5/09/2010

After losing a court case, the Obama administration tries to get around it by redefining what terms mean

The question is how far the FCC can go in redefining things.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski released details of a new plan to reclassify broadband services so that some common carrier rules required by telecom services would apply to broadband. The thought is that reclassifying broadband would put the FCC on firmer legal ground for establishing Net neutrality rules, which are supposed to keep the Internet open and free and protect consumers from companies trying to monkey with their Internet traffic.
The FCC is doing this because a month ago the agency's authority was called into question when a federal court ruled against the FCC for punishing Comcast for violating its Net neutrality principles. The court basically said that the FCC did not have the authority to give Comcast a slap on the wrist for slowing down BitTorrent traffic on its network. . . .
Does the FCC even have the legal authority to reclassify broadband services?
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the FCC's legal authority to reclassify communications services, according to the agency. In the Brand X case, a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court affirmed the FCC's decision at the time to classify cable broadband as an unregulated information service. The majority in this case said that FCC had the technical expertise to determine the classification.
As a result, cable modem service remained unregulated. Soon after the decision, the FCC reclassified DSL service as an information service as well to put it on the same legal ground as cable. . . .
Does anyone disagree that the FCC has the legal authority to reclassify broadband services?
Yes, the telephone companies, namely AT&T and Verizon Communications, strongly disagree that the FCC has the authority to reclassify broadband.
"We believe this is without legal basis," said Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs for AT&T. "Congress has never given the FCC explicit authority to regulate the Internet under Title II. Simply because it desires to do so, or is concerned because a court has questioned its authority to do so, does not by itself confer legal authority." . . .
Thirteen companies, including Google, Amazon.com, and eBay, praised the FCC's reclassification proposal in a letter sent to Genachowski in support of his plan. . . .


Here is another interesting article on this topic:

there are very good reasons that making the change would prove a tough slog. In order to treat broadband Internet access as a Title II service, the FCC would need to navigate a minefield of legal obstacles established to avoid just this kind of regulatory landgrab.
For starters, nothing in the Communications Act gives the FCC authority to decide on its own what is and what is not a telecommunications service. Congress already made that decision. That broadband Internet is an unregulated "information service" is already long-settled law, law made concrete by the FCC itself.
Since the 1996 revisions that introduced the distinction, the agency under Democratic and Republican administrations alike has consistently and loudly argued that, at the very least, broadband Internet through the cable system is not, and never was meant to be, a telecommunications service. That was an argument the agency made to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005's Brand X case, when a Southern California ISP challenged the refusal of a local cable company to give it access to its equipment--access it compared to its legally sanctioned use of the local phone company's infrastructure.
The question in Brand X was not which title made more sense for broadband Internet. The question was where Congress put broadband when it passed the 1996 Act. The FCC argued successfully that the definition of information services included cable Internet service. Later, the agency decided that Internet access offered by traditional phone companies was also an information service under Title I, at least for DSL speeds. (Dial-up Internet is still treated as a telecommunications service under Title II.) . . .
There was no question in 1996 of bringing all that innovation under rules created to control the old AT&T. Rather, the debate was over how much of the old rules were still needed 11 years after the monopoly had been broken up. There was even serious consideration given to deregulating everything and disbanding the FCC, much as Congress had done with the airline industry and its former regulator, the Civil Aeronautics Board, or the railroad industry and the now-defunct Interstate Commerce Commission. . . .
Consider reaction to an alternative policy decision the FCC hasn't made but plausibly could make. Today, the agency enforces its decency rules--you know, swear words and wardrobe malfunctions--with enthusiasm against broadcast radio and television networks, but has never done so against cable television.
Suppose, armed with the "good reason" that America is sinking into a culture abyss, the FCC similarly decided to "reclassify" cable programming and started to hand out fines to nearly every show on HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central? . . .


Question: if the FCC could impose rules dealing with content such as the words used, could they also impose the "Fairness" doctrine on websites?

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home