Wait, I think you might be confusing terms. The relevant distinction is between ‘information services’ and ‘telecoms services.’ The Communications Act permits the FCC to regulate the latter much more than the former. Under Obama, the FCC issued a 2015 net neutrality regulation that bent over backwards to claim the Internet was really a telecoms service (and thus could be regulated via net neutrality rules) and not an ‘information services’ provider. That was the overreach – it didn’t make logical sense, given the definitions the Act laid out, and the goal was clearly to get net neutrality through by any means available. But it was a stretch. Republicans’ contention that the Internet is more of an information service is significantly more logical.
Could you formulate a reason why, using the terms of the Communications Act and its definitions? Is the part I quoted in my last post not intuitively a good descriptor of the Internet?
I don’t see what was mean about my post? I don’t know why my description of the Internet is “horseshit” either. Regardless, even if my definition of the Internet is poor, that is no justification for why someone would be mean to another person…
The internet is a telecommunications network. X, Y or Z website might be an information service, but the internet itself is a telecommunications network.
That’s definitely a plausible counterargument, and the Communications Act leaves enough ambiguity that I could see that being arguably better reasoning. But note that courts give agencies, including the FCC, rather broad latitude to define and interpret ambiguous terms how they want, which is how the Obama FCC was able to do its about-face and classify the Internet as a telecoms provider instead of an information service without much judicial scrutiny.
It was definitely not a legal overreach (for the same reason its not a legal overreach for the Trump administration/FCC to reverse course – agencies like the FCC have free rein to define and interpret ambiguous terms in statutes). But the reasons for the switch that the Obama FCC gave were clearly ends-focused – meaning they were designed to get net neutrality through as a goal. I feel the hoops the FCC hastily jumped through in 2015 assumed a conclusion and tried to fit the terms to the conclusion.
The court told them that if they wanted to do net neutrality (which they were within their rights to do), they had to do it through Title II. Of course the reason was ends focused. They had tried to reach the same end through the less intrusive way and were rejected.
Right, and my point is that the FCC’s hasty contortions in 2015 to reclassify broadband flew in the face of 15+ years of jurisprudence just to achieve net neutrality, and I don’t think that’s how agencies ought to be defining their terms. It’s not quite the ideal process, and it created a lot of logical flaws and legal confusion. Going back to 1998, the FCC had concluded broadband was an information service (with the Stephens report), and SCOTUS upheld that interpretation in 2005 with the Brand X decision. All of this suddenly had to change because of a political goal – and so suddenly Democrats found themselves trying to toss out all this precedent as if it never happened.
The important question would be whether Congress gave this regulatory authority to the FCC – not what the FCC claims its authority is, even if it contradicted itself. I think it is pretty well established in case law that the FCC has this authority, but I might be missing your point. Certainly, you are right that executive agencies in general have tremendous administrative power, and it’s arguably undemocratic.
Also, about the dormant commerce clause’s application here-- after looking at a few experts (including the ones cited by Ars), it looks to me like an evolving issue that would need a record to decide. I.e., exactly how much would state net neutrality regulations “burden” interstate commerce is a factual question that it seems no one can determine for sure at this point. It just requires a lot more knowledge of how industry contracts are made, and where broadband development occurs, than I have.
Which is why it not being regulated as such is a problem, because many of those providers (often geographic monopolies) also have content networks that have been impacted by the internet. They have built in incentives to muck with the infrastructure to create advantages for their unrelated business interests.
And this isn’t theoretical, they have done it. See: Comcast and Netflix. They just haven’t gone all in on it yet, largely because until Idjit Pai the FCC did regulate it somewhat, and they seem to be biding their time until the public forgets this before ramping up.
I’d wager after the midterms they start ramping up interference.
I understand the frustration of the majority here however, reading this thread as someone who is generally knowledgeable but not absolutely on top of my arm chair legal game, it seems gman1225 has a point about people being “mean”. There is little to no discussion in good faith. Instead it is just a dogpile of telling him he’s wrong in a nasty, derogatory tone. There is no attempt to explain why the local majority opinion is correct; it is stated as known and unalterable fact.
Conservatives, Trump supporters or not, can say the same thing.
BTW, as with @WhollySchmidt I live in the SE US and have to deal with a number of conservatives all the time in social situations. I’ve also done research into changing misconceptions in science education. So I find that either side being unwilling to actively listen and discuss is somewhat of a button with me.
Yea, I think it boils down to for years liberals have tried to listen and act in good faith, while facing a Fox fueled ‘conservative’ movement that refused to do the same. ‘We’ had to listen and validate their concerns while ‘they’ continuously ignored ours.
Then they voted for Trump, the ultimate rejection of reasonableness and reconciliation and so liberals have broadly gone ‘well fuck it’. If intransigence and inflamitoey rhetoric are what works, because clearly it has worked more in the last decade than compromise and honest dialogue, then two can play at this game.
So I get it. Insults and aggression from the Fox crowd have clearly been effective, so what is the emincentive to do otherwise?
For my part I try not to. Within reason. Because I refuse to be civil about the person of the president, because fuck Donald J Trump and his cabinet of sycophants. But someone from a more traditional (read: pre tea party) conservative position? I’ll normally be willing to dialogue, though the continued slide towards authoritarian and racist positions does limit that. My own father in law is an example of a formerly reasonable person drinking the look aid.
