The Courts Can’t Take Away Our Internet

[Echo In Light]

by Megan Tady

Today's ruling for Comcast by the DC Circuit Court could be the biggest blow to our nation's primary communications platform, or it could be the kick in the pants our leaders need to finally protect it. Either way, the future of the Internet, the fight for Net Neutrality, and the expansion of broadband is hanging in the balance.

The court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority under existing legal framework to enforce rules that keep Internet service providers from blocking and controlling Internet traffic. The decision puts the FCC's Net Neutrality proceeding and the National Broadband Plan in jeopardy.

The court ruled in favor of ISP Comcast, which was caught blocking BitTorrent Internet traffic in 2007 and contested the FCC's attempts to stop the company. The decision has made it near impossible for the FCC to follow through with plans to create strong Net Neutrality protections that keep the Internet out of the hands of corporations. Additionally, without authority over broadband, the decision means the FCC will be hamstrung when it comes to implementing portions of its just released broadband plan. As a result of this decision, the FCC can't stop Comcast and others from blocking Web sites. And the FCC can't make policies to bring broadband to rural America, to promote competition, and to protect consumer privacy or truth in billing.

Unless...

The FCC has found itself in the ridiculous situation of attempting to regulate broadband without the authority to do so unless the agency takes strong and decisive action to "reclassify" the service under the Communications Act.

Here's the deal: under the Bush FCC, the agency decided to classify and treat broadband Internet service providers the same as any Internet applications company like Facebook or Lexis-Nexis, placing broadband providers outside of the legal framework that traditionally applied to the companies that offer two-way communications services. That's the loophole that let Comcast wiggle out from under the agency's thumb.

Continued:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/06-6

[msongs]

1. internet should be a public utility beyond control of America's corporate enemies/terrorists nt

[Echo In Light]

3. It's a dicey spot since I trust neither corporations nor the FCC

Both are unaccountable to the public

George Carlin on the FCC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4DHGBo01Q

[LetsgoWings13]

5. agreed.

[Echo In Light]

2. MORE on the court’s ruling re: FCC and net neutrality

Two links from Thom Hartmann’s show.

My friend Kim Kaufman observes: “The court that decided this is where Bork, Alito, Robertson, et al. came from–the incubator for right wing privatizers.”

MCM

Public Knowledge Explains:
The Comcast-Bittorrent Decision
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/2989

Today the DC Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in the Comcast/BitTorrent case.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/pdf/comcast-decision.pdf

http://markcrispinmiller.com/2010/04/more-on-the-courts-ruling-re-fcc-and-net-neutrality/

[onenote]

4. who is "Robertson"

[blm]

6. you know they meant Roberts....

geez....you just can't accept that people are legitimately concerned with the pro-corporate, anti-worker, anti-consumer agenda of this fascist-leaning court?

It's your right to look at trees, but, others are looking at the forest.....while they can, of course.

[onenote]

7. actually, there is a Judge Robertson and I was concerned that is who they were

referring to.

As for this "court" - I'm concerned about its RW leanings. But I don't see those leanings as the basis for the ruling of the 3-judge panel in the Comcast case -- a ruling authored by a liberal judge overturning a decision pushed by a conservative, bush-appointed FCC chairman knowing that the agency probably lacked the legal authority to act.

[blm]

8. I don't believe for a sec that Kevin Martin pushed this for anything BUT to get this ruling.

Bush's DoJ also would bungle or overreach on cases involving Republican lawmakers or allies just to assure the cases would get thrown out. Ted Stevens comes to mind.

[onenote]

9. one problem with your theory:the government brief was filed in this case in Sept 2009

It was the work of the current administration. If you are saying that the problem was that the Martin FCC wrote an indefensible order so that it would get thrown out, the question becomes why did the two Democrats, Copps and Adelstein, sign on. They could've sat on their hands, denied Martin the ability to issue any ruling and waited for a Democratic chairman and a Democratic majority on the FCC to oversee the writing of a "better" decision (the underlying order against Comcast was released less than 10 weeks before election day 2008).

[blm]

10. Sometimes dates don't mean anything. Stay behinds stay behind for a reason.

.

[onenote]

11. so your theory is not that Kevin Martin sandbagged the case, its that the DOJ lawyers did?

or that the FCC's career staff did? I'm curious what legal arguments they should have made that they didn't.

The case was argued by FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick. Do you seriously think he sat idly by and let staff attorneys write a brief that did not present the strongest possible defense for teh FCC's action?

The problem wasn't with the government's brief, it was with the underlying order -- or more precisely, with the vitually inevitable consequences of the earlier order according "information service" status to the Internet. And that brings me back to the question -- why did Copps and Adelstein sign onto the order if it was apparent that it was a "set up"?

[Rage Inc.]

12. It's not "our" internet

Don't you get it? When they say, "Freedom isn't free," it's because someone has purchased and trademarked it.

[Echo In Light]

13. Much like the airwaves, apparently