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."

Comments

Re:Fuck Communists

[mi]

... and yet for the average citizen they're much better places to live.

Citation missing.

There's nothing inherently wrong with such an economic model.

Yeah. Nothing inherently wrong with Communism — except, wherever implemented in earnest, it leaves millions of dead and the survivors with neither material wealth nor human rights.

But neither does the opposite extreme of laissez-faire.

Statist lies.

Some things work better when the government controls them

Fortunately, very few things are done by the government in the US. Unfortunately, that makes comparisons difficult. There are but a few things... Do you really prefer TSA over the old private security in the airports? Or do you like the public schools, which quadrupled in the per-pupil cost over 50 years without improving the results one bit?

But the reason America had a free market capitalism is not because it "works" — for some definition of "works". We have (had) it, because it is the only way to live without oppression and tyranny. The second you decide to value the Collective over the Individual (what Socialism/Communism are all about), all things become possible: like killing and robbing a minority for "the greater good".

You claimed earlier about USA being the last to abolish slavery. The uncited claim was bogus, but did you know, that USSR has re-enslaved the peasants freed by the Tsars? Yes, they could not leave the collective farm without the farm chairman's permission? In the 20th century. They had to starve millions of people to death to get that sort of obedience, but they did it — for the Greater Good[tm].

When you become an absolutist when it comes to economic models, you cease to search for pragmatic solutions. That's when economies tank.

Yes, I am an absolutist, when it comes to personal rights. Not sorry. But if you are calling yourself "pragmatic" (a.k.a. without principles), do tell, what would President Sanders do differently from El Presidente Chavez? Bet, you were a big fan of the latter — all of you, Illiberals, adored him.

their education system is so much better

Citation missing.

Oh, yeah, because we spend like a third of our budget on that stupid military

Whether that military is "stupid" or not, we do spend considerable money on it. And yet, we are still richer than most of those Socialist paradises you listed.

Re:Fuck Communists

[mi]

you measure wealth based on GDP

It is the only objective measurement. Subject to only to subversion by outright lies.

rather than the spending power and economic freedom of the poorest of the poor.

Because these are entirely subjective and thus unverifiable. You don't even need to lie to get the results you want — just alter the definition of all of these vague terms you offered.

Socialized medicine frees.

Sounds like something from a bumper sticker. No, it does not. One of us in this conversation have tried "socialized medicine" in person...

I save citations for research papers and extreme claims.

Right, right. You have citations, you just would not show them... Well, to close this match with actual facts and historical perspective, consider the following examples that recent history gives us:

• South Korea vs. North Korea
• West Germany vs. East Germany
• Finland vs. Estonia

All have had identical culture and people before one part went Socialist... Another example would be Chile vs. Cuba — both had dictators, except the Chilean honcho had the wisdom to adopt just the policies you dismiss. For all the snotty dismissals of it, Chile remains the Latin America's #1 economy today, prosperous and free.

The fact that you believe the U.S. is an example of a laissez-faire country

We aren't. We are just the closest to that among industrialized nations.

Laissez-faire is a myth. It's never existed and never will. Just like communism. All countries are socialist,

"Socialism" is nothing but Communism-lite. It is a matter of degree. And my warning stands — I will not stand passively aside, if you, Commie assholes, start moving this country in the wrong direction again. Long before the nightmare of Stalin and Kim, comes the devastation of Chavez — I will not let you do that.

Your equivocation of all collectivism and the U.S.S.R. is a silly fallacy.

Is it? You aren't offering proof...

That's why no serious intellectuals take Ayn Rand seriously.

Another empty claim... Maybe, you should get out of your echo-chamber once a week?