Ajit Pai May Have Lied To Congress About FCC's Failure To Address Wireless Location Data Scandals
from the ill-communication dept
So we've talked a bit about how the FCC has done absolutely nothing to seriously address the rise of wireless industry location data scandals. That's despite story after story showing how wireless carriers were selling this data to an endless line of companies and organizations. Those organizations, in turn, failed utterly to protect this data from being misused by everybody from law enforcement to bail bondsman and even random stalkers posing as law enforcement. Despite this being on scale with the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal, the silence from the Pai FCC has been deafening.
Last week during a Congressional FCC oversight hearing, several lawmakers criticized Pai for failing to hold carriers accountable or even publicly mentioning the scandal. And while the FCC has supposedly been conducting an investigation for the better part of the last year, Pai's fellow commissioners say they've been stonewalled when they've asked about the progress of the inquiry. When Representative Anna Eshoo pressed Pai on whether he was withholding information from his fellow commissioners, he refused to answer the question:
"Can you tell us today that you’re going to share information with two full-fledged members of the commission?” Eshoo asked at one point. “You’re saying you can’t tell us, but will you tell them?”
“Congresswoman, this is not a ‘yes or no’ question,” he said.
Cute. Again, both of Pai's fellow Democratic Commissioners (Geoffrey Sparks and Jessica Rosenworcel) say they requested the “letters of inquiry” sent out by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau at the investigation’s outset but were repeatedly stonewalled by Pai and his leadership team. But when pressed by Congress, Pai stated he was "not aware" of any such requests, suggesting the FCC boss lied to Congress:
"Sources with knowledge of the requests told Gizmodo that they were baffled by the chairman’s response, for one reason in particular: At an FCC Open Commission Meeting on January 30, Rosenworcel told a group of reporters while live-streaming on the agency’s website: “I’ve been told there’s an investigation, but I’ve asked the enforcement bureau for the letters of inquiry that start investigations, and they have not yet been provided to me. I’d like to see them."
Given Pai's refusal to hold giant telecom carriers accountable for pretty much anything (ranging from telco taxpayer fraud to hurricane recovery failures), most of the consumer activists and lawyers I've spoken to believe Pai is just running interference for industry until the statute of limitations runs out, and the reason he doesn't want to talk much about the FCC's investigation is because it's not much of one. Some consumer groups were particularly gobsmacked by Pai's attempt to throw Commissioner Starks (who just started work) under the bus for the agency's failures on this front:
Why after nine months with zero updates, would Pai try to unload an investigation into privacy violations linked to AT&T et al onto a commissioner, a political rival, who hasn't yet moved into his office, with the statute of limitations expiring soon on year-old misconduct? Hm https://t.co/dVpuLQozij
— Dell Cameron (@dellcam) May 16, 2019
Again, Pai's decision to be a rubber stamp for the telecom industry's biggest companies isn't much in dispute at this point, though Pai and his staffers like to insist (and may even actually believe) this is all just unfair partisan posturing. Pai has repeatedly stated that the industry can self-regulate, but when it comes to privacy they've shown themselves to be incapable of the task. So while carriers say they've ceased the collection and sale of your location data to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the internet, with their history of falsehoods on the privacy front, the only way to actually confirm this is a transparent, third party inquiry.
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Filed Under: ajit pai, congress, fcc, lying to congress
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If we was going to lie to someone, at least he picked a group with zero backbone to do anything about it.
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When the work is too tough
Did he leave out the 'not yet' part of his analysis? With the statue of limitations approaching, OK lets say past, would his answer be different? Sometimes the Congresscritters set up softball questions on purpose. Other times those softball questions are due to a lack of knowledge. Or will, that is the will to get to the actual truth.
My question for Representative Anna Eshoo is why no followup? Like 'what do you mean it isn't a yes or no question? Why not?' Or did she, and that just wasn't quoted in the article?
Then what is it about whether Pai is conducting an investigation that he cannot tell the Congressional Oversight Committee? He doesn't belong to a law enforcement agency, it's a regulatory agency. One that is supposed to be protecting the public. It's not like revealing sources and methods of investigation are going to spoil anything.
The sources and methods of a regulatory agency are well known. You send a letter and demand answers. If necessary you put their license to operate in jeopardy. Then you get the answers your looking for, unless, as is suggested here, you are already in bed with them and the answers would incriminate you.
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What??
Ajit Pai lied. That's a given.
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I'd be shocked if he didn't lie. About everything.
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Hey Trump, thanks for the shit Pai. Eat up America, ain't it great?
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Was Pai lying?
That's not a yes-or-no question. It's Pai, so it's "yes".
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Re:
If it's a given, then there's not much point in posting a comment just to say it's a given.
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Lying to congress only seems to be a problem to people who aren't part of the government. For example, you didn't see James Clapper penalized when he lied to congress. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Pai to suffer any consequences.
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Re:
And all the while they fail to see the hypocrisy.
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Using the words Ajit Pai and lied in the same sentences is basically a redundancy. If the man was injected with truth serum, he'd be incapable of speech.
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'Yeah I lied to your face, what are you going to do about it?'
Have an insightful vote, because TD hasn't yet added a 'Sad but true' one.
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Why not?
It's not like he faces any possibility of punishment for lying to them, and it allows him to stonewall any closer look at his actions until it's too late, so why wouldn't he lie to them?
I mean really, what are they going to do, write a sternly worded letter making clear that they're unhappy that he didn't answer as exhaustively as they may have wanted him to(because it would just be rude to accuse him of lying)?
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... and I MIGHT have had a penis in my mouth before...
o_O
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Remember Clapper
Of course you realise if he gets called on this he'll say he gave the least untruthful answer.
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Re: Re:
[Sad but True]
He's in bed with the same people as they are.
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Re:
Sadly there’s a better correlation: allies of the party in power of the body lied to don’t get prosecuted, or even meaningfully threatened.
Clapper lies, same political allegiance, no penalty (and he’s somehow still on TV).
McGahn doesn’t show up (so he doesn’t have to lie), and he’s threatened with sanctions - differing party.
Gone decades by are the days when a party would censure itself, and I almost miss the days not even a decade gone when no one was ever censured. Remember that no mans life, liberty, or property are safe when the legislature is in session.
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Re: Sad but true button
This used to baffle me but then a couple years ago while reading Mikes New Year post it hit me.
Having this button would flag such a vast quantity of posts that just looking at the page would tend to get depressing.
As Mike like to maintain a positive an upbeat attitude having a sad but true button would be counterproductive.
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