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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?
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.
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.
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
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 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.