Wait a second... Is this a piece of legislation or did this turn up from a law suit that had reached the supreme court? The original poster used term "ruling" which would suggest to me that it refers to a court decision and not a piece of legislation as such legislation would not be ruled upon but enacted. If it is in fact a "ruling" in the sense of case law heard before the supreme court a petition would do nothing more but provide a minimal form of persuasion to enact legislation to override the supreme court case decision. Intrigued, I will be doing more research on the matter. But further explanation here wouldn't hurt either.
So further research has provided me with two facts. First off, this did in fact arrive from a court decision. With that being said, a petition is going to do very little to help that considering congress really doesn't give a damn what a majority of the people in this country say unless they can start padding their bank accounts even more. Second, it is a federal court decision. This is not necessarily binding across the board. It will provide a causeway for communication companies to rid themselves of net neutrality but will not necessarily solidify it. Essentially, it is only considered a secondary persuasive source for state claims and federal claims found in other circuits. It will only be binding in the D.C. circuit where the court was decided. Does this seem like something the Supreme Court might provide a Writ of Certiorari for, I couldn't provide any conclusive insight on that. But there are some things I can say about it given my particular educational and career background...
IF the United States Supreme Court does agree to review this case, it will certainly cause a political uproar from both sides. Most likely the Democrats siding with neutrality and the Republicans siding against it. It appears on its face from the small portion of research I've done, and will continue to keep doing that it may be viewed as a restriction on one's First Amendment Rights of freedom of speech/expression. However, the question that might arise would be does the freedom extend to all platforms? Certainly it doesn't extend to private institutions restricting the rights of people, that is a fact. Company X can say we don't want our people expression views of this nature and can without penalty uphold that guideline. The government on the other hand if we remember correctly cannot. It comes down to a substantive due process question which textually doesn't exist in the Constitution but over the years the USSC has agreed to a certain extent that the process is there. But that is a conversation for another time and if you really want to go over that we can discuss case law all day... but I doubt anyone cares to hear about that. Anywho... The USSC is a conservative one at this point with Sotomayor on the record with saying that she will not be retiring while Obama is in office for fear of slanting the court in a more liberal direction when he appoints a democrat. So five of the Justices are republicans, which may push towards them viewing the measure from an economic stand point, capitalism, business competition and all that jazz. They may find that access to the internet to be a privilege and not a right. And quite frankly, they may agree with the notion that a business entity can pick and choose who is sells to and at what prices depending on services provided.
Or... assuming the USSC even decides to entertain the case, they may totally surprise us and see it as completely overstepping the bounds of a businesses capabilities. Quite frankly over the years the USSC has made strange decisions, with the Justices going completely against what most would see as their party lines. Look at the beginning of Judicial Review in Marbury v. Madison where Marshall pretty much said, we aren't going to decide this case on the merits explicitly because the President doesn't give a damn and won't listen anyway. Or how close we really are to losing abortion rights in this country at the moment. Quite frankly I thought the recent case in Texas was going to push the envelope but they settled it fairly quickly at the state level. But of course, that is another discussion entirely.
Sign the petition if you'd like, but it won't do any good to compel a court of law to actually do anything with it. I'd just keep an eye and perhaps prepare yourself for a boycott which may actually be the only thing that can help.
And now that I have done even more research it realistically appears that it won't matter. I'm not sure if the DC Circuit has actually reached its decision yet, I couldn't find a report talking about the decision just the arguments. With that being said, it is going to come down to the legislative history of this rule 706 I believe the number was. The rule is pretty straight forward, but the history does hold a certain weight. Quite frankly, the articles I've been reading simply state that it won't prevent us from getting information just prevent those from improving upon the system without a terrible amount of micro managing and bureaucratic nonsense.
Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass. It is getting late and I am tired as all hell from a long weak. Take it with a grain of salt I suppose.
