Free Market Think Tanks Back ISPs in Net Neutrality Challenge
The court overseeing the case said earlier this month that ISPs are likely to succeed under the Supreme Court's major questions doctrine.
WASHINGTON, August 14, 2024 – Two right-leaning think tanks backing ISPs in the challenge to the Federal Communications Commissions Net Neutrality rules claim the new regulatory landscape created by the Supreme Court will doom the rules.
Brief of Amici Curiae TechFreedom and Washington Legal Foundation
With its Order reimposing Title II common-carrier status on broadband, the FCC has “once again … switched its tack” in the “longrunning debate regarding the regulation of the Internet.” Mozilla Corp. v. FCC, 940 F.3d 1, 17 (D.C. Cir. 2019). The FCC is vacillating over how to regulate broadband (mass-market, uncurated, retail Internet access by wire or radio, other than dial-up service, that can send and receive data from all or nearly all Internet endpoints). This second Title II Order—Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet (Open Internet II)—marks the FCC’s fourth about-face on whether broadband is a Title I “information service” (subject to light-touch regulation), or a Title II “telecommunications service” (subject to invasive common-carrier rules), under the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
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In a brief filed Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, libertarian-leaning think tanks TechFreedom and the Washington Legal Foundation cited the Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine as preventing Net Neutrality from taking effect.
