[Chapter-delegates] FCC

[Livingood, Jason]

On 2/26/15, 2:27 PM, "Walid AL-SAQAF" <walid.al-saqaf at isoc.ye<mailto:walid.al-saqaf at isoc.ye>> wrote:

Congrats to the activitists and to Americans at large for this important achievement.

It shows that actions by regular folks who are passionate about their cause can indeed go a long way!

It is hard to say what was achieved yet, as the rules that the FCC commissioners voted to approve have not been released to the public. So no one other than the commissioners know what they say (rumored to be 332 pages of regulations). We of course have their public statements but until you read the real rules it seems difficult  to say for sure.

It seems generally speaking that there is broad consensus on the Open Internet rules (both the need for them and what each rule represents). But the U.S. debate seems to have recently centered around the legal basis for doing so. IANAL, but it seems the Title-II path voted on today will likely result is legal uncertainty for years to come. After the rules are released, it seems possible there still could be  bipartisan support for new legislation that would codify the Open Internet principles into some new law, thereby avoiding protracted legal challenges, but it’s hard to guess at the likelihood of true bipartisan compromise to make that happen.

So I guess time will tell what happens. One possible danger I worry about is that now that the U.S. FCC has claimed Internet services are telecommunications, does this open the door for the UN/ITU to assert itself to a greater extent than in the past over Internet standards & Internet governance.

- Jason
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