FCC, Net Neutrality Advocates Go Toe-To-Toe In DC Appeals Court

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Lawyers for the Federal Communications Commission went toe-to-toe with attorneys for a group of internet freedom advocates led by Mozilla, makers of the open-source Firefox browser, and other internet companies in a grueling five-hour hearing at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia—a hearing in which a three-judge panel grilled the lawyers for both sides, but gave little hint of whether they would let the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules stand. The Republican-controlled FCC in June tossed out the 2015 rules that guaranteed equal treatment for all internet traffic. Mozilla and the other net neutrality advocates want the court to put the rules back in place, as AVN.com reported.  While the central issue in the net neutrality case was thought to be whether the internet is defined as a “telecommunications service” or an “information service,” according to a CNet report on Friday’s hearing, the judges—two Barack Obama appointees and a Ronald Reagan appointee—appeared most concerned about the effect repealing the rules may have on public safety. Without net neutrality rules in place, internet access providers are free to slow down, or “throttle,” traffic from some sites, while granting others access to an “internet fast lane.” But the judges asked about how throttling would affect the ability of first responders to communicate with each other and the public during a crisis.  The FCC was required by law to consider the impact of repealing the rules on public safety, but one judge noted that nowhere in the FCC’s so-called "Restoring Internet Freedom" order—the edict repealing net neutrality—was there a mention of the repeal’s public safety impact, according to The Verge.  Mozilla lawyer Pantelis Michalopoulos told the federal judges that the FCC’s reclassification of the internet as an “information service” was only an  excuse for neglecting misconduct by big internet providers, according to an AP report,  calling the repeal of net neutrality rules “a stab in the heart of the Communications Act," referring to the Depression-era law that has governed the telecommunications industry ever since. While experts said that the judges offered little that would allow a prediction of how they will rule—a decision that could take months to hand down—one Democratically-appointed FCC Commissioner, who voted against the repeal, said she was “hopeful.” "Here’s what’s clear: the court now has a chance to right what the FCC got wrong when it made the misguided decision to roll back Net Neutrality," wrote Jessica Rosenworcel on her Twitter account.  “I sat through it all. I’m hopeful.” Photo by Tim Pierce/Wikimedia Commons