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The FCC Is Refusing To Release Emails About Ajit Pai's 'Harlem Shake' Video (vice.com)
bumblebaetuna writes from a report via Motherboard: On the eve of the net neutrality repeal, just as tensions and public debate over the issue were reaching a fever pitch, someone in the FCC decided it would be a good idea to have chair Ajit Pai ridicule legitimate concerns of internet users with a video featuring an outdated meme and a pizzagate conspiracy theorist. Now, citing the infamous b5 FOIA exemption, the Federal Communications Commission is refusing to release emails related to the planning of the video. The b5 exemption is supposed to protect "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandum or letters which would be privileged in civil litigation," but each agency interprets that meaning differently.
Someone really should leak those e-mails.
Tough shit. it's my tax dollars, I get to know what it is spent on.
he might have a leg to stand on here. Still, none of this really matters. The only way to solve this is to kick the bum out that appoints him.
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Did MuckRake file a similar FOIA request to find out who thought it was a good idea for the President to take time out of his schedule and make a video of his March Madness bracket? Or who thought it was a good idea to dress up a group of hospital administrators in lab costs for a presidential press conference about PPACA?
I'm sure they did - since the issue is government waste, not petty party politics, right?
Ken
Judicial Review is a corner stone of the tripartite governmental system used by much of the developed work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Performing the Harlem Shake alone should be considered sufficient grounds for dismissal.
" since the issue is government waste"
You might want to limit the scope to that, but it was Ajit being a dick at a time when his job requires he be professional and consider the feedback.
Running a consultancy, as required by law, when you've already made your mind up, is bad governance. Accepting millions of duplicate comments from fake ids, is bad governnance. Saying industry talking points that are flat out untrue is bad governnance.
So now the telcos are free to screw over their customers again, and he is to blame.
That Obama appointed him is irrelevant. Obama was required to appoint a (at the time) minority (republican) candidate, and that was who the GOP chose. It could have been any conservative really... Ajit or anyone else. When Republicans took power and elevated their puppet to Chairman, that's when shit started to hit the fan.
Unless he does the shake on the top of the Empire State Building, slips and splats a few 100 feet below, I don't care.
But if he does, I sure want to see it, I need something to lighten my mood.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just in case anyone needed more proof that he doesn't know shit about the medium he's trying to regulate...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Obama made him part of the commission but it took a Trump to make him chairman.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just a guess here, but maybe the reason for declining this isn't solely down to the identity of the current FCC Chair.
If the FCC were to agree to this request and provide the details, they also set a precedent - a legal precedent - in which they have turned over materials in this way. Once they do this, anyone who in future might want to get access to other FCC materials would then be able to cite this case in support of their argument for disclosure.
I do not agree with this as grounds for refusing the request.
Everything our governments do for us, is paid for by us. There will necessarily be certain aspects of security for which a government would have no choice but to decline a request on the grounds of national security. However, the conditions for claiming these grounds should be clearly and explicitly defined and kept under constant review. There should be an independent "insider" with the authority to review any documents that a sitting government of the day refused to disclose. There should be robust appeals mechanisms.
At the end of the day, governments exist to serve the people that elect them. When a government - or a branch of government - refuses a request like this, they make an implied statement of "we are more important than you", or "we are superior to you". At it's mildest, this is how corruption in office starts. At the worst, this is how dictatorships form.
There need to be limits on this, of course. The public have a right to understand anything that any FCC Chair has said or done in their capacity as a member of the FCC, paid for by the public dime. There is a right for transparency in decision-making and government to help ensure that government remains fair and free from corruption and outside influence.
In hindsight, perhaps this was the wrong request to make. It has allowed the FCC to decline a request for something that would most likely have been merely embarrassing to the current FCC Chair, but in so doing creates the precedent that I mention above. Perhaps this powder should have been kept dry for something a little more egregious, and/or something that could not have been "reasonably refused".
You excuse his approval of Pai because Obama had no choice? He could have refused and told Republicans to nominate another candidate - he chose not to, so he chose to accept Pai.
Ken
Obama made him part of the commission but it took a Trump to make him chairman.
Don't be so modest, without Hillary as his opponent, we wouldn't have gotten Trump as President.
Ken
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
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Daily Caller video producer Martina Markota is one of the people dancing with him in the video. The same Martina Markota who's one of the big proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
Facism, by the way, is apparently a word you don't understand.
This guy has all but given the finger to the publicin public> . Of course he's 100 kinds of wrong in what he had considered private communications. Of course he balks at releasing it, and of course it's going to come out anyway.
This dude is stalling while he and his legal team work out a plan to somehow mitigate the coming shitstorm.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Your scathingly incisive commentary on America's double standards, oppression, and outright racism towards Oompa Loompas and Cheetotians brings much needed illumination to the plight of ocher people everywhere. No one should be singled out because of the color of their skin, no matter how day-glo, flourescent, or garishly it clashes with every other color this side of Lovecraftian nightmares.
Seriously though, you make a really good point. There was so much overhead involved with discussing policy during the Obama years, it had a chilling effect on debate. Even discussing the economic advisability of passing the largest tax increase in history during a recessed economy could result in what seemed to be reasoned and intelligent people resorting to a canned "You're a racist!!!" remark designed to shut down any discourse.
I do enjoy the freedom to question and criticize the president without risking losing my job or being beaten up by an overreacting SJW, but the same irrational responses keep popping up when people try to discuss policy.
For instance, asking a questions like: "does the recent wave of nationalist sentiment throughout the western world, along with the "Washington outsider" Trump as president, provide the US with a political smoke screen dense and large enough to cover us while we readjust our manufacturing sector's global standing and address trade imbalances that will boost our economy for the long term, all the while maintaining a safe fall back position for entrenched political interests and parties who can plausibly distance themselves from Trump's policies once his term/s are over?" can still result in people calling you a "NAZI!" or saying "Thanks, Igor. Keep up the good work or we will make sure your babushka will glow bright enough to read Alexander Litvinenko's autopsy report in her Siberian dungeon cell."
All I can really say is that the shrill and outraged tone of what passes for political discourse these days is a far cry from anything productive, structured, or intelligent. Any public political statement more controversial than an open can of green beans will result in incoherent emotional rambling from a good portion of the respondents. In such a contentious, infantile, and unhinged atmosphere it is impossible to have meaningful discussions. I fear the result of this cultural shift to personal attacks as a viable response to political speech will result in silencing the most reasonable voices through self-censoring. Mature and educated individuals won't dare speak their minds. They have better things to do than deal with torrents of inane pejorative excrement flung at them by helplessly malfunctioning self-victimizing political illiterates. That leaves only the most strident, vicious, and ignorant with a voice.
I hope you have enjoyed this great experiment in liberty. We will be closing shortly. Please gather your shit and get the fuck out.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Now how does she come into the equation again?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.