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Conflict of Interest May Taint DTV Delay Proposal
Anonymous writes "Ars Technica has discovered that one of the Obama transition team members advising on the digital TV transition has a conflict of interest that would benefit WiMAX carrier Clearwire over Verizon. 'Barack Obama's call to delay the DTV transition would affect not only millions of analog TV viewers, but also powerful companies with a vested interest in the changeover date — including at least one with an executive on Obama's transition team.'"
Welcome to the new regime, which will probably end up as corrupt as the old regime. Two of his appointees are already under fire for questionable activities in their past. The most recent being the Treasury appointee who owed back IRS taxes.
But wouldn't it be more surprising if a team advising on the use of airwaves had no members with ties to companies who use airwaves?
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. As complicated as politics are and as interconnected as this world is, there's bound to be things that are overlooked. Of course, if you or I were becoming president, we wouldn't make such mistakes, eh?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
At my work, I'm actually not allowed to have a vested interest in a competitor. But I guess government advisory boards can favor different companies if they want, based on vested interests of their advisory board members...
If so, that would be yet another reason governments tend to run worse than private enterprises. :)
.... viewers switched over to support the economy (re: advertisers)?
Yeah. It's terrible when political officials in high positions make decisions that conflict with their real world corporate jobs. *coughcheneyhalliburtoncough*
I'm all for rooting out scandals and Truth, Justice, and The American Way, but when you run the government, you can either pick people who've done things, or who you really like. And people who have done things will have prior relationships with other people, organizations, and businesses.
Let's judge POTUS on what he does, not on what his contacts or their contacts might want.
Delaying the deadline is a dumb idea. We make deadlines so everybody can plan the switch. This transition has been planned for a long time. It's been heavily advertised. The switch will be painful for lots of poor folks who can't afford new equipment or who are bedridden and can't go shopping, but delaying the transition won't change that cold reality.
Keep the train on schedule, Obama.
Merely having a conflict of interests is not unethical.
But when that conflict of interest results in government policy which favors those interests, at the expense of competitors, that's potentially unethical. Of such things, corruption scandals are made.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
That doesn't mean an issue does not exist. Just because some big company is going to benefit from a delay in DTV rollouts, does that mean we should cut off our nose to spite our face?
President Elect Obama has a reasonable argument that the market is not ready for DTV. I personally think that it will never be ready for the DTV changeover and that we'll need to do it the hard way anyway, but that's just my opinion. The government had a specific way they wanted this done. They have yet to achieve that goal.
Specifically, many consumers are still unaware of the changeover, or believe that they will need a new television or cable/satellite provider to continue receiving service.
Until the FCC gets much closer to achieving their goals for this changeover, Mr. Obama has a reasonable point.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
If so, that would be yet another reason governments tend to run worse than private enterprises. :)
So we have one example of where private enterprise bans conflicting interests and one where government also bans conflicts of interest, but it sounds like that may have been compromised.
Not to say that government as good as private enterprise or better, but that's some shady logic you're using to for a general indictment of government.
People who haven't switched over yet probably won't ever do it, so just make the damn cut-over and wait for the inevitable news stories about people being left without TV. These stories are going to happen whether you make the switch now or 10 years from now, so just do it already.
The people that haven't done anything about this switch by now must never actually watch their TV, since we've been subjected to crawls about it for more than a year on every broadcast channel, so they won't care anyway. Either that or they've just been too lazy, in which case the only way they're going to actually get a converter is if they get kicked in the pants sufficiently hard by, let's say, having their TV stations go dark.
Just get this crap over and done with so we can move on already.
Odd how this is the sort of post that pops up when it's a problem with the budding Obama administration but not so much when it has anything to do with Bush...
Mod disclaimer - I don't support one more than the other. I think just about any politician that's done what it takes to get to the presidency is bound to be a shyster.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Can anyone educate me on why a mandated cutting analog is a requirement of DTV?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Funny, I seem to remember the massive calls for Cheney's head because he was the CEO of Halliburton prior to being elected VP (of course, by that time he had stepped down and divested all shares of that company). All in the name of "conflict of interest"...
The rules work differently depending on which party's partisans happen to have the most mod points when such comments are made.......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The biggest reason for a delay should have been thought out years ago. You don't want people up on their rooftops in mid-February adjusting their antennas after the switchover.
Even if you do have a converter box, or and HDTV with an antenna, you still don't know what you will be able to receive until after the transition, because some stations will move their broadcast frequency. Also, once the analog broadcasts stop, you'll be able to receive some fringe signals that were overwhelmed by them.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
To be fair, there is a difference between a company and a government. A company inherently operates in a particular sector. They have a fairly well-defined scope so it's reasonably easy to pick out who their direct competitors are, who their partners are, and what companies they have no particular link to.
High-level government officials and teams, however, inherently have some level of influence over every imaginable sector/industry. Which means that the chance of a conflict-of-interest arising becomes much higher (if you pick a random economic sector, and you have a group of 10 people, there's a good chance that one of those people will gain or lose in some way depending on decisions made; whether it be because of owning stock, having a family member employed by that industry, etc.).
That having been said, government officials should absolutely be held to a very high standard on conflict-of-interest cases. The appropriate action here would be for that particular Obama team member to recuse himself from any decision-making related to that particular issue. He can remain active in other aspects of planning, but should absolutely not touch anything related to this conflict-of-interest (and the planning/execution should be done in a transparent way so that the public can be confident that he wasn't involved).
and had been found that his statements that he had removed financial ties to himself and Halliburton to be "steeped in loopholes and legalese and avoidance".
You were saying?
No, the record was when Rush Limbaugh christened the Obama recession two days after Obama was ELECTED.
Cynicism and complaint are the resorts of losers and followers.
Actually I'd make the argument that as Americans we are supposed to have a healthy amount of skepticism/cynicism towards our Government. As far as complaining goes, that was written into the 1st amendment ("petition the Government for a redress of grievances") as I recall.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
When Barack Obama stocks his staff with industry insiders, it's corruption. When George W. Bush stocks his staff with industry insiders, it's just politics as usual.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The rules work differently depending on which party's partisans happen to have the most mod points when such comments are made.......
And thanks to his transparency he's shown throughout his Vice Presidency there have been zero questionable activities at all. Those secret energy meetings were kept from the public because they were too "technical" for us. And Halliburton/KBR really did earn all those no bid contracts in Iraq.
I voted against Obama, because I think his political views are nonsense. Even so, I would never claim that this was corruption. Any appointee is going to have a history, investments, and contacts in their related field, because that's pretty much why they're being appointed in the first place. All this means is that proper procedures and disclosures need to be followed in order to ensure that corruption doesn't happen.
This guy may have an interest in the outcome, but he and Obama have a point: the public isn't ready for the changeover, and won't be until those coupons are in their hands (and maybe not even then, but they'll have the coupon for the box and if they choose not to use it that's their problem).
That is, in reality, the actual problem.
Theoretical funding for the coupons has run out, but that's assuming all coupons are redeemed. There are quite literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth that have not been. Although it is extremely unlikely they will be, the goverment can't just issue more coupons without money behind them.
The correct solution is just to have Congress allow another $100M or so of coupons to be printed, with the caveat that all coupons (even those previously issued) must be redeemed by March 1, 2009 (or some other very near, hard cutoff date).
Also, I really hated the fact that anybody could ask for coupons. I know people who have already invested over $10K in HDTV equipment who asked for them. I don't know if they used them, but it seems silly to me that they would, since they can only be used to purchase basically inferior devices (limited to 480i output). But, those coupons count against the budget.
So Cheney, who made millions at Haliburton, left the private sector for a $175K job simply to further enrich himself, at the expense of American blood and treasure (It's OK to make this devastating claim about Cheney, "but don't question a liberal's patriotism!!!!"). Not because, as a man who spent the vast majority of his life as a public servant, he wanted to help guide the country.
Nope, Darth Vader came to the VP office to make money. Let me get the chronology correct here.
1) Leave incredibly profitable private sector job to Become VP, knowing there would be a 9/11 leading to the concern over WMD and that Saddam would not comply with UN resolutions or IAEA inspections, that we would thus invade Iraq, and that Haliburton would become the military's main civilian infrastructure contractor.
2) Invade Iraq
3) ????
4) Haliburton chosen as main contractor by US military
5) Profit.
In other words, even if you impugn the man's character and motives, you still have to give him the foresight to predict all of this, as well as some shred of evidence that he actually influenced the contract selection process of the US Military. To date, there is no evidence - and a mound of contrary evidence - that Cheney had influence over Haliburton being chosen.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
minimal heat my ass. Every lefty and/or democrat-leaning person in media constantly accused and berated him about that connection.
Don't give obama's people a pass just because you're sympathetic to his politics.
The proper remedy here is not disclosure, it is recusing the person with the conflict of interest from participating in the decision.
I voted against Obama, because I think his political views are nonsense.
Many voted against Obama because many of his views generally are nonsense and just about every significant opinion held on current affairs have proved to be the wrong opinion to hold. Many voted against Obama because they believe in the US Constitution. Obama seemingly likes to pick and choose the parts he likes. He'd rather the 2nd amendment go away. Conversely, many voted for Obama because he wasn't Republican and is black.
Many voted against McCain because he's white, Republican, and told voters the truth. McCain has been at this long enough to know better. The public doesn't want the truth, they want to feel warm and fuzzy - and that's what Obama does for many.
In short order we'll have an idea of his leadership capabilities but based on what we know so far, real solutions won't originate from him. Frankly, the fact he's trying hard to surround himself with dissenting opinions does give hope he realizes he doesn't have the answers.
The question makes perfect sense, as does the answer.
"Can anyone educate me on why a mandated cutting [of] analog [service] is a requirement of DTV?"
The transition to DTV frees up radio spectrum space currently used by analog. That space is very valuable, and has been sold/licensed for hundreds of billions of dollars. Those who will use the space have a pressing need to access that space ASAP - both to be able to use it at all, and to recoup their very large investment (every delayed day costs them millions in lost revenue).
Yes, technically, DTV can co-exist alongside analog TV. But as most broadcasters & viewers transition to DTV, maintaining that legacy service stalls other technical advancements (ex.: 4G) which would serve a whole lotta people for a whole lotta profit.
Translation: DTV requires cutting analog TV service because not doing so means you (and 50 million other people) don't get your 4G video cell phone just because Gramma wants to watch some podunk TV channel on her 1962-vintage television.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Does the name "Rupert Murdoch" ring a bell?
In 2003 he owned over 175 newspapers, and every single one of them were pushing pro-Iraq Invasion editorials.
The media is STILL pussy footing Bush. Just a few days ago he said that it was "unfortunate" that no WMDs were found in Iraq. Talk about the most self-centered and retarded things to say. We are extremely fortunate that there were no WMDs found. If they had been found that would mean that 1) There are/were people in Iraq with the knowledge to make them again, and 2) That there are likely more of them in different storage facilities or being off loaded on the black market.
To call it "unfortunate" that we destroyed a country and killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more, is a grievous understatement.
The only reason why it is "unfortunate" is because it will forever tarnish Bush's record in the history books.
Yet the media just sweeps away the statement. The guy makes a statement showing that his primary concern is his legacy, not the security of the country, nor the millions of people affected by the war.
Not that I'm a sunshine-daisy Obama optimist. He strikes me as more of a centrist republicrat than a lefty liberal. But taking over after Bush, he'll be hard pressed to do worse.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
As a rabid right-winger, who dislikes the issues Obama stands for, I have to disagree on the remedy. In my mind, it's both. Disclosure, but participation in the discussion. And no voting (actual say) on the decision. Allow the rest of the team (and citizens in general) to know his background, but recognise that though there may be a vested interest, he may actually be an expert in the field. Making such a decision without people who actually care (vested interest) and are technical experts in a field is pretty much about as stupid as making the same decision and letting the vested interest (especially an economic interest) run roughshod over the process.
By all means, bring in the experts. Just don't let the ones who will financially benefit actually vote on the outcome.
And I say this without regard to political party.
P.S.
I should add that Obama's whole proposal of postponing the date is ridiculous, and deflates my confidence in his intelligence. I thought he had a high IQ, but now I'm not so sure. And even if Obama is unaware of the DTV transition issues, his advisers should be aware but they are giving him poor advice. There are several reasons not to delay:
- I already went-out and bought the boxes. I'm prepared and ready to switch to DTV, as are many many many other people.
- TV stations have already hired and scheduled:
--- technicians to arrive on February 17
--- new antennas to install on same date
--- advertising to tell consumers that February 17 is the deadline
- The transition has been in progress for ten years. (From 1999 to 2009.) It's already been postponed from December 31, 2006 to 2009. People have had plenty of time to prepare themselves with new DTV televisions and/or DTV boxes. We should no more postpone the date a 2nd time for these procrastinators than we postpone the April 15 date for tax payments. If people can't get off their overweight asses and get a box, then too bad for them. Again: They've had ten years.
Th only thing that should be done is approve more money for coupons, so they are available well into March and thereby assist people with the upgrade, but otherwise the 2/17 date should stand.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall