
House tells FCC to drop net neutrality - knodi
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/04/09/house_urges_blockage_of_net_neutrality_rules/
======
grellas
The FCC's claim of authority in this instance to impose rules from on high
_is_ problematic.

Here is what EFF says:

"We’re wholly in favor of net neutrality in practice, but a finding of
ancillary jurisdiction here would give the FCC pretty much boundless authority
to regulate the Internet for whatever it sees fit. And that kind of
unrestrained authority makes us nervous about follow-on initiatives like
broadcast flags and indecency campaigns. In general, we think arguments that
regulating the Internet is 'ancillary' to some other regulatory authority that
the FCC has been granted just don’t have sufficient limitations to stop bad
FCC behavior in the future and create the 'Trojan horse' risk we have long
warned about." ([https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/part-i-fcc-
ancillary-a...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/part-i-fcc-ancillary-
authority-regulate-internet))

I have chimed in on this in a previous HN thread:

"The FCC is way out of its league on this one. Basically, it is a creature of
statute. It can do whatever Congress has authorized it to and no more. Nothing
in its authorizing statute expressly permits it to impose the rules now known
as net neutrality. Therefore, it sought to justify its ability to do so under
the doctrine of so-called 'ancillary jurisdiction,' meaning that it had an
implied power to do so in aid of its expressly granted powers. Unfortunately,
a definitive federal appeals court ruling held that no such ancillary
jurisdiction existed, leaving the matter for Congress to decide. Rather than
deferring to Congress, the FCC chose to adopt a new rationale for its
assertion of this authority. Congress overwhelmingly balked at the idea of any
broad assertion of such authority and, in the back and forth, the FCC came up
with the toe-in-the water approach just adopted to the satisfaction of almost
no one. Even this assertion of jurisdiction will certainly be challenged in
the courts in cases that will take years to decide, leaving this whole issue
in a pathetic state of uncertainty for all concerned. Nothing good will come
of this except for lots of employment for the lawyers who will be litigating
whether this or that action is 'reasonable' and whether the internet is really
like a public utility or not. All in all, a royal mess."
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2033261>)

A short-hand way of summing up the issue: do you want, in the name of a short-
term goal such as net neutrality, to cede to unaccountable government
regulators a broad, unchecked power to control what happens on the internet? I
think this should give pause to all of us, no matter what we think of the net-
neutrality issue.

~~~
trythis
It certainly does give me pause, but we also know how the Republicans will
come down on net neutrality regardless of whether an overreaching regulatory
body is advocating (some version of) it. That, to me, is the bigger story.

As you said, the FCC can only do what Congress has authorized it to do, so
we're not in any real danger of the FCC having a "broad, unchecked power to
control what happens on the internet". What we are in danger of is having a
Congress that kills net neutrality, period.

Edit: Not that I care about karma, but I'm curious as to why I'm being
downvoted. I'm not disagreeing with grellas' point.

~~~
hammock
You probably got downvoted because you show a lack of understanding of what
grellas was saying. What he was saying was that if the FCC had been allowed by
the courts to use 'ancillary jurisdiction' to impose new rules, the FCC would
indeed be in the very situation which you say is impossible, a situation of
broad, unchecked power.

~~~
trythis
You're mistaken on this point. The courts already rejected the ancillary
jurisdiction rationale, and rather than wait for Congress to make a decision
on net neutrality, the FCC adopted a new rationale (which, as I recall, hinged
upon reclassifying broadband traffic) to justify imposing their net neutrality
rules. All of this is in grellas' post. The issue grellas is raising is
whether it's acceptable to let a regulatory body like the FCC make such broad
assertions of authority at all. The matter of ancillary jurisdiction is
already done and settled.

When I said we're not in any real danger of the FCC having a "broad, unchecked
power to control what happens on the internet," my point was that irrespective
of whether Congress denies the FCC this authority _right now_ , it always has
the power to do so. And though it's irrelevant to my point, if the courts
_had_ upheld the ancillary jurisdiction rationale, Congress could always
strike that down, too. This situation isn't like the executive branch
jockeying with the legislative branch for power: the FCC is not a peer of
Congress.

~~~
lukeschlather
In the next few years, it's looking like the vast majority of
telecommunications will move over to the Internet. If the FCC doesn't have the
authority to regulate the Internet, they will have no regulatory authority
whatsoever over land-based telecom. I don't see how that is reasonable, and I
don't see how the initial decision to classify Internet as something other
than a wire communications service was justifiable.

It's disingenuous to say the FCC is claiming any authority they don't have
under the law.

------
enko
Australia, where metered access (XX GBs per month) rules, may provide some
insight into how net non-neutrality plays out on practise. Here, it's not
about speed limiting to "non-favoured" sites, but about whether consumption
from those sites consume your allocated bandwidth allowance. It is routine for
companies to do deals with ISPs to provide "unmetered" access to their
services for customers. For example, with my ISP, anything I buy from Apple is
unmetered. Other ISPs might, for example, offer free Steam traffic. This is
most noticeable, I think, on mobile data plans, which often feature "unlimited
Facebook" or "all you can Tweet" or similar.

I can see how this has the potential to entrench existing players but
subjectively the effect seems weak at best and does not figure too much in
people's purchasing decisions. Personally, I would prefer more general
solutions to the problem of "corporate cliques" gaining oligopoly powers.
Restrictions on cross-media ownership would seem to be the weapon of choice.

------
nooneelse
What about the "what is in a name" path?

What if, instead of regulating what ISPs can do with their network, there were
a movement (read, "lawsuits") (using some new or perhaps just existing law) to
stop anything past some previously normal level of traffic management from
being called "internet service". So a teleco could give preference to their
own, or affiliate, traffic, but that could not be referred to by them, or sold
to customers, as "the internet". The position here is this: the term "the
internet" has come to mean, through intent and common use, something that does
not include, by definition, those kind of practices. Thus, selling a package
with those practices and calling it internet service is deceit.

If I sold a "car" to someone and, when they went to pick up their new car,
they found what anyone besides my team of salesmen would call a golf cart,
that wouldn't be legal. Same idea.

I'm sure I'm being naïve, how?

~~~
delinka
This is a good path to consider. It's not "food" if it doesn't contain the
right amount of edible/digestible ingredients. It's not "octane X" if it
hasn't been refined in the right method. That car isn't "safe" unless it
adheres to regulatory guidelines.

It's not "Internet access" if it doesn't allow me to access resources on the
Internet at my leisure and at the "broadband" speed advertised. (OK, I know
that my 6Mbps connection doesn't get me 6Mbps all the way from Netflix, but
you can see my point.)

------
johngalt
Getting the FCC to make carriers play fair is a slow road to improvement and
it's filled with potholes. I'd be more inclined to support regulation changes
intended to make starting a new carrier easier.

Mark my words: Any net neutrality bill will benefit the existing carriers, and
stifle telecom startups.

~~~
intended
If I am not mistaken, setting up a working telecom startup is quite capital
intensive, and has high running costs on top of it, just in terms of handling
Marketing and competitive pressures.

How would a new startup survive and scale by any change in rules? The market
would still serve the incumbents more than the startups - since their scale
would make them stronger bets.

I'm curious to know what type of regulation would help circumvent the high
startup cost and create genuine competition.

Edit: I am genuinely interested to know what regulation the original poster
had in mind, or any other regulation that would help achieve his stated goal.

~~~
tptacek
So is starting an airline, but deregulation still got us Southwest and
Jetblue.

~~~
intended
So you are saying LESS regulation is the change in regulation you would like
to see?

So what regulations would you remove?

~~~
tptacek
I'm saying that despite the fact that airlines are a textbook example of an
industry with high capital requirements for entry, deregulation did not hand
the industry over to a cartel of incumbents. In fact, air carriage is
regularly shaken up by new entrants and new market forces.

~~~
cooldeal
Deregulation is such a blanket term encompassing so many things (especially
the things regulated right now) that it by itself can't be judged a cure-all.
Imagine deregulating the food industry by disbanding the FDA.

Loss of net neutrality will hurt small players in the web space(imagine a
startup competitor to Netflix which can't afford deals with so many ISPs).

~~~
tptacek
I'm not in favor of blanket deregulation. Quite the contrary: I'm a Democrat!
Message boards tend to take everyone to extremes. I simply want to make the
point that deregulation in and of itself doesn't inevitably lead to
megacorporate cartels.

------
rflrob
_"But critics of net neutrality rules argue that free-market competition would
prevent such abuses"_

Is consumer internet really a free market? To my knowledge, most of the Bay
Area only has a choice between Comcast and AT&T. If you only have 2 or 3
companies competing, it's relatively easy for them all to decide independently
that traffic shaping is in their own best interest, which leaves the consumer
with no real choice.

~~~
hammock
Free market does not necessarily mean perfect competition, or 10+ competitors
to choose from. I don't know where you got that idea.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
While this is true, it was essentially mandated that there be two competitors.
The choice was to have many resellers of DSL competing against cable, or an
entrenched duopoly. Chairman Michael Powell chose the duopoly, even using that
word to describe it.

------
teoruiz
From the outside it looks like the US political scene is a complete and
ridiculous mess right now, led by the Republican Congress.

~~~
tptacek
I'm a liberal Democrat and I'm queasy about enforced net neutrality; these are
rules that govern what companies can do with their own infrastructure, and
rules that could unintentionally retard progress instead of protecting it.

Further, Congress has a legitimate gripe here. We don't elect FCC
commissioners. They're appointed. We should be particularly concerned about
them overstepping their bounds. Which a reasonable case can be made for here.

I'm not sure I see what your comment adds to the discussion, other than "the
duly elected Republican congress is doing something I disagree with!".

~~~
delinka
I think we're at a point where Internet access needs to be classified as a
utility, like electricity and water.

We are indeed in a situation where many companies have invested in their own
infrastructure and maybe that requires consideration. I'm absolutely certain
that jimktrains2 has a point: the U.S. taxpayers coughed up tremendous amounts
of money to invest in infrastructure which makes those lines ours. (Sure,
'legally' AT&T et al own title and deed, but you and I still provided the
money.)

Ultimately the point is that it's time to classify access to the Internet as a
utility and regulate it as such: separating ownership from operation,
mandatory line sharing, various and sundry other mechanisms to make sure the
consumer has choice amongst competitors. _Then_ we can say net neutrality is
not needed.

~~~
tptacek
There is no company I have to deal with on a regular basis that is worse than
the electrical company.

This Internet stuff is not really a voting issue for me (health care and
education are the big things that make me a Dem and not a Lib), but the
candidate that tells me he wants to turn AT&T into Commonwealth Edison has
secured a donation from me to his opponent.

Be careful what you wish for.

~~~
pbz
If they would've built the entire infrastructure without public money sure,
but that's not the case. Also, when dealing with limited resources, like
spectrum, regulation is necessary. We put in money to build the
infrastructure, we should have a saying in how it's utilized. And, by the way,
I wish dealing with most companies would be as smooth as the power company --
ymmv.

------
chopsueyar
“Today, Republicans first want to shut down the Internet, then they want to
shut down the government,’’ said US Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden
Democrat...

“We look forward to forever prohibiting the overreach of the Federal
Communications Commission,’’ Blackburn said.

------
lurchpop
Funny how politicians hotly debate the FCCs authority, but when it comes to
DHS seizing domain names nobody says shit.

~~~
tptacek
Funny? No, just boring. "DHS" siezes domain names because DHS was hurriedly
created, as a reaction to 9/11, by jamming agencies together like so many
insects in the transporter from The Fly. One of those agencies happened to be
Immigration and Customs, which has always had IPR enforcement in its
portfolio.

Every time people make these conspiracy-theoretic comments about how "Homeland
Security" is doing antipiracy raids, they betray either a lack of
understanding of how their government is actually structured, or an easygoing
willingness to buy into Internet drama, or both. At least, that's what it
looks like to me.

~~~
_delirium
It does have an interesting psychological effect, though, possibly on both the
recipients of orders, and on the general public. Reminds me a bit of the
similar accident of jurisdiction that led to 1980s teenage hax0rz being raided
by the Secret Service, rather than by more normal-sounding police.

~~~
tptacek
Is there some controversy about the Secret Service involvement during Sun
Devil? Those were interstate crimes, not to mention the fact that no local
police force was in any way equipped to deal with the problem.

~~~
_delirium
Not political controversy, just the psychological aspect that it was The
Secret Service, the dramatic earpiece-wearing folks in movies who keep the
president from being shot, not to mention a police agency with the conspiracy-
driving word "secret" in their name. If we instead had the U.S. Government
Computer Crime Agency, it'd be a lot more pedestrian.

~~~
tptacek
It probably has more to do with how few people understood that the Secret
Service is was really more like the Treasury Police, and protecting the
President was only a small part of what they did. The protective details are
the only thing interesting enough to make movies about, hence the mystique.

------
jmtame
i'm not familiar with the rules proposed in december, was this in reference to
the proposal that google and verizon drew up?

~~~
_delirium
I believe it was this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2028807>

------
Derbasti
Another freedom lost in the land of the free.

~~~
tptacek
Recorded for posterity that somebody voted this non-sequitor comment up.

------
hammock
Do you have the internet? How would you like it if the FCC required you to pay
an extra $20 a month to get movie downloads, whether you want them not, or to
allow your kids to access violent video games or adult content, whether you
want them to or not, just so everyone would get what the government considers
to be “the full Internet experience?” What if you’re low income, and you’d
rather spend that $20 on books? Or warm clothes? Or food?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like advocates of net neutrality want
low income people to have that choice.

(note words above are not mine)

------
nabaraj
Republicans Mess!!

------
ck2
I know on HN this is the part we focus on (the net) but based on the
republican plans for the future of the federal government (which do have a
real chance of happening) this would be the least you have to worry about.
It's pretty much going to be every person for themselves because government is
going to be a fraction of what it was and states, therefore residents will
receive a fraction of the funding you are used to.

Not just the net, everything from roads, education, healthcare, prisons is
going to become radically privatized.

~~~
tptacek
Is there any possible response to this comment that will produce a thread we'd
be happy to have on HN?

~~~
ck2
Net neutrality is politics. I'm just saying this is the least of our political
worries right now. When the president and half the democrats are also anti-net
neutrality, basically it's gone.

~~~
ascendant
I thought I read that if the current bill passes the president would veto it.
Is it because he's pro-net-neutrality or anti-anything-republican? The last
question isn't partisan, it's a perfectly valid reason for a democrat
president to veto a republican-led bill. Happens the other way, too.

~~~
ck2
He may not want _this_ bill but he will certainly give into anti-neutrality
measures in another format. Remember he listens directly to the riaa and mpaa
and other such industry groups.

