Supreme Court Against Extends Deadline in Berninger v. FCC, the ‘Old’ Net Neutrality Case

BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Daniel Berninger has been a voice in the wilderness on the issue of net neutrality, and the Obama-era Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to reclassify broadband internet access services as common carriers, since 2015. But as an internet entrepreneur, he has direct experience in working with the FCC on the regulation of Voice-over-Internet-Protocol services, and in the battle to keep such services free from regulation under Title II of the Communications Act.

Even through the FCC has moved on, Berninger hasn’t. And the Supreme Court hasn’t called it quits either: On Monday, they extended the deadline to respond on the matter, for a fifth time!

Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is further extended to and including April 4, 2018, for all respondents, from Scotusblog.

Issues: (1) Whether the Federal Communications Commission’s assumption of gatekeeper power over new methods of communication, “in the most important place [] for the exchange of views. . . the ‘vast democratic forums of the Internet,’” violates the First Amendment; (2) whether the radical reinterpretation of the Communications Act of 1934 by the FCC is entitled to deference under Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Inc., and, if so, whether that deference violates Article I, § 1 of the Constitution; and (3) whether the FCC has statutory authority to promulgate the Open Internet Order, vastly expanding regulation of the Internet, in light of the policy enacted by Congress “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services [defined as services that provide access to the Internet], unfettered by Federal or State regulation,” 47 U.S.C. § 230(b)(2).

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Source: Berninger v. Federal Communications Commission – SCOTUSblog

(Photo of Daniel Berninger from Media Freedom)