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.

Re:We don't need net neutrality

[PolygamousRanchKid]

We need these legislators

Actually we don't need them, since they are the problem and the reason that no sensible progress on this issue will be made. They've taken something that shouldn't be political, and polarized it into extremes that cannot be resolved. In fact, the politicians are not really interested in what is better for the people . . . they are only interested in how they cause use the issue in their political strategic game.

The Republicans are against Net Neutrality, because the Democrats are for it. The Democrats are for Net Neutrality, because the Republicans are against it. The politicians simply vote along their party lines. No one knows why. It's like the Hatfield and McCoy feud . . . they don't stop and think about why they are fighting . . . they just like to fight.

The Net Neutrality issue would find a better solution if politicians were not involved in it.

Re:We don't need net neutrality

[dryeo]

It's always political. If allowed, ISP's can easily swing an election. Make the other parties web sites unreachable, make certain neighbourhoods unable to reach the registration website are 2 simple means. Works best with a minimal number of ISP's and if those ISP's goals are in sync, and they usually are as they all want to maximize profits while doing the least work possible.

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:We need both

[JackieBrown]

Same with union money, right? No more of that either?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com...

Re:toothless

[Memnos]

It would perhaps depend on the state barred interference and how many of them did so. California, for example, is about a $2.7 trillion GDP state with about $120 billion in revenue that the government spends on stuff each year. Part of that is their cable bill, so to speak, and it's a big number. California, and any other state, can say "we'll spend our money with the companies that interfere less according to our laws, and not use the ones who interfere more." Again, it can be a big chunk of change, and it's revenue an ISP gives up at its peril.

And in California, again as an example, the carriers can't really can't scoff at such a law or rule for long, and certainly, all the lobbying they did wouldn't influence the current California Governor or really the legislature of the state much at all. Probably not successive ones either. In other states, YMMV, but any 2-3 other reasonably large states acting in concert could exert similar pressures if they so chose, and likewise, any 8-10 other moderately sized ones could as well. And if it worked in California, they'd be likely to.

Also, remember, the ISPs would be in violation of the law, for whatever that's still worth these days.

Re:I'm sure Congress is happy

[JBMcB]

All that sweet, sweet NRA lobby money has nothing to do with it.

Ever notice how nobody actually says how much money the NRA spends on campaigns? That's because, in relative terms, it's almost nothing.

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

Median payout to individual campaigns? $1,000. Average cost of a congressional campaign? $10,000,000.

Whoo boy, with the NRA funding a whopping 0.1% of your campaign, you had better toe the line!

Re:toothless

[ArtemaOne]

Well that's not a mystery, as it clearly says the government would not do any business with them. Cut off their cash cow of taxpayer money.