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Senators Demand FCC Answer For Fake Comments After Realizing Their Identities Were Stolen (gizmodo.com)

Posted by msmash on from the waking-up-to-reality dept.

Two US senators -- one Republican, one Democrat who both had their identities stolen and then used to post fake public comments on net neutrality -- are calling on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to address how as many as two million fake comments were filed under stolen names. From a report: Senators Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, are among the estimated "two million Americans" whose identities were used to file comments to the FCC without their consent. "The federal rulemaking process is an essential part of our democracy and allows Americans the opportunity to express their opinions on how government agencies decide important regulatory issues," the pair of lawmakers wrote [PDF].

"As such, we are concerned about the aforementioned fraudulent activity. We need to prevent the deliberate misuse of Americans' personal information and ensure that the FCC is working to protect against current and future vulnerabilities in its system. We encourage the FCC to determine who facilitated these fake comments," the letter continues. "While we understand and agree with the need to protect individuals' privacy, we request that the FCC share with the public the total number of fake comments that were filed."

3 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Mild shock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's amazing! People are spamming comments using names that aren't theirs! Only Russians are capable of such dishonesty.

    In other news: there's no reason to ask for ID when voting in federal elections.

    1. Re:Mild shock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      > Only Russians are capable of such dishonesty.

      My local Russian Orthodox Church buses people between precincts to vote multiple times, so yes that does happen. In my state, they can't legally ask for an ID or a voter registration card, so they can vote multiple times. Of course the number of Russians that vote more than once are completely overwhelmed by the dozens of black Baptist churches that bus voters to multiple polling locations to vote more than once.

    2. Re:Mild shock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've worked the polls for two elections here in South Carolina. Sad thing is that even though I'm nearly forty, I think I was less than half of the age of any of the other volunteers. I wish more young people would decide to be involved with this important task. We can't ask for ID or a voter registration card. We can only ask for a name that we then match with a voting record in a fanfold printout then ask if that is the correct address. There's a lot of church buses that drop off a load of African Americans that don't even look at the book when asked if that's the correct record. They just give a common name and say yes and don't even verify the address when asked. We can't legally ask for an ID or keep them from voting even if we know they're lying. We also aren't allowed to ask them to verify the address. That's a huge problem here since there's so fewer last names on average than in the rest of the country that isn't the South.