Why would it necessarily have to be federal law, and not state law?
Comment on Net neutrality is back as FCC votes to regulate internet providers
Toribor@corndog.social 6 months agoThat would require Congress to act and Congress is barely capable of accomplishing the bare minimum to keep the budget running so the entire world isn’t thrown into chaos. Asking them to do anything that actually protects consumer rights is going to take either an emergency or an extreme electoral shift.
debanqued@beehaw.org 6 months ago
ulkesh@beehaw.org 6 months ago
Well here’s a few off the top of my head…
- Interstate commerce is governed by the federal government. The internet is a bastion of interstate commerce.
- Schools now require the internet for kids. ISPs being allowed to be anything more than a dumb pipe means they have the control of what information is sent across their network.
- The internet is now a basic human right in the United States for numerous reasons, one of which is #2. Basic human rights have notoriously been mishandled by the states. See: slavery, indentured servitude, civil rights, voting rights, air and water treatment, etc.
- ISPs cross state boundaries and should be governed by interstate law.
An ISP being a business, especially a publicly-traded one, will sacrifice all manner of consumer/user-protection in order to maximize profit. And having the states govern against that will lead to a smattering of laws where it becomes muddy on what can actually be enforced, and where.
Net Neutrality, as a general concept, must be codified into federal law in order to help protect the common good and interest of such a basic utility – and yes, the internet is a utility despite in some places, very few in fact, where competition is available.
debanqued@beehaw.org 6 months ago
Interstate commerce is governed by the federal government.
Not exclusively. Interstate commerce implies that the feds can regulate it, not that they have exclusive power to do so. We see this with MJ laws. The fed believes it has the power to prohibit marijuana on the basis of interstate commerce, but in fact mj can be grown locally, sold locally, and consumed locally. Just like internet service can be.
Suppose you want to buy a stun gun in New York. You can find stun guns sold via mail order from another state (thus interstate commerce), but New York still managed to ban them despite the role of interstate commerce.
A close analog would be phone laws. The fed has the TCPA to protect you from telemarketers, but at the same time various states add additional legal protections for consumers w.r.t. telemarketing and those laws have force even if the caller is outside the country. (Collecting on the judgement is another matter).
Schools now require the internet for kids. ISPs being allowed to be anything more than a dumb pipe means they have the control of what information is sent across their network.
Education is specifically a service of the state. If you can point to the statute requiring schools to provide internet for students, I believe it will be state law not federal law that you find.
The internet is now a basic human right in the United States for numerous reasons, one of which is #2.
I don’t quite follow. Are you saying that because education is a human right, that internet access is a human right? I don’t think it works that way. First of all, people who do not exercise their right to an education would not derive any rights implied by education. As for the students, if a state requires internet in education that does not mean that internet access becomes a human right. E.g. an Amish family might lawfully opt to homeschool their child, without internet. That would satisfy the right to education enshrined in the Unified Declaration of Human Rights just fine.
Also, if internet could be construed as a human right by some mechanism that’s escaping me, the fed is not exclusively bound by human rights law. The fed signed the treaty, but all governments therein are also bound to uphold human rights. Even private companies are bound to human rights law in the wording of the text, though expectation of enforcement gets shaky.
ISPs cross state boundaries and should be governed by interstate law.
I subscribe to internet service from a WISP. A dude in my neighborhood rolled out his own ISP service. His market did not even exceed the city.
The local ISPs have ISPs themselves and as you climb the supply chain eventually you get into the internet backbone which would be interstate, but that’s not where the netneutrality problem lives. The netneutrality problem is at the bottom of the supply chain, where the end user meets their local ISP. Also with MJ laws, several states have liberated the use of marijuana despite the feds using the interstate commerce act to ban it.
An ISP being a business, especially a publicly-traded one, will sacrifice all manner of consumer/user-protection in order to maximize profit. And having the states govern against that will lead to a smattering of laws where it becomes muddy on what can actually be enforced, and where.
Sure, and if the fed is relaxed because the telecoms feed the warchests of the POTUS and Congress, you have a nationwide shit-show. A progressive state can fix that by imposing netneutrality requirements. Just like many states introduce extra anti-telemarketing laws that give consumers protection above and beyond the TCPA.
ulkesh@beehaw.org 6 months ago
Clearly you are smarter than I. Enjoy.
ulkesh@beehaw.org 6 months ago
I don’t disagree. And while I agree with the FCC continually trying to keep Net Neutrality alive, it’s a stopgap measure at best, one that will come and go until there is an elected Congress that isn’t full of greedy, sycophantic, whiny, spineless pieces of shit.