CDT, Scholars, Technologists and More Agree: ISPs Shouldn’t Have Right to Edit the Net

Center for Democracy & Technology: "ISPs’ argument that they have a right to interfere – to treat the Internet more like cable, where they select and package content for your consumption – would utterly transform the Internet as we know it. The ISPs are also wrong on the law.
Far from regulating any expressive conduct by ISPs, the Rules are better understood as governing ISPs’ conduct of transmitting information at users’ request. Our brief goes on to illustrate how that conduct – providing a general-purpose communications link over which users decide for themselves what to access – does not meet various Supreme Court tests for “expressiveness” such that the Rules merit First Amendment scrutiny. But even if the court disagrees and goes through a First Amendment analysis, a final section argues that non-discrimination rules for ISPs are a straightforward case that pass muster far more easily than controversial “must-carry” rules upheld for cable providers." 'via Blog this'