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FCC Republicans Refused To Give Congress Net Neutrality Documents (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The two Republican members of the Federal Communications Commission have refused to give Congress documents needed to complete an investigation into the FCC's net neutrality rule-making process, according to a lawmaker. "Your refusal to cooperate with the Committee's request is unacceptable, it obstructs our investigation, and it prevents the Committee from having a complete or accurate understanding of the circumstances surrounding this rulemaking," U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) wrote in a letter to FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly yesterday. There are "serious questions" about "Pai's efforts to organize opposition to the proposed rule with outside parties," Cummings' office said in a related press release. "Pai previously worked as associate general counsel for Verizon, one of the major opponents of the open Internet policy, and he reportedly 'enjoys the support of conservative think tanks like the Phoenix Center, the Free State Foundation and TechFreedom,'" the press release said. O'Rielly wrote an op-ed on the net neutrality rules in 2014, but only after he "sought edits on [the] draft op-ed from three individuals outside the FCC with professional interests that could be affected by the rule," the press release said. The Republican lawmakers claimed that President Obama had "an improper influence" over the FCC's decision and demanded documentation of all communication between FCC personnel and the White House, as well as calendar appointments, visitor logs, and meeting minutes related to meetings with the White House, plus all internal documents discussing the views and recommendations of the White House. They also asked for all documents and e-mails related to views of FCC personnel about the net neutrality proceeding. A Cummings staff member told Ars that the "request has the backing of the full committee and all the enforcement mechanisms the committee has, including issuing a subpoena." The committee has schedule a hearing for September 27 on the status of outstanding document requests to different federal agencies, and could seek updates on the requests to the two Republican FCC commissioners at this hearing, a Democratic aide for the Oversight Committee also said.
GOP has been investigating the hell out of Hillary's emails and boogers for the last 3 years. At least return the favor.
Table-ized A.I.
Throw the assholes in jail.
...approves.
No matter where you are on the political spectrum, you have to admit to the obstructionism which the Republicans have used over the last 8 years.
This has effectively meant that nothing has been done (mostly) except the bare minimum, for the last 8 years. Now we see it in this particular issue- which should be considered by people in the "IT world" to be a primary issue: Net Neutrality.
It's like this: Without net neutrality the Internet becomes a walled garden for businesses who are already there. Which is good for those businesses. But it's also bad for consumers. You see it now with veiled attempts at cutting out media providers through data caps. If this issue is not resolved in favor of a level playing field or all involved- the promise of the internet could be lost in this country.
Which is to say- whatever services you use over your connection- will be those mandated by whomever has the power that week to reach customers at the lowest cost.
And guess what: It won't be the startups. That is a problem.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
All these congressman get outside counsel from moneyed lobbyists. Shit, the lobbyists sometimes write the final legislation themselves. I don't see what's unique in this scenario.
Democrats accusing Republicans of obstruction!
Pot, meet kettle.
Elected officials, corrupted by a virtually limitless supply of money in the form of campaign contributions and inducements by lobbyists, do the bidding of those who pay for their "service". Business as usual. Do something different, or STFU about it.
Don't threaten to daydream about thinking about maybe issuing a subpoena.
Issue the fucking subpeona. When he doesn't immediately comply, charge him with inherent contempt of congress and have the sergeant-at-arms drag him forcibly in front of the committee to answer questions and jail him if he doesn't comply.
Congress really ought to build a Plexiglas jail cell in the Capitol visitor center specifically for government officials who refuse to recognize the subpoena authority of congress. Nothing would compel their compliance more than knowing that the alternative outcome may be high visibility detention facility where tourists come to learn about the many powers of the US Congress.
For the first half of those eight years, Democrats controlled the house and senate and white house.
So why should I admit to something that never happened? Why would you ask that people admit to an obvious lie?
Is this total ability to believe a lie something that has infected Democrats universally? I mean you would think it would be just a handful like Hillary but as you show, it seems to be the entire party that is corrupted absolutely to where they no longer will believe anything that is not a lie...
For something more recent, was it Republicans or Democrats that were blocking Zika funding. HMM!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The article appears to be a press release written by the Congressman Elijah Cummings' staff (with some editing by the reporter whose name appears on the byline). It contains NO information from ANY other source.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And how many times did Republicans filibuster again?
You are probably just as mistaken as Obama, since you all get your info from the save hive-mind of lies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Cummings is the Democrat on the committee who has run interference for both Obama (on Fast&Furious) and Hillary(on Benghazi and her e-mails and servers) insiting all along that Obama and Hillary and the administration are right to hide documents from the courts and congress and FOIA requests by the public. Yup, he's a guy who is always calling for "gun control" while doing every thing he possibly can to help Obama hide the records of the Fast&Furious program that transferred hundreds, and possibly thousands, of so-called assault weapons directly to Mexican drug gangs.
When Cummings complains that ANYBODY is not being "transparent", a very large political shark has been jumped.
Oh, and he is the same Cummings who has supported the Democrat FCC members hiding documents related to their proposals to regulate political speech in the internet. Yup, he's perfectly happy to have Democrat FCC commissioners hide all sorts of stuff. This has NOTHING to do with "openness" and EVERYTHING to do with the impending election and the desperate need the Democrats have to get out every voter from every micro-targeted Democrat demographic group. This is intended to anger young idiots who live on the web and want all their videos streamed for free while having no concept of how phoney and hypocritical representative Cummings truly is. The only troll in congress who behaves as badly as Mr Cummings is Alan Grayson.
Personally, I'm consistent: I want full transaprency from BOTH parties. I want every last thing the FCC committe members discuss to be dicussed in public under glaring klieg lights with cameras rolling and audio recording. I want every single document that exists within the FCC to be created in public, saved in an open-source campatible format and posted to the net as it is created. I am VERY different from the hyper-partisan Mr Cummings, who is a despicable troll in favor of unlimited corruption by his own party. He is a HACK. A true "reformer" does what Governor Sarah Palin did in Alaska: SHE went after corruption in BOTH parties, ruining sweet-heart deals Republicans had with the oil companies there right along with the headaches she caused the Democrats.
There are too many examples of this clown's lies to fit in a posting here. Let me just illustrate with one and let you do a little research if you have the intellectual curiosity and honesty to do so.
When Representative Issa was investigating operation Fast and Furious (The Obama administration providing a huge quantity of assault weapons to Mexican drug gangs) and President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder was hiding documents and making blatantly false statements about the overall program and various details one interesting thing that came up was an Eric Holder claim about wire taps. Holder and Cummings made a boatload of false statements about those wiretaps and they counted on the public never knowing how dishonest they were being because the Obama administration was threatening to prosecute anybody who let the documents slip out. Issa got his hands on one of the wiretap applications which exposed the lies and he proceeded to make it public in the one place that the Constitution says (and the Supreme Court would uphold) a person can say ANYTHING and not be prosecuted: The House floor.
Cummings was thus exposed as a liar, yet again.
You do not have to take my anon word for it, try reading about it at Roll Call. After that, you can do some info spelunking for yourself to see just how many things he has been very dishonest about over the years. Mr Cummings has a very long record of extreme partisanship, lying, and fabricating. His honesty and credibility are right down there with former Republican Senator Larry-the-toe-tapper Craig. BEWARE: Elija Cummings is no friend of privacy or internet freedoms or an open government. He has supported all the spying, lying, and document hiding. He is just pushing this net neutrality narrative as a political ploy.
Btw, anyone watching the House Oversight Committee streams on youtube the last few days, will see that Mr. Cummings has expressed strong annoyance against the committee's hearing of the whole Clinton Email case.
The FBI was "served" a subpoena recently by the committee chairman, to give US congress so called 302's, which seem to be summaries of interviews that FBI had with various people, and the FBI had decided to give congress just a selection of these.
I wonder, it seems as if perhaps there are no recordings or transcripts of FBI's interview with Hillary Clinton for example.
Someone in the comment field on youtube, for a recent committee hearing said it best:
"Answer the questions assholes" :D
Throw these people under the jail. It is not their privilege to deny a subpoena.
Subject says it all.
Dump Pai. Replace him. Simple.