
The FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules attempts to preempt states and localities from issuing their own similar rules. But Bullock's executive order doesn't directly require ISPs to follow net neutrality rules. Instead, ISPs that accept contracts to provide Internet service to any state agency must agree to abide by net neutrality principles throughout the state. Bullock's fact sheet is titled, "Why Isn't Montana's Executive Order Preempted?" and it offers numerous answers to that question. "Through the order, the State of Montana acts as a consumer -- not a regulator," the fact sheet says. "Because there's no mandate, and no new regulations, there's certainly no federal preemption. Companies that don't like Montana's proposed contract terms don't have to do business with the State."
By removing the mandate as a government rule and replacing it with contractual obligations they will bypass anything the FCC can do.
The State system is a big enough customer to have the clout to make it happem
I'm not sure if the people involved in repealing NN thought this was going to go away or not but it seem very clear that those against this are going to fight this to the bitter end. I don't expect anyone involved to walk away from this unmarred.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Or just the state government passing rules that make it illegal for city governments to grant monopoly rights to an ISP. That's essentially the source of the problem. You can't expect a market and therefor choices to exist when it's been explicitly prohibited by law, and no one is really interested in starting their own black market internet over the whole deal.
Remember that the Democrats literally nominated a cable company lobbyist to head the FCC when they had the chance
Gaslight for the fail.
During the Bush years, under Chairman Michael Powell (Colin's son) the FCC went to the Supreme Court in order to kill net neutrality (and succeeded in 2005).
Then Obama appointed, Tom Wheeler, former lobbyist turned Benedict Arnold who not only brought back net neutrality but also pushed for a bunch of other consumer freedoms like killing the Comcast/Time-Warner merger, and forcing cable companies to let customers use their own set-top boxes to save on rental fees.
As for Idjit Pai being an "Obama appointee" not so much. By law the 5 member comission can only have 3 members from the same party. Idjit Pai was one of the two non-democrats during Obama's term. The way it works is that the senate minority party comes up with a list of acceptable candidates, in this case Pai was Mitch McConnel's first choice. Maybe Obama should have fought harder, but it didn't really matter since the 3 people he did pick could always overrule the Idjit. Now that the banana republicans are in charge, who Obama appointed is moot because killing NN was always a republican goal and they would have done it one way or another - since that is what they did back in 2005.
This is a good attempt to start re-exerting states rights. The Federal government has over stepped their authority by co-opting powers that should be the purview of the State governments. The Federal government has done this using Federal regulations and laws that states are required to adopt or face being penalized. And the penalty is always losing federal money. A State that refuses to abide by the Federal Highway speed limits faces losing the federal money traditionally used to maintain the federal highways with-in the State. The Federal government was able to enforce the federally mandated drinking age using the same penalty. Any state that did not immediately raise their drinking age to 21 faced losing Federal highway money. Hell the Civil War was about state rights not freeing slaves. Making slavery illegal in the south was only one relatively minor being fought over. The imposition of Federal taxes and commerce regulations was more important than the slavery issue by far. After the North won the war slavery became illegal but that had very little impact on the lives of the former slaves living in the South. Instead of slave they were "share croppers". Racism and discrimination did not change in the least.
Before the FBI was created there was no federal law enforcement across state lines. So in the name of "Public Safety" the Federal government was able to create a law enforcement agency that made every State law enforcement agency subservient to the federal government. That doesn't mean that all federally mandated laws and regulations should be shit canned. Federal EPA regulations work better for the country as a whole instead of state by state. Federal NIST regulations fall into the same category as well. Federal airspace regulations also make sense.
The countries military hierarchy and division of powers is also a good example of States retaining control over their National Guard. The Federal government cannot deploy any federal military assets without the specific request of a states governor.
The Federal government was never supposed to usurp the state rights they have amassed over the years. Let corporations deal directly with states if they want to do business in that state.