Court case

The record shows extensive opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order and the grave danger it poses to public safety and public health, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis. Public health and public safety officials detail in the record how both officials and the public writ large rely on mass-market retail broadband internet access services (BIAS).

Public interest commenters, including public safety officials, overwhelmingly agreed with Free Press’s assessment that the Federal Communications Commission’s misguided repeal of Net Neutrality and its authority over broadband internet access service (“BIAS”) harms the Lifeline program, pole attachment regulation, and public safety. These commenters also overwhelmingly agreed that the best remedy for such harms would be for the Commission to once again correctly classify broadband as a Title II service protected by strong open internet rules.

On April 24, 2020, Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai about how multiple local governments from California and New York asked for, yet were denied, a further 60-day extension of the comment period over the DC Circuit Court of Appeals remand in the FCC's net neutrality repeal (Mozilla Corp. v. FCC). The senators asked the FCC to reconsider this position and further extend the comment period given the crisis created by the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic.

Privacy rights enshrined in Germany’s Constitution extend to foreigners living abroad and cover their online data, the country’s highest court ruled, ordering Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to overhaul a law governing the foreign intelligence agency. The decision by the Constitutional Court found that parts of a 2016 law governing the country’s foreign intelligence agency, known by its German abbreviation BND, in part violated the universal right to privacy in communication.

Rural broadband provider Windstream Holdings Inc. is closer to exiting from chapter 11 under a proposal that would allow hedge-fund manager Elliott Management Corp. and other investors to buy the bulk of the company’s equity out of bankruptcy while wiping out most junior debt.

Siding with The New York Times, a federal judge has ordered that the Federal Communications Commission must disclose information about users who submitted comments during the 2017 net neutrality proceeding, despite the agency's objections that doing so could compromise people's privacy. US District Court Judge Lorna Schofield in the Southern District of New York ruled that disclosure of the data -- including commenters' IP addresses, time stamps, and user-agent headers -- is in the public interest, particularly given concerns that many comments were fraudulent.

Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) on sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai demanding an extension on the comment period for the issues that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals recently remanded in the commission’s net neutrality repeal. Local governments in California and New York requested a 60-day extension of the comment period, yet the commission refused to give these first responders more time while they are fighting on the frontlines of a global pandemic. “While that comment period clo

A judge approved Facebook’s $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations—overruling objections that the deal didn’t adequately punish the company. Judge Timothy Kelly of the US District Court for the District of Columbia greenlighted the deal reached in the summer of 2019, which included the $5 billion fine, restrictions on some aspects of Facebook’s business decisions, and ongoing oversight of the social media giant.

On April 17, the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters each filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to review the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s 2019 decision in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC. The decision was the fourth in a line of intertwined cases dealing with the agency’s media ownership policies since 2004. In Prometheus IV, the Third Circuit remanded the diametrically opposed FCC’s media ownership decisions in 2016 and 2017, as well as the agency’s 2018 incubator program.