Regulation of the internet is a hot topic, and the recent Brand X Supreme Court decision is directly related to the role government agencies have on internet communication. Dealing with the way the US Federal Communications Commission should treat cable broadband, this decision has wide-ranging implications for the future of the internet.

In this interview, Ernest Miller speaks with Susan Crawford of the Cardozo Law School and Phil Weiser of the University of Colorado. This discussion gives an overview of the issues in this court ruling and puts forward some ideas of what could and should happen next. The stakes are high - the internet is becoming a necessity of life and how it is regulated affects everyone.

Beyond this single court decision, these experts in internet law also discuss municipalities offering wireless internet connections and third generation cellular connectivity. More than just a dissection of a court decision, this interview touches many aspects of the current legal issues with the internet.

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Susan Crawford is Associate Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. For 10 years, Professor Crawford practiced law in Washington, DC, at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, leaving there as a partner to teach at Cardozo. Her practice, which included litigation, focused on intellectual property, advertising, privacy, domain names, and e-commerce policy issues. Upon graduation from Yale, she clerked for Judge Raymond J. Dearie, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. From 1996 to 1998, she taught Copyright at Georgetown University. Professor Crawford has written extensively on ICANN.

Phil Weiser is Associate Professor of Law and Telecommunications at the University of Colorado School of Law. Prior to joining the CU School of Law faculty in January of 1999, Professor Weiser served as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division at the US Department of Justice, advising him primarily on telecommunications matters. Before his appointment at the Justice Department, Professor Weiser served as a law clerk to Justices Byron R. White and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the United States Supreme Court and to Judge David Ebel at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Since arriving at CU, Professor Weiser has worked to fortify CU's strength in telecommunications and technology law. In particular, he established the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program ("SFTP"), a program that, among other things, brings leaders from government, industry, and academia to the CU campus for regular seminars.

Resources:

• The Supreme Court decision
• Susan Crawford's Blog

This program is from the The Importance of the Law and IT series.

For Team ITC:

• Description editor: Darusha Wehm
• Post-production audio engineer: Paul Figgiani