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

reality isn't cooperating

[Revek]

So they are making their own. Freedom for the few and higher cost for the masses.

Consequences or Endless Loop

[ohnocitizen]

Either we break up the companies doing this, fine them, and punish the individuals (why isn't regulatory capture a federal felony?) - they will just keep attacking the foundations of the internet every chance they get.

Re:Consequences or Endless Loop

[Baron_Yam]

>Either we break up the companies doing this

You need a new anti-monopoly law that doesn't depend on investigating complaints. I like the idea of raising their taxation based on their market share.

And then you have to nationalize common infrastructure, because it's really a bad idea to have every private company laying their own fiber or cable just like it'd be a bad idea if all roads were toll roads and different companies were not allowed to connect to each other.

Something tells me both those ideas run very much contrary to deeply-held American economic ideals and will never happen.

Re:Consequences or Endless Loop

[RazorSharp]

I like the idea of raising their taxation based on their market share.

Me too. This is the type of tax reform I could get behind. It would discourage large corporate mergers because, if the merger were to jump them up to a way higher tax bracket, it wouldn't make sense to merge.

He's not lying

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The FCC guy is right, though. Millions of fake comments had no bearing on the outcome at all, which was preordained.

Re: He's not lying

[TheReaperD]

Even if it had no effect on the outcome, evidence shows massive, organized identity theft, which is a crime regardless of how much impact it had on the process.

Re:Barking up the wrong tree

[sjames]

It doesn't matter here. What matters is that the NY AG is investigating a criminal impersonation and the FCC is obstructing justice.

Re:The FCC needs to know

[DontBeAMoran]

And how many dozens do you think come from Canada?

And more importantly, how will you be able to detect those, eh?

Re:Fuck Communists

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how much of that infrastructure is on public land or on land taken by eminent domain? For that matter, do you know how much of it is paid for by tax dollars? The telecoms are very, very happy to take everything they can get "for the public good", but somehow people like you come out of the woodwork screeching about grubby communists!
Get a grip. Infrastructure can be "nationalized" by simply getting rid of the various laws directly granting monopolies to various telecom companies and building separate competing infrastructure with open access policies. Heck, in some cases, do you think maybe, just maybe, it might be fair play to use eminent domain to take back some of the stuff that was taken from private citizens via eminent domain and given to the telecoms in the first place?

Re:Unscandal

[pots]

> 2) Once it is gone, internet service prices will immediately go up, and performance will immediately drop. Don't assume that. All the ISPs have to do is wait, and not very long, and people will fail to associate the loss of net neutrality with an increase in prices or a drop in service. It's smaller internet startups who are going to feel the brunt of this for the immediate future, and that's invisible to the public.

Re:Lol

[SlaveToTheGrind]

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.

Re: Fraud detected.

[ClickOnThis]

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."

Re:Fraud detected.

[MoarSauce123]

What is then the point of providing a means of public comment when the comments mean nothing? Seeking public comment ought to be part of the decision process because the penpushers at the FCC have shown not just recently, but for a long time that they have no clue what they are controlling or deciding on. In the current case it is blatantly obvious that big corp has massively influenced the decision process and dictated federal regulation that serves only one purpose: give a card blanche to ISPs to charge extra for everything. The proposed changes destroy the Internet. If these changes come into effect we the Internet users need to find reliable partners with deep pockets who fund an entirely independent infrastructure that essentially reinstates the neutrality rules.

Re:Fuck Communists

[RazorSharp]

And yet, we are still richer than most of those Socialist paradises you listed.

For all your disdain for the collective and praise for the individual, I find it odd that you measure wealth based on GDP rather than the spending power and economic freedom of the poorest of the poor. Socialized medicine frees. Capitalist medicine makes one a slave to their own health. Market regulations free consumers from predatory lenders and inhumane working conditions.

I save citations for research papers and extreme claims. Nothing I claimed warranted such a waste of time. However, you may want to read more carefully before you waste your own time refuting something I didn't say (there's a huge difference between "one of the last to abolish slavery" and "the last").

The fact that you believe the U.S. is an example of a laissez-faire country demonstrates your ignorance. Have you ever heard of the U.S. Postal Service? Do you know what a grant is and how they have propped up higher education and are the main reason U.S. innovation was unsurpassed in the twentieth century? Social Security? Medicare? The who article is about the FCC, A REGULATORY AGENCY.

Laissez-faire is a myth. It's never existed and never will. Just like communism. All countries are socialist, they just have unique ways of structuring it. Your equivocation of all collectivism and the U.S.S.R. is a silly fallacy. That's why no serious intellectuals take Ayn Rand seriously.