Trump Whines About AT&T, Ignores His FCC Has Spent Two Years Kissing The Company's Ass

from the ill-communication dept

While there are countless news outlets that justifiably criticize the President, Trump has long been particularly fixated on CNN. So fixated, in fact, that it's believed this disdain for the network (in addition to Rupert Murdoch's competitive desires) played a starring role in his DOJ's bungled effort to try and block AT&T's $86 billion merger with CNN parent company Time Warner.

This week, Trump doubled down once again, proclaiming that the public should stop using AT&T services as punishment for CNN's criticism of the President:

The tirade resulted in a fairly feeble effort to get the #DumpATT hashtag trending on Twitter, and some consternation and furrowed brows among journalists who took the rambling Tweet a bit too seriously.

The irony here, at least if you're an adult who has actually paid attention to this administration's policies, is that AT&T has received a near-endless list of favors from Trump's administration, many of which it's not entirely clear that Trump is even aware of. In fact, AT&T has probably received more regulatory handouts from this administration than any other administration in American history. Which, if you tracked the favors doled out by Bush-era FCC boss Michael Powell (now the top lobbyist for the cable industry), that's saying something.

AT&T was a massive beneficiary of the Trump tax cuts, now saving $3 billion annually in perpetuity. According to AT&T, that money was supposed to go back into the company's network and employees, but instead resulted widespread layoffs. Trump's FCC also gave AT&T a massive regulatory handout when it helped kill broadband privacy protections, killed net neutrality rules with popular bipartisan support, and voluntarily eroded its own authority over ISPs like AT&T at lobbyist behest. Trump's FCC has also routinely turned a blind eye to AT&T scandals like its failure to police location data sales.

There's countless other favors AT&T has gleaned from the Trump administration as well, whether it's the FCC decision to weaken the very definition of broadband competition or the killing of plans to bring more competition to the cable box. The Trump administration fealty to AT&T is so severe, we're at the point that when reporters contact Trump's FCC for information, they've occasionally been directed to US Telecom, a lobbyist organization spearheaded by... AT&T.

People tend to look at the Trump DOJ's decision to sue to thwart the Time Warner merger (which again had more to do with helping Rupert Murdoch and hurting CNN than any disdain for AT&T) as a sign of Trump's "opposition" to AT&T, but you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a company that's done as well under Trump as CNN's new parent company. That quickly forgotten $600,000 AT&T's lobbyists paid now-imprisoned Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for broader access to the administration seems to have been money well spent.

The entire fracas once again highlights how Trump's Twitter tirades are only tangentially related to reality, and very rarely tethered to his administration's actual policies. In fact, based on his comments on net neutrality, it's not really clear the President of the United States has the foggiest understanding of what his own FCC is doing. If Trump really wanted to hurt AT&T and CNN, a good first step would probably be to stop kissing the Dallas-based telecom giant's massive, monopolized ass.

Filed Under: antitrust, doj, donald trump, fcc, oversight, regulations, subsidies, telcos
Companies: at&t

The Pai FCC Sits On Its Hands While Phone Companies Rip Off American Taxpayers

from the ill-communication dept

We've talked often about how the nation's phone companies, now fixated on video and online advertising, have effectively just been letting their DSL and phone networks fall apart while still charging exorbitant rates. Not only did these companies take billions in taxpayer dollars to build these older copper-based networks, they took billions more in subsidies for fiber upgrades they never fully deployed. Yet increasingly we've watched as they've refused to upgrade or even repair their networks across countless states, leaving customers trapped with expensive service that often doesn't even meet the FCC's standard definition of broadband (25 Mbps).

This problem has often been exemplified by Frontier Communications in West Virginia, where local Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre has quietly done an amazing job the last few years chronicling the state's immense corruption and dysfunction, from the state's use of broadband stimulus subsidies on unused, overpowered routers and overpaid, redundant consultants, to state leaders' attempts to bury reports supporting allegations that Frontier engaged in systemic, statewide fraud on the taxpayer dime.

Though not quite as profound, similar problems have plagued Frontier's operations in the state of Minnesota. The Minnesota Attorney General's office has been investigating whether Frontier violated state consumer-protection laws for a while now, and not long ago issued a 133 page report (pdf) detailing how terrible the company is at maintaining and repairing its network despite endless taxpayer subsidies. The report clearly illustrated a pattern of the company letting outages go on for months at a time, often putting paying customers at risk:

"The findings of this investigation detail an extraordinary situation, where customers have suffered with outages of months, or more, when the law requires telephone utilities to make all reasonable efforts to prevent interruptions of service. When interruptions occur, telephone utilities are to restore service “with the shortest possible delay.” Frontier customers with these outages include those with family members with urgent medical needs, such as pacemakers monitored by their medical teams via the customer’s landline."

Given that Frontier receives $283.4 million each year from the FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF), there's some obvious questions here as to who is minding the store and ensuring that Frontier is adhering to the law.

Like most broadband dysfunction, giant broadband ISPs get away with this sort of thing thanks to two things: a lack of real broadband competition, and regulatory capture. Case in point: Ajit Pai, whose FCC is supposed at least occasionally protect the American public. Senators in Minnesota have recently been pressing him to take some kind of action, even to publicly condemn the kind of grift and consumer mistreatment that's pretty common in the the state. In a letter posted to the FCC website (pdf), Pai effectively acknowledged the problem, though falls well short of saying he'll actually do anything about it:

"...the FCC will remain vigilant to ensure that our rules are observed and taxpayer funds respected. Accordingly, I have conveyed the information from your letter regarding the state commission’s investigation to our staff and have asked them carefully to monitor this development. Thank you for bringing this aspect of the issue to my attention."

While Pai is just a particularly obvious example of the regulatory capture that has infected telecom, this kind of "maybe we'll look into it" attitude has plagued both parties for decades when it comes to big telecom's long history of taxpayer-supported shenanigans and overall apathy. Needless to say, local state Senators weren't particularly enthusiastic about Pai's promise, especially given Pai's often breathless claims that he's a champion of stopping fraud and waste:

"For a chairman who is so concerned with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, it's baffling that the commission tasked with overseeing billions of dollars in public money is declining to investigate the more than a thousand allegations of poor service by a company that receives that public money to provide those services," US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) told Ars in a statement today."

Given this is America, this will likely just be dismissed as partisan bickering. But it shouldn't be. We've thrown endless billions in taxpayer dollars at giant telecom conglomerates with often just a fleeting effort to ensure that money is being spent wisely. And while it's nice the Pai FCC will "monitor" the problem, we're long past that point. If you dig for more than twenty seconds, you can find endless examples of giant ISPs taking taxpayer dollars in exchange for the technological equivalent of damp garbage. And were Pai a quarter of the stalwart defender of fraud and waste he professes to be, this stuff would be met with a lot more than just "we might look into it."

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, fiber, oversight, subsidies, taxpayers, upgrades
Companies: frontier communications

NYPD Oversight Report Confirms NYPD Not Interested In Being Overseen

from the take-all-you-can,-give-nothing-back dept

New York City's Department of Investigation can only do so much. The rest is up to the NYPD. The DOI made 145 recommendations in 2018 -- covering everything from use of force reporting to sex crime investigations. To date, the NYPD has implemented less than half of those. It has completely rejected 31 recommendations, a third of those covering proposed changes to its use of force reporting.

Oversight is only as good as the agency being overseen. The NYPD doesn't care much for accountability. So, it's chosen to ignore the things it doesn't like and half-ass its way towards compliance with recommendations it feels it might be able to live with.

Most of the rejections come from changes to use of force reporting. The NYPD would prefer no use of force reporting. The DOI would prefer 100% accountability in this area. A "compromise" has been reached. From the report [PDF]:

Separate from T.R.I. forms, officers are also required to indicate the use of force on arrest reports. OIG-NYPD found that in at least 30% of the arrest reports with resisting arrest charges in the 2016 study period (and 55.9% in a 2017 sample), officers stated that “No” force was used but still filed a T.R.I. form affirming that the officer indeed used reportable force during the incident. This means that officers are underreporting force on arrest reports. This accuracy issue not only undermines the efficacy of future oversight audits, but risks engendering a false sense of compliance.

As was detailed in last year's report, this resulted in the NYPD claiming officers only used force in 1.3% of arrests, when it was clear the number was actually much higher.

The NYPD rejected completely any public reporting on use of force statistics, including the demographics of officers deploying force and of those who force was used against.

The bad news continues. The NYPD's sex crime division remains too understaffed to handle investigations. On top of that, the limited resources are prioritized badly, resulting in too little attention being paid to larger problems.

In late 2016, OIG-NYPD began tracking a troubling trend. While reported sex crimes—especially those where the perpetrator was known to the victim—were trending up, arrests were trending down. In early 2017, OIG-NYPD received credible complaints regarding dysfunction at the NYPD Special Victims Division (SVD) squads that investigate adult sex-crimes. OIG-NYPD then launched a full investigation of SVD, focusing on the units’ staffing resources.

[...]

the investigation also found that NYPD had understaffed and under-resourced SVD for at least the last nine years. As a result of understaffing, OIGNYPD’s investigation also found that NYPD had prioritized so-called “stranger rapes” and other more high-profile cases, while “acquaintance rape” and other investigations received less attention.

Many New Yorkers might like to know how much NYPD misconduct is costing them. The NYPD has vowed to be of no help on that issue, preferring to remain ignorant of the monetary damage its officers cause.

OIG-NYPD also found that, despite NYPD’s prior acknowledgement of the benefits of analyzing litigation data, NYPD had abandoned plans to use its early intervention system to track the number, types, and monetary outcomes of lawsuits filed against individual officers.

The middle finger to the public is extended further by the NYPD's rejections: any public reporting of lawsuits filed against the department or tracking of litigation to see what officer behavior problems might need to be addressed.

The shafting of the public continues with the NYPD's handling of complaints against officers and supervisors. If the NYPD isn't slow-walking investigations itself, its software will pitch in with the foot dragging.

On February 7, 2017, OIG-NYPD released a review of how NYPD tracks OG complaints as they move from NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau to the Office of the Chief of Department (OCD)’s Investigation Review Section (IRS). The investigation found inefficiencies and inconsistencies in the process, including outdated technology that is incompatible with other NYPD systems, and which slows the process for completing investigations.

The good news is the NYPD is using new software to track investigations as they move through the system. The bad news is everything else.

The NYPD claims it can process investigations in the 90-day timeframe allotted, rendering a papertrail for extended investigations unnecessary. As proof of this expeditious handling, the NYPD handed its oversight… nothing at all.

NYPD further asserts that allowing investigators to request extensions invites the possibility investigators may request such extensions more routinely and unnecessarily delay completion of the investigation within 90 days. However, when OIG-NYPD asked NYPD to run a report of how many 2018 cases were closed within 90 days, NYPD could not do so.

The NYPD is still "undecided" whether or not the public gets to know how many complaints have been filed against officers. Periodic reporting is still "under discussion" and it seems unlikely it will be moving past that point anytime soon.

The NYPD also promises to continue to surveil people participating in First Amendment-protected activity, like frequenting their house of worship or participating in protests. It rejected three of the DOI's five recommendations: written justification of investigations impacting First Amendment rights, documentation on confidential informants placed in Constitutionally-sensitive locations, and written guidelines setting standards for all phases of these investigations.

The NYPD argues the Handschu guidelines -- the ones it ignored for years while surveilling Muslims -- are more than up to the task of policing the police agency that won't police itself. Very reassuring.

The agency that has strongly resisted every attempt to control it continues to view itself as the final arbiter of police work. Outside opinions aren't welcomed, even as the NYPD insists its opinion on policework should be respected around the world. Without change, the aspects of the agency that are bad can only trend towards worse. It's clear from this report the NYPD feels it should answer to no one, not even the public signing its checks.

Filed Under: department of investigation, doi, nypd, oig, oversight

The FTC Probably Doesn't Need A New 'Big Tech' Task Force. It Just Needs To Do Its Job

from the dog-and-pony-show dept

This week the FTC turned a few heads by announcing that the agency would be creating a new "task force" designed specifically to monitor large technology companies. According to the agency's announcement, this new task force will feature approximately 17 staff attorneys whose mandate will be to more closely examine the competitive tech landscape, and take action if necessary. According to the FTC, this includes taking a closer look at both pending mergers, and large technology mergers that have already happened.

"In addition to examining industry practices and conducting law enforcement investigations, the Technology Task Force will, among other things, coordinate and consult with staff throughout the FTC on technology-related matters, including prospective merger reviews in the technology sector and reviews of consummated technology mergers."

Some, like former Chief FTC technologist Ashkan Soltani, took the announcement to mean that the FTC might just start taking antitrust more seriously in the wake of numerous embarrassing enforcement face plants on this front (like the government's comedic inability to address the glaringly obvious anticompetitive impact of AT&T's latest merger):

Others were justly more skeptical. After all, examining the health of the tech market, contemplating the impact of mergers, and taking actions to address market imbalance and fraud is the FTC's entire job to begin with. And, given the FTC often fails utterly to do that job (especially in the telecom sector), a lot of folks were quick to wonder if this task force was a bit of a show pony:

"I’m scornful of the new seating arrangements, because the FTC has consistently proven they do not want to wield power,” says Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, an antimonopoly think tank that has called for a breakup of Facebook. “They want to hold hearings. They want to get their friend economists and antitrust lawyers to fly into DC and talk to each other. They don’t want to do their No. 1 job, which is to police markets for unfair and anticompetitive behavior.”

While I'm not sold on the need to break up Facebook, it's a solid point that the FTC should maybe focus on doing the job it already has, and layering additional bureaucracy on a broken apparatus may not be the best path forward. The FTC routinely does nothing to address problematic sectors like telecom, where anti-competitive megamergers and ripping off customers is an almost daily occurrence. For example, the FTC could easily crack down on the bogus fees companies like Comcast use to jack up your advertised rate using its power under the FTC Act, yet I've never seen the agency so much as fart in the direction of the problem when bigger companies are involved.

While there's certainly a lot of solid complaints to be made about "big tech" giants like Facebook and Google (especially on the privacy front), it's also pretty obvious that a lot of the recent criticisms of "big tech" aren't being made in good faith. Claims of "censorship" of conservatives, for example, usually don't hold up under scrutiny, and are often driven by folks who wouldn't be facing these problems if they didn't behave like legendary assholes on the internet in the first place.

Similarly a lot of the recent criticism of big tech is coming from telecom giants eager to saddle Silicon Valley giants with unnecessary regulation in a bid to hoover up a bigger slice of the online advertising pie. On the one hand, telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon just got done convincing the FCC to effectively neuter itself, leaving any remaining oversight in the lap of an FTC they know won't (and often can't) hold them accountable. At the same time, telecom lobbyists like Mike Powell have spent the last few years drumming up frothy calls to regulate "big tech," intentionally ignoring their own anticompetitive ambitions:

"Our governmental authorities need to get a handle on what kind of market power and harm flow from companies that have an unassailable hold on large pools of big data, which serve as barriers to entry, allowing them to dominate industries throughout the economy. For years, big tech companies have been extinguishing competitive threats by buying or crushing promising new technologies just as they were emerging. They dominate their core business, and rarely have to foreclose competition by buying their peers. Competition policy must scrutinize more rigorously deals that allow dominant platforms to kill competitive technologies in the cradle."

You're to ignore that telecom monopolies engage in all of this exact behavior, yet government regulators from both parties routinely turn a blind eye to it. And while Comcast desperately wants to be seen as in line with tech giants like Apple, you'll notice that here, telecom has somehow mystically excused itself from the table of accountability, despite being arguably the most problematic sectors in all of "tech" thanks to their actual, growing monopoly over internet access.

Yes, if the task force genuinely results in the FTC finally taking its mandate seriously, enforcing antitrust, and policing terrible behavior, all the better. But given the recent climate, it's probably wise to be wary of this effort being little more than a show pony scripted by sectors and individuals not entirely arguing in good faith.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, consumer protection, ftc, monopolies, oversight, tech, telcos

Big Telecom Claims Oversight & Accountability Violates Its First Amendment Rights

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

The Ajit Pai FCC's attacks on net neutrality have received ample attention. Less talked about is the fact that the attack on net neutrality was just one part of a much broader effort to eliminate what was already pretty tepid oversight of one of the least liked and least competitive tech sectors in America.

The Pai FCC's Orwellian-named "Restoring Internet Freedom" order not only killed net neutrality rules, it dramatically rolled back FCC authority over big ISPs like Comcast, shoveling any remaining authority to an FTC ISP lobbyists know full well lacks the authority or attention span for telecom oversight. In addition to that, the FCC (again at big telecom's behest) has set about trying to claim states can't protect consumers either. With neither competition nor state or federal oversight keeping natural monopolies in line, it shouldn't take a degree in genetics to ferret out the potential pitfalls.

One of the key arguments underpinning most of the telecom sector's lobbying shenanigans of late involves one central claim: that state or federal efforts to hold giant ISPs accountable somehow violates Comcast and other ISPs' First Amendment rights. You'll recall ISPs tried to claim that net neutrality somehow violated ISPs' free speech rights, despite the fact that as simple conduits they don't engage in "editorial" decisions, making the argument rather silly.

The courts didn't agree with broadband providers then, but in his dissenting opinion during those earlier court battles new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh did. Susan Crawford over at Wired offers up a solid piece explaining why, with Kavanaugh now positioned in the highest court of the land, ISPs are very eager to start pushing this argument more forcefully in the months and years to come:

"The addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court roster gives the industry a significant boost. In a 2017 DC Circuit dissenting opinion, Justice Kavanaugh made it clear that he supports giving internet access providers "speaker" privileges, saying that "the First Amendment bars the Government from restricting the editorial discretion of Internet service providers."

She goes on to explain how the perils of embracing this argument opens the door to a future where little to nothing constricts Comcast's worst impulses:

"Treating the transmission of data as "speech" will make it virtually impossible for the government to say anything at all about internet access. If the government tries to regulate someday, you can be confident that the industry will make a lot of noise in the form of lawsuits focused on cable's First Amendment rights to carry out its "editorial discretion," in hopes that Justice Kavanaugh will get a chance to lock in the industry's status as a member of the press. The "speech" of a handful of giant companies will be privileged over the ability of all Americans—including all other American businesses—to communicate."

Again, the lower courts so far haven't much agreed with ISP arguments on this front. The claim was shot down during several court rulings and appeals during the net neutrality fight, and shot down again recently when Charter tried to wiggle out of allegations of racially-motivated treatment of a minority-owned broadcast channel Charter booted from its cable lineup. Charter (aka Spectrum) has also flirted with the argument unsuccessfully in its ongoing battle with New York State over years of poor service and violated merger obligations.

Again, ISPs are simply conduits to information, not acting as editors, making the whole thing a rather stupid argument. But it's a stupid argument being made in an era when stupidity is decidedly en vogue; and ISPs' very much hope to use it as a blunt weapon should any of these fights stumble their way to the Supreme Court over the next few years.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, ajit pai, broadband, fcc, net neutrality, oversight, regulations
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

New York Police Union Says More Reporting On Stops/Frisks Will Hurt The NYPD's Effectiveness

from the 'we're-at-our-best-when-we're-not-held-accountable' dept

If anything might make police-community relations better, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA) -- the union representing NYPD officers -- is against it. PBA President Pat Lynch has come out against body cameras, community policing, and even his own union members.

The battle over the court-ordered revamping of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program rages on five years after Judge Scheindlin found it to be unconstitutional. So does the PBA, which is now arguing keeping data on stops is throwing sand in the NYPD's gears.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association swiftly condemned an order issued Nov. 20 by a Federal Judge concerning stop-and-frisk data that it said would further discourage “proactive policing in New York City.”

The directive from U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres requires the NYPD, in consultation with an outside monitor, to submit for approval a plan to implement “a program for systematically receiving, assessing, and acting on information regarding adverse findings on the conduct of police officers involving illegal stops or illegal trespass enforcements.”

The NYPD has been ordered to document its stops numerous times since the 2013 decision. And it has continued to fail to do so. Officers blame a lack of instruction and/or clarity from upper management. Upper management blames multiple court orders and outside oversight for its inability to deliver clear instructions. And the PBA blames the whole mess on officers being forced to engage in Constitutional policing, which apparently is the opposite of "proactive" policing.

What the PBA is agitating for is the return to halcyon days of stop-and-frisk when NYPD officers performed hundreds of thousands of stops a year, a majority of them targeting the city's minorities. Constitutional policing would trim hundreds of man hours from the production of mandated reports, but the PBA wants nothing to do with keeping officers on patrol, rather than tied up doing internal bookkeeping for the DA's office.

Judge Torres said she was requiring that the plan to provide extensive information on the program include “(a) declinations of prosecutions by the District Attorneys in New York City; (b) suppression decisions by courts precluding evidence as a result of unlawful stops and searches; (c) court findings of incredible testimony by police officers; (d) denials of indemnification and/or representation of police officers by the New York City Law Department; and (e) judgments and settlements against police officers in civil cases where, in the opinion of the New York City Law Department, there exists evidence of police malfeasance.”

The PBA's response? To deride the accountability mandates as "unnecessary" -- an abuse of the court's "narrow authority" that will somehow wreak havoc on the NYPD's rank-and-file. This production of information will "end proactive policing in New York City," according to PBA president Pat Lynch.

Fortunately, Pat Lynch has long been recognized as a blowhard who seldom has the full support of the officers he represents. According to this report, the PBA was "quietly critical" of the PD's stop-and-frisk program when it was being abused to its fullest extent. Now that it's being deployed in a more Constitutional fashion -- resulting in a severe decline in stops -- the PBA wants to pretend the same program it criticized as "overused" is now a critical aspect of New York law enforcement.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, data, nypd, oversight, police, police unions, stop and frisk
Companies: patrolman's benevolent assocation

Consumer Groups Say FCC Weakening Oversight Of Cell Carriers Under Pretense Of Battling Text Message Spam

from the ill-communication dept

Consumer groups say that the Ajit Pai FCC is once again being misleading as he continues his ongoing quest to eliminate most meaningful oversight of cell carriers and broadband providers.

Last week, the FCC announced several major initiatives the agency claimed were intended to help fight text message spam. One of them involves the creation of a reassigned number database, which would help marketers market more efficiently by ensuring that a target of marketing calls and text messages are receiving the messages they either opted in to, or opted out of. But another effort, only vaguely hinted at in the announcement, would further weaken the FCC's consumer protection authority over wireless cell providers, already greatly eroded after the assault on net neutrality.

So some background: a little more than a decade ago, Verizon decided to ban a pro-choice group named NARAL Pro-Choice America from sending text messages to Verizon Wireless customers that had opted in to receiving them. Verizon justified the ban by declaring the text messages "controversial or unsavory"; a curious move for an industry that often cuddles up to marketing spammers and crammers when it's profitable. Ever since then consumer groups, worried that cellular carriers would use their power as gatekeepers to stifle certain voices, have been urging the FCC to declare text messages a “telecommunications service," making it illegal for carriers to ban such select SMS services.

Last week, the Ajit Pai FCC unsurprisingly rejected the request. An accompanying Ajit Pai blog post tries to claim that the FCC's refusal of he request (lobbied for by cellular carriers) was somehow necessary to "protect successful consumer protections," the sort of up is down and cold is hot rhetoric that has come to be one of the trademarks of Pai's legacy:

"In 2015, a mass-texting company named Twilio petitioned the FCC, arguing that wireless messaging should be classified as a “telecommunications service.” This may not seem like a big deal, but such a classification would dramatically curb the ability of wireless providers to use robotext-blocking, anti-spoofing, and other anti-spam features. So I’m circulating a Declaratory Ruling that would instead classify wireless messaging as an “information service.” Aside from being a more legally sound approach, this decision would keep the floodgates to a torrent of spam texts closed, remove regulatory uncertainty, and empower providers to continue finding innovative ways to protect consumers from unwanted text messages.

But consumer groups were quick to point out that there's nothing about the request that would prevent wireless cellular carriers from policing text message spam, and that Pai was (again) being misleading about what his latest policy order actually does:

"It wouldn’t be the holiday season without Chairman Pai giving a great big gift basket to corporate special interests at the expense of American consumers. Chairman Pai proposes to grant the wireless industry’s request to classify text messages as Title I ‘information services,’ stripping away vital consumer protections. Worse, Chairman Pai’s action would give carriers unlimited freedom to censor any speech they consider ‘controversial,’ as Verizon did in 2007 when it blocked NARAL and prompted the Public Knowledge 2007 Petition."

By now Ajit Pai has developed a fairly impressive skill: take something that cellular carriers lobbied for, and justify it by insisting it's essential for overall efficiency and effective consumer protection. Public Knowledge notes that happened again here:

"Chairman Pai supports this outrageous action by claiming the Title II ‘telecommunications service’ classification undermines spam filtering. As the FCC made clear in 2016 (over then-Commissioner Pai’s dissent), text messages and robocalls are both ‘calls’ under the anti-robocall statute, and this Title II designation does not prevent filtering or other technological means to block unwanted robocalls or spam texts. Indeed, Chairman Pai undermines his own argument by pointing out that email, which has always been an information service, has a 50 percent spam rate whereas text messaging, which the FCC treats as a ‘phone call,’ has a 2.5 percent spam rate."

The net neutrality repeal dramatically weakened the FCC's authority over ISPs by rolling back the classification of ISPs from "telecommunications providers" to "information services" under the telecom act. The goal of the giant telecom companies that lobbied for the rollback was fairly obvious: with a weakened FCC, most telecom oversight gets passed to an FTC that generally lacks the authority or resources to do much of anything about bad ISP behavior. As a result, ISPs will be clear to abuse a lack of competition in broadband to harm consumers and nickel-and-dime consumers -- provided they're somewhat subtle about it.

The same logic applies here. With text messages now declared "information services" free from FCC oversight, cellular carriers are free to not only block any SMS services they deem "controversial," but it opens the door to "creative" restrictions that protect a cellular carriers' own services. Fellow FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel went so far as to call the policy decision "bogus doublespeak," but most media outlets appeared to buy into the Pai FCC's claims that mindlessly doing whatever the biggest cellular companies want is somehow a massive boon to consumer protection.

Filed Under: ajit pai, consumer protection, fcc, information service, oversight, telecommunications service, text message spam
Companies: twilio, verizon

'Oversight' Hearing Fails Utterly To Hold FCC Accountable For Lying To Congress About Fake DDOS Attack

from the ill-communication dept

FCC "oversight" hearings continue to be comically lacking in the actual oversight department. As we noted previously, today was Congress' opportunity to hold the FCC and agency head Ajit Pai accountable for making up a DDOS attack and then lying (repeatedly) about it to the press, FBI investigators, and Congress. As we've previously stated, both e-mails obtained via FOIA and an FCC Inspector General report (pdf) found that the FCC bizarrely made up a DDOS attack to try and explain away the fact that John Oliver viewers pissed about the net neutrality repeal crashed the FCC comment system.

The IG's report and internal e-mails clearly illustrate that not only did FCC CIO make up a DDOS, but several FCC staffers then misled Congress repeatedly about the total lack of evidence supporting that claim. The false statements were bad enough to warrant them being forwarded to the DOJ, which refused to prosecute anyone. But the e-mails also highlight how the FCC's press office repeatedly misled numerous press outlets, and even went so far as to issue statements denigrating reporters like Gizmodo's Dell Cameron for being "irresponsible" as they slowly uncovered the fake claims.

In a functional democracy, this is the sort of thing that would be covered extensively at a hearing purportedly designed specifically to hold the FCC accountable to Congress and the public. In said fictional healthy democracy, Congress might even, you know, actually do something about it.

But today's hearing was little more than a joke, rife with lots of giggling, football references, and numerous softball questions -- but few if any hard inquiries about the DDOS attack that wasn't. The closest thing Pai experienced to actually being pressured came from Senator Brian Schatz. But when pressed as to what he knew and when, Pai again threw his employees under the bus, denying that he had any knowledge of or role in the FCC's efforts to mislead Congress and public. The exchange is here for those interested:

In the exchange, Pai said he suspected there was no foul play from the beginning and that the "DDOS" was just the John Oliver effect. When pressed as to why Pai didn't do more to correct the false claims earlier, Pai said he "wanted you to get this information sooner" but remained quiet at the behest of the FCC IG (which has yet to respond to press inquiry). "I made the judgment that we had to adhere to the [IG's] request," claimed Pai, "even though I knew we would be falsely attacked for having done something inappropriate,” Pai said. “The story in this report vindicated my position."

Except the IG's report doesn't vindicate Pai's position, and somebody at the hearing should have pointed that out. In fact, the IG's report shows that it wasn't just the FCC CIO that had been making false DDOS claims for the better part of the last year. There's ample evidence, had anybody on the oversight committee actually wanted to press the issue, that numerous FCC employees repeatedly and intentionally doubled down on claims Pai now claims he knew weren't true.

For example, the IG report found that at least three staffers provided false statements to not only Congress, but also to FBI investigators trying to determine the scope of the alleged attack. And throughout the inquiry Pai's press shop issued statements attacking press outlets for being "irresponsible" simply for reporting the fact there was no evidence or "analysis" to support the FCC's allegation:

"The FCC has never stated that it lacks any documentation of this DDoS attack itself," the agency states. "And news reports claiming that the Commission has said this are without any basis and completely irresponsible. In fact, we have voluminous documentation of this attack in the form of logs collected by our commercial cloud partners."

But none of that was true. There was no DDOS attack and there was no evidence, "voluminous" or otherwise. Again, there's every indication that the FCC doubled down on the fake DDOS claim because it wanted to downplay media reports showing that millions of Americans were pissed about the death of net neutrality (it wasn't public outrage, we were attacked!). It's the same reason why the FCC refused to do anything about the bogus comments that plagued the repeal's net neutrality comment period: it wanted to push the Trumpian narrative that the massive public anger over the attack net neutrality wasn't real.

The fact that Pai's press shop was actively spreading false statements and maligning reporters makes it pretty obvious that Pai actively participated in or was at least aware of the FCC's head fake. But at no point during the "oversight" hearing was this avenue of inquiry pursued. Instead, users who tuned in for a reckoning got to enjoy Ted Cruz once again misrepresenting what net neutrality was, and gushing missives from telecom-sector allies like Senator John Thune on Pai's (artificial) love and adoration of neglected rural broadband markets.

Aside from the fake DDOS attack, the hearing was yet another missed opportunity to seriously hold the FCC to account on a number of issues, including making up data and ignoring the public in the rush to repeal net neutrality, gutting funding for rural broadband, eroding consumer privacy protections, killing efforts to improve cable box competition, propping up predatory prison telco monopolies and every other little anti-consumer, pet project Ajit Pai has embraced as leader of the agency. But instead of "oversight," users that tuned in this morning got something that looked much more like a bipartisan game of patty cake.

Filed Under: ajit pai, brian shatz, david bray, ddos, fcc, john oliver, lies, oversight, senate, ted cruz

TSA Admits 'Quiet Skies' Surveillance Program Is Useless, Promises To Continue Engaging In Useless Surveillance

from the 'no-terrorists-yet-but-you-know,-we'll-just-keep-up-the-spying-because-r dept

More news comes from the Boston Globe about the TSA's "Quiet Skies" program. Having decided the skies were too quiet, the TSA started nominating people for surveillance based on god knows what and sent air marshals all over the US to tail "suspects" as they unsuspectingly went about their travels. Some of the targets included flight attendants and law enforcement officers. To those tasked with this futile (and likely unconstitutional) surveillance, the program is a waste of time and resources, if not a full-blown civil liberties catastrophe.

To the TSA, this previously-hidden bullshit is just some more discretion-flexing on behalf of the American public to save them from terrorists it inadvertently admitted aren't even targeting aircraft anymore. Why go through the hassle of the boarding process, smuggling precursors past half-inept, half-asleep TSA agents when you can just rent a van from Home Depot and drive it into a crowd?

The TSA insists the program has value and that it will continue to send air marshals out to tail flagged randos. It also insists better education of air marshals will shut complaining marshals the hell up. But what it failed to do in a Congressional hearing, called after the Globe's expose, is actually present any evidence the program works.

On Wednesday and Thursday, TSA officials shared details of the program with congressional staffers from four committees and fielded questions in closed-door briefings.

The officials said about 5,000 US citizens had been closely monitored since March and none of them were deemed suspicious or merited further scrutiny, according to people with direct knowledge of the Thursday meeting.

THIS JUST IN:

CARTS, HORSES IN EMBARRASSING MIXUP, SAY TSA OFFICIALS
Cart-horse confusion expected to continue for the foreseeable future

The TSA had to tail 5,000 people just to determine they weren't suspicious. That's the wrong way around, constitutionally-speaking. The government isn't allowed to snoop on people until it can find a reason to snoop on people. That's not how the Fourth Amendment works. The TSA's inept comparison to cops on the beat is worse than apples in regards to oranges. Cops don't tail people to see if they're going to do something suspicious. Suspicions are in place before the surveillance starts since, most of the time, law enforcement agencies don't have the manpower/funding to tail people all over town to see if they might be up to something.

Get a load of this talking point, delivered by someone who doesn't appear to care it's directly contradicted by statements made to Congress by TSA officials.

“The program analyzes information on a passenger’s travel patterns, and through a system of checks and balances, to include robust oversight, effectively adds an additional line of defense to aviation security,” TSA spokesman James Gregory said Monday.

Bullshit. All of this is bullshit. The "robust oversight" is especially bullshit since Congress was first introduced to this program by the Globe's reporting. The TSA claimed it had informed Congressional oversight about the program but oversight members pushed back, stating they'd never heard of it.

The "line of defense" is more bullshit. A program that has, to date, surveilled 5,000 people only to discover the TSA had no reason to surveill these 5,000 people is not a "line of defense." What it actually is is what the union representing the air marshals says it is: a waste of resources.

The air marshals union, which represents many of the 2,000 to 3,000 so-called flying FAMS, criticized Quiet Skies last week, saying that the criteria of the program were unacceptable and that the public would be better served to have air marshals assigned elsewhere.

Now, the TSA is being told it will need to answer questions about its no-longer-secret surveillance program -- one it instituted without input from its oversight and without informing anyone it was putting it in place. And the program has wasted resources 5,000 times to achieve zero wins on the national security front.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, congress, oversight, quiet skies, surveillance, tsa, useless

Intelligence Oversight? Dianne Feinstein Employed A Chinese Spy For Several Years

from the all-about-that-transparency,-eh dept

Well, this is awkward.

Former intelligence officials told me that Chinese intelligence once recruited a staff member at a California office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, and the source reported back to China about local politics. (A spokesperson for Feinstein said the office doesn’t comment on personnel matters or investigations, but noted that no Feinstein staffer in California has ever had a security clearance.)

This detail, located in the middle of Zach Dorfman's report on foreign spying in the Silicon Valley, doesn't tell the whole story. The grand dame of intelligence oversight, the queen of surveillance, somehow managed to let a foreign spy tag along with her for several years -- one employed by her for nearly two decades. Phil Matier and Andy Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle managed to get more details about this spying from a local source.

A local source who knew about the incident confirmed to us that the FBI showed up at Feinstein’s office in Washington, D.C., about five years ago to alert the then-chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee that her driver was being investigated for possible Chinese spying.

“Dianne was mortified,” said our source, who spoke to us only on condition he not be named.

The unnamed staffer was Feinstein's driver and gofer when she was in the Bay Area and served as a liaison with the Chinese-American community. Apparently, he was recruited by someone in China during a visit to Asia.

That someone was connected with the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of State Security.

The FBI interviewed the spy and determined he hadn't passed on anything of value. I guess that's a relief, but it also may indicate just palling around with Feinstein doesn't result in much actionable intelligence. Of course, it may be the spy didn't even know he was a spy. The SF Chronicle source says the suspected spy just considered his State Security a friend who liked to chat about US politics.

What should be concerning is how quietly this was handled. When intelligence oversight members can't keep from being spied on by staffers, there's a problem. It may be impossible to prevent every attempt, but having a long-time employee turn out to be a foreign intelligence source is more than embarrassing, it's potentially dangerous. This was simply swept under the rug by Feinstein and never discussed publicly.

Trust isn't a one-way street. Our surveillance oversight should be accountable to the public just as surely as the intelligence community should be accountable to its oversight. This should have been acknowledged and discussed publicly, not left to anonymous sources and/or FOIA warriors with the tenacity and funding to force the government to hand over documents dealing with its hidden screw-ups.

Filed Under: china, dianne feinstein, intelligence, oversight