The first two lawsuits have been filed against the new net neutrality regulations that were approved by the Federal Communications Commission last month. The lawsuits, filed on Monday, allege that the new FCC rules violate the Constitution, federal telecommunications law, and the procedural requirements required for drafting regulations.
One of the lawsuits was filed by Alamo Broadband, a small Internet service provider while the other comes from the US Telecom Association, whose members include industry giants such as AT&T and Verizon.
For these lawsuits, the plaintiffs aren't required to spell out the arguments in great detail during this phase. The only thing required are highlights of the types of arguments that they plan to raise. For this suit, it appears that telecom companies will raise every major legal argument that has been brought up since the FCC passed the new regulations.
US Telecom says the regulations are "arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion" under the Administrative Procedure Act. This means that the FCC failed to provide a factual basis to support its decision to enact these new regulations.
The lawsuit continues by saying the rules are unconstitutional by illegally violating the First Amendment because they limit the ability of ISP's to edit their own networks.
US Telecom also claims the regulations violate the Communications Act that governs telecom regulations.
The lawsuits also claim that the FCC did not comply with the rules requiring that they give the public proper notice of the proposed regulations and an opportunity to comment on them. While they did provide notice, critics say the actual rules compared to the original notice were so different that they needed to release a revised set of rules.
Supporters of network neutrality dismissed the lawsuit as groundless. "The cable and telecom lobby have to deal with the fact that Title II is the right law for services like broadband Internet access," said Matt Wood of Free Press in an email statement. He called Title II of the Communications Act a "rock-solid basis for the Open Internet rules adopted last month."
The filing on Monday is just the first step in what is a very lengthy process. After Verizon sued to stop the last set of net neutrality rules in 2011, it took years before it was finally settled in a federal appeals court. You can expect to see litigation with the FCC for the remainder of the Obama administration but during that time the FCC will have the right to enforce these new rules unless the courts order them to stop.
