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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sunday, September 30, 2018

Justice Department Files Net Neutrality Lawsuit Against the State of California==

The Justice Department today filed a lawsuit against the state of California alleging that Senate Bill 822, an Internet regulation bill signed into law earlier today by Governor Jerry Brown, unlawfully imposes burdens on the Federal Government’s deregulatory approach to the Internet, announced Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Acting Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio, Assistant Attorney General Joseph H. Hunt for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai.

In 1996, a bipartisan Congress decided that the Internet should remain “unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” Since 2002, the FCC has accordingly classified broadband Internet access as an “information service” that is exempt from public-utility regulations. The FCC briefly departed from this classification in a 2015 Order, which imposed restrictions on the freedom of the Internet. In 2018, the FCC returned to its prior light-touch framework, ensuring that Internet access services are free and guided by a uniform set of federal rules, rather than by a patchwork of state and local regulations. The United States concluded that California, through Senate Bill 822, is attempting to subvert the Federal Government’s deregulatory approach by imposing burdensome state regulations on the free Internet, which is unlawful and anti-consumer.

In filing the complaint, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued the following statement:

“Under the Constitution, states do not regulate interstate commerce—the federal government does. Once again the California legislature has enacted an extreme and illegal state law attempting to frustrate federal policy. The Justice Department should not have to spend valuable time and resources to file this suit today, but we have a duty to defend the prerogatives of the federal government and protect our Constitutional order. We will do so with vigor. We are confident that we will prevail in this case—because the facts are on our side.”

Read more @ https:// www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-net-neutrality-lawsuit-against-state-california-0