Muni Broadband Raises First Amendment Concerns, Free State Says

and an assistant professor at the Elon University School of Law, in a paper released Monday. There is “good reason” to conclude free speech protections “are being sacrificed at the altar of the new," he wrote: That "certainly should give pause to those that want the FCC to preempt state restrictions on these networks and expand municipalities' power in the online communications space.” The FCC is expected to approve petitions from Chattanooga and Wilson Thursday to pre-empt anti-municipal broadband laws in those states (see 1502020037). Chattanooga’s acceptable use policy bars users from using the network to "’transmit, distribute, or store material" that is illegal, ‘obscene, threatening, abusive or hateful,’” Armijo wrote. It also bars users from posting messages on third party blogs that are ‘excessive and/or intended to annoy or harass others’ -- ‘regardless of [the] policies’ of the blogs on which the users post,” he wrote. Wilson has similar restrictions, said Armijo. “One does not need to be a free speech scholar, or even a lawyer, to be troubled by these provisions.” First Amendment "doctrine makes clear that outright government bans on protected speech -- even indecent speech, let alone ‘excessive,’ ‘derogatory,’ ‘harassing,’ ‘abusive,’ or ‘hateful’ speech -- are never narrowly tailored enough to survive strict scrutiny,” said Armijo. Chattanooga and Wilson officials didn't comment.