New York Times sues FCC over FoIA non-compliance with turning over possible Russian meddling with comment period in 2017

Jon Brodkin of Ars Technica reports that the New York Times has sued the FCC for its refusal to turn over records, based on the Freedom of Information Act, concerning possible Russian meddling during the comments phase of its 2017 process to eliminate Obama-era network neutrality rules. The link is here. 

   

There are some indications of DDoS attacks on FCC servers during the comments, and attempts to hide pro-neutrality comments. Russians could have had the sinister desire of wanting to wind up with a system were telecoms block individual speakers or small organizations.  That really doesn't seem to be happening. 

California's net neutrality bill poses the "federalist" question as to whether the states will take back the issue

Cecilia Kang has a long article “California bill sets up a fight on net access” Saturday, Sept. 1, here.  As of the time of writing, Gov. Jerry Brown had not yet signed it.

  

The bill apparently gave net neutrality “activists” all that “they” were seeking. Telecoms apparently cannot offer free streaming for apps, out of apparent deference to smaller publishers that don’t have the pull to offer the same. Normal streaming services would be offered at the same quality. Telecoms did not get some contingent capacity to throttle in the future if they wanted to.