Recorded Webinar—From Railroads to the Internet: Legal Limits on Common Carriage

Webinar

TECH IN THE COURTS:
A WLF-TechFreedom Series

Panelists:
Berin Szóka, President, TechFreedom
Roger Nober, Director, George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and former Chairman, U.S. Surface Transportation Board
Ben Sperry, Senior Scholar, Innovation Policy, International Center for Law and Economics
Professor Blake E. Reid, University of Colorado Law School

Description:
Common carriage regulation gives the government broad discretion over private businesses. Some want to apply the concept to broadband access and social media, while longstanding common carriers, e.g., railroads, face expanding duties. Our panelists will discuss common carriage, the legal limits on its application, including the First Amendment, and when common carriage really benefits the public.

Speakers' Biographies

Berin Szóka

Berin is President of TechFreedom. Named one of Washington DC's 500 Most Influential People by Washingtonian Magazine, his work focuses on how law shapes digital media in the U.S. and Europe, especially free expression, consumer and child protection, and telecommunications. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Center for Internet Freedom at The Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF). Before joining PFF, he practiced law at Latham & Watkins LLP and Lawler Metzger Milkman & Keeney, LLC, and clerked for the Hon. H. Dale Cook, Senior U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

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Roger Nober

Roger is Director of the GW Regulatory Studies Center and Professor of Practice at the Trachtenberg School, a position he assumed in January 2024. He retired from BNSF Railway Co. in December 2022, after 16 years as an Executive Vice President responsible for overseeing legal and regulatory matters, environmental claims, compliance, communications as well as state government and community affairs. He also served on the Board of BNSF Railway LLC. Prior to joining BNSF, Roger was a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP and from 2002 to 2006, he was Chairman of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.

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Ben Sperry

Ben is senior scholar of innovation policy at the International Center for Law & Economics. His research focuses on the intersection of civil liberties and government regulation, including in the areas of online speech, platform regulation, competition policy, payment-card regulation, telecommunications, and criminal-justice reform. Ben was a legal fellow at TechFreedom, a research associate and Google Policy Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and a law clerk at Washington Legal Foundation.

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Blake E. Reid

Blake is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School. He researches and teaches in the areas of telecommunications, Internet, copyright, and disability law. He also serves as a Faculty Director at the Silicon Flatirons Center. His work has or will be published in the Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, and Indiana Law Journal, and he is on the author team for Communications Law and Policy: Cases and Materials, an open-access telecommunications law casebook. Before joining Colorado Law, Prof. Reid was a staff attorney and graduate fellow in First Amendment and media law at the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown Law and a law clerk for Justice Nancy E. Rice on the Colorado Supreme Court.

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Recorded Webinar—From Railroads to the Internet: Legal Limits on Common Carriage

Webinar

TECH IN THE COURTS:
A WLF-TechFreedom Series

Speakers' Biographies

Berin Szóka

Roger Nober

Ben Sperry

Blake E. Reid

Related Content

Related Cases

Recorded Webinar—From Railroads to the Internet: Legal Limits on Common Carriage

Webinar

TECH IN THE COURTS:A WLF-TechFreedom Series

Speakers' Biographies

Berin Szóka

Roger Nober

Ben Sperry

Blake E. Reid

TECH IN THE COURTS:
A WLF-TechFreedom Series