Net Neutrality Is Not A Month OLd And Already FCC Is Being Sued Over It.

US Regulator Sued by Broadband Companies Over Net Neutrality Rules

Tuesday, 24 Mar 2015 10:42 AM

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U.S. broadband providers on Monday filed lawsuits against the Federal Communications Commission's recently approved net neutrality rules, launching what is expected to be a series of legal challenges.Broadband industry trade group USTelecom filed a lawsuit against the FCC in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which has in the past twice rejected the FCC's net neutrality regulations.
The group argues the new rules are "arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion" and violate various laws, regulations and rulemaking procedures.
Texas-based Internet provider Alamo Broadband Inc. challenged the FCC's new rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, making a similar argument.
The rules, approved in February and posted online on March 12, treat both wireless and wireline Internet service providers as more heavily regulated "telecommunications services," more like traditional telephone companies.

Broadband providers are banned under the rules from blocking or slowing any traffic and from striking deals with content companies for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers.
USTelecom President Walter McCormick said in a statement that the group's members supported enactment of "open Internet" principles into law but not using the new regulatory regime that the FCC chose.

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"We do not believe the Federal Communications Commission's move to utility-style regulation ... is legally sustainable," he said.
Industry sources have previously told Reuters that USTelecom and two other trade groups, CTIA-The Wireless Association and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, were expected to lead the expected legal challenges.
Verizon Communications Inc., which won the 2010 lawsuit against the FCC, is likely to hold back from filing an individual lawsuit this time around, an industry source familiar with Verizon's plan has told Reuters.
FCC officials have said they were prepared for lawsuits and the new rules were on much firmer legal ground than previous iterations. The FCC said Monday's petitions were "premature and subject to dismissal."

The FCC's rules have yet to be published in the Federal Register and formally go into effect, though USTelecom in its lawsuit says it filed the challenge on Monday in case the rules are construed to be final on the date of issue.
The case is U.S. Telecom Association v. FCC and United States of America, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, No. 15-1063.

© 2015 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

NSA And IRS Policies Hurting US Economy.

Senate Finance Chief Probes US Economic Harm Caused by NSA

Monday, 14 Jul 2014 03:40 PM

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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden is investigating the economic harm he said is being caused by the U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance methods.Wyden, a persistent critic of the NSA, is using his perch as the panel’s chairman to broaden his attack on the agency’s practices, he said in an interview with editors and reporters at Bloomberg News headquarters in New York.
“Nobody has looked at it from an economic standpoint, purely economics, dollars and cents,” said Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. “If a foreign enemy had inflicted the damage on the American economy — these cutting-edge, innovative companies — that the overreaching by the NSA surveillance brigade had done, people would be up in arms all over the United States.”
Companies including Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have been waging a public-relations battle for more than a year in response to revelations of NSA spying exposed by former government contractor Edward Snowden.
U.S. technology companies may lose as much as $35 billion in the next three years from foreign customers choosing not to buy their products because of concerns they cooperate with spy programs, according to Daniel Castro. He’s a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group.
German Government
The German government has announced it was ending a contract with Verizon Communications Inc. because of NSA spying.
Wyden said his staff has been examining the issue and he’ll make judgments about what to do later.
“It certainly will help us begin to sort of think through what we want to do as a country,” he said. “If these NSA surveillance practices are not making us any more secure but are threatening our liberty, and now the Finance Committee has documented how it’s damaging our ability to grow economically, that too, I think will be something of a wake-up call in this debate.”
Wyden also renewed his intention to seek retroactive tax legislation to stop U.S. companies from moving their legal addresses to other countries.
Since Jan. 1, 2012, 12 U.S. companies have completed so-called inversions and another seven are pending, including Medtronic Inc.’s planned purchase of Dublin-based Covidien Plc.
AbbVie Inc. is moving closer to buying Shire Plc and moving the legal address to Ireland. Mylan Inc. is buying the generic drug business of Abbott Laboratories and forming a new company incorporated in the Netherlands.
Foreign Addresses
Wyden has proposed legislation that would in effect prevent U.S. companies from gaining foreign addresses by buying smaller competitors. His proposal would be retroactive to May 8 and he said companies are aware that he’s committed to that.
His preference is to make that change as part of a broader revamp of the U.S. tax code in the next 15 months. He also said a heightened pace of inversions may prompt Congress to act more quickly on a standalone measure.
“If there’s one of these every 72 hours there’s going to be a pretty big drumbeat to do something quickly,” he said.
Republicans have resisted such legislation, saying they would prefer to focus on broader tax changes.
Wyden said the Finance Committee will hold a July 22 hearing on international taxes that will address inversions.
Wyden said companies are paying attention to attempts to impose retroactive limits on inversions. He said Medtronic’s inclusion of a clause allowing it to unwind the deal if tax laws change shows that the effort is having an effect.
“If you have American companies that have been major employers, employers that pay good wages, saying that they’re just gonna pack up and go somewhere else so they can have a lower tax rate,” Wyden said, “that has very ominous implications for our country and what we want to do to create high-skill, high-wage jobs.”
© Copyright 2014 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.

Another Suit Filed Against NSA and Verizon

Parents of Navy SEAL Killed in Afghan Crash File the First Suit on NSA Spying

By Dashiell Bennett | The Atlantic Wire – 9 hrs ago

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A couple in Philadelphia has filed a class-action lawsuit against the National Security Agency and Verizon, claiming they and their phone records were targeted for surveillance because of their outspoken criticism of Barack Obama and the U.S. military. This is believed to be the first official lawsuit filed against the government and the company, since it was revealed that Verizon had been ordered to turn over phone metadata for all of its customers. 

The couple who filed the class-action suit are not just any disgruntled Verizon customers, however. They are Charles and Mary Ann Strange, the parents of a Navy SEAL who was killed along with 37 others, when his helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan in 2011. Several of the families of those lost in the attack have questioned the Defense Department's official story of the incident — one of the deadliest single events of the entire war for American troops — and they specifically blame President Obama's polices for leading to those deaths. Among their many complaints: that Afghan forces working with the Americans may have set them up; that because many of those killed that day were members of the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden, publicizing their role in the earlier mission made them targets for retaliation; and that rules of engagement prevented the helicopter and the men on it from fighting back. They also claim that a Muslim cleric was invited to speak at the funeral, who then insulted the dead servicemen in Arabic, although there's little evidence to support that charge.

RELATED: NSA Spying Appears to Stem from 550-Word Section of PATRIOT Act

The Stranges have already filed one lawsuit against Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, the Taliban, and the governments of Afghanistan and Iran, because of the helicopter attack, and they now claim that their phone records were accessed by NSA because "these Plaintiffs have been vocal about their criticism of President Obama as commander-in-chief," as well as the U.S. military. The new case names President Obama; Attorney General Eric Holder; NSA director Keith Alexander; and Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam among the defendants. The lawyer leading the way in both lawsuits is Larry Klayman, the founder of the controversial Judicial Watch, which sued President Bill Clinton 18 timeswhen he was in office, and sued President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney over their secretive Energy Task Force in 2003. Klayman even sued Judicial Watch after an acrimonious split with the organization in 2006.

RELATED: How to Apply for Edward Snowden's Old Job

While this inaugural lawsuit may not have the strongest case against the NSA or the president, you can bet it won't be the last.

Here Come The Drones--Legalistic and Maybe Remotely Controlled

DOJ launches criminal probe of NSA leaker

By Meghashyam Mali - 06/09/13 08:50 PM ET

  

The Justice Department on Sunday confirmed that it is conducting a criminal investigation into the leak of classified information detailing the National Security Agency’s phone and internet surveillance programs.

"The Department of Justice is in the initial stages of an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by an individual with authorized access,” said DOJ spokeswoman Nanda Chitre in a statement to The Hill.

“Consistent with long standing Department policy and procedure and in order to protect the integrity of the investigation, we must decline further comment," she added.

The DOJ statement comes hours after The Guardian newspaper released a video interview with Edward Snowden, a 29-year old who claimed responsibility for being the source of the information about the NSA’s secret intelligence practices.

Snowden’s leaks led to the disclosure of an NSA program which used metadata from Verizon phone customers to track possible terror threats and a separate program, PRISM, which obtained in Internet data on foreign customers from American tech companies.

Snowden said he leaked the information because he disagreed with the agency’s surveillance practices.

“I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded,” he said.

The administration on Saturday, before Snowden went public, said it intended to investigate the leaks and prosecute those responsible.

Snowden’s admission on Sunday brought quick calls for his arrest, with GOP Rep. Peter King (N.Y.) urging the government to “prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and begin extradition proceedings at the earliest date.”

“The United States must make it clear that no country should be granting this individual asylum,” King added.

Snowden is currently in Hong Kong and in his interview said he hoped to receive asylum.

“The only thing I can do is sit here and hope the Hong Kong government does not deport me,” he said.

The revelations sparked debate, with civil libertarians charging the programs violated the privacy of innocent Americans. 

President Obama, however, defended the programs saying they were done in accordance with laws passed by Congress and essential to national security.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Sunday said only that they were assessing the “damage” caused by Snowden’s leaks, and directing any inquiries over possible criminal charges to the DOJ.

Justin Sink contributed.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/304405-justice-department-investigating-nsa-leaker#ixzz2VlwLNu8D 
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