Part 10 of the Washington Examiner's 10-part series "With the Stroke of a Pen: How Obama abuses executive power to make the law of the land."

Soon after the Associated Press first reported in 2007 that Comcast was blocking some customers from using the Internet file-sharing program BitTorrent, a number of leftist activist groups filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to issue an order halting the practice.

At the time, sharing of large computer files through applications like BitTorrent accounted for somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of all internet traffic.

The FCC then issued an order in 2008 banning Comcast from interfering with BitTorrent, or any other file-sharing program application.

Comcast challenged that order in federal court, arguing that nothing in federal law gave the FCC the power to regulate how Comcast managed its broadband network.

By that time, the principle behind not allowing Internet providers the freedom to manage their own networks -- branded by traditional media and liberal activists as “net neutrality” -- had become an article of faith on the Left.

Every 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, including President Obama, pledged to implement the policy if they became president.

And, shortly after he became president, Obama appointed Julius Genachowski, his campaign's Technology Media and Telecommunications Policy Working Group chairperson, as FCC chairman.

By September 2009, Genachowski began the formal rulemaking process to make net neutrality official policy of the FCC. But in April 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found for Comcast and ruled that the FCC has no legal authority to regulate how cable companies manage their broadband networks.

In the Comcast case, the FCC admitted that nothing in federal law grants the government the express authority to regulate cable Internet services.

Instead, Obama’s FCC argued that it has an “ancillary authority” to regulate broadband thanks to section 4(i) of the Communications Act of 1934.

That act reads: “The commission may perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.”

The court rejected this argument, noting that “if accepted, it would virtually free the commission from its congressional tether.”

The court then emphasized that “commission counsel told us at oral argument that just as the order seeks to make Comcast’s Internet service more ‘rapid’ and ‘efficient,’ the commission could someday subject Comcast’s Internet service to pervasive rate regulation to ensure that the company provides the service at ‘reasonable charges.’”

Were the court to accept the commission's argument, “we see no reason why the commission would have to stop there.”

Obama and Genachowski then could have sought new legislation in Congress expressly granting the FCC the legal authority to regulate how broadband providers managed their networks.

For whatever reason, they didn't. Instead, seven months after Obama lost in federal court, the FCC issued new “net neutrality” regulations on Dec. 20, 2010.

This time, however, the commission claimed that section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act gives it authority to regulate broadband.

That is an ironic assertion since section 706 actually calls on the FCC to remove regulatory barriers to broadband deployment, not to create new ones.

In fact, as recently as 2009, it was FCC policy that section 706 “does not constitute an independent grant of authority” to regulate broadband.

But losing the Comcast case apparently moved the FCC to change its mind. As a result, a congressional statute meant to speed deregulation is being used by an Obama agency to justify creating more regulations.

And again it looks like the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will reject Obama’s unilateral attempt to regulate the Internet.

During oral arguments Sept. 9, 2013, the same judge who wrote the Comcast decision compared the FCC's new net neutrality regulations to the agency’s earlier failed efforts to force cable companies to provide public-access channels.

"Isn't that exactly this case?" Judge David Tatel, a Democrat, asked.

Given Obama's long record of ignoring Congress and the law, don’t expect another courtroom loss to stop him from inventing yet another new legal theory to regulate the Internet sometime soon.

Conn Carroll is a senior editorial writer for the Washington Examiner.