Supporters Not Ready To Give-In On Net Neutrality

State attorneys general in 22 states and the District of Columbia, in a new filing Monday, want a federal appeals court to reinstate the rules passed under President Obama that prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking, throttling or prioritizing their own content or that from their partners.

According to USAToday, the states filed the suit earlier this year, challenging the new, lighter-touch rules, which the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission passed in December 2017 and which went into effect in June. At the time, they called the FCC's revoking of the Obama-era rules "arbitrary and capricious."

In the new filing, submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, D.C. Court of Appeals, the attorneys general reiterate that claim citing concerns about public safety. To emphasize the concern, they note that Verizon Wireless throttled the Santa Clara (Calif.) County Fire Protection District when it was battling the Mendocino Complex Fire earlier this month.

Verizon said it has a practice of removing data speed restrictions in emergency situations, and that it should have done so in this case.

 "In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake," Verizon spokesperson Heidi Flato said in a statement to USA TODAY.

The attorneys general say in the filing that the FCC's measure also unduly prevents state and local laws that would conflict with the FCC regulations.

State Attorneys General filing in U.S. Court of Appeals net neutrality case by Mike Snider on Scribd

A collection of consumer and tech groups, along with companies Mozilla and Vimeo, filed their own legal brief Monday, charging the FCC abrogated its duty in overturning the 2105 rules. In the filing, the coalition argues the FCC also did not consider all the evidence it should prior to reclassifying broadband as an information service rather than a telecommunications service. That classification allowed the 2015 FCC to use Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 to oversee ISPs.

"The FCC chose to exclude evidence in its own possession from this proceeding, and for this reason alone the court should reverse the FCC's decision to repeal Net Neutrality protections," said Francella Ochillo, director of government and legal affairs for the National Hispanic Media Coalition, one of the parties in the filing.