Industry Groups Representing Internet Providers Sue Vermont over Net Neutrality Law

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Vermont is the latest state to be sued by multiple industry groups representing the cable industry and internet providers. The trade associations filed the lawsuit to block states from being able to write laws that adopt Net Neutrality. "The lawsuit argues that states cannot regulate 'indirectly through their spending, procurement, or other commercial powers what they are forbidden from regulating directly.'" California is facing a similar lawsuit.

Scott said he was disappointed the lawsuit was filed against the state "for taking action to protect our citizens and our economy." The Republican governor said he believed Vermont residents "have a right to free and open access to information on the internet. In the absence of a national standard to protect that right, states must act."
 
Hope the people enabling the removal of net neutrality get spanked so hard their cyber mistresses feel it
 
Laughably predictable (In America) that the groups trying to stop state level net neutrality laws, are the same groups paying towns, cities and municipals to create laws that help keep their businesses strong and prevent fair competition.

Kinda like the current Secretary of State in Georgia, being the one in control of voting laws and regulations, while he happens to be running for Governor.

My personal opinion is, if you decide to run for a government position and you currently are in a government position at the same level, you should be forced to resign if your current position could somehow be used to influence your chances with securing the other.

Same general mindset in other areas, like groups stopping states from enacting their own net neutrality laws at the top, while also pushing for favorable laws from the bottom.

Damn politicians need to work for us again.
 
These groups are behaving more like a criminal enterprise. I wonder if the "RICO" laws might apply in some of these situations.
 
net neutrality does not have any impact on free speech and access to information. That's plain mischaracterization.

free speech and access to information is actually impacted by advertiser's preferences aka $, and personal preferences of the owners. Case in points : censorship on youtube, FB, twitter , removal of commentary boards, heavy handed moderation of whatever comment channel that still exist
 
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The gov seems to be going hard after this yet not so hard at states legalizing marijuana.
 
theBrownLlama said:
net neutrality does not have any impact on free speech and access to information. That's plain mischaracterization.

free speech and access to information is actually impacted by advertiser's preferences aka $, and personal preferences of the owners. Case in points : censorship on youtube, FB, twitter , removal of commentary boards, heavy handed moderation of whatever comment channel that still exist
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It's clear you have no idea what the right to free speech is and isn't.
You should give these a read.
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/bill-of-rights-amendments-1-10
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution-amendments-11-27

This may be more your speed...
 
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Laowai said:
It's clear you have no idea what the right to free speech is and isn't.
You should give these a read.
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/bill-of-rights-amendments-1-10
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution-amendments-11-27

This may be more your speed...
Click to expand...

The important takeaway is the first amendment protects you from government censorship, not private/corporate censorship. You have a right to free speech, but you cannot post something to somebody else's property and expect to be safe just because amendment 1.
 
Sparky said:
The gov seems to be going hard after this yet not so hard at states legalizing marijuana.
Click to expand...
Except that...this isn't a gov't action.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Vermont by groups representing major providers like AT&T Inc (T.N), Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N). It followed a lawsuit by four of the groups earlier this month challenging a much broader California law mandating providers abide by net neutrality rules.
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....from the article
 
This isn't a free speech issue at all, it's really based on the Commerce clause. While the repeal of net neutrality sucks, 50 sets of rules would be unworkable.

Free speech at the state level is not the same as that in the Bill of Rights, just read Pruneyard Shopping Ctr. v. Robbins -- California could do the same for all online chat sites or say Twitter. But then again California only wants to protect all things crazy far left nowadays. ;)
 
Laowai said:
It's clear you have no idea what the right to free speech is and isn't.
You should give these a read.
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/bill-of-rights-amendments-1-10
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution-amendments-11-27

This may be more your speed...
Click to expand...
Well he didn't say the RIGHT to free speech, he said free speech, which is accurate. If the main venue of free speech is software owned by a private corporation, it can absolutely impede free speech in general, since they're acting as gatekeepers. Now that doesn't mean that impediment is in violation of the Constitution, nor that the government has the authority to intervene on those terms (it might be able to intervene on anti-trust issues, but that's a separate issue), but nevertheless, it still acts as impediment. To say otherwise would be to say that corporations have no impact on free speech, which I don't see how you could even make that argument nowadays.
 
tetris42 said:
Well he didn't say the RIGHT to free speech, he said free speech, which is accurate. If the main venue of free speech is software owned by a private corporation, it can absolutely impede free speech in general, since they're acting as gatekeepers. Now that doesn't mean that impediment is in violation of the Constitution, nor that the government has the authority to intervene on those terms (it might be able to intervene on anti-trust issues, but that's a separate issue), but nevertheless, it still acts as impediment. To say otherwise would be to say that corporations have no impact on free speech, which I don't see how you could even make that argument nowadays.
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The main venue of free speech is not any privately owned software platform since free speech is not protected there unless the owners choose to take that upon themselves.
They generally don't.
Nobody is entitled to free speech on any privately controlled platform that does not belong to them.
Actual free speech is not impacted.

You can do whatever mental gymnastics you want to try to make the guy right, but talking about free speech and FB, YT, online forums or whatever other examples he used, is nothing but absurd.
 
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Laowai said:
The main venue of free speech is not any privately owned software platform since free speech is not protected there unless the owners choose to take that upon themselves.
They generally don't.
Nobody is entitled to free speech on any privately controlled platform that does not belong to them.
Actual free speech is not impacted.

You can do whatever mental gymnastics you want to try to make the guy right, but talking about free speech and FB, YT, online forums or whatever other examples he used, is nothing but absurd.
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You're talking like you still don't get it. The constitution is to protect GOVERNMENT from interfering with free speech. It says nothing about corporations. So, by definition, this is not a Constitutional free speech issue, I think we're both in agreement on that part.

Where you seem to completely be oblivious is saying actual free speech is not impacted by corporations. Is that seriously your stance? True, no corporation is taking away your ability to say whatever you want, however they have so much power that can absolutely determine if you'll be heard by anyone.

Another way to look at it: private companies own telephone companies. If, for whatever reason, they all decided to refuse phone service to you, you think that wouldn't impact your ability to have free speech?
 
tetris42 said:
You're talking like you still don't get it. The constitution is to protect GOVERNMENT from interfering with free speech. It says nothing about corporations. So, by definition, this is not a Constitutional free speech issue, I think we're both in agreement on that part.

Where you seem to completely be obvious is saying actual free speech is not impacted by corporations. Is that seriously your stance? True, no corporation is taking away your ability to say whatever you want, however they have so much power that can absolutely determine if you'll be heard by anyone.
Click to expand...
It's not a free speech issue AT ALL!
 
RealBeast said:
This isn't a free speech issue at all, it's really based on the Commerce clause. While the repeal of net neutrality sucks, 50 sets of rules would be unworkable.
Click to expand...

and ill repeat this every time i see the above:

they should have thought about the fact that this would result in 50+ different sets of rules to deal with when they got rid of it. "oops sorry, we didnt think about that part" is not a valid defense.
 
Laowai said:
It's clear you have no idea what the right to free speech is and isn't.
You should give these a read.
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/bill-of-rights-amendments-1-10
https://nccs.net/blogs/americas-founding-documents/united-states-constitution-amendments-11-27

This may be more your speed...
Click to expand...


i live in the real world. If i was to quote what's on paper, we would be living in an utopia right now, but it sure does not look like it when i look out my window
 
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