Telecom Musical Chairs: Regulators And Lobbyists Swap Roles, Everyone Wins! (Except The Public)

from the musical-chairs-without-a-chair-being-taken-away dept

We've talked plenty about the big revolving door between government and big business lately, but there are still some moments that are purely insane that show just how broken the system is. On Wednesday, news broke that former FCC commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker has been named the new CEO of CTIA, the main lobbying organization for mobile phone operators. Baker is no stranger to questionable revolving door moves, seeing as just months after she voted to approve Comcast's merger with NBC Universal, she took a top lobbying job with Comcast. Funny how that works.

But, in this case, it's even more ridiculous because, as Jon Brodkin points out, the current head of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, previously was CEO of CTIA as well. And prior to that he was CEO of NCTA (the cable industry's main lobbying group). And, to top it off, the current head of CTIA is none other than former FCC chair Michael Powell.

If you're keeping score at home, it looks like this:

• Michael Powell: FCC Chair -> NCTA boss
• Meredith Atwell Baker: FCC Commissioner -> Comcast -> CTIA boss
• Tom Wheeler: NCTA boss -> CTIA boss -> FCC Chair

They're playing a game of musical chairs where no chair is ever removed... and they all get fabulously wealthy scratching each others' backs. Even if everyone is being completely sincere in their positions (a big if, but let's assume it for now), the real problem here, again, is that the perception of rampant corruption is encouraged by this sort of thing, leading the public to seriously distrust the government. When the top two lobbying organizations on these issues are manned by former top officials and the current top FCC official used to run both those organizations, there's a pretty clear implication that it's the public interest that's going to get shafted.

Filed Under: fcc, lobbyists, meredith atwell baker, michael powell, musical chairs, revolving door, tom wheeler
Companies: ctia, ncta

Revolving Door: MPAA Hires Chief USTR Negotiator Behind ACTA And TPP's IP Chapter

from the a-big-pat-on-the-back dept

For the past five years or so, the USTR's chief intellectual property negotiator has been Stan McCoy. McCoy has long positioned himself as an intellectual property maximalist, repeating talking points from lobbyists regularly, while condescending to anyone who questions the legitimacy of those claims. McCoy famously was the chief negotiator behind the US's disastrous (and mostly failed) attempt to push ACTA through, as well as the lead on the TPP's intellectual property chapter -- a chapter so bad it may help sink the TPP agreement. In fact, previous reports have noted that McCoy's bullying and aggression in trying to push through the TPP were angering others in the negotiations. McCoy also has a long history of mocking public interest advocates, while praising maximalists for similar tactics. From a report a few years ago concerning a hearing that McCoy chaired:

The burden of proof was very obviously on the public interest, civil society groups. Stan McCoy of the USTR, who was presiding over the hearing, joked about the two-phonebook-sized submission by the International Intellectual Property Alliance. (Lol?) Sadly, there is no independent verification of these industry reports and there were no tough questions for industry regarding their testimony. Several times, McCoy interrupted civil society groups’ testimony to chide them on speaking too generally about IP policy, but refrained when industry witnesses did the same.

Given all that, it should be no surprise at all that McCoy, the failed strategist behind ACTA and the TPP's IP provisions... has received his reward and pat on the back from the industry: a shiny new job at the MPAA. As Tim Lee notes in that link, this is just the latest in the never-ending revolving door between maximalist lobbying groups and the USTR:

Last year I wrote that at least a dozen former senior USTR officials have moved to industry groups that favor stronger protections. McCoy's hire makes it a baker's dozen. Previous hires include including Greg Frazier, who (according to his LinkedIn page) spent 8 years as the executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America after a stint at USTR. Other former USTR officials took jobs at drug and medical device companies.

McCoy's old job, assistant USTR for intellectual property and innovation, made him the Obama administration's highest-ranking trade negotiator on patent and copyright issues. Jamie Love, director of the public interest organization Knowledge Ecology International, notes that this isn't the first time USTR's top intellectual property official has gone on to take a lobbying job. McCoy's predecessor, Victoria Espinel, is now the head of the software industry group BSA.

Espinel's predecessor at BSA was Robert Holleyman, the man Obama just nominated to a senior post at USTR. While at BSA, Holleyman supported the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have created an official internet blacklist to aid in anti-piracy efforts. (He backtracked a few weeks later after an uproar in the technology community.

Another of McCoy's predecessors as USTR's top IP official is Joe Papovich, who later spent seven years as a lobbyist for the recording industry.

As Lee notes, the revolving door between maximalist lobbying organizations and the USTR goes round and round, with USTR officials joining the lobbyist organizations and then going back to the USTR. It's a clear case of regulatory capture by the industry. None of those folks go on to public interest or civil society groups, nor does the USTR ever seem interested in hiring those people. It's entirely a one-sided effort to help out the biggest lobbying interests. Work for a few years pushing through policies that favor those companies, and then get "rewarded" with a nice, high-paying job for those very same lobbyists, and no one ever seems to point out the obvious corruption in the entire process.

As Lee notes, as easy as it is to ascribe comic-book levels of ill-intent here, that's unlikely. McCoy and others genuinely believe what they're doing is the right thing. But the end results are clear:

I doubt public servants like McCoy consciously pursue dubious policies in an effort to curry favor with future employers. McCoy's press representative hasn't responded to my interview request, but I assume McCoy sincerely believes the Hollywood-friendly policies he advocated at USTR were in the interests of the nation.

But the revolving door between USTR and industry groups creates a strong but subtle pressure on USTR's culture. Like many government agencies, USTR regularly turns to outside experts to help it sort through complex trade issues. Naturally, they turn to people they trust: their former colleagues — or even former bosses — who now work at trade organizations with plenty of resources to devote to understanding the minutia of trade policy.

And it's even worse than that, frankly. Because, when you combine that revolving door, with the proposals seen in ACTA, TPP and elsewhere, it undermines the public trust in all of this. People see it and naturally assume corruption, even if the intent is pure. In other words, even if we give McCoy and others the benefit of the doubt, the very fact that he spent 5 years pushing entirely for the MPAA's policies, while brushing off any and all claims from the MPAA's critics, and then took a job at the MPAA, confirms in the minds of many people that the USTR has no interest in representing the public good. And that perception (regardless if the underlying intent is real or not) corrodes public trust in the federal government, and the USTR in particular.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, maximalists, patents, revolving door, stan mccoy, tpp, ustr
Companies: mpaa

Revolving Door: Obama Nominates Copyright Maximalist Lobbyist To Deputy USTR Position

from the this-is-a-problem dept

We recently highlighted the massive problem of the revolving door between the USTR's office and various patent and copyright maximalist organizations. One example of this was Victoria Espinel, a former USTR official (and then IP Enforcement Coordinator -- better known as the IP Czar), who went on to become the head of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the maximalist lobbying/trade group that is basically a voice for Microsoft, IBM and Adobe's copyright maximalist positions. Espinel's predecessor in the job was Robert Hollyeman, who lead the BSA for two decades, during which time it became well known for its preposterous studies equating every infringing copy to a lost sale.

Among one of Holleyman's most notoriously miscalculated moments was that he was one of the chief lobbyists pushing SOPA and PIPA, celebrating the bill and pushing it along in Congress... right up until (rumor has it) Microsoft freaked out and told him to knock it off.

And, because the USTR just can't position itself as maximalist enough, President Obama has now nominated Holleyman as deputy USTR, where it seems likely he'd be a key figure in making sure that the TPP and TTIP/TAFTA agreements continue to include all sorts of favors for copyright maximalists. For years, the USTR has made it clear that it views copyright and patent maximalism as not just the best policy for the US, but one it feels the need to force on every other country. This, despite overwhelming evidence of the harm excessive monopoly rights do to innovation, health and the economy. Unfortunately, the latest in the revolving door saga shows, yet again, that the USTR's focus on over-protecting legacy businesses -- at the expense of the public and innovation -- is a policy that is going to continue.

Filed Under: revolving door, robert holleyman, ustr, victoria espinel

Another Friend Of The Recording Industry Joins The House Subcommittee On Courts, Intellectual Property And The Internet

from the another-revolving-door dept

There's a new ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, and it's another copyright maximalist. Mel Watt, the former ranking member and one of SOPA's biggest supporters, has moved on to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Before Mel Watt, there was subcommittee chair "Hollywood" Howard Berman, whose nickname clearly spells out which side of the copyright argument he espoused.

The newest ranking member is Jerry Nadler and he's virtually indistinguishable from his preceding party members. Nadler's previous legislative efforts have been the (unofficially titled) "RIAA Bailout Act of 2012" (in which he sought to raise satellite and cable radio royalty rates to match the exorbitant amount demanded of internet streaming sites) and an attempt to create a "resale right," which would give rights holders a cut any time a creation was resold. Nadler also supported extending copyright protection to fashion designers, something that industry has proven it doesn't actually need.

Now, he'll be advising Bob Goodlatte (another SOPA supporter), who's currently in the middle of a "comprehensive copyright review." The deck seems to be rather well-stacked in favor of the copyright industries at the moment, and if the past is anything to go by, this won't be changing in the future.

Back in 2008, there was a good chance that Rick Boucher, a legislator who had a history of siding with consumers in copyright battles, and who had been pushing to rewrite the DMCA, would succeed Berman. Rather than allow this opening to be filled by someone who might push for copyright reform, John Conyers (the head of the Judiciary Committee at the time -- and another pro-copyright legislator) simply declared the subcommittee "unnecessary" and shut it down. When Boucher lost his reelection run, the subcommittee was magically resurrected and the open position given to Mel Watt.

Nadler issued some bland "working together" assurances in his press release about his new position.

"These laws are at the core of how we consume media, from watching TV and listening to music to enjoying a movie or sharing photos,” Nadler said in a statement announcing his new assignment.

“We will seek to strike the right balance between how artists, authors, musicians, photographers and other content creators are compensated for their work with the desire of technology companies to provide new and innovative ways for consumers to access this content like never before," he said.

As The Hill's article notes, the recording industry seems pleased with this decision, noting that Nadler's views are aligned with outgoing member Mel Watt (and, of course, the industry's) on the issue of levying royalties on AM and FM radio stations, formerly known as its preferred promotional tool. Nadler namechecks the future but his supporters have their sights set on extracting a revenue stream from old school, terrestrial radio. In context, the "right balance" means siding with the copyright industries and those not inclined to do so may find themselves to be ranking members of nothing, personas non grata on a subcommittee that no longer exists.

Filed Under: bob goodlatte, howard berman, jerry nadler, mel watt, revolving door, sopa

Lobbyist Insists His Meeting About 'TPP IP Issues' Wasn't About TPP IP Issues

from the pants-on-fire dept

We recently wrote about the ridiculous revolving door between the USTR and various copyright and patent maximalist lobbying organizations. If you want to know why the USTR always is pushing for maximalist positions, that's a good place to start. Our post was commenting on an article by Tim Lee at the Washington Post, in which he highlighted numerous examples of the revolving door between maximalist lobbying groups and the USTR. One of his very first examples was former top USTR official Ralph Ives, who signed a big deal, and then quickly went to work for a lobbying group that represents medical device manufacturers. Here's what Lee wrote:

The lead American negotiator was Ralph Ives, who was promoted to Assistant USTR for Pharmaceutical Policy soon after the negotiations concluded. He was aided by Claude Burcky, Deputy Assistant USTR for Intellectual Property. Less than three months after the Australia agreement was signed, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that both men would take jobs at pharmaceutical or medical device companies. Their new employers stood to benefit from some of the pro-patent-holder provisions of the treaty. Ives took a job at AdvaMed, a trade group representing medical device manufacturers. Burcky moved to the pharmaceutical and medical device company Abbott Labs.

Later in the piece, Lee quoted Advamed angrily denying that Ives was lobbying USTR on intellectual property issues:

But AdvaMed disputes an accusation from Love that it has been lobbying USTR on patent issues. "Neither AdvaMed nor Ives has ever provided USTR comments on a provision of the TPP IP chapter," an AdvaMed spokeswoman stated by email.

Okay. That was on November 26th at 2:22pm ET. Less than four hours later, Jamie Love over at KEI released a bunch of FOIA'd documents, showing 127 pages of emails between various industry lobbyists and the USTR concerning intellectual property issues on the TPP agreement. Tim Lee noted that not only do those emails show a very cozy relationship between IP lobbyists and the USTR, they show very clearly that Ives was, in fact, lobbying on IP issues. Here, for example, is an email showing a meeting that is scheduled involving the USTR and various "cleared advisors" including Ives, and the subject matter is listed as "TPP IP issues." Elsewhere in the documents, they show Ives asking for a meeting to "debrief" with Jared Ragland, the Director of the Office of Intellectual Property and Innovation at the USTR. Ives makes his request at 4:51pm on a Tuesday. Ragland has confirmed the meeting by 3:12am Wednesday morning. Ives reached out to Ragland another time elsewhere in the emails. Two other times in the emails, Ragland is seen emailing Ives directly asking for some advice.

But, no, Advamed insists, they never ever talked about intellectual property issues.

Lee asked Advamed to explain and they insist that Ives and Ragland talked about transparency issues, not IP. And that meeting that was supposedly all about "TPP IP Issues"? Advamed insists that the guy who sent that email, Medtronic lobbyist Trevor Gunn, simply misspoke, because he has a habit of calling anything an IP issue:

On Wednesday, an AdvaMed spokeswoman told me that the intellectual property chapter of the TPP was not discussed at any of these meetings. She noted that "Ragland was the lead negotiator for the transparency issues and procedural fairness provision of the TPP." She says that those issues, not IP issues, were the focus of Ives's conversations with Ragland.

As for the "TPP IP issues" e-mail, AdvaMed says that Gunn is simply in the habit of using "TPP IP issues" as a shorthand for all of the issues that he works on, which also includes non-IP issues of interest to medical device companies. The AdvaMed spokeswoman, after consulting with Ives, said that despite the meeting's title, intellectual property issues did not come up during that Feb. 1 conference call.

Let's take a show of hands. How many people actually believe that the former lead negotiator for the USTR on an important intellectual property section of a bilateral trade agreement, who quickly moved to a big medical device lobbying firm, who was clearly in regular contact with the "director of the office of intellectual property" and who was also in a meeting with top USTR officials whose only listed topic was "TPP IP Issues" did not actually talk to USTR officials about IP? We'll wait.

Of course, this is just part of the problem with the total lack of transparency from the USTR. The whole thing is set up to favor these kinds of back room deals, in which "friends" of the USTR (including former USTR officials), now working for maximalist organizations who are hellbent on keeping out competitive innovations, strongly influence the procedures. Elsewhere in the emails, you see a very close relationship with top RIAA official, Neil Turkewitz, who passes along news items to USTR officials (including about the original leak of the March 2011 TPP IP chapter -- the last one that we had seen prior to the recently leaked August version). He also reaches out to set up a meeting for RIAA boss Cary Sherman to express his concerns about the USTR including "limitations and exceptions" to copyright in the TPP. This was big news at the time because the USTR has never included such things (rather than "limitations and exceptions" they should be called "rights of the public") in a trade agreement. Of course, he shouldn't have worried. Later revelations showed that the USTR put in a system to limit fair use, not spread it.

Either way, you see a very cozy relationship between the USTR and maximalist lobbyists. Lee also asked Peter Maybarduk, who's been focused on pharmaceutical issues for Public Citizen and has been heavily active in TPP issues, if the USTR ever emailed him the way they email lobbyists, and the answer, of course, was not at all:

Peter Maybarduk, who works on pharmaceutical issues at the advocacy group Public Citizen, says that he never gets e-mails like that from USTR. "We don't get any request for our take on this or that. If we ask to meet with Probir [Mehta of the USTR's Office of Intellectual Property and Innovation] for example, he'll meet with us. We'll have a conversation. Those conversations have gotten better over time. But it's a complex diplomatic exercise, it's not like a frank exchange of information about what is actually happening."

Reading the emails between lobbyists and the USTR suggests a much chummier relationship... and that's clearly reflected in the dangerous proposals the USTR is pushing. They favor those few companies, but harm competition, innovation and the public. Protecting a few powerful legacy players at the expense of everyone else is the worst of crony capitalism. Just the very fact that it appears the lobbyists themselves are pretending that they're not discussing IP issues with the USTR shows pretty clearly that even those lobbyists know what's going on is a disgusting abuse of crony capitalism to advance their own personal interests over those of the American public or economy. Shameful.

Filed Under: copyright, jared ragland, lobbying, patents, ralph ives, revolving door, tpp, tpp ip chapter, ustr
Companies: advamed

The USTR's Revolving Door With Copyright And Patent Maximalists Removes All Credibility

from the it's-all-about-jobs...-their-own dept

Tim Lee, over at the Washington Post's The Switch, has an excellent, detailed look at why the USTR seems to think that patent and copyright maximalism is in the best interests of America. There are two key reasons, which I'll paraphrase as (1) the employees at USTR have strong connections to copyright and patent maximalists, and there's a constant revolving door between USTR and IP maximalists, and (2) they're basically ignorant of how the digital world works today.

The ignorance issue is disturbing, but somewhat understandable. As we pointed out just recently, the USTR relies heavily on Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs), which are deeply involved in these things. Members get access to the documents -- much more access than even Congress, and certainly a lot more access than the public which gets none at all. The IP ITAC is almost entirely made up of legacy industry players who come from a different era, and who know little about today's innovation. In fact, they tend to fight against innovation. As Lee notes, the USTR used to work mostly with exporters -- companies who ship stuff to foreign countries, and their general outlook on everything is from that perspective. But that makes no sense when you're talking about information. Rather than crafting export policies, they're creating information infrastructure policy, when the very flow of information is critical to innovation. And they simply don't get that. At all.

Lee also reports (for the first time publicly) how the USTR flat out rejected a recent attempt to put copyright law expert Andrew Bridges on the IP ITAC. Bridges is the person you should thank for having music in your pocket, because he defended the legality of the first MP3 player when the RIAA tried to sue it out of existence. He's also worked closely with a ton of internet companies and knows better than just about anyone I know how innovation works these days. You may also recognize him for fighting the US government's bogus attempt to seize a hip hop blog. Even though his expertise is copyright law, the USTR said he could only join the "Information and Communications Technologies" ITAC, which is not his specialty, so he refused the pointless appointment.

But the really concerning part is the insane revolving door between IP maximalist industry players and the USTR. Lee details a very long list of folks who have gone in both directions, between the USTR and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as between the USTR and various copyright maximalist organizations. Here's just a snippet.

The lead American negotiator was Ralph Ives, who was promoted to Assistant USTR for Pharmaceutical Policy soon after the negotiations concluded. He was aided by Claude Burcky, Deputy Assistant USTR for Intellectual Property. Less than three months after the Australia agreement was signed, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that both men would take jobs at pharmaceutical or medical device companies. Their new employers stood to benefit from some of the pro-patent-holder provisions of the treaty. Ives took a job at AdvaMed, a trade group representing medical device manufacturers. Burcky moved to the pharmaceutical and medical device company Abbott Labs.

Since then, Abbott has hired two other USTR veterans, Andrea Durkin and Karen Hauda, according to the women's LinkedIn pages. Another USTR official, Kira Alvarez, has gone through the revolving door twice over the last 15 years. Her LinkedIn profile indicates that she served at USTR from 2000 to 2003, spent four years at the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, and then returned to USTR in 2008 as Deputy Assistant USTR for Intellectual Property Enforcement. She was there for five years before she took a job at AbbVie, a pharmaceutical firm that spun off from Abbott earlier this year.

According to his official biography at the site of the Biotechnology Industry Associaiton, Joseph Damond "was chief negotiator of the historic U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade agreement" during his 12 years at USTR. He then spent five years at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America before moving to BIO. Justin McCarthy went through the revolving door in the other direction. According to a USTR press release, McCarthy was responsible for intellectual property issues at the pharmaceutical company Pfizer from 2003 to 2005 before he was hired at USTR. He now works at a lobbying firm.

And that's just the basics. Of course, this is the very nature of the USTR. After all, their boss, Michael Froman, was once described by Reuters as "one of the most egregious examples... of the way the revolving door works between business and government generally." So that's the guy who sets the tone there, though Froman's only been at the USTR for a brief time. This culture is pervasive.

And it's a real problem. The USTR doesn't seem to recognize that what's best for a few large industry players who might give the USTR employees jobs a few months down the road, can be disastrous for both the American public and the American economy. I've had USTR people try to defend what they do to me by claiming that "it's our job to support US trade interests." But that's taking an excessively dangerous view of what their role really is. It's a myopically narrow view of what the US's trade interests are, based on a laughably narrowminded group of individuals whose interests may be quite harmful to the wider US public and economy.

The USTR may claim it's trying to help promote American jobs, but it really looks like it's their own jobs that are most important to them.

Either way, this is even more evidence that the USTR simply has no credibility on issues like copyright and patents. There's no reason why this "free trade" agreement should include intellectual property in the first place, since it's the very antithesis of free trade. But now that it's quite clear that the USTR is impossibly biased on this issue, it's even more reason to simply strip out the IP chapter entirely.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, exporters, lobbyists, patents, pharmaceuticals, revolving door, soft corruption, tafta, tpp, trade agreements, ttip, ustr

Former White House IP Czar Immediately Jumps Ship To Microsoft-Driven Anti-Piracy Lobbying Group BSA

from the shameful dept

This was rumored for weeks before the former White House IP czar (technically "Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator") even had announced that she was stepping down from her job, but now it's been confirmed: just weeks after leaving the White House, Victoria Espinel will take over as the head of the Business Software Alliance, a group with a shameful past of overaggressive anti-piracy and pro-software patent positions, driven in large part by legacy software companies long past their innovation stage, and well into their "litigation" against innovators stage. The organization tends to take its orders mainly from Microsoft and Autodesk, two proponents of very strong copyright and patent enforcement, because it helps those legacy companies ward of competitors and disruptive innovators.

As you may recall, every year the BSA puts out a laughably ridiculous "global piracy study" that argues every infringing copy should count as a "lost sale." The BSA has a long history of using those reports to mislead the public and policy makers. The BSA also has a long history of raiding companies, tying them up in ridiculous "audits" where if you can't find the specific paperwork for the software you licensed years ago, you may be forced to pay huge sums. The organization has been widely criticized for the practices which often push small businesses to the edge of bankruptcy just because they can't find the right paperwork. The program also relies on bribing employees and former employees to rat out their companies based on completely bogus promises of payouts of "up to $1 million," when they almost never pay out more than $5,000. We once promised to pay out "up to $1 million" if anyone could prove a BSA $1 million payout. We never had to pay out a dime.

The BSA also, of course, was a strong supporter of SOPA until Microsoft realized that its users were angry and that SOPA might cause tremendous problems for the internet... and magically, the BSA suddenly changed its mind. The BSA has always had a close relationship with the federal government, of course. For years, its "anti-piracy" efforts were run by Neil MacBride who, like Espinel, once worked for Joe Biden. MacBride left the BSA after President Obama was elected to become the a top Justice Department official, later switching to become the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virgnia, where he's been involved in a number of high profile cases, including those involving copyright enforcement -- such as the case against Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. Just last week MacBride announced he was stepping down.

It is worth noting that, while I often disagreed with the position of the administration and Espinel on IP enforcement issues, she was much more willing to actually listen to complaints and have pretty open and wide ranging discussions on the issues. In the time she was in office, she was more than willing to reach out and discuss concerns and complaints that I and others had raised about the administration's positions, and some of her more recent efforts showed that she was certainly willing to take such constructive criticism into account. I hope that she will be willing to do the same in this new position, but I have concerns, since the role is not about pushing for the most effective policy position, but the one that benefits a few giant legacy companies the most. And the BSA is so tainted on that front, it would take a pretty miraculous shift to make the organization a "good" player on these issues.

Of larger concern: Espinel was intimately involved in a number of the discussions on "voluntary" agreements between various industries over how to deal with copyright infringement, meaning that she knows quite well the positions and plans of those whom she now may be fighting against in her new role, where she obviously has strong connections to those still in the government. Considering the massive concern about the "revolving door" between IP maximalist organizations and the government, the risk of bad results here seems quite high. Espinel was quite successful in bringing in a variety of viewpoints and trying to find common ground. Unfortunately, that's not what her new position likely calls for.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, copyright, ip czar, lobbying, patents, revolving door, victoria espinel
Companies: autodesk, bsa, microsoft

USTR Nominee Froman Called 'One Of The Most Egregious Examples Of The Way The Revolving Door Works Between Gov't And Business'

from the that-doesn't-bode-well dept

After posting a bit about Michael Froman, the new nominee for USTR, I was already skeptical that he'd be any improvement over the predecessor, Ron Kirk. After all, Froman was deeply involved in three of the worst free trade agreements that the US has negotiated over the past few years, which more or less set the model for the ambitious and dangerously misguided ACTA and TPP agreements. However, some others have pointed out that it may be even worse, highlighting a Felix Salmon blog post from 2009, in which he calls Michael Froman out as being an "egregious example" of the revolving door problem we've highlighted between regulators and the businesses they regulate.

[Michael Froman's] one of the most egregious examples — up there with Bob Rubin, literally — we’ve yet seen of the way the revolving door works between business and government generally, and between Citigroup and Treasury in particular.

That's troubling, to say the least. Salmon points to a Matt Taibbi piece for Rolling Stone that highlights some very questionable activity on the part of Froman, including keeping his job at Citibank while helping to select the economic team for Obama's first term... the very folks who would be in charge of regulating Citibank.

Leading the search for the president’s new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman, a high-ranking executive at Citigroup. During the campaign, Froman had emerged as one of Obama’s biggest fundraisers, bundling $200,000 in contributions and introducing the candidate to a host of heavy hitters — chief among them his mentor Bob Rubin, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Froman had served as chief of staff to Rubin at Treasury, and had followed his boss when Rubin left the Clinton administration to serve as a senior counselor to Citigroup (a massive new financial conglomerate created by deregulatory moves pushed through by Rubin himself).

Incredibly, Froman did not resign from the bank when he went to work for Obama: He remained in the employ of Citigroup for two more months, even as he helped appoint the very people who would shape the future of his own firm....

That piece also talks about Froman's role in getting Timothy Geithner his job at Treasury, right after Geithner helped craft the bailout of Citibank that basically put all the risk on the Fed and didn't require any Citi concessions or exec changes, despite their own culpability in making a ton of bad investments.

Geithner, in other words, is hired to head the U.S. Treasury by an executive from Citigroup — Michael Froman — before the ink is even dry on a massive government giveaway to Citigroup that Geithner himself was instrumental in delivering. In the annals of brazen political swindles, this one has to go in the all-time Fuck-the-Optics Hall of Fame.

Wall Street loved the Citi bailout and the Geithner nomination so much that the Dow immediately posted its biggest two-day jump since 1987, rising 11.8 percent. Citi shares jumped 58 percent in a single day, and JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley soared more than 20 percent, as Wall Street embraced the news that the government’s bailout generosity would not die with George W. Bush and Hank Paulson.

I was hopeful that perhaps we'd get a USTR who was in favor of openness and transparency, but it looks like Froman may be the quintessential example of a backroom dealer, who already has a reputation for pushing through bad trade agreements.

Filed Under: conflict of interest, michael froman, revolving door, soft corruption, ustr

Surprise: Rep. Bob Goodlatte Thinks The Justice Department Is Too Cozy With Hollywood

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the current head of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen as a friend of copyright maximalists -- generally supporting their legislative efforts. He's not nearly as extreme as his predecessor, Lamar Smith, but he's hardly seen as a problem for Hollywood. So, it's a bit surprising to see Goodlatte pen an article for Politico, talking about "waste" at the Justice Department, where he explicitly calls out the DOJ's cozy relationship with Hollywood.

While he isn't talking about the cozy relationship that worries us -- the domain seizures, the willingness (and eagerness) to act as Hollywood's personal police force, and the revolving door between DOJ lawyers and big entertainment lobbying and litigation firms -- it is still interesting to see Goodlatte less than happy about some aspect of the DOJ and Hollywood's close and personal relationship:

Tax dollars are also used at the department to help the entertainment industry. The FBI has its own Investigative Publicity and Public Affairs Unit, which is dedicated to helping Hollywood make movies and TV shows, including “The Kingdom,” “Fast and Furious 4,” “CSI,” “Numb3rs” and “Without a Trace.” This perk for Hollywood comes with an annual price tag of $1.5 million to the American taxpayer.

We actually agree that this is a sickening waste of taxpayer funds. And while it's less concerning than those things we mentioned above, it does serve to provide more reasons why the DOJ seems so eager to buddy up with Hollywood when it comes to law enforcement. They're star-chasing. Either way, kudos to Goodlatte for calling out this point, and hopefully it will also lead to him recognizing that the improper relationship between Hollywood and the DOJ goes well beyond making TV shows.

Filed Under: bob goodlatte, copyright, doj, hollywood, revolving door

Former RIAA VP Named 2nd In Command Of Copyright Office

from the revolving-door dept

We've talked in the past about how unfortunate it is that the US Copyright Office seems almost entirely beholden to the legacy copyright players, rather than to the stated purpose of copyright law. That is, instead of looking at how copyright can lead to the maximum benefit for the public ("promoting the progress of science") it seems to focus on what will make the big legacy players -- the RIAA and MPAA -- happy. Part of this, of course, is the somewhat continuous revolving door between industry and the Copyright Office. Just a few months ago we wrote about how the Copyright Office's General Counsel, David Carson, had jumped ship to go join the IFPI (the international version of the RIAA).

Last night the news came out that the US Copyright Office had now named Karyn Temple Claggett as the Associate Register of Copyright and Director of Policy & International Affairs. While Temple Claggett has actually been at the Copyright Office for a little while as Senior Counsel for Policy and International Affairs, not too long ago she was a hotshot litigator for... the RIAA. In fact, an old bio of hers, from when she was at the RIAA (as VP, Litigation and Legal Affairs), notes that she was instrumental in their ever-present legal campaign against pretty much any innovative technology that comes along:

While at the RIAA, Ms. Temple-Claggett has worked on some of the most high-profile copyright cases brought by copyright owners in recent years, including the Supreme Court Grokster litigation, as well as litigation against LimeWire, XM Satellite Radio and Usenet.com

I'm sure she's a fine person and a good litigator, but it's difficult to think that she'll be anything but a pure maximalist in favor of expanding copyrights and copyright enforcement, and against any innovation that challenges the status quo. It's hard not to be cynical when you see this kind of revolving door. And, of course, it's always entirely one-sided. Could you imagine the Copyright Office naming a top EFF litigator as second in command? Exactly the point. How is it possible to take the Copyright Office seriously as an advocate for what's best for the public, when the connections there are to industries who lean heavily on keeping out innovation and promoting an old business model through aggressive litigation and regulation?

Filed Under: bias, copyright office, david carson, karyn temple claggett, lobbyists, revolving door
Companies: riaa