Lawmakers Continue Fighting For Net Neutrality in the US Senate, Courts, and States (cnet.com)

Here's the latest developments in the ongoing fight over net neutrality rules:

• CNET reports that Democrats in the Senate "have been pushing to use the Congressional Review Act to roll back the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules. They've gotten the support of 50 senators for the measure, including one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine. Sen. John Kennedy from Louisiana , who's been undecided in his support of the CRA bill, was being courted by Democrats as the tie-breaking vote to pass the measure in the Senate...
  
  "On Wednesday, Kennedy introduced a piece of legislation that would ban companies like AT&T and Comcast from slowing down or blocking access to websites or internet services. But the bill wouldn't prevent these broadband and wireless companies from offering paid prioritization, which many critics fear could lead to so-called internet 'fast lanes.'"

• Axios reports that lawsuits looking to strike down the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of its own net neutrality rules "will be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the court said Thursday... The lottery to decide the location of the court arguments was the result of lawsuits filed against the FCC in different jurisdictions, including by Attorneys General from more than 20 states, led by New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman."

• The Associated Press reports that on Monday, Washington became the first state to set up its own net-neutrality requirements. But they add that governors in five states -- Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Montana and Vermont -- "have signed executive orders related to net-neutrality issues, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Montana's order, for instance, bars telecommunications companies from receiving state contracts if they interfere with internet traffic or favor higher-paying sites or apps."

Comments

We don't need net neutrality

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

We need these legislators to just stop putting bullshit laws like this into place. If Wilson, NC can build a viable fiber ISP wire up another tiny town, we don't need net neutrality. Wilson is not a rich town AFAIK. If they can do it, then so can most communities.

By comparison, look at Facebook and YouTube. You'd have to be a window-licking moron to defend net neutrality at the ISP level and then claim "da magic free market's gonna take care of the big platform companies." To build a service that can compete with Google-subsidized YouTube (still losing like $2B/year!) is significantly more expensive. It would cost at least as much private cash as expanding FiOS to the entire Western half of North Carolina so that every nook and cranny of Appalachia has 500mbps.

We need both

[rsilvergun]

Muni broadband is still going to get stuck running over large parts of infrastructure owned by Comcast, AT&T and Cox.

What we really need is a shift in American politics where nobody get elected unless they refuse all corporate and PAC money. Show up to your primaries and vote for candidates who refuse corp & PAC money. If you don't have one and you've got time run. Politicians can't (or won't) serve two Masters.

Re:I'm sure Congress is happy

[Brett Buck]

Not that many people are "screaming for gun control". Lot of people who are "able to get on TV with histrionic appeals" are "screaming for gun control" and the politically-driven media lap it up.

      You can get all the gun control you want - you just have to alter the constitution. There's perfectly well-described process for that, but you know for certain that it will fail, so you are trying to do it with an administrative end run, like so many other illegal things you want done.