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The Courts Can’t Take Away Our Internet
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.
Change it back
There's an easy fix here: The FCC can change broadband back to a "communications service," which is where it should have been in the first place. By reclassifying broadband, all of these questions about authority will fall away and the FCC can pick up where it left off - protecting the Internet for the public and bridging the digital divide.
While Comcast and other ISPs may be celebrating today, this court decision will hopefully force the FCC to take action that will ultimately come back to haunt them. Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott told the Associated Press, "Comcast swung an ax at the FCC to protest the BitTorrent order. And they sliced right through the FCC's arm and plunged the ax into their own back."
Millions of you
Reclassification of broadband may be a simple fix, but it will take guts from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to actually implement it, particularly as ISPs unleash intense pressure to maintain the status quo.
That's where you come in: We need thousands of you, if not millions, to tell the FCC to protect Net Neutrality and the National Broadband Plan by reasserting their regulatory authority.
In less than 72 hours, the public comment period on the FCC's Net Neutrality proceeding will end. Use this window of opportunity to give the FCC one giant public mandate: We want an Internet free from corporate control.
Will Internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T persuade the FCC to allow them to control Internet traffic, rerouting people to the sites and search engines they own? Or will the FCC protect our last remaining open platform for communication, where anyone can create a Web site, post a video, start a business, or find the information they need without ISPs meddling with our traffic?
This could be one of the most important actions you take all year. The hours are ticking down. Take a few minutes to take action on something that will impact generations.
Comments
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22 Comments so far
Show All"The courts can’t take away our internet"
Wanna bet?! Prior judicial awards of "corporate personhood" strongly suggest otherwise.
As for its being "the kick in the pants our leaders need to finally protect it", please get real. Your leaders, even moreso than the courts, are sponsored and wholly owned by the same interests that are fighting most strenuously to take the internet away from you.
-The FCC has found itself in the ridiculous situation of attempting to regulate broadband without the authority to do so
Taking a step back, your courts say that your FCC can't regulate broadband. They say your congress can't regulate election spending. They say they themselves can't decide on cases of government torture and illegal wire-tapping. They say that they cannot review cases where the facts show that persons have been wrongfully convicted .
Is there a pattern to all this? The people that make up your judiciary, what is their goal in life? Other than to amuse people like me, who already have reason enough to laugh at Americans?
Well put. Still, I don't think someone from a country that exports dishwater and calls it beer should be laughing at Americans.
Have no idea what country you are referring to or how you know where the person is writing from, but it seems to me that if you can sell dishwater to people who think it's beer, you have every right to be laughing.
I don't think anyone ever buys it more than once. It's probably a plot to export Canadian waste to other countries. There's a super-fund site in New Jersey at a warehouse that's filled with Canadian beer. The beer dissolved the cheap metal caps on the bottles and has infiltrated the ground water in the area. There have been a number of reported cases of mutated fish and frogs around the site, but apparently that isn't uncommon in New Jersey.
ctrl-z. If you are referring to Canada, we have real beer not 3.2%. Ranging from 5% to 8%+ it is good stuff with lots of various flavours! Come on over some time & try some!! Cheers. Ron.
Notice that Canadians know right away that you are talking about Canadian Beer when you talk about exported beer that tastes like dishwater. You don't even have to mention the green bottle.
None-the-less Ron, I appreciate your kind offer. Perhaps I could bring a care package of some of our fine craft beers just to give your people an idea of what real beer tastes like.
The Courts Just Took Away Our Internet
Soon only Neo-Con approved web sites will be available
The Courts took away our internet. Corporations are citizens and Exxon doesn't pay federal taxes.
America: this is the change you voted for. And your President is making secret trips to Afghanistan, indicating where his priorities are.
weacguy,
Corporations were given personhood around 1865. And Obama had nothing to do with the decision the court made. In fact, it would be Congress that would have to change the law to give the FCC authority to declare internet neutrality.
Please, get your facts in order!
Gail,
1865, oh really...Was that not the year that the Civil War ended resulting in the 13th amendment and the resultant 14th amendment of 1868...Over 600,000 men died in that war and much of it for civil rights. This is what really irks me about Corporations having the same rights as citizens, clearly not what our fore fathers intended...It was years after that war that the SCOTUS caved in for the Corporations but if you read the entire article {exerts below} it looks as though the decision and intent of the court through the court recorders notes, it seems the decision is somewhat opinionated and rhetorical...
Corporations are not "citizens". According to the dictionary, a "citizen" is "a native or inhabitant" or a member of a state or nation". However, governments can and do make up their own definitions. One of the biggest blows to constitutional authority came in 1886 when the Supreme Court ruled that a business corporation was a natural person under the U.S. constitution, sheltered by the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. Over the next decade, the Court struck down hundreds of local, state and federal laws enacted to limit corporate rights and powers. So a corporation is now defined as a person, but is not and can not be a corporate "citizen".
"The case about to be decided in the Old Senate Chamber before Justice Waite’s Supreme Court was about the way Santa Clara County had been taxing land and rights-of-way of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Claiming the taxation was improper, the railroad had refused for six years to pay taxes levied by Santa Clara County, and the case had ended up before the Supreme Court, with Delmas and Sanderson making the main arguments before the court".
"Although the case on its face was a simple tax case, having nothing to do with due process or human rights or corporate personhood, the attorneys for the railroad nonetheless used much of their argument time to press the issue that the railroad was a “person” and should be entitled to human rights under the Fourteenth Amendment".
In the written record of the case, the court recorder noted: “The defendant corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
This written statement, that corporations were “persons” rather than “artificial persons,” with an equal footing under the Bill of Rights as humans, was not a formal ruling of the court, but was reportedly a simple statement by its Chief Justice, recorded by the court recorder.
Unequal Protection: The Theft of Human Rights
Submitted by Thom Hartmann A... on 1. January 2002 - 1:00
I cold turkeyed drinking and smoking;I'll quit this one too.Tony
Took 30 seconds to sign the online petition with the link embedded in the article.
Hey people, your humor is wonderful but I hope you all signed the petition...I sure as hell did..
BUT, can someone please explain the law/reason that there is only 72 hours for the public to respond to A court decision that was only decided today??? If there were no Internet how in the fuck would enough people know about this deadline in time to comment to the FCC or even about the comcast/FCC case????? This sounds like more American legal bullshit to me!!!
Also:
P.S. Could those of you that desire net neutrality please check out and/or sign this petition below to the FCC!!!!! There is an early April deadline and this will help keep the NET Neutrality!!!!
Matt Lockshin, CREDO Action
I filled out the petition. I tried to sign it but that just got ink on my screen.
Well then, use some "white-out" and start over....
That just [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] made it worse.
OH my god, people might have to wait longer to update their facebook page, or get their celebrity gossip fix, well heaven forbid.
I am not really trying to shill for corporate interest but on the whole the internet has made us stupider not smarter. Some will argue sites like this are important and educated, however, one need look no further than election 2009 when the site was banning voices critical of Obama.
This site also banned people who were for Obama. I think they banned people when the flame wars overshadowed the issues. If you really think the Internet is making you "stupider" why are you posting on it?
I submitted the petition to the FCC sponsored by Freepress, to which I added:
We internet users are a growing community of citizens who increasingly rely on this channel for essential communications. Any attempt by ISPs to restrict our access to sites and methodologies is a violation of the First Ammendment right to free speech. If the Supreme Court's assertion that paid political advertising is protected speech, how can unencumbered access to the full internet forum be anything less?
Furthermore, my ISP contract specifies that they will provide me with internet access at a specific maximum bandwidth. No other restrictions or conditions are stated or implied in that contract. Any attempt on their part to impose unstipulated restrictions must be considered nothing less than a legal violation of that contract as well as an infringement upon my civil rights.
I trust that you will quickly and vigorously move to strike down this egregious assertion of corporate despotism.
snoop: I am impressed, very well put statement, convincing and to the point...I hope others, many, many others have your same attitude and conviction...
The Internet in the world today is the new commons where our species can now exchange both commercial and social information across traditional political boundaries. This has developed to a large extent because it is a neutral forum. It is hard to overstate the damage to this discussion among the people of our planet if this conversation becomes limited by forces whose primary objective is short term profit.
Now is when America can and should set an example as the "shining city on the hill". We are still a beacon as "the last best hope of mankind" to many people of the world. Let us not discard what remains of our example of a country founded upon the promise to maintain the freedom to think, hold beliefs and discuss these beliefs.