Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Net Brutality



The Obamissariat 
                                     

'Obamacare for the Internet'

Video: Ted Cruz declares the 'era of Obama lawlessness is over'

Really?  Let's first wait for the results of this PET scan:

That was President Barack Obama's November 10 take on who gets to decide whether new rules governing so-called "net neutrality" — regulating broadband Internet providers as "common carriers" under the Communications Act of 1934 — gets implemented.
[...] "Unfortunately, the court ultimately struck down the rules — not because it disagreed with the need to protect net neutrality, but because it believed the FCC had taken the wrong legal approach," Obama claimed in his statement.

Which may be putting it mildly. To wit, the court said "Given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such. Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order."

In other words, under the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Internet service providers were exempted from being treated under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 as common carriers. Instead, they were be treated as exempt "information services" providers by the FCC in an initial 2002 determination.

Because of that, the FCC cannot now go back and treat them as if they were common carriers, said the court. That is, not without the FCC going back and reversing its determination.

Which is exactly what Obama wants the agency to do: "I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act."

But that is untested. Can the FCC just change its mind? [Obama skips Congress on ‘net neutrality’]

I don't think Obamunism can go into remission, anymore than totalitarianism.  Each occurrence must be surgically removed.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Just type your name and post as anonymous if you don't have a Blogger profile.