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President Trump's Supreme Court nominee argued last year that net neutrality rules violate the First Amendment rights of Internet service providers by preventing them from "exercising editorial control" over Internet content.
Trump's pick is Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The DC Circuit twice upheld the net neutrality rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, despite Kavanaugh's dissent. (In another tech-related case, Kavanaugh ruled that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone metadata is legal.)
While current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai eliminated the net neutrality rules, Kavanaugh could help restrict the FCC's authority to regulate Internet providers as a member of the Supreme Court. Broadband industry lobby groups have continued to seek Supreme Court review of the legality of Wheeler's net neutrality rules even after Pai's repeal.
Kavanaugh argued that net neutrality violates the First Amendment, “because the rule impermissibly infringes on the Internet service providers’ editorial discretion.”
Facebook,Instagram,Twitter or YouTube from taking down things that they don’t like?
originally posted by: avgguy
How is that any different from other private providers ie:Facebook,Instagram,Twitter or YouTube from taking down things that they don’t like?
But hey! He wasn't appointed by Obummer or Hitlery so he's A-Ok now! Internet freedom be damned!
This indicates that due to the high position of his office, the President, along with other civil officers, is immune from legal persecution until and unless impeached.
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Why shouldn't phone companies be able to tell you which numbers you can call? Because it imposes an unreasonable limitation on your free speech.
"The rule transforms the Internet by imposing common-carrier obligations on Internet service providers and thereby prohibiting Internet service providers from exercising editorial control over the content they transmit to consumers," Kavanaugh wrote. The FCC's imposition of the rule was unlawful because "Congress did not clearly authorize the FCC to issue the net neutrality rule" or to impose common-carrier obligations on ISPs, Kavanaugh argued. But even authorization from Congress wouldn't have saved the net neutrality rules from Kavanaugh's dissent, because he also argued that the rules violate ISPs' First Amendment free speech rights.
Under Supreme Court precedents, "the First Amendment bars the Government from restricting the editorial discretion of Internet service providers, absent a showing that an Internet service provider possesses market power in a relevant geographic market," Kavanaugh wrote. "Here, however, the FCC has not even tried to make a market power showing. Therefore, under the Supreme Court's precedents applying the First Amendment, the net neutrality rule violates the First Amendment."
originally posted by: Grimpachi
This is like saying phone companies can block access to stores they dont like. Sorry folks we don't like sears, home depot, ectera so you can't call them.