Big Telecom Wants A Cookie For Pausing PAC Donations After Hoovering Up Billions In Trump Favors

from the had-enough,-huh? dept

Outside from perhaps military contractors, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a US business sector that benefitted more from Trumpism that the telecom sector. AT&T nabbed a $42 billion tax break in exchange for roughly 42,000 layoffs and a reduction in network investment. T-Mobile, after hiring Corey Lewandowski and throwing money at Trump's DC hotel, nabbed approval for a Sprint merger most objective experts warned would result in tens of thousands of job losses, less competition, and higher prices. And telecom giants convinced the Trump FCC to effectively lobotomize its consumer protection authority.

The telecom industry also managed to kill net neutrality, neuter local municipalities' abilities to stand up to wireless giants in negotiation, and kill some modest FCC broadband privacy rules before they could even take effect. Topping that off, the telecom sector spent several years convincing the lion's share of DC that "big tech" is the only real monopolistic threat in America, resulting in the entirety of our regulatory and antitrust enforcement being fixated on Silicon Valley while giving telecom (natural monopolies with a thirty year track record of anti-consumer, anticompetitive behavior) a complete pass.

All in all, that's a pretty good haul in a four year span. And I omitted a lot of unidirectional regulatory favors for fear of boring you.

Throughout this period, telecom giants were happy to look the other way as brown-skinned kids were locked in cages, bigotry was used as a political bludgeon, racism flourished, rampant corruption ballooned, and the country descended into chaos at the every whim of an idiot king. Only now, that public opposition has ballooned in the wake of Trump supporters beating a cop to death, has the industry had enough. And by "enough," we mean temporarily suspending select PAC spending for a few weeks until the outrage dies down:

"A large and growing number of tech and telecom companies are freezing their political contributions to Washington lawmakers after President Trump incited a mob that attacked the US Capitol last week. And some companies – including telecom heavyweights AT&T, Verizon and Comcast – are specifically targeting lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo), who opposed President-elect Joe Biden's election victory."

Keep in mind, AT&T and Comcast alone were some of the heaviest donors to Republicans that spread bullshit claims to undermine a free and fair election, resulting in riots and casualties. And AT&T was almost certainly playing a major role in the GOP attacks on Section 230, a law essential to the basic functioning of online discourse. And who can forget that time AT&T threw $600,000 under the table at Trump "fixer" Michael Cohen to gain additional insider access to the President as it pursued the very successful lobotomization of the FCC.

Now the same companies that threw millions at Trumpland while ignoring or downplaying every last scandal want a cookie for temporarily suspending PAC spending for a few weeks until public outrage dies down. Something that usually happens anyway right about now as companies adjust to the new political realities of a new incoming administration and a shifting Congress. And because the US press is routinely incapable of calling a duck a duck (fascism, racism, corruption, hypocrisy), it will probably work.

Filed Under: donations, insurrection, pac, politics
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

Boys And Girls Club Backtracks After Folks Ask Why It's Helping A Cable Monopoly Lobby The FCC

from the fake-plastic-enthusiasm dept

Last month we noted how the Boys and Girls Club was one of several organizations cable giant Charter (Spectrum) was using to lobby the FCC in a bid to kill off merger conditions affixed to its 2015 merger with Time Warner Cable. Many of those conditions actively protect consumers from monopoly price gouging (a 7 year temporary moratorium on arbitrary and unnecessary usage caps, for example). Other conditions worked to expand broadband into less affluent areas. Despite the conditions actually helping, you know, boys and girls... the club's letter opposed them.

In a letter to the FCC, the Boys and Girls Club insisted that a recent $5,000 donation by Charter to the organization helped it weather the COVID-19 storm, and that "lifting these conditions will level the playing field for Charter while having zero impact on the online video marketplace." But after activist and reporter Phil Dampier pointed out that wasn't true (garnering local press attention), both the Boys and Girls Club and Charter appear to have quickly pivoted to damage control mode.

In a statement to a Rochester, New York NBC affiliate, the Club acknowledges that after getting a big donation they signed off on a letter to the FCC that was written by Charter -- without reading it:

"The Niagara Falls Boys & Girls Club received a request and prepared letter from Charter Communications affirming their charitable gift of $5,000 to support our summer programming. After quick review of the letter we submitted it. Unfortunately, upon closer review we see that the last paragraph of the letter states that we support 'Charter’s petition to sunset merger conditions.' It was never our intention to officially support anything. The Niagara Falls Boys & Girls Club does not take a stance either way. We thank Charter Communications for their support of the youth development services we provide to Niagara Falls children."

Whoops-a-daisy! I not only accidentally lobbied the FCC on behalf of a local cable monopoly, I supported policies that actively harm the entire stated mission of our organization! Charter, for its part, issued a statement that fails to acknowledge much of anything, then tries to brush aside the gross quid pro quo as a "misunderstanding":

"Charter has supported the life-changing work of the Boys & Girls Clubs across the state for many years and we regret this misunderstanding. As an inherently local business with more than 10,000 employees in the state, we strengthen the communities we serve through employee volunteerism, in-kind support and technology, and philanthropic giving. We work in partnership with hundreds of local leaders and organizations, such as the Niagara Falls Boys & Girls Club and the 1,400 young people whose lives they enhance each year, and will continue to do so."

That's a non-answer and a dodge.

A wide variety of groups take telecom cash to repeat whatever they're told, whether it's rural school associations, the U.S. Cattlemen's Association, civil rights advocacy organizations, or even balloonist clubs. Sometimes entirely fake groups are created. Sometimes existing groups are "co-opted" to varying degrees to support bad policy. It was a common tactic in the net neutrality repeal. Hell, it was a major AT&T tactic in its bid to block the 1984 break up of AT&T.

For lobbyists the overall goal is simple: to create the illusion of broad support for bad ideas the actual public -- including these target groups' actual constituents -- otherwise oppose. One time out of twenty the press notices (reporting on unsexy but important merger filing minutiae doesn't generate many ad impressions), and everybody involved pretends it was just some accidental oversight. Because it's legal, nobody does anything. Rinse, wash, repeat.

Filed Under: astroturf, boys and girls clubs, donations, fcc, lobbying
Companies: boys and girls club, charter, charter spectrum

Barrett Brown's Donors Sue DOJ/FBI For Monitoring Their Donations

from the what-kind-of-world-do-you-want-to-live-in? dept

We've written numerous stories about Barrett Brown, the reporter who was sentenced to 63 months in jail after being pressured into signing a plea deal. If you don't recall, Brown's "crime" was trying to get a bunch of people together to crowdsource an investigation into the famous Stratfor email hack. The feds went after him for posting a link (yes, posting a link) to a group to investigate, and because some of the Stratfor info included credit card data, the feds argued that Brown was trafficking in stolen credit cards. Really. And while the feds eventually dismissed the specific charges related to the links, the judge justified the long sentence against him because he copy/pasted that link.

The whole thing was a travesty. Brown is thankfully out of jail now, but earlier this week, Kevin Gallagher, who helped organize a legal defense fund for Brown, sued the Justice Department over claims that the DOJ illegally tracked and monitored everyone who donated to support Brown. Gallagher is looking to make this a class action lawsuit. You can read the full complaint here. From the filing:

The government agents responsible for the arrest and prosecution of the journalist violated the First Amendment by seeking the identities of the donors to the crowd-funding campaign, as well as the amounts of each donation. This violation began when Assistant United States Attorney Candina Heath sent a subpoena (the “WePay Subpoena”) to WePay, Inc. (“WePay”), the host of the crowd-funded legal defense fund, directing WePay to send “any and all information” pertaining to the legal defense fund to Special Agent Robert Smith of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”). The subpoena claimed that the information it requested would be used at the trial of the jailed journalist. However, the identities of, and the amounts donated by, the journalist’s supporters are completely irrelevant to the charges levied against the journalist. On information and belief, the WePay Subpoena was part of a larger scheme by Ms. Heath and Mr. Smith to unlawfully surveil the donors in violation of the First Amendment. As the Ninth Circuit has recognized, “[t]he right of those expressing political, religious, social, or economic views to maintain their anonymity is historic, fundamental, and all too often necessary. The advocacy of unpopular causes may lead to reprisals – not only by government but by society in general. While many who express their views may be willing to accept these consequences, others not so brave or so free to do so will be discouraged from engaging in public advocacy.”

The lawsuit further argues that the subpoena violated the Stored Communications Act (part of ECPA), because it sought the content of electronic communications without a warrant. That's because, in using WePay, donors were able to also include messages of support for Barrett Brown -- and the feds requested that info without a warrant (and the content was less than 180 days old, which still does require a warrant). That's... a problem.

The details of the lawsuit also question whether or not the administrative subpoena that was used to request the info was issued under false pretenses (i.e., it was claimed that the info was necessary for the prosecution of Brown, but instead of being sent to the prosecution team, it was sent instead to the FBI):

The WePay Subpoena indicated that the information it requested would be used in the trial of Barrett Brown. Oddly enough, however, instead of asking WePay to send its response directly to Ms. Heath, the prosecutor, or to lodge its response with the court, the WePay Subpoena compelled WePay to produce information directly to Agent Smith of the FBI. This renders the WePay Subpoena improper under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 17(c). It also demonstrates that Defendants’ claimed purpose of using the information produced in response to the WePay Subpoena at Barrett Brown’s trial was purely pretextual. The true goal of the WePay Subpoena, rather, was to facilitate the unlawful surveillance of the anonymous donors to the crowd-funding campaign.

I have no idea if this case has any chance at all. My suspicion is that the courts will figure out a way to dump it pretty quickly, but at the very least, it should call attention to the question of why the FBI felt that it needed all of the info on everyone donating to Barrett Brown, a journalist they railroaded into jail.

Filed Under: barrett brown, class action, doj, donations, ecpa, fbi, first amendment, kevin gallagher, sca, stored communications act

DailyDirt: Effective Charity FTW

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've previously pointed out how some charities might need some changes to improve their reputation, public image and effectiveness. Some charities have been vilified for million-dollar CEO salaries or inefficient operations, but in the end, everyone wants to see more net good come from their donations than would have happened by doing nothing, right? Here are just a few examples of charitable organizations getting some good results -- even if their methods may still be debated.

• Last year, the Ice Bucket Challenge raised about $115 million (in the US alone) from 2.5 million people, raising awareness about ALS -- and wasting a bit of water. According to the ALS Association, the Ice Bucket money for ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's disease) will be spent thusly: 67% on research, 20% on patient and community services, 9% on education, 2% on fundraising and 2% on external processing fees. The Ice Bucket Challenge was one of the largest charitable events (outside of disaster or emergency), and it may be difficult to repeat this kind of viral phenomenon. Still, the ALS Association wants August to become a traditional month for ALS awareness... and a couple million bucks will be spent to try to get more than a few million back in donations. [url]
• The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) funded a biotech company with $75 million to research a cure for over more than a decade. A treatment from Vertex Pharmaceuticals appears to be successful for some patients, and further research could improve the results for more people who suffer with cystic fibrosis. [url]
• Instead of money, Toyota donated its engineers to the Food Bank for New York City. Armed with a philosophy of 'continuous improvement' (aka kaizen), higher productivity at the charity meant more people were fed more efficiently. Elsewhere, Toyota's efficiency methods are also being used at more and more hospitals. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: als, biotech, cff, charity, cystic fibrosis, donations, efficiency, ice bucket challenge, kaizen, lou gehrig's disease, medicine
Companies: als association, cystic fibrosis foundation, toyota

Ted Cruz's New Presidential Campaign Donation Website Shares Security Certificate With Nigerian-Prince.com

from the feeling-safe-donating-yet? dept

Update: Yes, as lots of angry people are screaming at us (including with detailed explanations of how incredibly, unbelievably, astoundingly stupid I must be), this is a result of Cruz using Cloudflare, which lumps unrelated domains onto the same HTTPS certificate. And yes, Techdirt.com's certificate is hosted by Cloudflare also, and we share it with other domains as well. Feel free to continue to read the original story below and contribute to how stupid you think I am in the comments...

We're big believers in using HTTPS to secure websites (even if HTTPS certificates have their problems -- it's still better than the alternative). But there are pitfalls in setting up your certificate correctly as newly announced presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz apparently discovered this morning. Because along with his campaign launch speech (which was widely mocked by the Liberty University students who were forced to attend), he put up a website for donations. And that website didn't default to HTTPS and also listed nigerian-prince.com as an alternate domain on the security certificate, as first noted by the Twitter feed @PwnAllTheThings: A few hours after this was first noticed, the Cruz campaign appears to have removed nigerian-prince.com from its certificate, but it still raises some questions about just who he has hired to build his websites. I guess that's what happens when even the technologists in your own party openly mock Ted Cruz's ignorance when it comes to technology issues like net neutrality.

Filed Under: donations, https, internet security, nigerian prince, presidential campaign, security, security certificates, ssl, ted cruz, tls

Federal Election Commission Says Political Action Committees Can Accept Payment Via Bitcoins

from the converted-into-dollars dept

After some amount of hand-wringing, the Federal Election Commission has said that political action committees (PACs) may accept bitcoin donations, though they can't then buy goods and services with those bitcoins. Furthermore, it has to convert the bitcoins to dollars before depositing them into its campaign accounts. In other words, its effectively allowing the use of bitcoin as a payment system, rather than as a currency. However, at the same time, it will allow campaigns to buy bitcoins as an investment vehicle.

There's also some confusion over what this all means. Rather than issuing a full ruling, the FEC released an "advisory opinion" based on a specific request from the Make Your Laws PAC, which specifically asked for the ability to accept bitcoin donations up to $100. What's not clear is if the FEC is just agreeing to that level of donations or if it's okaying larger donations as well. In fact, it appears that the FEC commissioners don't even agree with each other as to whether there's a limit on donation sizes:

That low sum assuaged the concerns of several commissioners about the risks of the virtual currency, said Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic appointee.

"The $100 limit was really important to us," she said. "We have to balance a desire to accommodate innovation, which is a good thing, with a concern that we continue to protect transparency in the system and ensure that foreign money doesn't seep in."

[....] But FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, a Republican appointee to the panel, disagreed. He said that the advisory opinion treats bitcoin donations as in-kind contributions -- not official currency -- meaning that the only limits that apply are the federal caps on all forms of accepted donations. Those limit individuals to giving $2,600 to a candidate per election and $5,000 to a political action committee. Individuals and corporations can give unlimited sums to super PACs.

"To me, the opinion that the commission approved today supports the right of bitcoin users to contribute as they would all other kind things of value," he said, such as silver dollars and works of art.

So that's likely to create some sort of mess somewhere down the road.

In the meantime, it's notable that well-known techie -- and one of the small group of clued-in Congressional Representatives -- Jared Polis also just happened to announce today that you can donate to his campaign via bitcoin. Looking at that page, I note that the highest amount allowed is... $100. It would appear he's taking no chances with the disagreement over amounts allowed by the FEC. Polis claims to be the first Congressional rep to accept bitcoin, though others have pointed out that Rep. Steve Stockman has been accepting bitcoin for his Senate campaign for a few months now.

Either way, it's yet another step forward in making bitcoin somewhat more mainstream.

Filed Under: bitcoin, campaign funding, donations, federal election commission, jared polis, pacs, steve stockman

DailyDirt: Changing The Way We Think About Charity

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

When we donate to charities, it's never clear exactly where the money goes and whether our donations actually benefit the people they're supposed to help. Many donors are often shocked and outraged when they learn that some executives at nonprofit charities are being paid salaries exceeding $1 million. But activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta thinks this anger is misplaced and could damage charity fundraising, pointing out that people blame capitalism for creating inequities in our society, but then they refuse to let nonprofits use the tools of capitalism to fix the problem. Here are a few more things to think about when it comes to charities.

• In a recent TED talk, Pallotta suggested that charities should be rewarded for what they actually accomplish even if it costs a lot. People may not like the idea that their money is being used to pay for a charity's CEO salary or for advertising and marketing, but they should think about it this way -- investing in a capable leader and effective marketing efforts will significantly increase the amount of money raised that can then be used to help those in need. [url]
• It's really hard to turn money into help. That's what Tim Myers, founder of the Haiti School Project, realized after having spent more than $100,000 to build a school in Villard, Haiti. [url]
• Somaliland's success could be partly due to its lack of foreign assistance. Somaliland has been operating successfully as an independent country since it seceded from Somalia in 1991. Since Somaliland isn't recognized as a country by the rest of the world, it hasn't been able to receive foreign aid. As a result, it has been surviving by raising local tax revenues, which its citizens have been using as leverage to make the government more accountable.[url]
• Experts at The Center for Global Development suggest that there may be an "aid-institutions paradox" in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. They concluded that foreign aid could undermine a developing country's long-term institutional development and that donors should consider giving money to other more beneficial development activities, such as eradicating endemic diseases, peacekeeping, regional or global public goods, and debt relief.[url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: capitalism, charity, dan pallotta, debt relief, donations, economics, foreign aid, fundraising, marketing, nonprofits, tedtalk

Elected Officials Asked To Return Hollywood Money Following Dodd's Threats

from the avoid-corruption dept

Late last week, we wrote about the ridiculous situation in which MPAA boss Chris Dodd publicly threatened elected officials who take Hollywood money, but who don't pass the laws that the MPAA wants. Of course, most people assume that everyone expects a quid pro quo, but actually stating it out loud and on television is really remarkable, and has resulted in calls for an investigation into Dodd. I'd argue that the focus should really be on the politicians. In fact, the folks over at Free Press are now calling on those in Congress to return campaign donations from Hollywood to show that Congress is not for sale:

"The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV. We think it's time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA's tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship."

Of course, it's unlikely that anyone in Congress will actually do this, but it certainly would make a pretty loud and clear statement.

Filed Under: campaign finance, chris dodd, congress, corruption, donations, pipa, protect ip, sopa
Companies: mpaa

Does The NY Times Donate To Wikipedia For Being A Massive Source Of Information?

from the questions,-questions dept

Glyn Moody points us to an interesting analysis, by David Gerard, of yet another problem with the NY Times' moronic paywall: that it means the NY Times will be cited a lot less on Wikipedia, thereby handing over the "first draft of history" to other publications like The Guardian and the BBC.

But the even more interesting point comes after that:

Every journalist I've spoken to since 2006 uses Wikipedia as their handy universal backgrounder. Funnily enough, there's a distinct lack of donations to the Wikimedia Foundation from newspapers and media organisations. How much did the New York Times donate in the fundraiser?

We do this stuff for everyone to use and reuse. Journalists taking full advantage of this is absolutely fine. But claiming we should then pay the papers for the privilege is just a little odious.

Marcus Carab, who works in a newsroom, made a similar point in response to that article a few weeks ago when the NYTime's Bill Keller claimed that the Huffington Post was a "pirate site," in that newspaper reporters rely on tons of other sources that never get any credit, let alone payment (excuse Marcus' Canadianisms, he can't help it):

Forget the fact that pavement-pounding reporting is a form of aggregation from the public - newspapers actively aggregate from tonnes of published sources too. Every newsroom has a table covered in copies of every other newspaper in town - in case you missed something, or they got an angle you didn't, or you think one of the stories can be taken further. In addition to reporting, all journalists do research: they look up other articles on the topic, find past magazine interviews and pull data from published reports. Many science articles in newspapers are just summaries of journal articles.

And that's just what went on and still goes on in the traditional media ecosystem, amongst the old players. Newspapers actively aggregate from blogs too. Every journalist in entertainment or technology starts his morning looking for leads on blogs, and the first thing any reporter does when they get an assignment on a topic they aren't familiar with is look it up on Wikipedia.

So this raises a really good point about the silly claims from the NY Times and others about how they need to get paid, since they believe that they're the "originators" of the news. I do wonder how many of the people at the NY Times did contribute to Wikipedia? I would bet many of the folks who insist that their own work needs to be paid for by users, have in turn never once contributed to Wikipedia.

Information comes in all sorts of forms from all sorts of places. The NY Times is good at what it does. No one is denying that. But it's delusional in its thinking that it somehow is the piece of the puzzle that is worth the most here.

Filed Under: donations, journalism, paywall, sources
Companies: ny times, wikipedia

NY Times Sends Cease & Desist Letter To Kachingle For Trying To Show Them Alternatives To Paywalls

from the hmm... dept

Back in August, we wrote about two companies Flattr and Kachingle that were trying to create a very easy to use form of micropayments, that do away with the mental transaction costs, as a method of getting people to voluntarily support content they enjoy monetarily. Since then we've been experimenting with Flattr (you can see the widget to the left) and it's been quite interesting, especially since Flattr finally opened its doors to anyone, rather than being invite only, as it was when we first started. We'll have a more complete report about our Flattr experiment sometime soon...

That said, Flattr's competitor, Kachingle (which is similar, but with a few key differences) recently put together an amusing publicity stunt. Knowing that the NY Times paywall is fast approaching, it put together a "Stop the Paywall!" campaign for Kachingle uses, letting them designate which NY Times' columnists they want a piece of their monthly contributions to go to.

It's a pure publicity stunt, and when I saw it announced I wasn't going to write about it. Except... the NY Times and its lawyers have now changed that. While Kachingle leaves out some of the important details, apparently, three people from the NY Times, including the VP of Digital, a lawyer and someone working on the NYT's paywall, called Kachingle, demanding they take down the promotion, saying that it was "annoying" and that it would not stop the paywall. After Kachingle refused, they said they were sending a cease-and-desist letter (which, as of this posting, apparently has not arrived at the Kachingle offices).

In other words, the NY Times just made sure that Kachingle gets a ton more attention for its publicity stunt, and looks like they're simply not open to any alternative business models. I am curious as to the legal reasoning behind the cease-and-desist. I will say that, from the information posted, it is not clearly stated where the money designated for the NY Times' bloggers is actually going, which I would guess may be the legal concern. I guess I could see a trademark claim, in that the NY Times could say that this implies that the NY Times has a business relationship with Kachingle when it does not -- but I think that anyone reading the actual site would immediately recognize that there's clearly no endorsement or relationship with the NY Times. In fact, that's why Kachingle set up the page...

Anyway, if Kachingle ever gets and posts the C&D, we'll be sure to update the post... But, really, what benefit is there to the NY Times in doing this? Threatening Kachingle with legal action seems downright petty and closed minded. Why not let the company run its promotional campaign, see if you learn anything from it, and move on?

Filed Under: cease and desist, donations, micropayments, paywalls
Companies: kachingle, ny times