“If a bookstore (or Amazon) decides to carry all books, may the Government then force the bookstore (or Amazon) to feature and promote all books in the same manner?”
Catching up with PW's Andrew Albanese
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Email | Download
As if summer weren’t hot enough, President Donald Trump turned up the temperature in Washington on Monday with his nomination of Brett Kavanagh to replace retiring US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Senate Democrats are fiercely stoking partisan furnaces with worries over the future of abortion and voting rights. However, a recent Kavanagh dissent in a case concerning “net neutrality” ought to worry the publishing community, says Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer.
Sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kavanagh dissented in a 2017 decision to deny a motion for an en banc review of United States Telecom v. FCC, Albanese reports. In 2015, a court upheld the legality of the FCC’s 2015 order on net neutrality.
“Basically, Kavanaugh [wrote that he] has two problems with net neutrality. First: that the FCC overstepped its authority in establishing such ‘major rules.’ His second, more eye-opening claim: that the FCC’s 2015 order trampled Internet Service Providers’ First Amendment rights,” Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.
In his dissent, Kavanaugh likened ISPs to bookstores, and called the FCC’s 2015 order ‘half-baked’ and ‘foreign’ to the First Amendment. “If a bookstore (or Amazon) decides to carry all books, may the Government then force the bookstore (or Amazon) to feature and promote all books in the same manner?” Without a showing of “market power,” he added, the government “must keep its hands off the editorial decisions of Internet Service Providers.”
According to Albanese, “I hope this startling view expressed by Kavanaugh draws some scrutiny from the Senate, because it reflects, at least from what’s written here, a view of the First Amendment and corporate power that could be particularly dangerous were it to hold.”
Every Friday, CCC’s “Beyond the Book” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.
