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Brain Drain, Admin Failures Threaten the FCC's Role

Posted by Soulskill on from the outsource-it-to-india dept.

coondoggie writes "The Federal Communications Commission has brain drain and administration problems that could decrease its effectiveness at a time when advanced service technologies such as wireless and broadband present significant regulatory challenges. On the brain drain front, a report out today (PDF) from watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office stated that from fiscal year 2003 to 2008, the number of engineers at the FCC decreased by 10%. Similarly, the overall number of economists decreased by 14%. While the total number of engineers and economists in the workforce has decreased from 2003 to 2008, the percentages remained the same. The GAO also criticized the FCC's public comment policy, saying, 'While FCC relies heavily on public input to inform its decisions, it tends to do so without giving the public access to the actual text of a given proposal. If parties are able to submit vague summaries that may not fully reflect meetings between FCC officials and outside parties, then stakeholders will continue to question whether commission decisions are being influenced by information that was not subject to public comment or rebuttal and that, in some cases, is submitted just before a commission vote.'"

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hmm by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Is this the same FCC that took a "save the children" stance over some wardrobe malfunction a while back?

    I wonder why intelligent people would flee an organization guided by puritanism..

    (FCC, free advice, stick to regulating wavelengths and you'll get more support from scientists and engineers)

    Except it wasn't the FCC who really wanted to do it, but the fact that a puritanical lobby group got offended, and flooded the FCC with complaints. The Parents Television Council offers ways to easily send in complaints, and it's estimated that 99% of the complaints came from the PTC. Unfortunately, by legislation, the FCC has to act on these complaints, even if they're stupid.

    Source: One boob == 963,000 FCC complaints

  2. Re:"Republicanism" at work. by OttoErotic · · Score: 1, Informative

    'Republicanism'? Ever heard of Tipper Gore?

    We have 2 identical parties whose existence is based on fooling the public into thinking they differ in any meaningful way. Swallowing the partisan lie is the surest way to make sure nothing ever improves.

    --
    "Once in Hawaii I had sex with a 102 year old male turtle. It is difficult to argue that it was consensual." - Steve Ma
  3. Re:Wouldn't have anything to do with OUTSOURCING? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    FACT: In 2005 the FCC outsourced it's entire IT operations to a single large federal contractor called SI International in order to save lots of money. Existing federal employees were given decreased roles or given the boot. That's probably around the time things started hitting the fan. Bad decisions lead to their current situation.

  4. Re:Hmm by AndersOSU · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is no fairness doctrine. It's been dead since 1987.