He doesn't in multiple ways. First, there's a board at the FCC that voted on this. Not too important though, as the presidents party gets three votes, other party gets two.

Next, the FCC's legal mandate to deal with net neutrality is vague. This is why the 2010 rules were overturned in court, and barring a new law being enacted, the legality of the 2015 rules are ultimately in the hands of the courts. Until the courts decide, the FCC can create rules based on their interpretation.

This is untrue. The FCC's mandate to oversee broadband is clear. The 2015 rules on the solid legal foundation of Title II were upheld in court twice. The FCC has repeatedly acted to ensure net neutrality, including a 2005 action against blocking (again under Title II). Then there were net neutrality conditions applied to mergers (AT&T, then Comcast/NBCUniversal), to broadband grants under the stimulus act and to portions of the 4G spectrum.

The 2010 rules were overturned in court because the FCC has very little power if it classifies ISPs under Title I, but lots of authority under Title II.

Now some of the questions before a federal court are about the 2017 repeal, including 1) was the FCC's reversal of the Title II classification justified and 2) was the proceeding handled fairly under the Administrative Procedures Act.

The Telecommunications Act that gives them any authority on the matter at all essentially created an exception to label broadband as Title I. In 05 the Supreme Court ruled this distinction to be legal, and as far as I know there has not been a high court upholding the FCC's reclassification. So yes, if they classify it as Title II they have the authority, but it's unclear if they are allowed to classify it such, and if they are can they change it back to Title I.

The DC Circuit upheld the 2015 order and denied review, citing the 2005 Supreme Court precedent. The main argument against it is that switching to Title I and fundamentally reshaping the home broadband market wasn't a major policy change, but bringing back Title II and enforcing long-standing principles was.

The challenges to the 2017 reclassification are about whether the FCC justified the change and followed the required procedures, not whether it has the authority.

It's not the lone bureaucrat. Do you really think one guy is behind this? He had support from the industry, the media, politicians and the elites. If you haven't noticed, the elites ( not just in the US ) but in europe, china, russia, saudi arabia, etc have all worked hard to take control over the internet.

In the US, the battle has been going on for more than a decade. Look at how google search, youtube, reddit and even HN has changed. The last major holdout was facebook, but we've seen what happened to them. It wasn't by accident or because ordinary people wanted it. It's what the elites wanted. What the people want has never really mattered. Not in the US, not in europe, china, russia, etc.

And with the constant merging of content providers and ISPs, the internet will become more like TV for most people.

What's funny is how we had so much facebook spam here ( when it was really a non-story ) and so little coverage of such a monumentally important tech topic like net neutrality. I'm guessing between facebook and net neutrality stories only, facebook accounted for 99% and net neutrality accounted for 1% on HN.

One would think that "hacker" news would care about the important story and not political fluff. But hacker news hasn't been "hackerish" for a while now.

> How in the hell does a single bureaucrat have this kind of power in the US to make a unilateral decision affecting millions of people and billions of dollars in commerce?

The FCC is not a single bureaucrat, it's a five seat commission limited to three members of any one political party; in practice, approximately (not exactly because of term timing), that means three members of the party holding the Presidency and two of the other major party.

Ajit Pai said he was gonna do it all along. He was nominated by the president, and 52 Senators confirmed him. And then he did it, and the Senate had the power to block the rule change, but they didn't. 48 Republican, and 4 Democratic Senators confirmed him.

That bureaucrat is the appointed head of the FCC appointed by the President and implementing a law enacted by Congress. He's not a lone wolf.

He’s the scapegoat for all the other government officials on both sides of the aisle who have had their pockets filled up by the telecom industry.

Except in this case it was only FCC board members from one party that voted for the repeal, I'll let you guess which one.

You’re right, I had my facts wrong. However, although not necessarily the case here, voting against certain guaranteed to pass measures is just talking the talk, not really walking the walk. Democrats don’t really push for anti-corporation policy in general.

Would you have preferred the Democratic commissioners had voted for the repeal? I'm not sure what else they could have done here.

I guess the party the won the election and therefore has legitimate authority from the citizens to do that. It sounds like a much more fair and accountable system than giving the power to people who are neither elected nor appointed by elected people.

> It sounds like a much more fair and accountable system than giving the power to people who are neither elected nor appointed by elected people.

This response is kind of ironic in context of net neutrality being repealed considering it is a decision which empowered those who are neither elected nor appointed by elected people against the will of the overwhelming majority of the citizens.

Right, but the OP said both parties were responsible, which isn't true, since the FCC board voted repeal on party lines. GOP seats voted repeal net neutrality, Dem seats voted to keep.

I'm a firm believer that both parties have their hands dirty in one way or the other, but in this instance, it doesn't seem to be so in this case.

That is a whole different debate. We could discuss for hours who: "legally won the election".

I mean the party that won in a system designed to make them win.

If they are really filling the Dems' pockets, the money's not buying them much influence, is it?

Lol. I don't know if they necessarily care about influence on this topic more than they do money in their pockets.

Came for “both sides”, was not disappointed.

The two parties are NOT the same.

Not in all cases; republicans are much more frequently bad from my POV and I assume yours. However they do both act frequently in favor of corporate interests. A recent example being this: https://nyti.ms/2x6c1xI

Effectively, both partie:s current position is "let the courts decide." The Republicans are outwardly hostile to it, but the Democrats have only pushed the issue when they knew it couldn't pass or would go to court.

> the Democrats have only pushed the issue when they knew it couldn't pass or would go to court.

Net neutrality was part of Obama's presidential platform, and the first attempt at codifying NN rules happened under his first FCC commissioner in 2010.

Both parties are not the same with respect to net neutrality.

Obama cosponsored a bill in 2006, as Democrats knew that anything else would leave the decision unsure. A bill was introduced in 09, when the Democrats could have ensured net neutrality, but it never got further than that.

The Democrats have publicly embraced net neutrality, but have done nothing to ensure it. Even in 2016, the Democrats official stated position was to do nothing, leaving it in the hands of the courts. Both parties actual actions have the same results.

> The Democrats have publicly embraced net neutrality, but have done nothing to ensure it. Even in 2016, the Democrats official stated position was to do nothing

I don't know where the "Democrat's official stated position" comes from, but I have a pretty good idea as to why Democrats weren't talking often about NN in 2016: Wheeler's FCC solved the problem. The ninth circuit upheld the 2015 rules. That's not nothing.

> That's not nothing.

WA passed a law to ensure it. That's not nothing. Waiting for a decision and hoping the status quo sits (I mean it's a great story to ride on the coattails of and tell your constituents you did something), is nothing.

There is something to be said about kicking someone when they're down, and finish them off. Democrats had the votes, they should have made it a law. But both parties do like to play the regulation pendulum swing game. This is not the Democrats' first day at the rodeo, they knew full well this had a good chance of swinging the other way with a Republican administration. And so here we are.

1) There's a practical limit to how many laws can be written up and passed through both houses in a year.

2) No one would praise a party for making laws to a problem that is otherwise fixed. Talk about feeding into the republican talking point of democrat bureaucrats.

In short: Don't spend effort fixing something that ain't broken.

This is on the GOP because they made something worse. It's not on the dems for "not making something even better". Make the GOP pay for it if you don't like it. Blaming dems for shit they didn't cause is in part why they lost the election.

Regulations aren't fixed. They aren't laws. They are reverted just as easily as they're made in the first place. Regulations are executive branch power only. If you're worried something you care about might change when the political winds change, you'd write up a bill doing exactly what the regulation does, and get it signed into law. They could have done this in a day, and they didn't.

Democrats were either incompetent at predicting the GOP would unwind this when they said they were gonna. Or they liked the idea if it being unwound and being able to blame the GOP for it.

And like I said, not their first day at the rodeo, so the former is impossible. They are definitely not incompetent, they definitely knew the regulations would be unwound. And they definitely did nothing about it as if their either didn't care, or they liked the idea of using it to rile up their base for campaign donations and votes.

>1) There's a practical limit to how many laws can be written up and passed through both houses in a year.

This is crap. The bill was introduced and ignored, though they found time to pass a bill amending the same 1934 Communications act that covers net neutrality in the session to improve caller ID.

The issue wasn't remotely fixed at the time, and they chose to fix it in an easily reversible way. Unless they expected an eternal reelection, the Democrats caused this too. They lost the election because they can't rely on being slightly less terrible than the Republicans.

It comes from the 2016 Democrat Party Platform, the pamphlet they publish with their stated positions on a range of topics.

I'll admit I had missed the 2016 ruling on the issue. I may be overly cynical on it, but as I skimmed the briefing it seemed the ISPs still had some court options available. Even if I'm wrong there, they still had the chance to prevent the current situation and ignored it.