Slashdot Mirror
FCC Refuses Records For Investigation Into Fake Net Neutrality Comments (variety.com)
"FCC general counsel Tom Johnson has told the New York State attorney general that the FCC is not providing information for his investigation into fake net-neutrality comments, saying those comments did not affect the review, and challenging the state's ability to investigate the feds." Variety has more:
The FCC's general counsel, in a letter to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, also dismissed his concerns that the volume of fake comments or those made with stolen identities have "corrupted" the rule-making process... He added that Schneiderman's request for logs of IP addresses would be "unduly burdensome" to the commission, and would "raise significant personal privacy concerns."
Amy Spitalnick, Schneiderman's press secretary, said in a statement that the FCC "made clear that it will continue to obstruct a law enforcement investigation. It's easy for the FCC to claim that there's no problem with the process, when they're hiding the very information that would allow us to determine if there was a problem. To be clear, impersonation is a violation of New York law," she said... "The only privacy jeopardized by the FCC's continued obstruction of this investigation is that of the perpetrators who impersonated real Americans."
One of the FCC's Democratic commissioners claimed that this response "shows the FCC's sheer contempt for public input and unreasonable failure to support integrity in its process... Moreover, the FCC refuses to look into how nearly half a million comments came from Russian sources."
Amy Spitalnick, Schneiderman's press secretary, said in a statement that the FCC "made clear that it will continue to obstruct a law enforcement investigation. It's easy for the FCC to claim that there's no problem with the process, when they're hiding the very information that would allow us to determine if there was a problem. To be clear, impersonation is a violation of New York law," she said... "The only privacy jeopardized by the FCC's continued obstruction of this investigation is that of the perpetrators who impersonated real Americans."
One of the FCC's Democratic commissioners claimed that this response "shows the FCC's sheer contempt for public input and unreasonable failure to support integrity in its process... Moreover, the FCC refuses to look into how nearly half a million comments came from Russian sources."
"Who gives a shit?"
Apparently the NY Attorney General's office. If they consider it important enough to launch an investigation. Now, there might be nothing but, it sounds like there's already been enough evidence to show massive identity theft. Even though it is ID theft of FCC comments is relatively trivial, it is still ID theft and carries stiff penalties. These are the crimes that the attorney general wants to investigate and the current FCC chairman wants to bury.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Actually there is a need to do more than that.
You can see how this process is explicitly defined here: https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaking_process.pdf
A lot of the spam is from adversarial interests against the general American population, such as ISPs, Russia, etc.
That may have different implications than you think. Per page 13 of this analysis of the comments, there were 444,938 comments submitted from Russia, and 444,925 of them were pro-NN.
The entire comment database is freely available for download if you'd like to check for yourself.
It is all a publicity stunt. The NYS AG knows he has no standing. But "fighting for the people" looks good on a campaign sticker.
No standing? That's debatable. From TFS:
my Spitalnick, Schneiderman's press secretary, said in a statement that the FCC "made clear that it will continue to obstruct a law enforcement investigation. It's easy for the FCC to claim that there's no problem with the process, when they're hiding the very information that would allow us to determine if there was a problem. To be clear, impersonation is a violation of New York law," she said... "The only privacy jeopardized by the FCC's continued obstruction of this investigation is that of the perpetrators who impersonated real Americans."
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
To be clear, the AG isn't challenging the FCC on net neutrality. On that, you are right -- NY cannot override the FCC. This, however, is about a crime committed against NY citizens on the FCC's website. If someone had threatened to kill someone via that medium, the AG would absolutely have the right to request records to investigate. Just because this is a less severe crime does not dilute the AG's standing to investigate it.
That's Russia's standard method of operation though. They seek to inflame debates, not weigh in on them. So they will support both sides of an argument, or the weaker/anti-government side of the argument, just to make people lose faith with each other and with their government. This is a pretty good description of it. Russia doesn't actually care who "wins" the argument, only that the argument is as divisive and fractious as possible.