FCC: Sorry, No -- Net Neutrality Does Not Violate ISPs' First Amendment Rights

from the legal-shenanigans dept

Back when Verizon sued to overturn the FCC's original, flimsier 2010 net neutrality rules, the telco argued that the FCC was aggressively and capriciously violating the company's First and Fifth Amendment rights. "Broadband networks are the modern-day microphone by which their owners engage in First Amendment speech," Verizon claimed at the time. It's an amusing claim given that the entire purpose of net neutrality is to protect the free and open distribution of content and data without incumbent ISP gatekeeper interference. Verizon ultimately won its case against the FCC -- but not because of its First Amendment claim, but because the FCC tried to impose common carrier rules on ISPs before declaring they were common carriers.

That's of course why the FCC finally decided to define ISPs as common carriers under Title II. But in their torrent of lawsuits against the FCC's new rules, ISPs continue to try and hide their anti-competitive intentions behind the First Amendment. AT&T's court filing from earlier this year, for example, made it clear AT&T intends to argue the FCC is violating its First and Fifth Amendment rights:
"In a statement of issues that AT&T intends to raise when the case moves further into the court process, the company said last week that it plans on challenging whether the FCC’s net neutrality order "violates the terms of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and the First and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution." The First and Fifth Amendment will be used to attack the FCC's decision to reclassify both fixed and mobile broadband as common carrier services, as well as the FCC's assertion of authority over how ISPs interconnect with other networks."
In its own filing in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (pdf) this week, the FCC argues that this reasoning is, to use a less technical term, crap:
"Nobody understands broadband providers to be sending a message or endorsing speech when transmitting the Internet content that a user has requested. When a user directs her browser to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal editorial page, she has no reason to think that the views expressed there are those of her broadband provider. Nor is there anything in the record to suggest that companies providing mass-market retail broadband service as defined in the Order are seeking to convey any particularized message to their users. Instead, when providing Broadband Internet Access Service, broadband providers function (and are understood by their users to function) simply “as conduits for the speech of others, not as speakers themselves."
You'd think that would be common sense, but ISPs have a long, occasionally-successful history of hiding their dubious and/or anti-competitive shenanigans behind the First Amendment. Verizon has argued it has a First Amendment right to hand your call data over to the government. Comcast has argued its First Amendment rights are violated when it's told to stop blocking competitor channel access to its cable lineup. Charter has tried to argue that requiring it adhere to local video franchise agreements similarly violates its free speech rights.

In the net neutrality case, ISP lawyers are basically throwing everything they can at the wall and hoping something sticks. But the First Amendement claim here is painfully thin, given it's the ISPs interfering in content they didn't create and have no real authority over. It's also risky for ISPs currently protected by common carrier safe harbor protections to start arguing they're responsible for every thought that's transmitted over the Internet. It seems so much wiser for ISPs to stick to the kind of things they're truly good at: like violating your Fourth Amendment rights at every conceivable opportunity.
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Filed Under: fcc, first amendment, net neutrality
Companies: at&t, verizon


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  • icon
    Kaelis (profile), 17 Sep 2015 @ 4:20pm

    If ISPs want to say that the content they deliver is their speech, then prosecute them for all the child porn, terrorist communications, and other unsavory content sent over their networks that law enforcement assures us is omnipresent and threatening our safety and security. Then maybe we can start over and regulate ISPs properly this time.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2015 @ 1:24am

      Re:

      Damn right!
      "Nobody understands broadband providers to be sending a message or endorsing speech when transmitting the Internet content that a user has requested."
      You can practically taste the derision.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Sep 2015 @ 4:24pm

    Uh, ISPs don't have first amendment rights. Its pretty explicit, we the People...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Killercool (profile), 17 Sep 2015 @ 4:27pm

      Re:

      Nope. ISPs have first amendment rights. Those rights just have nothing to do with the service they provide.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Sep 2015 @ 5:08pm

      Re:

      We the "people"...This is why it was a bad idea to allow "corporations" to be "people"...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike Masnick (profile), 17 Sep 2015 @ 6:02pm

      Re:

      Uh, ISPs don't have first amendment rights. Its pretty explicit, we the People...


      Yes, companies very much do have First Amendment rights. That's not the issue here. Also, you WANT companies to have First Amendment rights. Companies should also not be barred from speaking by the government.

      The issue here is not that, but rather the idea that ISPs efforts to modify its networks are not a form of speech.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Mason Wheeler (profile), 18 Sep 2015 @ 6:52am

        Re: Re:

        Also, you WANT companies to have First Amendment rights.

        Speak for yourself. I want people--including employees or spokespeople for companies--to have First Amendment rights, but human rights are for humans. Period.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Baron von Robber, 18 Sep 2015 @ 7:21am

          Re: Re: Re:

          I agree. A CEO or PR rep can speak on their behalf, but in of itself, a corp is not a citizen. It's a construct.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Chasis (profile), 20 Sep 2015 @ 6:32pm

        Re: Re:

        *I* don't "WANT companies to have First Amendment rights" I'd like to have companies without such things, such that MY RIGHTS EQUAL SOME SOCIOPATHIC CEO'S RIGHTS. As it sits at present, they actually have more rights than I do, and don't even have to conform to the same laws as I do, so my protections aren't even equal.
        I might want it, if I were a FASCIST, but I'm not. What are you, Mr. Masnick, Fascist or American?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 17 Sep 2015 @ 10:41pm

      Re:

      They do, but they also have legal rpotections built in by being corporations (DMCA safe harbors, CFAA protections). But sure, if they want to lose those...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Pronounce (profile), 17 Sep 2015 @ 4:32pm

    The Public Face of the Issue...

    Hides the behind-the-scenes war. In my imagination I envision the Telcom good-ol'-boy network having lunch with Tom Wheeler and getting all red face over his turn-coat behavior. I love to think that the power structures gets torpedoed by someone with a little social good will. I know it's a dream, but it still feels good.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Richard Bennett, 17 Sep 2015 @ 5:42pm

    Ooooooh, screw you, Masnick! I stomp my foot on the ground in indignation and righteous fury while waving my clenched fist in your general direction!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mark Wing, 18 Sep 2015 @ 12:06am

    AT&T is all about the Constitution.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    orbitalinsertion (profile), 18 Sep 2015 @ 12:45am

    Ah, Verizon, who recently made some advertising claims which seem a bit orthogonal to their actual behavior.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCyBLMFI2aY
    French scuba instructor ad. That one.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2015 @ 1:11am

    Since when did the first amendment give anybody the power to censor communications between other people? That is what they are asking for, the power to decide who you an speak to, and how much of a conversation you can have

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Beta (profile), 18 Sep 2015 @ 8:19am

      Re:

      To be fair, they're not asking for that power. They're not saying "you two may not exchange notes", they're saying "I won't carry notes back and forth between you".

      (Actually, they're saying "I'll carry your notes more slowly than others and charge you more for them", but the principle is "I won't carry them".)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2015 @ 1:58am

    Companies got First Amendment Rights, but then, they deny others their Human Rights.

    "Yes, companies very much do have First Amendment rights. That's not the issue here. Also, you WANT companies to have First Amendment rights. Companies should also not be barred from speaking by the government."

    And Mike, while I agree with you in that they should have free speech (freedom of religion... companies don't have that, do they? it's their owners and employees), the problem is that they are asking for constitutional level rights, as if they were human. You know, some even claim that companies should have Human Rights.

    When that shouldn't be the case because, well, they aren't human but entities. They should be entitled to rights, but no Human Rights nor Constitutional grade rights.

    If there is a conflict between their rights and Human/Constitutional Rights, the latter should have priority.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2015 @ 5:03am

    Can companies get married?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2015 @ 5:29am

    I'm not talking about the limits of your rights, but about the level (and priority) afforded to your rights.

    Again, humans are humans. Companies are entities. Considering both equal under the law doesn't make sense. Giving companies constitutional rights is almost similar to considering them citizens.


    An example: there are cases of whistleblowers that get sued because they broke their NDA, even if it was to inform the citizens about what a company is doing that poses a risk to their lives (let's say, they contain a chemical). Technically they are protected, but there have been approaches on the opposite:

    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141016/07534628847/tpp-leak-confirms-measures-to-crimin alize-corporate-whistleblowing.shtml

    They cite their commercial rights, or industrial rights or whatever. All those rights should be ignored if any human right (life, speech...) is involved. That's what I mean.


    Also, think about this: you can jail a citizen. You can't jail a company.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Beta (profile), 18 Sep 2015 @ 8:22am

      Re:

      IANAL, but I thought this was covered under "inalienable rights"; I have certain rights which I cannot give up even if I want to, so any contract I sign which requires me to give them up is invalid.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Mason Wheeler (profile), 18 Sep 2015 @ 6:50am

    It gets worse

    Comcast recently filed a brief in which they claim that our communications--yours and mine--that flow over their network are their speech and that they therefore have a First Amendment right to exercise editorial control over it, that it would be a violation of the First Amendment for the government to force them to transmit speech that they do not agree with.

    I believe the technical term for this idea is "crazy talk." They are lacking the single most important prerequisite for any sane third party to agree with the idea that they have a right to exercise editorial control over our content: no one hired them as an editor! They were hired as a delivery service, and therefore their claim makes exactly as much sense as FedEx would if they were to hypothetically assert a First Amendment right to not ship a book that's critical of FedEx that you or I bought on Amazon.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 18 Sep 2015 @ 7:07am

      Re: It gets worse

      As Kaelis pointed out, if they want to claim it's their communications, then congrats, they're now responsible for it, all of it. From the harmless chats between two people, to the absolutely illegal content that passes through their networks. However, you can be sure that they would insist that any illegal content is absolutely not their content, and they aren't in any way responsible for it if someone tried to point out just how screwed they would be if their argument was accepted.

      Basically they're trying to have it both ways, arguing that the content is theirs when it comes to control of it, and absolutely not theirs when it comes to being responsible for it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2015 @ 7:35am

    Speech Limited To One Message

    The free speech right they are talking about is a method to say FU to their own customers and third party competitive services.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Coyne Tibbets (profile), 18 Sep 2015 @ 11:34am

    Third Amendment

    It must violate some of their Rights, it just has to. First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fourth Amendment. They'd claim it violated their Third Amendment rights if they could come up with a theory...wait, military occupation...house...property...sounds possible...

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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