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Comment by revelation | Hacker News Reader

That's awkward. Marriott had to settle with the FCC, and as part of that settlement can't jam peoples WLAN, but suddenly theres a decision to be made, petitions considered and Google and Microsoft have to beg for the law to be applied?

How did that happen, exactly?

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It's pretty clear, actually. From the article:

> A lodging industry trade association petitioned the FCC last month for the ruling on blocking personal Wi-Fi signals.

> The petition stems from Marriott International’s agreement last month to settle an FCC investigation into a complaint that at least one of its hotels used communications-jamming technology to disable the personal Wi-Fi hotspots that many travelers tote with them.

Firstly, the ban on Wi-Fi jammers is an FCC rule, not a law.

So Marriott settled according to current rules. The hotel lobby then petitioned FCC to authorize them, and change the rules if necessary, to jam Wi-Fi. Google and Microsoft filed letters opposing this petition.

Rule? It sounds like a law to me:

"15. Can I operate a jammer in the U.S.? No. It is a violation of federal law to operate jammers in the United States, except for authorized, official use by the U.S. government."

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/jammerenforcement/jamfaq.pdf

There are over 300 different kinds of "law" in the US. FCC rules are one of them, and it's broadly classified as an executive ordinance. The same sort of thing as any local government regulation. Just because it doesn't appear to be a more or less independant part of the government doesn't make it's rules any less of a law. There are countless agencies that have varying authorities and can issue decrees that apply within certain constraints. Everything from the military, DoJ, CIA, SEC, FBI, FDA, NSA, DoA, DoC (which issues most laws that apply to the internet), DoD, DoE, Dept. of Education, Dept. of Health, DHS, Dept. of Housing an Development, DoI, Dept. of Transportation ... all have the power to issue "laws" (usually referred to as regulations) that are as binding as any congressional law, but usually have limited scope. Scope is similar to the more well-known concept of jurisdiction, except it's usually not territorial but functional in nature. E.g. laws that apply only to airports, or ports, or trains, or power plants, or banks, or flying things, or boating, ...

One way to get bitten by this is by working for the government. You might think you have a contract, and that for instance your pension is set in stone by the paper you signed. That would be a wrong impression, as that paper you signed is (usually) not in fact a contract, merely an acknowledgement of the regulation (the text will, of course, state that this is so), and that regulation, unlike contracts, can be changed without your approval.

It seems to me that the GP is attempting to technically point out that the most narrow definition of law only applies to what both houses decide and the president signs. That's not true in any meaningful sense.

The section in dispute is 47 US Code 333,

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/333

This is law passed by congress.

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