From [HERE] President Trump’s Justice Department is exploring new ways to take down so-called “sanctuary cities” via legal methods, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the DOJ is developing legal strategies to cancel out sanctuary cities across the country. The goal for DOJ would be to effectively force cities to comply with federal officials, according to the report.
A senior DOJ attorney told the newspaper that the department is pursuing several different options. One option would see Justice officials argue that local police departments refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement illegally pre-empts federal law.
Another would argue that municipalities refusing to comply with ICE are discriminating against ICE because those cities honor requests from other federal agencies, like the FBI.
The DOJ source also said that the federal government is seeking friendly court circuits to present cases against sanctuary cities, and expressed hope that as Trump fills more vacancies on federal courts, the DOJ’s chances of securing a legal victory will improve, according to the Journal.
Trump and his Justice Department have clashed with sanctuary cities since the beginning of his presidency. His first budget proposal included several changes to immigration law that would crack down on sanctuary cities.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions also announced in March that local governments seeking DOJ grants would not be able to receive those grants if they are a sanctuary city.
From [HERE] A Black death row inmate in Texas whose case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court could now face an execution date after the justices on Monday ruled against him in a 5-4 decision split along ideological lines. The man was convicted in the 2008 shooting deaths of a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother in Fort Worth.
The question before the high court in Erick Davila’s case was whether claims of ineffective assistance of counsel during state appeals should be treated the same as during the original trial. Appellate courts throughout the country have ruled differently on the issue, a situation that often prompts the Supreme Court to step in. In the Monday opinion presented by Justice Clarence Thomas, the justices ultimately decided that the different types of lawyers should not be treated the same, making Davila's case ineligible for consideration in federal court.
"Because a prisoner does not have a constitutional right to counsel in state postconviction proceedings, ineffective assistance in those proceedings does not qualify as cause to excuse a procedural default," Thomas wrote in his opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.
Justice Stephen Breyer, a notable death penalty critic, wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
“The fact that, according to Department of Justice statistics, nearly a third of convictions or sentences in capital cases are overturned at some stage of review suggests the practical importance of the appeal right, particularly in a capital case such as this one,” Breyer wrote in his dissent.
From [HERE] and [HERE] President Donald Trump’s approval ratings in the United States have been described as “historically low,” and according to a new global survey published by Pew Research Center, he is not faring much better overseas.
The research found that Trump “has had a major impact on how the world sees the United States.” Overall, 74 percent of the 40,000 respondents to the poll expressed no confidence in the president, while only 22 percent expressed confidence in him.
The survey, based on interviews conducted in 37 countries, found that Trump’s first six months in the White House have done more to harm public opinion of the U.S. around the world than George W. Bush’s entire eight-year tenure.
Much of the world’s ire was directed at specific policies either proposed or implemented by the Trump administration, like his longstanding call for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. But the survey also included broader questions, aimed at gauging the world’s view of Trump’s character. Sixty-two percent of those polled said they believe Trump is “dangerous,” and only 22 percent expressed confidence that Trump would “do the right thing” in international affairs.
“Trump and many of his key policies are broadly unpopular around the globe, and ratings for the U.S. have declined steeply in many nations,” Pew noted in a summary of the report’s findings. “Trump’s character is also a factor in how he is viewed abroad. In the eyes of most people surveyed around the world, the White House’s new occupant is arrogant, intolerant and even dangerous.”
From [HERE] A North Carolina legislator shared an unusual tweet on Sunday: a plan to gerrymander the state’s districts for prosecutorial and judicial elections.
Rep. Justin Burr (R-Montgomery, Stanly)’s tweet, which noted that the redistricting will be considered in House Bill 717 on Monday, was met with criticism from other lawmakers. [HERE]
Gov. Roy Cooper (D) blasted the new maps as an effort to “rig” the courts in favor of the GOP-controlled legislature. In an interview with NC Policy Watch, Rep. Marcia Morey (D), a former judge, also criticized the change, as well as the less-than-24-hour notice given, since the legislature will be voting on the maps at 4 p.m. on Monday. “Why did we learn about this on Twitter?” asked Morey. “There’s no communication and they’re caught off-guard.”
This is not the first time this year that North Carolina legislators explored the possibility of gerrymandering judges. Several African American judges spoke out against an earlier plan, arguing that it would lead to less diversity on the bench.
The news follows the legislature’s proposed budget — introduced last week— which includes several provisions to handicap the governor and Attorney General’s ability to challenge unconstitutional laws. The budget prohibits Gov. Cooper from using his office’s attorneys without the legislature’s permission. Cooper would have to get the legislature’s permission to sue or pay lawyers out of his pocket.
The budget also seeks to force Attorney General Josh Stein (D) to defend the legislature whenever it is sued, after Stein refused to defend the discriminatory 2013 voting law. Mark Joseph Stern, a writer at Slate, noted that this “deprives the attorney general of his traditional discretion and raises grave constitutional concerns about legislative interference in executive affairs.” Gov. Cooper will likely sue to stop the restrictions on lawsuits before they go into effect.
By Sally Q. Yates From [HERE] Sally Q. Yates served in the Justice Department from 1989 to 2017 as an assistant U.S. attorney, U.S. attorney, deputy attorney general and, briefly this year, as acting attorney general. She is white.
In today’s polarized world, there aren’t many issues on which Democrats and Republicans agree. So when they do, we should seize the rare opportunity to move our country forward. One such issue is criminal-justice reform, and specifically the need for sentencing reform for drug offenses.
All across the political spectrum, in red states and blue states, from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and the Koch brothers to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the American Civil Liberties Union, there is broad consensus that the “lock them all up and throw away the key” approach embodied in mandatory minimum drug sentences is counterproductive, negatively affecting our ability to assure the safety of our communities.
But last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled back the clock to the 1980s, reinstating the harsh, indiscriminate use of mandatory minimum drug sentences imposed at the height of the crack epidemic. Sessions attempted to justify his directive in a Post op-ed last weekend, stoking fear by claiming that as a result of then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s Smart on Crime policy, the United States is gripped by a rising epidemic of violent crime that can only be cured by putting more drug offenders in jail for more time.
That argument just isn’t supported by the facts. Not only are violent crime rates still at historic lows — nearly half of what they were when I became a federal prosecutor in 1989 — but there is also no evidence that the increase in violent crime some cities have experienced is the result of drug offenders not serving enough time in prison. In fact, a recent study by the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission found that drug defendants with shorter sentences were actually slightly less likely to commit crimes when released than those sentenced under older, more severe penalties.
Contrary to Sessions’s assertions, Smart on Crime focused our limited federal resources on cases that had the greatest impact on our communities — the most dangerous defendants and most complex cases. As a result, prosecutors charged more defendants with murder, assault, gun crimes and robbery than ever before. And a greater percentage of drug prosecutions targeted kingpins and drug dealers with guns.
During my 27 years at the Justice Department, I prosecuted criminals at the heart of the international drug trade, from high-level narcotics traffickers to violent gang leaders. And I had no hesitation about asking a judge to impose long prison terms in those cases.
From [HERE] For 24 years, Joe Arpaio was a tough talking sheriff in Arizona, famous for cracking down on illegal immigration.
About a decade ago Arpaio, dubbed "America's Toughest Sheriff" in conservative circles, started instructing his deputies to make traffic stops and detain any unauthorized immigrants they encountered. Then they'd turn the immigrants over to federal agents for deportation.
He was voted out of his Maricopa County office in November but now faces his own legal troubles — a criminal trial begins Monday in which he is accused of ignoring a federal judge's order to curtail his crackdown.
Many in the Latino community are happy to see the tables turned on him.
"These immigration raids tore our neighborhood apart," said Lydia Guzman, an activist who helped sue Arpaio over those tactics.
"I see different families with kids I see you know people enjoying themselves," she said at a crowded Mexican restaurant, not far from where many of Arpaio's operations took place. "This is what it should have been all along. Not people living in and fear and trying to hide."
In 2011, a federal judge told Arpaio he could not detain immigrants just because they lacked legal status, since that job is primarily for federal agents.
Yet for about 18 months, Arpaio's deputies violated the order. They kept arresting unauthorized immigrants and dropping them off with Border Patrol.
When the judge found out years later, he found Arpaio in civil contempt of court. Then, last fall, under President Obama the Justice Department decided to criminally prosecute Arpaio for disobeying the judge.
The charge against Arpaio is criminal contempt of court, a misdemeanor.
One of Arpaio's lawyers, Jack Wilenchick, called the timing of the prosecution "problematic." [MORE]
Above Racist FoxNews Clown, Tucker Carlson deceives others and himself through their acceptance of his beliefs that the Muslim Ban Doesn't Ban Muslims. All racists are liars.
Relatively few can be legitimately prohibited under Court’s decision From [ACLU] After the Supreme Court ruled today that it would hear arguments on the Muslim ban that a number of lower courts have ruled against, the president claimed “clear victory.”
Hardly.
In fact, the court handed the government a sweeping, but not complete, defeat. It rejected the government’s blanket ban and recognized what all the lower courts in two separate cases saw: The ban would be devastating to families, organizations, and communities across the United States. The court also allowed the government to implement only a narrow version of the ban, explaining that anyone with a “bona fide relationship” to people or organizations in the United States cannot be barred. To view that decision as “clear victory” is wishful thinking.
As a refresher, the court was considering two cases challenging the revised Muslim ban, which had been narrowed after it was swiftly struck down in court: IRAP v. Trumpand Hawaii v. Trump. In both cases, federal district courts concluded that the order was an unconstitutional attempt to implement the Muslim ban President Trump had repeatedly promised on the campaign trail, and both courts issued orders blocking key provisions of the ban. Those orders were upheld by two courts of appeals. In a case argued by the ACLU, the Fourth Circuit in Virginia rejected the ban on people from six overwhelmingly Muslim countries, concluding the president’s order “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” The Ninth Circuit blocked that same provision and two others barring refugees, explaining that the president’s order violated federal statutes.
The government wanted to allow the ban to go into effect immediately and completely, arguing that the appellate decisions were wrong. At most, the government contended, the lower court orders halting the ban should only apply to two individuals (one plaintiff in IRAP and one in Hawaii).
The Supreme Court said no. It did not limit the lower court orders to those two individuals alone. It did not limit the orders to the other plaintiffs in the cases. Instead, it told the government that it may not apply the ban to anyone “who can credibly claim a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
What does that mean? Well, for starters, anyone with close family in the United States is exempt from the ban. The court explained that having a spouse in the United States would be enough to allow entry, and so would having a son-in-law. Coming to live with a family member is sufficient, and so is coming to visit family on a tourist visa. A large proportion of those who would otherwise be barred by the Muslim ban do have family in this country, and remain protected under the Supreme Court’s order.
Anyone with a relationship with a U.S. entity (like a school, employer, or nonprofit organization) is also exempted from the ban. The court was clear this has to be a “bona fide” relationship — meaning it cannot be manufactured just to get around the ban. But, again, a large segment of those who would otherwise be banned will fall into this category: students coming to study at a university, employees coming for a job, and clients and members of U.S. organizations.
So who is banned? It appears relatively few can be legitimately prohibited under the Supreme Court’s decision: individuals who are abroad and have no connections to family or organizations in the United States. To be clear, the Supreme Court did not say the ban is legal as applied to those individuals. It only allowed the government to implement this limited version of the ban while it considers whether the rest can be upheld at all.
Which brings us to the other action the court took today. It agreed to hear both IRAP and Hawaii in October. That is not particularly surprising. These cases raise exceptionally important legal questions, making them precisely the kinds of cases the Supreme Court is likely to review. We are confident that when the court reviews this unconstitutional order this fall, it will strike it down once and for all, and vindicate both our fundamental commitment to religious neutrality and the responsibility of the courts to serve as an independent check on the exercise of presidential power.
So where is the president’s “clear victory”? Nowhere to be found.
In photo, Rupert Murdoch and Ivanka Trump in 2007. She oversaw a nearly $300 million trust for two of Mr. Murdoch’s children. Murdoch is the founder of the corporate news media giants 21st Century Fox and the News Corporation. News Corp owns The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. He unsuccessfully attempted to purchase TimeWarner, who owns CNN in 2014, who Trump claims to hate. [MORE] and [MORE]
From [NY Times] The ties that bind the most powerful media mogul in the world to the leader of the free world just keep getting stronger. Or, more precisely, we keep learning just how strong they are.
The question is where that leaves the rest of the world when they’re done divvying it up.
They are Rupert Murdoch — the founder of the corporate news media giants 21st Century Fox and the News Corporation — and President Trump.
The Financial Times reported the latest example of their closeness last week: that Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka was a trustee of the nearly $300 million fortune Mr. Murdoch set aside for the two children he had with his third wife, Wendi, who arranged the trusteeship.
Ms. Trump gave up that oversight role in December, before her father’s inauguration but well after Election Day.
That means the whole time that Mr. Murdoch’s highly influential news organizations were covering Mr. Trump’s campaign and transition, their executive chairman was entangled in a financial arrangement of the most personal sort — tied to his children’s financial (very) well being — along with the president’s daughter.
Referring to her only as the president’s “daughter” fails to capture her true role. She is Mr. Trump’s most trusted confidante. And she is married to a key presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, who, as it happens, is so close with Mr. Murdoch that he even helped Mr. Murdoch set up his bachelor pad after his last divorce, The New Yorker reported.
The latest news about the Murdoch-Trump axis is acutely problematic for the leadership at The Wall Street Journal — owned by News Corp.
From [MintPress] America’s rich white elite just won’t quit getting richer, according to a new study released in mid-June by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm. The study, which seeks to analyze the global wealth management industry, as well as the evolution of private wealth, uncovered some startling statistics that suggest that global financial inequality will grow significantly by the year 2021.
The firm found that the already massive gap between the world’s wealthy elite – the approximately 18 million households that hold at least than $1 million in assets – and everyone else is continuing to widen at a remarkable rate. The estimated 70 million people who make up these households were found to control 45 percent of the world’s $166.5 trillion in wealth. And in just four more years, it is estimated that they will control more than half of the world’s wealth, despite representing less than 1 percent of the world’s current population.
However, while rising inequality is a global phenomenon, it is especially pronounced in the United States. While wealth inequality in the U.S. is by no means an unknown phenomenon, the U.S. is significantly more unequal than most other countries, with the nation’s elite currently holding 63 percent of the private wealth. The U.S. elite’s share of national wealth is also growing much faster than the global average, with millionaires and billionaires expected to control an estimated 70 percent of the nation’s wealth by 2021.
The U.S.’ high wealth inequality largely owes to post-World War II government policies that have seen almost a quarter of all national income go to its wealthiest residents. Meanwhile, wages for the majority of Americans have remained stagnant for decades – in contrast to the richest Americans, their future economic outlook is incredibly bleak by comparison.
The U.S. is also home to more billionaires and millionaires than anywhere else in the world, which partly explains how U.S. policy has come to favor them over the years. According to Bloomberg, two out of five millionaires and billionaires live in the United States – and their ranks are growing.
From [HERE] and [MORE] Recent news reports describe a massive increase in civilian casualties at the hands of the US military or US allies. In Mosul, Iraq, hundreds of residents have been killed as US forces join Iraqi troops in the last stage of their assault on the ISIS-held city. In Yemen, the United States is increasing its direct involvement in the Saudi-led air war being waged against the poorest country in the Arab world, as the UN and other aid workers struggle against mass famine and a looming cholera epidemic on top of the thousands already killed and millions displaced. And in Raqqa, Syria, US air strikes and white-phosphorus munitions have led to what the UN calls “a staggering loss of life,” as Washington provides backup to Kurdish and Arab forces now besieging the ISIS stronghold.
These attacks, and the skyrocketing civilian casualties that result from them, have two things in common: direct US involvement, a result of the recent escalation in Washington’s direct role in the 16-year-old Global War on Terror; and an absolute disdain for the civilian lives being destroyed in these wars.
there has been no change to our rules of engagement and there has been no change to our continued extraordinary efforts to avoid innocent civilian casualties, despite needing to go into populated areas to break ISIS hold on their self-described caliphate, despite ISIS purposely endangering innocent lives by refusing to allow civilians to evacuate. And we continue all possible efforts to protect the innocent.
And yet, the already high casualty figures continue to mount. When the top UN official on the Syria war described the “staggering loss of life,” he was specifically condemning the impact of US and allied air strikes against Raqqa, not simply bemoaning the war in general. He also discussed the 160,000 people driven out of their homes by US air strikes. An estimated 200,000 more civilians—families, children, old people—are still trapped in Raqqa, and according to the AirWars monitoring group in London, “Rarely a day goes by now when we don’t see three or four civilian casualty incidents attributed to coalition air strikes around Raqqa…. All of the local monitoring groups are now reporting that the coalition is killing more civilians than Russia on a regular basis.”
There is no question that ISIS, which proclaimed Raqqa as the “capital” of its so-called caliphate in 2014, is responsible for horrific atrocities against the civilian population; recent reports indicate that civilians have been killed trying to escape the besieged city. But Trump’s recent policy shift—described as an approach aimed at the “annihilation” of ISIS—guarantees that civilian casualties at the hands of US troops, gunners, and drone and warplane pilots will continue to mount as they attack ISIS fighters holed up with civilians in the crowded, desperate city.
By [Seymour M. Hersh] From [HERE] On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon.
The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.
Some American military and intelligence officials were especially distressed by the president's determination to ignore the evidence. "None of this makes any sense," one officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb. "We KNOW that there was no chemical attack ... the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth ... I guess it didn't matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.“
Within hours of the April 4 bombing, the world’s media was saturated with photographs and videos from Khan Sheikhoun. Pictures of dead and dying victims, allegedly suffering from the symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, were uploaded to social media by local activists, including the White Helmets, a first responder group known for its close association with the Syrian opposition.
The provenance of the photos was not clear and no international observers have yet inspected the site, but the immediate popular assumption worldwide was that this was a deliberate use of the nerve agent sarin, authorized by President Bashar Assad of Syria. Trump endorsed that assumption by issuing a statement within hours of the attack, describing Assad’s "heinous actions" as being a consequence of the Obama administration’s "weakness and irresolution" in addressing what he said was Syria’s past use of chemical weapons.
To the dismay of many senior members of his national security team, Trump could not be swayed over the next 48 hours of intense briefings and decision-making. In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect, in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4. In an important pre-strike process known as deconfliction, U.S. and Russian officers routinely supply one another with advance details of planned flight paths and target coordinates, to ensure that there is no risk of collision or accidental encounter (the Russians speak on behalf of the Syrian military). This information is supplied daily to the American AWACS surveillance planes that monitor the flights once airborne. Deconfliction’s success and importance can be measured by the fact that there has yet to be one collision, or even a near miss, among the high-powered supersonic American, Allied, Russian and Syrian fighter bombers.
From [MintPress] London was struck by another terrorist attack on Monday morning. A white supremacist murdered a man and injured at least eight other people, ramming a van into a group of Muslims leaving the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park after Taraweeh prayers.
Witnesses said the attacker was shouting that he wanted to “kill all Muslims”.
The attack was undoubtedly fuelled by hate. His thirst for the blood of Muslims and his sadistic fantasy to see them all dead stems from the perverse idea that Muslims, in the mind of the white supremacist, are not people. To him, they are vermin and a burden.
To him, Muslims are not human. They are a contamination to society and must be exterminated.
To him, killing Muslims is not a way to resolve his anxieties over the group for which he carries so much hate, it is a nationalist duty.
It is what white supremacists commonly describe as a “crusade” against the “Muslim infidel”.
It is naïve to deny the correlation between the perception of Muslims portrayed in mainstream right-wing media and such attacks. Muslims are “otherized”, ostracized and are scapegoated by scare-mongering hatemongers to perpetuate societal divisions.
By constantly viewing Muslims as a threat to modern society, with “crusaders” convinced that their views are necessary for the protection of their community, white supremacists form a puritan perception what it is to be British. More dangerously, as proven with this and other Islamophobic attacks, their puritan perception maintains that to sustain their idea of “Britishness”, both Muslims and Islam must be “cleansed” from Britain to keep it “terror-free.”
From [HERE] For the first time in twenty years, the White House has not held a celebration to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended at sunset on Saturday.
President Donald Trump did issue official statements for Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, a festival that marks the end of the month-long daytime fast. Even those statements, however, lingered on terrorists and terrorism that many felt held all Muslims responsible for the actions of a few.
“I reiterate my message delivered in Riyadh: America will always stand with our partners against terrorism and the ideology that fuels it,” the Ramadan statement read, in part. “During this month of Ramadan, let us be resolved to spare no measure so that we may ensure that future generations will be free of this scourge and able to worship and commune in peace.”
The Eid statement, while brief, was more conciliatory, commemorating a holiday with Muslims “carry on the tradition of helping neighbors and breaking bread with people from all walks of life.”
Unlike other recent administrations, however, the White House did not hold a dinner or reception to mark either holiday — despite Trump telling ABC News last year that he’d be fine with continuing the Ramadan dinner tradition.
“It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought to,” then-candidate Trump said, “but it wouldn’t bother me.”
From [TheIntercept] AFTER PRESIDENT DONALD Trump’s upset election victory, Democratic insiders who worked on Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid weren’t necessarily relegated to the sidelines. Many, in fact, are cashing in as lobbyists — by working to advance Trump’s agenda.
Lobbying records show that some Democratic fundraisers, who raised record amounts of campaign cash for Clinton, are now retained by top telecom interests to help repeal the strong net neutrality protections established during the Obama administration.
Others are working on behalf of for-profit prisons on detention issues, while others still are paid to help corporate interests pushing alongside Trump to weaken financial regulations. At least one prominent Clinton backer is working for a health insurance company on a provision that was included in the House Republican bill to gut the Affordable Care Act.
While Republican lobbyists are more in demand, liberal lobbyists are doing brisk business that has them reaching out to fellow Democrats to endorse — or at least tamp down vocal opposition to — Trump agenda items.
“These cases are clear, disturbing examples of the gulf between the interests of many of the Democratic Party’s big-money donors and those of the party’s progressive base and America’s working families,” said Kai Newkirk, co-founder of Democracy Spring, a progressive coalition.
The net neutrality debate is a case in point. The biggest fundraisers for the Clinton campaign — Democratic lobbyists such as Ingrid Duran, Vincent Roberti, Steve Elmendorf, Al Mottur, and Arshi Siddiqui — are now lobbying on behalf of AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast on net neutrality. These companies dominate the telecom industry, which is working with the Trump administration to unwind one of President Barack Obama’s biggest accomplishments.
In 2015, the Obama administration, with great fanfare, reclassified broadband services as a utility using Title II of the Communications Act. In doing so, the reclassification avoids court challenges, paving the way for strong regulations that require internet service providers to treat all web traffic in the same way. The principle is known as net neutrality, which advocates say is crucial for the internet remain open to the free flow of information and innovative services.