7 ms·
Ajit Pai calls California’s net neutrality rules “illegal”
- GW150914 8y agoThis guy will just say anything, won’t he? I already knew he wasn’t a constitutional scholar, but this is rich even coming from a shill with as little self respect as Pai. The broader problem is that California's micromanagement poses a risk to the rest of the country. After all, broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn't recognize state lines. It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area. For if individual states like California regulate the Internet, this will directly impact citizens in other states. What?! I can’t even begin to express how infuriating this is, the sheer hypocrisy and wanton dishonesty, from someone who is nominally in the position of protecting Americans’ interests. Forget the interstate commerce clause, forget Republican’s supposed respect for state’s rights, forget giving people a necessary service, let’s use a warped interpretation of the law as a hammer to empower crooked bureaucracy.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- toast0 8y ago> The broader problem is that California's micromanagement poses a risk to the rest of the country. After all, broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn't recognize state lines. It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area. For if individual states like California regulate the Internet, this will directly impact citizens in other states. This line of argument fails the smell test; California (and other states) regulates phone networks, including long distance calling from within its borders, and the FCC doesn't whine about that.
- da_chicken 8y agoIt also fails the smell test because Internet traffic doesn't recognize international lines, yet he's claiming the federal government has regulatory powers over the Internet.
- wstuartcl 8y agoAnd previously has used the case that they DON'T have regulatory power over the internet to roll back the 2015 FCC changes. So much for the party that claims they back state rights.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThis fight is pot vs kettle. CA doesn't think twice about making laws that contradict federal laws or are in direct violation of the constitution. Pai is, charitably speaking, in the pocket of industry. I think CA is within its rights this time around and wins this one fair and square though despite not having an awesome coffee mug.
- happytoexplain 8y ago>CA doesn't think twice about making laws that contradict federal laws It's been my naive observation that state laws are, in some practical context, "allowed" to contradict federal laws, in the sense that perhaps they are simply given some de facto leeway. Am I totally off base? Does this reduce the hypocrisy?
- dx87 8y agoThey are only allowed to contradict state laws to the extent that the federal government may decide it's not worth it to try and enforce the rules in the state, especially states like CA where they state that they won't cooperate with enforcement of laws they don't agree with. Even if the state someone lives in has contradictory laws, you still have to follow the federal laws at any job that cares about that. For example, if you live in a state that has legalized recreational or medical marijuana, you still can't use it if you want to work a federal job or anything that requires a security clearance.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y agoI don't know id you're right or wrong about California's overreach. Can you give a few supporting examples?
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoWell they thumb their nose at the constitution when it comes to the 2A and they thumb their nose at the federal government itself when it comes to weed for starters. Some of their policies regarding illegal aliens (though this is more of a city by city thing) are arguably in direct contradiction with federal law. A lot of the rulings the 9th circuit has come up with over the years look like they came out of left field with regard to the constitution and the precedent being set. I can dig up specific examples if you want. I'm not passing a value judgement here, just saying that CA likes to interpret the constitution rather freely, for better or worse.
- tlb 8y agoI think the country needs net neutrality. But the specific point he's making here is valid: it'll suck if there are 50 different sets of laws that ISPs have to conform to. From a technical point of view, routers everywhere in the country will have to know to treat traffic going to to California customers differently from Nevada customers. We could hope to repeat the history of vehicle emissions controls, where CA introduced regulations and auto makers eventually found it cheaper to make one kind of vehicle than two. But the incentives for non-net-neutral policies are so large that if major states have different rules, we'll end up with a huge mess. And regulatory messes tend to favor large incumbents, because they can devote the resources to them. That's why, for example, we have no new banks (which are regulated by states.)
- matkins 8y agoYou seem to be holding a grudge.
- greymeister 8y agoHow long before they use the commerce clause as an excuse to kill California's law?
- superseeplus 8y agoIf they do that, can California rewrite the law to distinguish between last mile service and transit service and regulate only the last mile part?
- zwerdlds 8y ago> "only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area" Regulatory policy that apparently he wants to set - but specifically gave that ability to the FTC. Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too? Am I misunderstanding this?
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoHe's trying to tie everything into a ball of legal twine that will take years to sort out. All the while, the ISPs will have free reign to do whatever they want.
- Fede_V 8y agoI've said it in the past, but I'm going to repeat myself: if anyone is willing to defend Pai's actions, would you like to do a friendly bet (proceeds to to a GiveWell charity) that as soon as he is legally allowed too he will be given a sinecure at Verizon/Comcast or an RNC friendly lobby shop?
- ddingus 8y agoEven odds.
- darawk 8y agoTo be totally fair here, I think you'd probably have to establish a base rate of this. I'd bet that virtually all prior FCC commissioners end up with a gig like that, regardless of how they regulated the industry. It should be an easy question to answer though. EDIT: It seems many of them go to this place: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/ https://www.aspeninstitute.org/ (source: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/314248-fcc-chair-to-take-job-at-think-tank https://thehill.com/policy/technology/314248-fcc-chair-to-ta...). Not sure what to make of that.
- glup 8y agoI’ve noticed that the Aspen Institute is a sink for these sort of individuals across a number of fields. So far as I can tell, it functions as a sort of a bullpen for talent at the political / economic interface for a number of large corporations. It certainly isn’t mission-driven or benevolent.
- dopamean 8y agoThis is not an interesting bet at all. Isn't that exactly what many people leaving government do?
- ddingus 8y agoOf course he does. There would not be such a fight if Ajit were to actually regulate in the public interest. I see someone already made the comment, "didn't he give all that to the FTC?" Indeed.
- mangix 8y agoFunny how nobody seems to understand the interstate commerce clause. I guess this is how they justify being able to do anything...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- khazhou 8y agoI would be interested to learn how Indian and Indian-American HN members regard him. Is he considered a source of pride within the community due to his accomplishments? Or is he an embarrassment due to decisions like Net Neutrality? Or, is it a complete no-op and the Indian/Indian-American community basically doesn't think about him either way? Edit: I'm not sure why the downvotes. There are very few (if any?) Indian-Americans at that high and very visible level of government. It it a reasonable question to ask Indian-Americans whether they regard him in high or low-esteem, or neither, as a lone representative in an otherwise nearly all-white system.
- dopamean 8y agoWhat does that have to do with anything?
- samuelg123 8y agoI don’t think his actions are representative of what Indian people think; they’re just proof of his own greed.
- khazhou 8y agoI will clarify my question, since that is not what I was wondering.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- yarrel 8y agoYou're postulating an imaginary hive mind on the part of "Indian-Americans" then asking how ethnically tribal it is. It's like asking if whitey is proud of Donald Trump. The problems start before the question is halfway asked.
- khazhou 8y agoI am not postulating a hive mind, and my question is not based on any racism (as you are implying). Your DJT analogy is wrong because every single president has been white, so DJT's rise to prominence is not exceptional in that regard. A better analogy, and hopefully it demonstrates the nature of my question: One can ask whether Barack Obama is generally well-regarded as a source of pride in the African-American community, or seen negatively, or as a no-op. That question has a very clear answer. Similarly, few Indian-Americans have risen to prominence in the US government, and I wondered if that serves as a source of pride, or the opposite due to his policies, or neither.
- TYPE_FASTER 8y agoFrom the transcript: So in early August, we adopted a policy that would allow a single entity to do the requisite work on the utility pole—a policy commonly known as “one-touch make-ready.” This policy could substantially lower the cost and shorten the time to deploy broadband on utility poles. But according to https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/fcc-gives-google-fiber-and-new-isps-faster-access-to-utility-poles https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/fcc-gives-google...: Despite today's vote, the FCC hurt the cause of faster pole attachment when it deregulated the broadband industry last year, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon. The FCC's anti-net neutrality vote removed the classification of broadband as a common carrier service—that now-repealed classification "ensure[d] that every broadband provider has the legal right to gain access to many of the poles that run along our roads," the EFF wrote last year. "I wonder if the anti-net neutrality crowd understands that Title II's regulation of poles and conduit is now limited to telephone/cable TV thanks to [the] Restoring Internet Freedom Order," Falcon tweeted today. "The ISPs that are broadband-only will not get the benefit, thus limiting its positive impact."
- Jtsummers 8y ago> It follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area. For if individual states like California regulate the Internet, this will directly impact citizens in other states. -- Pai Interesting argument. Could his reasoning be used to block attempts by states (NC, I'm looking at you!) to interfere with municipal broadband?
- jedberg 8y agoIf anything the states could use the same argument against the city -- that state law supersedes the city law.
- emodendroket 8y agoI mean it's an argument against a federal system in general, when you think about it. Any regulation California passes is going to affect what is sold all over the country, because businesses can't afford to ignore it and making a special California version is more complicated than just complying in the base product.
- atomi 8y agoThe "it's going to be too expensive and complicated" argument has been used by every group ever opposed to any new regulation.
- wahern 8y agoYour question has no simple answer because Pai's reasoning is based on suspect premises. The California bill merely controls which vendors that the State of California can purchases services from. This type of regulation is premised on a long-established limitation on the extent of Federal powers; namely, that the Federal Government has no power to directly regulate State policies, and in particular its choice of vendors. The logic is that a State is a sovereign political entity, and sovereignty means that there must be a bright line somewhere where the State is completely independent. As that line stands today, the vast majority of legal scholars would tell you that California is well within its rights to control the contractual terms with its vendors, free from Federal constraints.[1] In fact, the original bill was pulled and amended so ensure it fit squarely within these allowances. (At least, that's the story of the committee members who delayed it.) The closest SCOTUS has allowed the Federal government to control contractual policies of the State involved employment, where SCOTUS permitted enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act against State government employers. But it was a close call, most of the conservatives were in dissent, and almost all conservatives have subsequently at least paid lip-service to criticisms of that decision. That said, there may be strong legal arguments that permit the Federal government to interpose themselves between the State and municipalities without moving that bright line. There are many ways to distinguish and distance municipalities from the State itself. Also, it's becoming difficult to deny at this point that as conservatives have come to dominate the Federal government, conservative policy arguments have become increasingly supportive of stronger Federal regulatory powers. It's excused as a necessary evil for defending laissez faire economic principles[2], but that's just face-saving. And these arguments are being adopted by conservatives across the spectrum, including (and especially?) among jurists. [1] At least constraints flowing from Commerce Clause powers. Constraints flowing from the 14th Amendment are a different matter because the 14th Amendment imposes explicit limitations on States and explicitly gives Congress legislative powers to enforce those limitations. But even then there's a bright line Congress cannot cross, albeit a more narrowly circumscribed line. [2] And don't even get me started on the fact that Net Neutrality is, IMHO, a very pro free market policy. It's no more restrictive of a "free market" than are crimes prohibiting fraud. There comes a point at which one's freedom impinges upon the freedom of others to the extent that there's a net loss of economic freedom. Furthermore, there are many examples of market legislation intended to overcome transactional inefficiencies that inhibit or prevent markets from reaching more optimal outcomes. Its why we even have laws at all, rather than relying upon everybody to explicitly contract with everybody else for every little interaction.
- valarauca1 8y agoTBH it is hilarious we believe "net neutrality" exists in the first place. Peering agreements between ISP's at IPX's are rarely "fair or neuatral" as different ISP's have different carrying capacity, and will treat traffic from their own networks preferentially for technical reasons. But since <5k people understand BGP routing configuration we pretend it is neutral.
- happytoexplain 8y agoIt's been my experience that all definitions of net neutrality explicitly allow prioritization for technical reasons (e.g. streaming). Is this fuzzier than I thought?
- valarauca1 8y ago"technical reasons" is an awesome weasel word in the hands of the right c-level or legal representative.
- happytoexplain 8y agoOf course, but that's me saying that as a shorthand. I'm referring to the actual definitions in practice. I would hope they don't say "for technical reasons" and leave it at that.
- convolvatron 8y ago"technical reasons" should be limited to things like the speed of light, or in this case the necessity to drop packets if the presented load exceeds the output rate of a link for more than the finite buffer can store. everything else is policy - which means there is a choice. that choice might be heavily driven by economics, or by some kind of business strategy. but its pretty indefensible to say 'the crew in white coats down in the basement told me we just had to do it that way (shrug)' so in the absence of speed-of-light issues, 'technical reasons' in this case is just a planet-sized loophole.
- kgwxd 8y agoThe term "net neutrality" is so overloaded at this point it's useless. Removing posts, throttling bandwidth, ISP/IPX negotiations, ISP protocol/domain treatment, ISP data collection, are all wildly different concerns that should each have unique names. I associate the term with the ISP protocol/domain treatment concern, as in ISPs should never use Application Layer variables to choose preferred routing, blocking, bandwidth allotment, etc.
- preparedzebra 8y agoI hate this guy so much
- dang 8y agoOk, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.
- jedberg 8y agoI believe the entire purpose of passing that law was for California to say "come at me bro" to the Federal government, and force a showdown on the issue. I doubt the California lawmakers ever expected it to actually go into effect, and not get blocked by lawsuits the moment the ink is dry.
- adrr 8y agoThere's another bill that ties net neutrality to state contracts. It would forbid the state from signing contracts with ISPs that don't follow net neutrality. They could also tack on taxes to non-compliance ISPs. The State will ultimately win the fight. It was very short-sighted for ISPs to make this federal issue because it would have just ended up with states.
- frandroid 8y ago> After all, broadband is an interstate service; Internet traffic doesn't recognize state lines. Hum, it either recognizes both state and nation-state lines, or neither. Since the FCC can regulate ISPs, then it clearly recognizes nation-state lines, and thus state lines.
- drfuchs 8y agoAh, the hypocrisy of the "States Rights" crowd: They're all for it, until they don't like what a state wants to do.
- whamlastxmas 8y agoI don't think most conservatives who understand NN actually support it. It's just the entrenched political class who stands to benefit from it that support it.
- FPGAhacker 8y agoI don’t know. I have mixed feelings on net neutrality. I’m sure I’m to the right of a lot of HN, based on comments, but I lean left on a few issues too. I’ve recently moved to the greater Seattle area and where I live my choices for internet are Comcast and centurylink. I was pretty disappointed as I had fios at my last house. In general principle I am pro letting Comcast throttle whatever. Mainly because of property rights. But at a personal level it would totally suck if they throttled Netflix to the point that it affected me. But forcing Comcast to be “good enough” by law might be an adequate bandaid for the short term, it actually helps reinforce their local monopoly. When a service is subpar, that opens the door for competition and disruption. Ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17948412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17948412 Chris is charging a lot for his service, but the differential from existing is enough he is surviving and growing. When a service is good enough, competition has a harder time. So giving the incumbents enough rope to hang themselves might be better in the longer term.
- Entalpi 8y agoOnly two choices seems like way too low of options. :/
- prolikewh0a 8y ago>I’ve recently moved to the greater Seattle area and where I live my choices for internet are Comcast and centurylink. Me too. I moved last year away from flawless 100/100 with a local Seattle ISP, to flawless gigabit for $45 with a local Seattle ISP, and now I'm 5 or so miles south of Seattle and I had to settle with Comcast since Centurylink DSL was my only other choice. Seattle DOES have good ISP's, but only really new buildings & downtown get that luxury. Comcast does give me good speeds and reliability so far however, for a reasonable price. I still dislike them, and the sign-up process as well as the spam calls I received for weeks were terrible. They tried to get me to sign up for 10 TV channels I already had on my antenna in higher quality so they could gouge me on their TV rental equipment fees.
- djohnston 8y agobut muh state's rights
- shmerl 8y agoFor Pai, it's only legal when it serves his monopolistic masters. When it serves the people, it must be illegal. The only thing it poses a risk to, is monopoly abuse by Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon and the like. Which is exactly the point. And Pai lost all power to preempt anything, when he himself removed FCC from overseeing ISPs and pushed that to FTC.
- syntaxing 8y agoIt's quite interesting how much the Trump administration is copying from the Reagan administration (admittedly, I was not alive during the Regan times so my info is coming from textbooks). The Trump administration is doing is essentially its own form of Trump Reaganomics mixed with his own Starve the beast playbook [1]. Though I feel like this new strategy is more to protect the self interests of the few around President Trump rather than to cut down the big government. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
- trumped 8y agowhere does Ajit Pai hangout?