Give a corporation an inch, they’ll take a foot. You give a corporation a rope and to paraphrase Eddie Murphy, “they think they’re fucking cowboys.” That’s the way it works with the telecom monopoly. FCC chair, and former Verizon lawyer, Ajit Pai has been carrying water for big telecoms since before he became the head of the FCC. Now, he’s trying to hide telecom violations, cook the books about the state of broadband internet service in our country, all while ending federal net neutrality rules. But, a coup d'état over the American people’s open internet is not secure unless you can fully lay bare how hypocritical the Republican position on this is. Artechnica explains that Comcast wants to make sure that states’ rights are also treaded upon in this circumstance.
As the FCC prepares to gut its net neutrality rules, broadband providers are worried that states might enact their own laws to prevent ISPs from blocking, throttling, or discriminating against online content.
They point to the statement Comcast made of their meeting with Pai’s crew of shills.
We also emphasized that the Commission’s order in this proceeding should include a clear, affirmative ruling that expressly confirms the primacy of federal law with respect to BIAS as an interstate information service, and that preempts state and local efforts to regulate BIAS either directly or indirectly.
This “emphasized” point is in line with Verizon’s ex parte filing a couple of weeks ago.
Allowing every State and locality to chart its own course for regulating broadband is a recipe for disaster. It would impose localized and likely inconsistent burdens on an inherently interstate service, would drive up costs, and would frustrate federal efforts to encourage investment and deployment by restoring the free market that long characterized Internet access service.
A recipe for disaster because it would mean they wouldn’t be able to control it. Municipalities may have more and more ideas about creating their own broadband networks, and before you know it we would have actual competition in the internet marketplace. As Techdirt points out, besides being a problem created by the telecoms themselves, it’s also a transparently hypocritical stance to take now.
There's a few things Verizon's ignoring. One, states wouldn't be rushing to create a patchwork quilt of consumer protections if Verizon lobbyists hadn't successfully convinced former Verizon lawyer turned FCC boss Ajit Pai to kill existing, modest federal protections. This is entirely a problem of ISP lobbyists' making.
It's also worth noting that ISPs like Verizon have spent decades writing and buying protectionist, competition-killing state laws in order to protect their regional broadband mono/duopolies. When folks have pointed out that maybe giant ISPs shouldn't be writing shitty state law, ISPs (and the lawmakers paid to love them) have cried about the trampling of "states rights." Yet when those same states actually try to do something good for the end user, trampling those same rights appears to be a non-issue. That's an obvious double standard by any measure.
If you travel way back to 2014 you can hear the echoes of Republican bullshit artists explaining why the FCC shouldn’t create a set of federal net neutrality rules.
In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, 60 Republicans insisted that the federal government shouldn’t interfere with the 20 state laws that either prohibit or severely inhibit municipally owned broadband networks. “Without any doubt, state governments across the country understand and are more attentive to the needs of the American people than unelected federal bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.,” they wrote. A similar letter, signed by 11 Republican senators, asserted, “States are much closer to their citizens and can meet their needs better than an unelected bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. ... State political leaders are accountable to the voters who elect them....”
I’m sure these very same republicans will be up in arms about the FCC’s Ajit Pai and his plan to take any and all powers out of the hands of the state. But, since I’m not that young anymore, I won’t hold my breath.