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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.'"
...Obama's not even in office yet and he's already got the beginnings of a corruption scandal going. I think this is a new record!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
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?
Do you honestly expect Obama to hand pick his entire staff?
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
.... 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.
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
We've already ruled out the possibility that there _might_ just be a consumer-beneficial reason for pushing back the changeover date? I mean, because it's political, it _has_ to be so someone or some company can game the system and reap megabucks?
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
Having RTFA...
Salemme is not actually an adviser to Obama. He met with Senator Rockefeller and Tom Wheeler (one of Obama's many advisers) last week. He also donated some money to the Obama campaign. That appears to be the sum total of his involvement. Not very compelling evidence that he is behind the policy, if you ask me.
The assertion that he is a transition team member appears to be outright false.
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
The "C" in Chicago stands for "Corruption".
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)
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.
The "C" in politics stands for "Corruption".
Fixed that for you
But, in Chicago, its a capital "C".
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
My thoughts exactly. Short of mailing every household in the US a converter box, there is no way to avoid some people receiving a snowstorm.
Correction; even if they mailed every household in the US a converter, you will still receive complaints of people not being able to watch <insert-crappy-show-here>.
Slashdot is kind of like Playboy; we aren't here to read the articles.
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). It sounds to me like delaying the changeover for a month or two to give time to fund the coupon program is in the public interest. It'll hurt some companies and benefit others, but it seems to me that the only problem would be if the government decided to not delay the change because of the effects on those companies if they did. Unless someone can come up with a good argument why having analog TV broadcasts go dark for apparently a significant fraction of viewers is in the public interest (I think you could make that argument, but it'd require things from the companies that they aren't currently doing).
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...
Well I'm not going to defend the OP, since I am cynical and I see no reason to defend Obama from the completely true accusation that he is a politician. Nor am I going to defend a conflict of interest.
But the simple fact is that the scale we're talking about, Bush vs Obama, is ridiculously different. Some low level advisor might get a temporary benefit from a suggestion Obama made regarding delaying DTV switchover, a relatively minor issue. Bush's vice president's former company was handed multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts (where in most cases the claim that this was because only halliburton could do it were flat wrong), to the point of even outsourcing our military's kitchens to this company. That's a conflict of interest that concerns me. If this was Bush, then it'd be his FCC chairman or Secretary of Commerce that was a VP for Verizon, who'd have already been given an exclusive contract for government wifi.
Bush's administration had plenty of minor conflicts of interest of around this level that I really never gave a rats ass about. They suck, but they're largely unavoidable. The difference is basically how important and high up these conflicts go, and how blatantly and severely they direct policy. We'll see how things turn out with the new guy, but right now just looking at the Cabinet-level picks Obama is no Bush and saying that is not inherently 'bias'.
The enemies of Democracy are
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.
Honest question here: is the plan actually to have the stations go completely dark at the switchover date?
Wouldn't it make more sense to have those channels broadcast a continuously looped message that explains in detail how to switch over to digital TV? The message could be maintained for a month, say, after which time the channels would truly go dark to free up the bandwidth. Otherwise people who were not paying much attention will just think their TV is broken.
Even better would be a multi-stage approach; starting with occasional advisory ads and text-overlays (which I guess they are doing now?), then have every commercial replaced with an advisory, then have a perpetual "this channel will stop functioning soon!" overlay on the channel, then a continually looped message explaining the switchover, and finally the channels go dark.
I know that they "shouldn't have to" beat people over the head with this information--but the fact is that many people are probably still not aware that the switchover is going to happen, and could probably use some more insistent messages.
You don't get a deferred salary in a blind trust. As you say, nice try with the talking points.
The channels aren't going dark, they will be broadcasting on different frequency bands. The looped message you suggest might be a good idea, but the reason the stations are being moved to different frequency bands is that the frequencies currently being used for analog TV will be used for other things. One of the big reasons for the digital TV transition is to free up the analog TV frequencies for radios used by emergency services. So, your idea probably wouldn't work because once the station is on a different frequency, other organizations are going to be needing that bandwith.
I'm using all of my mod points to mod ancient memes down. Please join me.
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
The surprising (and I don't think thats even the right word - perhaps "wrong") thing is not that the airwave advising team has members with ties to companies who use airwaves.
According to TFA, Obama, who wants to delay the DTV switch, is doing so (at least in part) based on the input of someone who stands to directly profit from having the transition delayed.
Why: It would seem that this Salemme guy is a Clearwire executive. Verizon, in an attempt to compete with Clearwire, spent $9.4 billion to be allowed to use the spectrum that analog TV is currently on. Obama, on the advice of Salemme, wants to deny Verizon use of that chunk of spectrum, preventing them from competing effectively with Clearwire.
The guy in question has made some campaign contributions (apparently around $17,000).
He has an impressive history in the industry and as a lobbyist in DC. The guy has been around, knows his technical info, and knows who to talk to in DC.
But.... He is not on Obama's staff. It appears that he was invited to some of the campaign parties, and that he has (post election) been invited to one or more meetings as a consultant with the head of Obama's Science and Technology working group. A group headed by Tom Wheeler, who has ties to a back bone provider that may have a better chance at profiting with no delay in the DTV conversion.
In summary, some guy who doesn't work for Obama has an opinion that might or might not lead to a more profitable situation for a company, and he has shared that opinion with someone who possibly has a different opinion that might or might not lead to a more profitable situation for another company, who works for a man that has an opinion that he has hopefully come to after listening to people with different motivations and goals, and weighed each of their opinions against each other and against what he hopes to accomplish while in charge.
I'm failing to see how this is at all "scandal". We already knew that Obama was soliciting advice from people who he disagreed with. The fact that he is talking to lobbyists from opposing sides of these arguments at least indicates that he is trying to get a better picture than what any individual (even those on his staff) are able to paint for him.
-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
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?
Verizon and AT&T are both conglomerations of baby bells. But they're not the same company.
Verizon formed from a merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. Bell Atlantic earlier gobbled up NYNEX.
The "new" AT&T is SBC, renamed. SBC gobbled up Pacific Telesis and Ameritech, the old AT&T, and finally BellSouth.
Halliburton was responsible, amongst other things, for chow halls in Iraq. KBR specifically, a Halliburton subsidiary. Still are, to my knowledge, though Halliburton spun off KBR in early 2007.
Another company, AISG, was responsible for the chow hall at the location I inhabited for about 6 months in 07-08. KBR chow halls were all over the place: they were premier providers of this kind of service. At many of my remote stops, KBR DFACs were available. So I got to sample both in quantity.
Anecdotally, the AISG personnel were mostly inexperienced, except for the most senior leader. The AISG people put out moldy bread for months on end, served decaying cold cuts and ran out of simple things like breakfast cereals, a staple of any chow hall. They also made sure all the lettuce was frozen and white by the time it got to us. The help were all Filipinos except for the leadership. The Filipinos were notorious for sexually harassing a couple soldiers that were detailed to help out with the food service. A frequent comment was "I felt harassed just watching that", referring to the fondling of the soldiers' bodies, who were too terrified and embarrassed to report it properly.
I actually requested MREs from my chain of command. I was refused, but not with disdain, as the issues with the food were well known. We just had an insufficient supply of same to distribute, and had to rely on the crappy food.
The KBR people appeared to have their head withdrawn from their asses and seemed to know what was required to get quality foodstuffs delivered and cooked. The help was US in origin, mostly. The food was solid, not great by US standards but certainly a welcome relief after the rotten stuff at the AISG location. Facilities were well constructed. No rotten anything. Clean, at least clean by Iraqi standards. Adequate washbasins and such (dust is always a problem there, washing is required constantly).
Bottom line, I think the assertion that Halliburton/KBR was the 'only source' for such services might well be true. I have seen when others try: it sucks ass.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.