Net Neutrality lives! Internet to be regulated by FCC

[Borgholio]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/techn ... mc_id&_r=0

WASHINGTON — Senior Republicans conceded on Tuesday that the grueling fight with President Obama over the regulation of Internet service appears over, with the president and an army of Internet activists victorious.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected on Thursday to approve regulating Internet service like a public utility, prohibiting companies from paying for faster lanes on the Internet. While the two Democratic commissioners are negotiating over technical details, they are widely expected to side with the Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler, against the two Republican commissioners.

And Republicans on Capitol Hill, who once criticized the plan as “Obamacare for the Internet,” now say they are unlikely to pass a legislative response that would undo perhaps the biggest policy shift since the Internet became a reality.

“We’re not going to get a signed bill that doesn’t have Democrats’ support,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. “This is an issue that needs to have bipartisan support.”

The future of protecting an open Internet has been the subject of fierce debate, and potential changes to the rules by the Federal Communications Commission could affect your online experience.

The new F.C.C. rules are still likely to be tied up in a protracted court fight with the cable companies and Internet service providers that oppose it, and they could be overturned in the future by a Republican-leaning commission. But for now, Congress’s hands appear to be tied.

The F.C.C. plan would let the agency regulate Internet access as if it is a public good. It would follow the concept known as net neutrality or an open Internet, banning so-called paid prioritization — or fast lanes — for willing Internet content providers.

In addition, it would ban the intentional slowing of the Internet for companies that refuse to pay broadband providers. The plan would also give the F.C.C. the power to step in if unforeseen impediments are thrown up by the handful of giant companies that run many of the country’s broadband and wireless networks.

Republicans hoped to pre-empt the F.C.C. vote with legislation, but Senate Democrats insisted on waiting until after Thursday’s F.C.C. vote before even beginning to talk about legislation for an open Internet. Even Mr. Thune, the architect of draft legislation to override the F.C.C., said Democrats had stalled what momentum he could muster.

And an avalanche of support for Mr. Wheeler’s plan — driven by Internet companies as varied as Netflix, Twitter, Mozilla and Etsy — has swamped Washington.

“We’ve been outspent, outlobbied. We were going up against the second-biggest corporate lobby in D.C., and it looks like we’ve won,” said Dave Steer, director of advocacy for the Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit technology foundation that runs Firefox, a popular Web browser, referring to the cable companies. “A year ago today, we did not think we would be in this spot.”

The net neutrality movement pitted new media against old and may well have revolutionized notions of corporate social responsibility and activism. Top-down decisions by executives investing in or divesting themselves of resources, paying lobbyists and buying advertisements were upended by the mobilization of Internet customers and users.

“We don’t have an army of lobbyists to deploy. We don’t have financial resources to throw around,” said Liba Rubenstein, director of social impact and public policy at the social media company Tumblr, which is owned by Yahoo, the large Internet company, but operated independently on the issue. “What we do have is access to an incredibly engaged, incredibly passionate user base, and we can give folks the tools to respond.”

Internet service providers say heavy-handed regulation of the Internet will diminish their profitability and crush investment to expand and speed up Internet access. It could even open the web to taxation to pay for new regulators.

Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said the pro-net-neutrality advocates turned a complex and technical debate over how best to keep the Internet operating most efficiently into a matter of religion. The forces for stronger regulation, he said, became viewed as for the Internet. Those opposed to the regulation were viewed as against the Internet.

The Internet companies, he said, sometimes mislead their customers, and in some cases, are misled on the intricacies of the policy.

“Many of the things they have said just belie reality and common sense,” he said.

In April, a dozen New York-based Internet companies gathered at Tumblr’s headquarters in the Flatiron district to hear dire warnings that broadband providers were about to obtain the right to charge for the fastest speeds on the web.

The implication: If they did not pony up, they would be stuck in the slow lane.

What followed was the longest, most sustained campaign of Internet activism in history. A swarm of small players, like Tumblr, Etsy, BoingBoing and Reddit, overwhelmed the giants of the broadband world, Comcast, Verizon Communications and Time Warner Cable. Two of the biggest players on the Internet, Amazon and Google, largely stayed in the background, while smaller participants — some household names like Twitter and Netflix, others far more obscure, like Chess.com and Urban Dictionary — mobilized a grass-roots crusade.

“Our community is the source of our power,” said Althea Erickson, director of public policy at Etsy, an online craft market, where users embroidered pillows and engraved spoons promoting net neutrality.

In mid-October, the tech activist group Fight for the Future acquired the direct telephone numbers of about 30 F.C.C. officials, circumventing the agency’s switchboard to send calls directly to policy makers. That set off a torrent of more than 55,000 phone calls until the group turned off the spigot on Dec. 3.

In November, President Obama cited “almost four million public comments” when he publicly pressured the F.C.C. to turn away from its paid “fast lane” proposal and embrace a new regulatory regime.

Since then, the lobbying has grown only more intense. Last week, 102 Internet companies wrote to the F.C.C. to say the threat of Internet service providers “abusing their gatekeeper power to impose tolls and discriminate against competitive companies is the real threat to our future,” not “heavy-handed regulation” and possible taxation, as conservatives in Washington say.

Republicans have grown much quieter under the barrage.

“Tech companies would be better served to work with Congress on clear rules for the road. The thing that they’re buying into right now is a lot of legal uncertainty,” said Mr. Thune. “I’m not sure exactly what their thinking is.”

Mr. Thune said he was still willing to work with Democrats on legislation that he said would do what the F.C.C. is trying to accomplish, without a heavy regulatory hand: Ban paid “fast lanes” and stop intentional slowdowns — or “throttling” — by broadband companies seeking payment from Internet content providers.

But even he said Democrats were ready to let the F.C.C. do the job.

[Gaidin]

So when does the stay for the court fight happen that stalls it til at least the next election?

[Crown]

So when does the stay for the court fight happen that stalls it til at least the next election?

It won't happen on this issue (I don't think). While Comcast and Verizon had their inside man as the head of the FCC they were counterbalanced by Apple and Google, and it is true that Apple and Google didn't start bribing Senators and Congressmen like Comcast and Verizon something interesting happened; venture capitalists across the country started ringing their Republican mates and said 'hey look, I've got a lot of money invested in start ups in Silicone Valley ... don't fuck with me on this'.

[Gaidin]

That stops Comcast et. al. from having a legislative fight but how does that stop an over eager judge?

[APlayerHater]

Well, here comes the censorship.

[Gaidin]

Well, here comes the censorship.

What are we censoring and how?

[APlayerHater]

Hey, it could happen. It's the FCC after all. And won't my comments seem poignant after that.

[Gaidin]

Hey, it could happen. It's the FCC after all. And won't my comments seem poignant after that.

What are they censoring and how?

[muse]

Commentary from a computers expert I follow:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index. ... Yeah!.html

On blocking content:

In all honestly, I really like this wording. The FCC specifically mentions "legal" with regards to content, applications, and services. I had voiced concerns about net neutrality leading to more botnets and more network attacks. Under US law (18 U.S. Code § 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers), it is illegal to access a computer without authorization. Even a denial of service attack can be illegal. At first glance, this means that ISPs can stop network attacks.

However, there is a downside to the "legal" requirement. You see, only a court of law can make the determination as to whether something is legal or illegal. We know this because the US has this whole "presumption of innocence" requirement. (You are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.) And as we have seen on many Judge Judy episodes, someone may appear to be completely guilty but found by the court to not be at fault. Even if the suspect knew the victims, had a motive, and was seen fleeing from police in a white bronco, the court may still find him not guilty of any crime (including fleeing from police and avoiding arrest).

So let's view this from the ISP's viewpoint. They must permit legal content, and they cannot determine "illegal" without a court ruling. Now let's assume that you are currently under a denial-of-service attack! Can you wait months or years for the issue to be resolved by a court? If the ISP steps in and presumes "illegal", then they can stop the attack. But... what if they are wrong? Rather than facing fees or fines (or even expensive court costs), it is best for the ISP to permit everything under the presumption of innocence. If you, the victim, can prove it is illegal (i.e., get a court ruling on it), then I'm sure the ISP will be willing to step in and help stop the attack.

On throttling:

The FCC's "no throttling" issue is equally bad for end users. If ISPs cannot impair traffic on the basis of content, applications, services, or devices, then... they cannot honor any quality-of-service (QoS) packet information. Even if your streaming video and online gaming applications explicitly marks every packet as a high priority for real-time delivery, the ISP cannot honor it. Otherwise, they will be granting one type of traffic a higher priority, and impairing other traffic, based on the application, service, or content. If the ISP has multiple internal routes, then they can load-balance the traffic (based on network load and not content, application, etc.). But if it comes down to your real-time gaming versus my flood of tweets and emails (that do not need real-time delivery), well, both types of traffic are treated equally.

Ironically, the FCC undercuts this requirement in their section titled "Reasonable Network Management". This section grants ISPs the power to reasonably manage network traffic. So, for example, it may be reasonable for an ISP to stop a DDoS, reduce malware by blocking ports, and applying QoS recommendations. The big undercut came in when the FCC added that network management must be "primarily used for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management -- and not business -- purpose". That "primarily used for" leaves the door open for secondary uses that are business, and not network management, related.

In other words, the FCC first says that ISPs can no longer throttle, block, or intercept as a primary business. Then they gave ISPs permission to continue doing the exact same throttling, blocking, and intercepting as a secondary business model.

On traffic priority:

The final requirement from the FCC does away with paid prioritization. Netflix will no longer need to pay Comcast $25 to $50 million each year for high speed traffic to their customers. This is good for Netflix and good for consumers. Netflix no longer has to pay to play, and Netflix won't be passing this cost to their customers.

However, it not entirely good. With the "No Throttling" issue, it means that streaming video from Netflix will lead to network congestion. Also, expect to see that "buffering" message more often as the Netflix protocol's benchmark identifies high-speed connectivity, but cannot sustain the high-speed connectivity.

I do see one possible benefit to this ruling. (I am hoping some attorney tries to test this idea...) The ruling explicitly says "no fast lanes" and forbids favoring traffic "in exchange for consideration of any kind". Currently, Comcast (and every other ISP) charges for different connection speeds. For $20 per month, you can get a 5Mb connection. For $50, you can get 10Mb, etc. However, these are really just types of fast lanes. Consumers pay for a specific bandwidth. If they want faster, then they can pay for it. With this new FCC ruling, this tiered pricing model seems to directly contradict with the "in exchange for consideration of any kind" clause. As I (in my non-lawyer hat) read it, all ISPs are required to give all users the same speed and the same pricing.

At first glance, this seems great! Everyone gets faster Internet! However, ISPs could decided to dumb down access to the lowest common denominator. ("2Mbps for everyone! Yeah!") Or, the ISPs could increase their pricing such that nobody except the most wealthy can afford Internet access.

Knowing how things work in America, I believe the end consumers are about to be cornholed.

[Gaidin]

Clyde C. McElroy, participant in DNSO has a few predictions of his own.

Infographic: Defining Net Neutrality Without the Politics

By Willie Jones

Despite its name, few people are neutral about Net Neutrality. This contretemps won’t end when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission convenes tomorrow (26 February) to publicly declare where the U.S. government stands on the matter. Part of what has inspired the disagreement over how bits of data should traverse the networks that together form the Internet is the lack of consensus about whether all information should be treated equally and what “equal treatment” really means. Should it really mean equal treatment for all bits? All information providers? Or should carriers be able to charge extra for premium services, but be barred from blocking or throttling access?

Earlier this month, we published an article that spelled out the arguments and counterarguments in the hope of making sense of it all. Now, Clyde C. McElroy, a former member of the general assembly under ICANN and a participant in domain name system operations (DNSO) working groups on new top-level domains, has further illuminated those points with this infographic:

Big Infographic Link

As for his personal take on how the Internet should evolve, McElroy says, “I'm more in the equal treatment for all information providers camp, but think that the technical people should be in charge of exactly how that happens.”

[Enigma]

Now Verizon et al are bitching and whining.

[Simon_Jester]

I doubt they'd be complaining if they really did have a secret plan to exploit the new rules to their advantage.

Or at least, I doubt they'd be complaining hard.

[Enigma]

I doubt they'd be complaining if they really did have a secret plan to exploit the new rules to their advantage.

Or at least, I doubt they'd be complaining hard.

Verizon whine.

FCC’s ‘Throwback Thursday’ Move Imposes 1930s Rules on the Internet

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Readers in the 21st century can read the translated statement here.

Translated text in pdf.

[Simon_Jester]

I have too little respect for them to do anything other than find my own translator out of stubbornness, but to reply-

Basically, this is the usual "blah blah regulation of industry bad" argument, with little or no specifics. The idea that 'net neutrality' is a new idea, some kind of weird thing being imposed on the industry from without, is especially rich given that this is how people have been saying it was supposed to work literally since the Internet is invented. Content carriers were never supposed to be discriminating between content providers on the basis of who could pay them more money.

Charging by the megabaud for the 'breadth' of your broadband Internet connection is one thing. Even charging by the megabyte of total downloads is justifiable (although realistically the price should be really low). But once you start saying "pay me more money or I'll deny you access to my communications network" to specific customers, you're discriminating in a way that was never accepted formally.

Sure, Verizon wants to pretend this used to be legal and now the FCC is being meanies. But it's not like 'net neutrality' is a thing that just became a cause celebre last week.

[Gaidin]

I have too little respect for them to do anything other than find my own translator out of stubbornness, but to reply-

Basically, this is the usual "blah blah regulation of industry bad" argument, with little or no specifics. The idea that 'net neutrality' is a new idea, some kind of weird thing being imposed on the industry from without, is especially rich given that this is how people have been saying it was supposed to work literally since the Internet is invented. Content carriers were never supposed to be discriminating between content providers on the basis of who could pay them more money.

*snip*

The idea of this being regulation of industry kind of amuses me. For the past decade it's literally been industry regulating industry only truly discovered when a company like Netflix (possibly only partially) revealed its books and how much they have to pay the companies for specific kinds of traffic. The idea of prioritizing types of traffic is nothing new and nothing bad. Real time vs streaming vs data transfer. Not new, not bad. Not even really designed by ISPs, last I checked anyway. The idea of prioritizing one company's streaming over another is where is where the Tech Industry was having problems with the ISPs and where they were literally able to scream at the FEC and have the effect they had.

[Zeropoint]

I figure that if the monopolists are against it, it must be a good thing.

[bilateralrope]

Commentary from a computers expert I follow:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index. ... Yeah!.html

Tell me, have any of his fears about Net Neutrality come to pass in any of the countries that have already introduced it ?

Because his claims seem a bit farfetched. He admits that he isn't a lawyer, but all his conclusions require on him being able to understand the law. Not a good basis for convincing people.

Really it comes down to this last paragraph:

News reports about yesterday's rulings are claiming that this is "a good day for proponents of an open internet", "Internet activists declared victory", and "Consumers win." Given all of the gaping holes in the regulation, all of the opportunities for abuse, and all of the upcoming legal battles... did end consumers really win anything?

Lets see. Netflix says it's a good thing, he disagrees. So why should I take the word of a non-lawyer on matters of the law over that of Netflix, who have enough of a stake in this issue that they would have consulted lawyers about it ?

[muse]

Tell me, have any of his fears about Net Neutrality come to pass in any of the countries that have already introduced it ?

This is America we're talking about, a country which has made a mess of nearly everything that works in other countries. For example, government run healthcare. It's also something like a 300+ page bill so who knows what's buried in there, nothing good would be my guess.

Lets see. Netflix says it's a good thing, he disagrees. So why should I take the word of a non-lawyer on matters of the law over that of Netflix, who have enough of a stake in this issue that they would have consulted lawyers about it ?

Of course Netflix would say that, their entire business model is based on offloading data transport costs onto other carriers, they benefit directly from net neutrality. Problem then is the end carriers will just raise everyone's rates to pay for the transport costs, and that will bring residential consumer costs up near the commercial business rates.

[bilateralrope]

This is America we're talking about, a country which has made a mess of nearly everything that works in other countries. For example, government run healthcare. It's also something like a 300+ page bill so who knows what's buried in there, nothing good would be my guess.

Meaning it's the kind of thing that you'd want someone who can show that they understand the law to interpret for you.

Of course Netflix would say that, their entire business model is based on offloading data transport costs onto other carriers, they benefit directly from net neutrality. Problem then is the end carriers will just raise everyone's rates to pay for the transport costs, and that will bring residential consumer costs up near the commercial business rates.

If you want to convince me about Netflix offloading data transport costs, I'd like you to show how Netflix being charged by ISPs to send data to that ISPs customers has led to those customers paying less for the same amount of data used. If you can't show that, then it just looks like ISPs being greedy and/or trying to squash competition for other products produced by the ISPs parent company.

I will also point out this. Netflix like Net Neutrality. Which means they think it will help them. Dr. Neal Krawetz however has previously stated that Netflix will lose with Net Neutrality:

I keep thinking about who will win and lose based on the outcome. If the new rules are not strong enough, then the carriers will be big winners: they will still be able to manipulate the network to provide preferential treatment for their own services and advertisers. The big losers will be the online services, like Netflix and Amazon's streaming video services. And the end consumers will lose because they will still be manipulated and not have unmolested network access.

On the other hand, if the new rules are strong, then who comes out ahead? Well, the carriers will be big winners because they no longer have to police network traffic. Any network problems can be blamed on the FCC. The big losers will be the big streaming services, like Netflix and Amazon's streaming video, because they cannot have high-priority QoS data. And the end consumers will lose because network quality will be degraded and they will no longer have protections like network attack throttling and hostile port blocking.

Who do you trust to understand how Net Neutrality would have the better understanding of how affect Netflix, Netflix or Krawetz ?


But you are right, Netflix will directly benefit from Net Neutrality. That is a conflict of interest that is best avoided. So lets instead go for a neutral party. How about the Electronic Frontier Foundation ?
They don't have any conflict of interest I'm away of.They have a list of legal victories that show they understand the law. So what are they saying ?

They like this decision. Well, mostly:

But now we face the really hard part: making sure the FCC doesn’t abuse its authority.

For example, the new rules include a “general conduct rule” that will let the FCC take action against ISP practices that don’t count as blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization. As we said last week and last year, vague rules are a problem. The FCC wants to be, in Chairman Wheeler’s words, “a referee on the field” who can stop any ISP action that it thinks “hurts consumers, competition, or innovation.” The problem with a rule this vague is that neither ISPs nor Internet users can know in advance what kinds of practices will run afoul of the rule. Only companies with significant legal staff and expertise may be able to use the rule effectively. And a vague rule gives the FCC an awful lot of discretion, potentially giving an unfair advantage to parties with insider influence. That means our work is not yet done. We must stay vigilant, and call out FCC overreach.

The actual order is over 300 pages long, and it’s not widely available yet. Details matter. Watch this space for further analysis when the FCC releases the final order.

So lets compare the EFF's approach with that of Krawetz. The EFF is mostly in favour, except for one worrying bit that they have seen. But they say that details matter, and that those details aren't public yet. While Krawetz is speculating on those unreleased details, without giving any reason as to why we should expect his speculation to be correct.

[Gaidin]

But you are right, Netflix will directly benefit from Net Neutrality. That is a conflict of interest that is best avoided. So lets instead go for a neutral party. How about the Electronic Frontier Foundation ?
They don't have any conflict of interest I'm away of.They have a list of legal victories that show they understand the law. So what are they saying ?

They like this decision. Well, mostly:

But now we face the really hard part: making sure the FCC doesn’t abuse its authority.

For example, the new rules include a “general conduct rule” that will let the FCC take action against ISP practices that don’t count as blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization. As we said last week and last year, vague rules are a problem. The FCC wants to be, in Chairman Wheeler’s words, “a referee on the field” who can stop any ISP action that it thinks “hurts consumers, competition, or innovation.” The problem with a rule this vague is that neither ISPs nor Internet users can know in advance what kinds of practices will run afoul of the rule. Only companies with significant legal staff and expertise may be able to use the rule effectively. And a vague rule gives the FCC an awful lot of discretion, potentially giving an unfair advantage to parties with insider influence. That means our work is not yet done. We must stay vigilant, and call out FCC overreach.

The actual order is over 300 pages long, and it’s not widely available yet. Details matter. Watch this space for further analysis when the FCC releases the final order.

So lets compare the EFF's approach with that of Krawetz. The EFF is mostly in favour, except for one worrying bit that they have seen. But they say that details matter, and that those details aren't public yet. While Krawetz is speculating on those unreleased details, without giving any reason as to why we should expect his speculation to be correct.

That's functionally enforcement practice for what is probably genuinely new territory for the FCC. This isn't like wireless enforcement that they've been handling for close to a century now. Tell me, were you expecting something other than new territory?

[bilateralrope]

That's functionally enforcement practice for what is probably genuinely new territory for the FCC. This isn't like wireless enforcement that they've been handling for close to a century now. Tell me, were you expecting something other than new territory?

Of course this is new territory, so the vagueness the EFF is worried about might be unavoidable. That is not the point I was trying to make.

My point is to compare what the EFF and Krawetz are worried about. The EFF are worried about something they have seen in the new rules. They explain why they are worried.

Krawetz is worried about details that he either hasn't seen (forcing assumptions) and/or hasn't understood leading to some bold claims that I haven't seen anyone else make. Krawetz is the only person I've seen worried that Net Neutrality would mean that ISPs can't take action against DDOS attacks. The only person I've seen saying that consumers would lose whichever way the FCC ruled on Net Neutrality. The only person who says that Net Neutrality is bad for Netflix, while Netflix says that it will be good for them.

My point is that he sounds like someone who is talking nonsense because he is talking about something (the law) that he doesn't understand. The only difference I see between him and someone spouting pseudoscience is that he isn't talking about science.

[Edi]

The new changes are better than the old rules, which allowed regionally monopolistic carriers to create walled garden environments where you either took their inferior services or did without.

At least nominally that shit is dead now, but I am not convinced the US market is going to change for the consumer's benefit anytime soon because the big oligopolies are still going to avoid upgrading their infra unless faced with actual competition (see Chattanoog, Tennessee, for an example of what I'm talking about). And they'll try legislatively banning competition first if they can get away with it.

So definitely wait and see how this is going to turn out, too early to tell anything yet.

[Gaidin]

The new changes are better than the old rules, which allowed regionally monopolistic carriers to create walled garden environments where you either took their inferior services or did without.

At least nominally that shit is dead now, but I am not convinced the US market is going to change for the consumer's benefit anytime soon because the big oligopolies are still going to avoid upgrading their infra unless faced with actual competition (see Chattanoog, Tennessee, for an example of what I'm talking about). And they'll try legislatively banning competition first if they can get away with it.

So definitely wait and see how this is going to turn out, too early to tell anything yet.

I think what that ruling demonstrated is that they want to make as little policy as possible. Sure, they did what we call net neutrality with the second policy(this thread's policy), but the "first" policy only knocked down the two city's that were the only places complaining to the FCC. It's functionally the FCC saying, "Here's your policy, it might even have some teeth depending on how the long run interpretation goes, but first and foremost, you think you're screwed, you have to come to us." If the cities and the states are agreeing with the huge ISPs...well...damn as far as the users go. In that case the companies might do better.

And it's not really that different a concept. They're not usually an agency that is out hunting this stuff down. Take those stories about the jammers on highways or around airports. Someone stumbles on something screwy because GPS or radio's not working as it should, amusingly even at a certain time of day. Then they go to the FCC. Then the FCC sends someone out. Same thing here. Just shaky legalishly until it's really in place since it's as much financial as technical now.

[phongn]

That's functionally enforcement practice for what is probably genuinely new territory for the FCC. This isn't like wireless enforcement that they've been handling for close to a century now. Tell me, were you expecting something other than new territory?

The FCC has had authority to regulate interstate wireline communications since 1934 and reaffirmed in 1996. This is not new to them.

Knowing how things work in America, I believe the end consumers are about to be cornholed.

The FCC is just shifting things back to where they were before 2005.

At least nominally that shit is dead now, but I am not convinced the US market is going to change for the consumer's benefit anytime soon because the big oligopolies are still going to avoid upgrading their infra unless faced with actual competition (see Chattanoog, Tennessee, for an example of what I'm talking about). And they'll try legislatively banning competition first if they can get away with it.

Local and state legislation regarding interstate communications is automatically pre-empted by any FCC regulation, and they just overturned said rules. The US Congress could try, but it looks like they're giving up on the proposed Title X of the Communications Act (which could restore state or local authority).

[Edi]

Ok, thanks. You know the specifics of that better, so I defer to your expertise.