Net Neutrality: States Slam ‘Capricious’ FCC in New Court Brief

The attorneys general from 22 states as well as the District of Columbia on Monday filed a brief in the D.C. federal appeals court, pressing the court to throw out the December Federal Communications Commission ruling that ditched Obama-era net neutrality rules. In the court brief, the states—led by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood—blasted the FCC’s decision as “devastating” for “millions of Americans” and an “arbitrary and capricious ... abdication of regulatory authority.” “A free and open internet is critical to New York—and to our democracy,” said Underwood in a prepared statement. “By repealing net neutrality, the FCC is allowing internet service providers to put their profits before consumers while controlling what we see, do, and say online.” Under net neutrality rules, internet service providers are banned from slowing down or blocking internet traffic to some sites while granting others access to an online “fast lane,” as well as other forms on unequal treatment of internet data. According to documents filed Monday as part of the states’ lawsuit, the rollback of net neutrality is already having dangerous effects. The Santa Clara County, California, fire department said in the documents that Verizon, which provides internet access to the fire department, “throttled”—that is, deliberately slowed—its internet data, according to a report by Ars Technica.  “Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services,” the Santa Clara County fire department said in the documents. Verizon called the slowing as “customer support mistake,” but Santa Clara Country replied, “Verizon's throttling has everything to do with net neutrality—it shows that the ISPs will act in their economic interests, even at the expense of public safety.” As AVN.com reported, the Donald Trump administration is already attempting to preempt the states’ lawsuit against the net neutrality repeal. In 2016, two federal courts issued rulings that upheld the open internet rules. But earlier this month, the United States Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to toss out those rulings, saying that the FCC repeal decision made the rulings “moot.” While the DOJ claims that the request is simply a case of legal “housekeeping,” net neutrality advocates say that the administration is trying to erase the legal precedents that could be used by the D.C. appellate court to reinstate the rules. A number of private entities are also suing to get the net neutrality rules put back in place. On Monday, Mozilla—the organization that makes the popular open-source internet browser Firefox—filed its own brief, saying that FCC ignored its “reasoned decision making” process by “ignoring much of the public record as well as their own data showing that consumers lack competitive choices for internet access.” Photo By Slow King / Wikimedia Commons