Supreme Court Rejects Industry Challenge of 2015 Net Neutrality Rules (arstechnica.com)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused a request by the Trump administration and the telecommunications industry to wipe away a lower court decision that had upheld Obama-era net neutrality rules aimed at ensuring a free and open internet. The justices' action, however, does not undo the 2017 repeal of the policy. A report adds: The Federal Communications Commission's 2015 order to impose net neutrality rules and strictly regulate broadband was already reversed by Trump's pick for FCC chairman, Ajit Pai. But AT&T and broadband industry lobby groups were still trying to overturn court decisions that upheld the FCC order. A win for the broadband industry could have prevented future administrations from imposing a similarly strict set of rules. The Trump administration supported the industry's case, asking the US Supreme Court to vacate the Obama-era ruling.

But the Supreme Court today said it has denied petitions filed by AT&T and broadband lobby groups NCTA, CTIA, USTelecom, and the American Cable Association. Four of nine justices must agree to hear a case, but only three voted to grant the petitions. Further reading: Reuters and Variety.

Comments

Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Is net neutrality the law of the land or not?

Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[penandpaper]

No. The 2017 repeal stands but the lawsuit that tried to force the government from implementing NN failed.

The FCC can do NN if it wants and is not bared by the courts is what this decision means. This has no effect on the 2017 FCC decision to repeal it.

Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[the_skywise]

tl;dr
The courts said the government had the power to enact Net Neutrality through the FCC (without an actual law). Now that never got argued up through to the supreme court yet and the attempt here was to get the SC to decide one way or the other but the SC declined because the issue no longer applies as the FCC reversed direction (which is typical for the FCC).
It's a nothing burger.

Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[ShanghaiBill]

No. But nor is it beyond the reach of the FCC to add it (again), which was the point of this ruling.

There was no "ruling". The SCOTUS simply declined to hear the case. This lets the lower court decision stand, but sets no precedent. The lower court decision only has precedent in the DC circuit.

The SCOTUS can only hear a limited number of cases each year, and they likely declined to hear this case since it is pointless because the regulation in question has already been repealed.

Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[mysidia]

Neutrality is not the law of the land, but that wasn't good enough for ATT and various lobbyists groups ---
they wanted to appeal to the Supreme Court seeking a ruling that it is not within the FCC's power to impose network neutrality, or, essentially that it is beyond the FCC's power to regulate their industry in the first place.

However, the Supreme Court's time is precious, therefore, they are one of the only courts in the US that gets to decide whether they will
hear a case in the first place.... Those that want to appeal to the court must make a petition for certiorari.

The Supreme Court decided that this wasn't even worth hearing and denied their application for certiorari, therefore:
the supreme court declines to even consider their case, at least for now, therefore they are unable to appeal the lower court's ruling,
therefore, the lower court's 2015 ruling in favor of the FCC stands --- even if the FCC doesn't want to right now: A future administration retains the power to restore the Network Neutrality regulations.

Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[bobbied]

Is net neutrality the law of the land or not?

Not...

It was never a law anyway, it was a regulation.

Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[duckintheface]

Justice Roberts and Kavenaugh recused themselves. That's the only reason that there were not enough votes (4 required) to hear the appeal from the DC Circuit. No guarantee they will recuse themselves again in the future.

Re:Gimme a summary without the double-negatives

[modmans2ndcoming]

Uhh.....the DC Circuit has authority over all US government administrative agencies so this does set precedence for how the FCC can govern it's domain into the future.

The way it should be, I suppose

[MaryannG]

The court simply decided to not determine which way NN will be implemented (if it's implemented at all). It allows for the FCC to enact a NN rule administratively. This is good for the functioning of the government while it could be potentially bad for the topic at hand (NN). This is appropriate though as NN really ought to be a law (coming from Congress) and not an administrative ruling.

Zero rating for WhatsApp: negative efects

[fbobraga]

It does not infringe NN? I think it does... besides this, zero rating for WhatsApp is very common here in Brazil (all popular cellphone carriers do it here...), and, I think, it have a very negative impact on elections here, collaborating to "fake news" spread: it's very difficult to verify sources, when the internet access is limited only to this app...

This little nugget stood out for me

[rsilvergun]

Kavanaugh dissented from the ruling upholding net neutrality rules in 2017, arguing that the rules violate the First Amendment rights of Internet service providers by preventing them from "exercising editorial control" over Internet content.

The RIAA/MPAA would have a field day with this. If you've got editorial control then you're no longer a common carrier. Of course I'm not convinced the current Supreme Court wouldn't let them have it both ways. The above is so crazy on the face of it. "exercising editorial control"? ISP and phone companies don't have editorial control. They're a pipe. If they don't like that they can give up their monopoly to somebody who wants to follow the rules.

Re:??CONFUSED??

[bobbied]

Does this mean that we will keep Net Neutrality in place? Does it mean nothing? Does it mean that we may be able to repeal the FCC rules that overturned net neutrality under the heavily bribed and set for life because of industrial lobbying and then congressional appointment staff person known as Ajit Pal?

It means nothing really. It has zero impact on anything about NN, it doesn't force the FCC to enforce NN, undo the repeal or affect any future regulations the FCC may or may not choose to enforce in the future. About the ONLY thing I can imagine this does is give us a pretty good picture of how the SC would chose to not be involved in other such cases. 6 to 3 is pretty open and shut.