Coalition of 22 Attorneys General Files Petition for Review, Formally Commencing Lawsuit

Attorney General Matt Denn on Tuesday joined a coalition of 22 Attorneys General in filing a multistate lawsuit to block the Federal Communications Commission’s rollback of net neutrality. The coalition filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, formally commencing the lawsuit against the FCC and the federal government.

The repeal of net neutrality would have dire consequences for consumers and businesses in Delaware and across the country by allowing internet service providers to block certain content, charge consumers more to access certain sites, and throttle or slow the quality of content from content providers that don’t pay more.

“The free and open internet has become a backbone to the way our people, our business and our society work, learn and live,” Attorney General Denn said. “The FCC not only made the wrong decision, they made it in a flawed way, so my fellow Attorneys General and I will work to reverse it through this action.”

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, the FCC cannot make “arbitrary and capricious” changes to existing policies, such as net neutrality.  The FCC’s new rule fails to justify the Commission’s departure from its long-standing policy and practice of defending net neutrality, while misinterpreting and disregarding critical record evidence on industry practices and harm to consumers and businesses. Moreover, the rule wrongly reclassifies broadband internet as a Title I information service, rather than a Title II telecommunications service, based on an erroneous and unreasonable interpretation of the Telecommunications Act. Finally, the rule improperly and unlawfully includes sweeping preemption of state and local laws.

The lawsuit includes the Attorneys General of New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

The full petition can be found here.

In a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) on Monday, Attorney General Matt Denn and a bi-partisan group of 29 state attorneys general are urging the FCC to adopt rules that would allow telephone providers to block illegal robocalls – some of which lead to consumer scams.

The FCC has requested public comment on rules that would allow providers to block several types of “spoofed” calls, in which a call appears to be coming from one number, but is actually coming from a different number. Scammers frequently use spoofed calls to hide their identity and to trick consumers into believing that their calls are legitimate.

“Delaware consumers tell us they are inundated with these intrusive and often illegal calls, and would like a way to stop them before they ever come through,” Attorney General Denn said. “The FCC’s proposed rules would help with that, and my fellow Attorneys General and I urge the FCC to adopt the rules without delay.”

Currently, regulatory roadblocks prevent telecommunications companies from blocking many illegal robocalls. If the new rules are adopted, providers would be allowed to block calls coming from invalid numbers, unallocated numbers, and numbers whose owners have requested be blocked. For example, phone providers would be able to block a scammer that is using a telephone number that clearly can’t exist because it hasn’t been assigned.

The letter sounds the alarm about the growing number of telephone scam complaints across the country and supports the FCC’s proposal to remove regulatory roadblocks. As the letter points out, “legitimate businesses do not need to use any of these methods to contact consumers.”

Attorney General Denn was joined on the letter by the attorneys general of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

For a copy of the letter, click here. For a copy of the notice of proposed rules, click here.

Attorney General Matt Denn Wednesday joined 44 other state attorneys general calling on five major phone companies to offer call-blocking technology to their customers. In a joint letter to the chief executives of the carriers, the attorneys general said a new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule clarification allows telecommunication service providers to offer customers the ability to block unwanted calls, and confirms that federal law does not prohibit offering the services.

In the letter to AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile and CenturyLink, the attorneys general stated, “Every year, our offices are flooded with consumer complaints pleading for a solution to stop intrusive robocalls. Your companies are now poised to offer your customers the help they need. We urge you to act without delay.”

Phone carriers had previously claimed they could not offer such services.

“The FCC has made it clear that phone companies can give their customers what they have been asking for – a way to stop these calls before they ever come through,” Attorney General Denn said.

Call-blocking options already exist for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service and Android cell phones, and the phone carriers should move quickly to implement and inform their consumers of these options, the letter said.

In September 2014, 39 attorneys general, led by Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller and Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, called on the FCC to allow phone companies to utilize call-blocking technologies. The FCC chairman endorsed the request in late May and the FCC voted to pass the rule clarification on June 18.

The letter to the phone companies can be found HERE.