Big Telecom is once again trying to disrupt a net neutrality bill in California, this time by robocalling seniors to spread misinformation about the bill.

“Your Assembly member will be voting on a proposal by San Francisco politicians that could increase your cellphone bill by $30 a month and slow down your data,” says a voice on an automated call paid for by legal reform group the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC). “We can't afford higher cell phone bills. We can't afford slower data. We can't afford Senate Bill 822.”

The call urges constituents to contact their state representative and ask them to vote no on the bill, which passed a senate committee last week and will be heard in the Assembly this week. It even provides an option to automatically connect to the recipients’ Assembly member. At the top of the call, it cites the non-profit Congress of California Seniors, leading many—including state senator Scott Wiener, the net neutrality bill’s author—to believe the calls are targeting senior citizens specifically.

“The industry has engaged in a massive misinformation campaign around this bill for months,” Wiener told me over the phone.

But the claim that cell phone bills will go up is not based on anything in the actual bill, which would simply restore the federal rules that telecom companies operated under from 2015 until the 2017 repeal, which only went into effect a few months ago. The bill enshrines the fundamentals of net neutrality, such as prohibiting ISPs from throttling or blocking sites, but also prohibits other telecom trickery, such as zero rating—a practice where companies provide access to certain parts of the internet for “free” and charge for others.

CJAC typically lobbies for legislation that will reduce the number of lawsuits filed against companies in the state, but it has recently been directing funds to oppose the net neutrality proposal. Its political arm—called FairPAC—has financial ties to AT&T, according to the Federal Election Commission. CJAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CJAC’s robocalls ares not the only campaign spreading scary claims about soaring cell phone bills: ads on Facebook and Twitter, as well as physical flyers opposing the net neutrality bill and paid for by AT&T-backed advocacy group CALInnovates have been reported across California.

“The reality is that they’ve already lived under these rules under the 2015 Obama order and they did really well: they made huge profits, they weren’t laying off workers, they weren’t jacking up people’s bills,” Wiener said. “This is just all played-up misinformation.”

workinstiff wrote: Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:20 am I have a land line. It is part of the cable/internet package. It is used for forms that want a phone number. So it is like the spam bucket on my e-mail.

Lawmakers in California are sending legislation to Gov. Jerry Brown that would put net neutrality regulations into state law. California's Senate approved the measure, called SB 822, by 27-12 Friday, a day after colleagues in the Assembly approved it 61-18. The Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, hasn't said if he will sign it. He has until the end of September. "We passed the strongest net neutrality standards in the nation," San Francisco Democrat Scott Wiener, who co-wrote the bill, said in a statement.

"This is about a level playing field and an Internet where we as individuals get to decide where we go on the Internet instead of being told by Internet service providers, or manipulated by Internet service providers, into going where they want us to go," Wiener told reporters. The bill stops Internet service providers from blocking or slowing down certain websites or "classes of applications," like video. It bans "paid prioritization," also called fast lanes, where some websites would pay more for faster access. It also stops Internet providers from using some types of "zero-rating," when companies exempt certain traffic from counting against a customer's data usage. "Today was a landmark in the fight to preserve a free and open internet," supporter Barbara van Schewick, the director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, said in a statement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that supports online privacy, called it "a victory that can be replicated." Wiener said he hopes California's potential new rules could be emulated on a national level. California's legislation restores net neutrality regulations first imposed by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015, during the Obama administration. But the current FCC, led by Republican Chairman Ajit Pai, repealed those regulations in June, with Pai calling them "heavy-handed." He said "light-touch" regulation would lead to more innovation, competition and cheaper prices for consumers. Pai's rules shift enforcement for violations to the Federal Trade Commission instead. Internet service providers echoed Pai's language about regulatory measures, calling California's bill "heavy-handed."

"Broadband providers strongly support net neutrality, but SB 822 undercuts California's long history as a vibrant catalyst for innovation and technology," Jonathan Spalter, the president and CEO of industry group USTelecom, said in a statement. "The internet must be governed by a single, uniform and consistent national policy framework, not state-by-state piecemeal approaches." Verizon and AT&T are members of USTelecom. ArsTechnica reports that the group has in fact "consistently fought against both federal and state-level net neutrality rules." The group had earlier promised to "aggressively challenge" — sue — state and local governments that try to enact net neutrality regulations.

California's net neutrality rules are "necessary and legal because Chairman Pai abdicated his responsibility to ensure an open Internet," Wiener said in a press release.

"Unlike Pai's FCC, California isn't run by the big telecom and cable companies," Wiener also said. "Pai can take whatever potshots at California he wants. The reality is that California is the world's innovation capital, and unlike the crony capitalism promoted by the Trump administration, California understands exactly what it takes to foster an open innovation economy with a level playing field."

FCC chairman Ajit Pai said that California’s newly passed net neutrality bill is “egregious,” “radical, anti-consumer,” and “illegal” in a speech on Friday. The bill, which was passed last month but has not yet been signed into law, enacts even stricter net neutrality rules than those the FCC recently overturned. But it goes up against at least one major blockade: a commission rule banning state net neutrality laws.

Pai, naturally, believes the FCC’s rule will stand up, which would make California’s law illegal. He says that internet is an interstate service, so “it follows that only the federal government can set regulatory policy in this area.”

California’s governor has yet to announce support
California legislators either believe this is wrong or are willing to put up a fight to find out, as they will inevitably have to hash this dispute out in court if the bill is signed into law. The state’s governor, Jerry Brown, hasn’t said whether he’ll sign the legislation yet, but top Democrats from the state have added their support behind it.

Pai calls state net neutrality laws the “latest tactic” used by net neutrality advocates to “demand greater government control of the Internet.” He says that “nanny-state California legislators” see free data as “the enemy” and want to take choice away from consumers.

Wiener rebuked Pai's comments. 
"SB 822 is supported by a broad coalition of consumer groups, groups advocating for low income people, small and mid-size technology companies, labor unions, and President Obama's FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler," Wiener said. "I'll take that support over Ajit Pai any day of the week."

The Department of Justice said it is filing a lawsuit against the state of California over its new net neutrality protections, hours after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law on Sunday. The California law would be the strictest net neutrality protections in the country, and could serve as a blueprint for other states. Under the law, internet service providers will not be allowed to block or slow specific types of content or applications, or charge apps or companies fees for faster access to customers.The Department of Justice says the California law is illegal and that the state is "attempting to subvert the Federal Government's deregulatory approach" to the internet.

"Under the Constitution, states do not regulate interstate commerce—the federal government does," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. "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." As the largest economy in the United States and the fifth largest economy in the world, California has significant influence over how other states regulate businesses and even federal laws and regulations. That power is being tested under the Trump administration, which is currently battling the state in court over multiple issues, including emissions standards, immigration laws and the sale of federal lands.

"It's critically important for states to step in," state senator Scott Wiener, who co-authored the bill, told CNNMoney. "What California does definitely impacts the national conversation. I do believe that this bill ... will move us in a positive direction nationally on net neutrality." For that to happen, the law will likely have to survive a legal battle. In addition to the lawsuit from the Department of Justice, ISPs may sue California over the bill. Major broadband companies, including AT&T and Comcast, have lobbied heavily against the California bill. (AT&T is the parent company of CNN.) They say the new rules will result in higher prices for consumers. Jonathan Spalter, president of USTelecom -- a trade group representing broadband providers -- said while the group supports "strong and enforceable net neutrality protections for every American," the bill was "neither the way to get there nor will it help advance the promise and potential of California's innovation DNA." "Rather than 50 states stepping in with their own conflicting open internet solutions, we need Congress to step up with a national framework for the whole internet ecosystem and resolve this issue once and for all," Spalter said.

Broadband providers lobbied against the California law, but were also for the repeal of the most recent federal regulations. "The broadband providers say they don't want state laws, they want federal laws," said Gigi Sohn, a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology and a former lawyer at the FCC, in an interview. "But they were the driving force behind the federal rules being repealed ... The federal solution they want is nothing, or extremely weak." The FCC is fighting California over a pre-exemption clause included in its 2017 order repealing net neutrality protections. The FCC holds that it can preempt state-level laws because broadband service crosses state lines. Legal experts are split over whether or not the FCC can challenge a state net neutrality law, but Wiener believes the clause is unenforceable. "We don't think the FCC has the power to preempt state action," said Wiener. "We are prepared to defend this law. We believe that California has the power to protect the internet and to protect our residents and businesses."

Barbara van Schewick, a professor at Stanford Law School, says the California bill is on solid legal ground and that California is within its legal rights. "An agency that has no power to regulate has no power to preempt the states, according to case law. When the FCC repealed the 2015 Open Internet Order, it said it had no power to regulate broadband internet access providers. That means the FCC cannot prevent the states from adopting net neutrality protections because the FCC's repeal order removed its authority to adopt such protections," said van Schewick. The bill was approved by lawmakers in early September, but it had been unclear if Brown would veto or approve the comprehensive measure, even though it had broad support from state Democrats.

California is the third state to pass its own net neutrality regulations, following Washington and Oregon. However, it is the first to match the thorough level of protections that had been provided by the Obama-era federal net neutrality regulations repealed by the Federal Communications Commission in June. At least some other states are expected to model future net neutrality laws on California's. The original FCC rules included a two page summary and more than 300 additional pages with additional protections and clarifications on how they worked. While other states mostly replicated the two-page summary, California took longer crafting its law in order to match the details in the hundreds of supporting pages, said van Schewick. "Most people don't understand how hard it is to do a solid net neutrality law," said van Schewick. "What's so special about California is that it includes not just two pages of rules, but all of the important protections from the text of the order and as a result closes the loopholes."

Loopholes addressed in California's new law include a prohibition on "zero rating," which allows carriers to exempt content from certain companies (like their own streaming services) from counting against a customer's data usage. The prohibition would not apply if a carrier wanted to exempt an entire category of content, like all streaming services. It also bans interconnection fees, which are charges a company pays when its data enters the internet provider's network. The FCC says those rules will hurt consumers. "The law prohibits many free-data plans, which allow consumers to stream video, music, and the like exempt from any data limits. They have proven enormously popular in the marketplace, especially among lower-income Americans. But notwithstanding the consumer benefits, this state law bans them," said Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC, in a statement.

The authors of the bill did have support from consumer and labor groups, grassroots activists, and small and mid-sized tech companies including Twilio, Etsy and Sonos. Larger technology companies, like Apple, Google, and Facebook, have stayed quietly on the sidelines. Sohn and van Schewick believe states with legislatures controlled by Democrats are the ones most likely to pass strong net neutrality protections. Other states have already started working on similar bills, including New York and New Mexico.