Tennessee Legislators Can't Stand Up To Cops; Keep Federal Loophole Open For Nashville Law Enforcement

from the asset-forfeiture-gone-mad dept

Earlier this year, the Tennessee legislature passed some very minimal asset forfeiture reforms. The bill, signed into law in May, does nothing more than require periodic reporting on use of forfeiture funds and the occasional audit.

What it doesn't do is require convictions. It also doesn't close the federal loophole, which allows Tennessee law enforcement to bypass state laws if they feel they're too restrictive. Given that state law doesn't really do anything to curb forfeiture abuse, the federal adoption lifeline isn't used quite as often in Tennessee as it is by law enforcement agencies in others states with laws that are actually worth a damn.

But local cops really really really want the federal loophole open. They've been applying pressure to Nashville legislators and it has had the expected effect. (h/t Daniel Horwitz)

Nashville on Tuesday renewed its participation in a controversial 1980s-era federal program that's allowed the police department to keep proceeds from seized assets taken from people suspected of crimes involving drugs.

After spirited debate, the Metro Council voted 25-5 with two abstentions to renew Metro's participation in the "equitable sharing program" with the U.S. Department of Justice and federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The loophole Nashville law enforcement barely needs will remain open. And it will remain open because… well, budgets are tight and we can't keep asking state taxpayers to make up the difference.

Councilwoman Jacobia Dowell, who also voted for renewing the agreement, said not renewing the program would leave a hole in the city's budget.

"I have zero confidence in this council body to find $150,000," Dowell said, noting the city's budget struggles this past year.

So, instead of all taxpayers, Councilwoman Dowell wants to have just a few taxpayers pitch in to help cops -- taxpayers who happen to have property law enforcement thinks they didn't acquire legally.

Or not even taxpayers! Why even trouble those who reside in the state to give law enforcement some extra cash. Why not just take money from people leaving the state? That's the way Tennessee's "drug interdiction" teams work. According to law enforcement, they want to stop the flow of drugs into the state. That doesn't really explain their actions:

While drugs generally come from Mexico on the eastbound side of Interstate 40 and the drug money goes back on the westbound side, the investigation discovered police making 10 times as many stops on the so-called "money side."

Law enforcement doesn't seem to mind the drugs coming in, but it's certainly not going to let the cash head back out. Councilwoman Dowell thinks if cops can't lift money from drug dealers, they won't be able to buy the stuff they need to continue to allow drugs to flow into the state.

What Dowell absolutely doesn't want to see is her poorest constituents asked to dig even deeper to keep the drug interdiction units in business.

She said [the budget shortfall] would end up coming from Nashville's "most distressed and the impoverished communities."

Bless her heart. Oh wait.

Although civil asset forfeiture affects people of every economic status and race, a growing array of studies indicates that low-income individuals and communities of color are hit hardest. The seizing of cash, vehicles, and homes from low-income individuals and people of color not only calls law enforcement practices into question, but also exacerbates the economic struggles that already plague those communities.

None of the rationale makes sense. The drug teams that don't actually catch drugs need money to keep doing the job they're not doing and they need to take it from someone since the state's not going to help them out. The people who are going to help them out are either people leaving the state or low-income residents.

The problem is that when you say someone's going to have to come up with $150,000, someone will have to come up with it. And when that number increases -- and it will -- the shortfall comes directly from residents and other US citizens who have their belongings taken from them without even being accused of a crime.

$150,000 is only the cut from federal sharing. That's Nashville law enforcement's manageable money habit. There's more to it than the federal slush fund. Nashville law enforcement has created a drug enforcement ecosystem that can't be sustained without the seizure of millions of dollars every year. Even prosecutors recognize the problem.

[Nashville County District Attorney Glenn] Funk stated that on his first day as Nashville’s District Attorney, he was told that $1.7 million to $2 million would be needed to be brought in through seizures in order to keep the drug task force in operation. He also expressed concern that individuals were indicted or subject to forfeiture proceedings who would not otherwise have been if civil asset forfeiture were not a “cash cow.” He stated that officers sometimes target people with high-value cars so they can forfeit them and put the cars into service. General Funk provided these as examples of problems that arise “when we don’t have legislative oversight over the funds and assets . . . that are being seized.”

If you want to start fixing forfeiture abuse, start with the federal loophole. Agencies will realize it's not impossible to live without this money. And from there, you can start cutting them off from the main supply by eliminating civil asset forfeiture altogether by adding a conviction requirement. But if you can't even make this small move, you're not serious about fixing the problem. That's Nashville's problem -- one that harms citizens while keeping law enforcement flush with funds they really didn't earn.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, forfeiture, law enforcement, nashville, police, tennessee

Ousted Educator Tries To Talk Appeals Court Into Letting Him Sue Someone For Things Someone Else Said

from the self-screwing-intensifies dept

Because prudence is always in short supply but stupid is the world's foremost renewable resource, an ousted director of a Tennessee culinary school is appealing the dismissal of a defamation suit he brought against his replacement for things a journalist said.

The original lawsuit didn't live long, fortunately. Heavily quoting a Tennessean article by journalist Jim Myers, Tom Loftis -- the former head of the culinary school at the Nashville university -- sued Randy Rayburn (Loftis' replacement) over things Myers said.

Loftis apparently expected his status as a private person (given more reputational protection by courts than public figures) to overcome the deficiencies of his lawsuit. But the deficiencies won and Loftis lost, having failed to show how words written by Jim Myers were somehow libelous statements issued directly by Randy Rayburn.

Loftis should have quit while he was behind. He's already on the hook for the legal fees racked up by Rayburn's defense at this point, but apparently feels the best use of a university severance package is as an accelerant for the fire consuming what's left of his reputation.

Daniel Horwitz, who defended Rayburn against Loftis' first legal leap of faith, is back on board defending against the appeal. According to Loftis, the lower court erred by refusing to read his defamation lawsuit the way Loftis would prefer it to be read: as a false light invasion of privacy lawsuit.

There are shades of difference, but the latter tort allows negative impressions to be actionable, rather than relying on actual defamatory statements made by the defendant. This is about the only choice Loftis has (other than walking away from this) considering there's no indication the statements he's suing about are anything other than Jim Myers' (not Randy Rayburn's) opinions.

It won't make any difference. The allegations remain unchanged. Loftis is still trying to twist the words of a journalist into statements made by his replacement. But nowhere in Myers' article on the cooking school will you find a direct quote of Randy Rayburn. For that matter, you'll find almost nothing in the piece that indicates the statements Loftis is suing over are anything more than Myers' take on the Nashville culinary scene. This is hammered home in Rayburn's reply brief [PDF], something neither he nor his representation probably thought they'd ever have to do.

The entirety of Mr. Loftis’s complaint concerned statements that were neither made by nor attributed to the Defendant, Mr. Randy Rayburn. In fact, at no point in the article was Mr. Rayburn even quoted. Further, nearly all of the objectively innocuous statements referenced in the article did not mention Mr. Loftis, were incapable of conveying any defamatory meaning or inference as a matter of law, and could not seriously be considered “highly offensive” by any reasonable person. Critically, Mr. Loftis also pleaded that the only statements in the article that did mention him were accurate—rendering this lawsuit “possibly unprecedented” in its frivolousness.

It goes on to point out the negative implications of the court treating this appeal with any more respect than it actually deserves.

Despite its frivolousness, however, the implications that the instant lawsuit will carry if its dismissal is not forcefully affirmed by this Court are anything but. Simply put: forcing the supposed source of a news story to defend against a $1.5 million lawsuit for the transgression of being mentioned alongside coverage that a hypersensitive plaintiff considers unflattering poses serious and severe risks to the viability of newsgathering in Tennessee. Consequently, if allowed to move forward, this lawsuit would threaten both free speech and the public’s willingness to engage with journalists at all.

I don't think Loftis has any better chance on appeal. His brief [PDF] claims the court never considered his false light claim, but Rayburn's reply points out the lower court clearly did so… and it did so right out of the gate.

Looking to the Trial Court’s actual Order, the Order’s first paragraph specifically referenced both of Mr. Loftis’s theories of relief, noting that “Mr. Loftis has filed claims for false light invasion of privacy and defamation by implication or innuendo based on statements contained in a newspaper article attached to his Amended Complaint that was written by Jim Myers and published by the Tennessean.”

Next, Paragraph 3 of the Trial Court’s Order recited the legal standards that govern both defamation and false light claims, and it correctly noted that “there is significant and substantial overlap between false light and defamation.”

Thereafter, Paragraph 4 of the Trial Court’s Order applied the law to the facts of Mr. Loftis’s Amended Complaint. After so doing, the Court held that “the statements contained in the Tennessean article are not capable of conveying a defamatory meaning and that they do not give rise to liability as a matter of law.”

At this point Loftis is doing more than just wasting his own money. He's wasting his opponent's money. Considering he's going to be on the hook for both sets of legal fees, he really should have allowed the suit to peacefully expire when the lower court declared it dead.

Filed Under: defamation, false light, jim myers, nashville, randy rayburn, tom loftis

Hotel That Charged Guest $350 For A Negative Review Now Facing A Lawsuit From State Attorney General

from the when-has-this-EVER-worked? dept

The American Dream: own your own business... be your own boss... run your reputation into the ground... charge people's credit cards $350 for negative reviews... get sued by the government. Welcome to Nashville, Indiana, home of the Abbey Inn, whose absentee ownership, lack of on-duty staff, and hidden clauses have led to a precipitous decline in brand health, along with the opportunity to defend itself against a lawsuit brought by the state's attorney general.

It all started with hotel guest Katrina Walker's disastrous stay at the Abbey Inn.

The hotel room wasn’t just dirty. It was “a nightmare,” the guest said.

The air smelled like sewage. Hair and dirt covered the bed sheets, as if the linens hadn’t been cleaned after the last guests had left the Abbey Inn & Suites room that Katrina Arthur and her husband were renting in Nashville, Ind in March 2016. The air conditioner and shower in the room didn’t work right, either, Arthur told WRTV.

“We were just wanting to get away and have some alone time,” Arthur told the TV station. “It looked really pretty on the website.”

Walker left a negative review of Abbey Inn after an email from the hotel asked her to submit a review. This was followed by a (bogus) legal threat from someone who should definitely know better.

Attorney Andrew Szakaly, who owns the hotel, wrote a letter to Arthur on April 2, 2016 telling Arthur that her negative review included “false statements” that had caused “irreparable injury” to his business, according to Indiana’s attorney general.

If Arthur didn’t take down the negative review, Szakaly threatened to file a libel lawsuit against her, according to the attorney general’s office.

Andrew Szakaly isn't just an attorney and the now-former owner of the Abbey Inn. At the point this legal threat occurred, Szakaly was also the attorney for the town of Nashville. At this point, he's moved on to become the county's chief deputy prosecutor. He's also not willing to answer questions about the problems at Abbey Inn that occurred while he owned the business. He's also nuked his own site, which had his phone number and email address. But it lives on at the Internet Archive, even if calls and emails are going unanswered.

He will likely have to provide some answers. After sending out the bogus legal threat, Szakaly billed Walker $350 for the negative review, citing a clause in Abbey Inn's guest policy. Walker claims she never saw anything in the copy of the guest policy she received at the hotel. The clause also isn't posted anywhere in the business where guests can view it. It can be found in archived snapshots of the Inn's website -- which has also been nuked following negative press coverage.

Now, Indiana's state attorney general is taking the business to court. The complaint [PDF] (h/t Cyrus Farivar) lists dozens of things the Abbey Inn did wrong, on top of the $350 charge for "disparaging" an already-questionable hotel.

Abbey Inn Suites maintains an overnight phone number for times when an employee is not available on-site to address consumer issues, but signs in each guest room state a consumer must not call overnight phone number unless there is an emergency. The signs further state if a consumer calls the overnight phone number and there was not an emergency, Abbey Inn Suites will charge the consumer in the amount of $100.00.

[...]

During her stay, Ms. Arthur, experienced issues with a sewage smell in her room, issues with water pressure, problems with the air conditioner, and an unkempt room.

Ms. Arthur attempted to notify Abbey Inn Suites management of the issues, but there was no employee on site and her calls to the after-hours phone number went unanswered.

There was no employee at the front desk when Ms. Arthur checked out on March 13, 2016, to whom she could direct a complaint about the issues encountered during her stay.

This last part is especially important because it gives guests no other option but to "violate" the bogus clause in the guest policies that they never see [emphasis added]:

Guests agree that if guests find any problems with our accommodations and fail to provide us the opportunity to address those problems while the guest is with us, and/or refuses our exclusive remedy, but then disparages us in any public manner, we will then be entitled to charge their credit card an additional $350 damage. Should guest refuse to retract any such public statements legal action may be pursued.

The lack of staff makes it all but impossible for issues to be resolved before the guest leaves.

The attorney general accuses the business of violating state deceptive practices laws with its non-disparagement clause. The office seeks an injunction and fines of $5,000 per violation. As the complaint points out, the guest policy went far beyond discouraging negative reviews. It also prevented consumers from bringing grievances against the Inn.

The Policy also forces consumers to accept the Defendant's final and binding "exclusive remedy" to resolve any situation or issue, regardless of what that remedy entails and whether it actually resolves the situation or issue to the consumer's satisfaction.

[...]

The Policy not only attempted to limit negative online reviews, thus improperly shielding the Defendant from the consequences of providing consumers with a negative experience or unsatisfactory customer service during their stay, but would also prohibit a consumer from filing a consumer complaint with the Attorney General or Better Business Bureau, filing a lawsuit, or even a police report, as all could be considered a "disparagement"
in a "public manner."

The Abbey Inn's reputation is now destroyed, thanks to a clause inserted by the attorney/owner who also happens to hold a government job as a prosecutor. Hopefully, this all lands in the lap of Brown County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Andrew Szakaly.

Filed Under: andrew szakaly, free speech, nashville, non-disparagement, reviews, tennesee
Companies: abbey inn & suites

Judge Backs AT&T, Comcast Nuisance Suit Against Google Fiber In Nashville

from the why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

There's numerous methods incumbent ISPs use to keep broadband competition at bay, from buying protectionist state laws to a steady supply of revolving door regulators and lobbyists with a vested interest in protecting the status quo. This regulatory capture goes a long way toward explaining why Americans pay more money for slower broadband than most developed nations. Keeping this dysfunction intact despite a growing resentment from America's under-served and over-charged broadband consumers isn't easy, and has required decades of yeoman's work on the part of entrenched duopolies and their lobbyists.

Case in point: Google Fiber recently tried to build new fiber networks in a large number of cities like Nashville and Louisville, but ran face first into an antiquated utility pole attachment process. As it stands, when a new competitor tries to enter a market, it needs to contact each individual ISP to have them move their own utility pole gear. This convoluted and bureaucratic process can take months, and incumbent ISPs (which often own the poles in question) often slow things down even further by intentionally dragging their feet.

So in cities like Nashville and Louisville, Google Fiber and other competitors have pushed for so-called "one touch make ready" utility pole reform. These reforms let a licensed and insured contractor move any ISP's pole-mounted gear if necessary (usually a matter of inches), as long as the ISP is notified in advance and the contractor pays for any damages. Under these regulatory reforms, the pole attachment process can be reduced from six months or more to just a month or so -- dramatically speeding up fiber deployment. ISPs like Verizon (in part because Google Fiber isn't encroaching on their East Coast turf) have supported the changes.

But because this would accelerate competitor broadband deployments as well, incumbent ISPs like AT&T, Comcast and Charter Spectrum did what they do best: they filed nuisance lawsuits against both Nashville and Louisville -- claiming they'd exceeded their legal authority in updating the rules. The companies proclaim they're simply concerned about the potential damage to their lines (ignored is the fact that the contractors doing the work are often the same people employed by ISPs), but the lawsuits are driven by one thing: fear of competition.

In Louisville this tactic didn't work so well, with a Judge ruling that the city was perfectly within its legal rights to manage the city's utility poles. ISPs had claimed that these cities' authority was over-ridden by FCC rules, though even the FCC itself backed Google Fiber and the cities in this fight (obviously this position, like most pro-competitive policies, were reversed when Trump appointed Ajit Pai to head the FCC last fall).

In Nashville however those same ISPs last week scored a major victory on the news that a Judge has backed incumbent ISP claims that the city did not have jurisdiction over utility poles -- and that the policy change violates contract law. Google Fiber, for its part, says it's reviewing the ruling:

"We're reviewing today's court ruling to understand its potential impact on our build in Nashville," a Google spokesperson said. "We have made significant progress with new innovative deployment techniques in some areas of the city, but access to poles remains an important issue where underground deployment is not a possibility."

There's several reasons Google Fiber announced last fall that it was pivoting toward wireless/fiber hybrid deployments. One was the high cost and slow pace of fiber deployment, but another was the kind of legal and regulatory roadblocks being erected by the likes of AT&T, Charter and Comcast, who are utterly terrified at the faintest specter of competition disrupting their all-too-cozy markets. Google Fiber has managed to avoid some of these obstacles via technologies like microtrenching, but the incumbent ISP goal of slowing the rise of competition has proven successful overall.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, google fiber, nashville, one touch make ready, utility poles
Companies: at&t, c harter, comcast, google

Comcast Joins AT&T, Files Lawsuit Against Nashville To Slow Google Fiber

from the if-you-can't-compete,-litigate dept

We've been noting for the last year how the latest front in the quest to bring competition to the broadband market is the boring old utility pole. Under the current model, a company like Google Fiber needs to request an ISP move its own gear before Google Fiber can attach its fiber lines. Given that ISPs often own the poles, and have little incentive to speed a competitor to market, this can often take six months or longer -- worse if gear from multiple incumbent ISPs needs moving. Google Fiber notes this has quite intentionally slowed its arrival in cities like Nashville.

As such, Google Fiber has been pushing cities to pass new "one touch make ready" utility pole attachment reform rules, which let a single licensed and insured technician move any ISP's gear (often a matter of inches), reducing pole attachment from a 9 month process, to one that takes as little as a month. Needless to say, ISPs like AT&T feel threatened by anything that could speed up competition in these stagnant markets, so it has been suing cities like Louisville and Nashville for trying to do so.

Comcast has decided to join the fun, and has now filed its own lawsuit against the city of Nashville (pdf), claiming that these reform efforts "upset the existing, carefully designed make-ready process" allowing "encroaching attachers" to move Comcast gear with "only" fifteen days previous notice. This, Comcast claims, will result in "significant, irreparable injury" to the cable giant:

"...Comcast will suffer significant, irreparable injury to its property, operations, and customer relationships. By departing from the carefully balanced approach to the make-ready process embraced by Comcast’s contract with Metro Nashville and the comprehensive Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) regulatory framework, Metro Nashville’s Ordinance exposes Comcast’s network equipment to serious risk. It permits third parties to encroach upon, move, and potentially damage Comcast’s equipment, thereby imposing significant costs on Comcast and threatening interference with customers’ services and emergency communications—while offering Comcast no way to protect against these harms or even seek recourse after the fact.

Well, no. These aren't just errant idiots running around ripping and replacing expensive telecom gear like meth-addicted copper thieves. These are licensed and insured contractors doing the work; in many instances likely the same exact technicians Comcast uses for its own pole work. Comcast previously has tried to claim that network outages would jump 50% or more if this reform passes, but there's really no evidence to support this claim.

AT&T, meanwhile, has tried to accuse Google Fiber of government favoritism for pursuing these reforms, ignoring not only that the plan has the overwhelming support of the public, but the fact that AT&T has enjoyed decades as a government-pampered monopolist that quite literally gets to write protectionist state telecom law (when it isn't busy bone-grafting itself to the country's ever-expanding domestic surveillance apparatus).

Of course these incumbent ISPs can't just come out and say they oppose utility pole reform because they're terrified of competition, so instead we get entirely-unnecessary lawsuits that not only waste taxpayer dollars, but delay long overdue broadband infrastructure improvements.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fiber, nashville, one touch make ready, otmr
Companies: at&t, comcast, google

AT&T Sues Nashville To Keep Google Fiber At Bay

from the utterly-terrified-of-competition dept

We've been talking about how the latest front in the battle for better broadband competition is the boring old utility pole. As Susan Crawford highlighted last month, getting permission from an ISP that owns a city's utility poles can be a slow, bureaucratic nightmare, since the incumbent ISP has every incentive to stall would-be competitors. As such, Google has been pushing for "one touch make ready" proposals that use an insured, third-party contractor agreed to by all ISPs to move any ISP's gear during fiber installs (often a matter of inches).

But again, because this would speed up Google Fiber's time to market, incumbent ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, Frontier and Time Warner Cable have all been fighting these reform efforts. Excuses provided by the ISPs range from claims that such reform violates their Constitutional rights, to unsubstantiated claims that such a policy would result in massive new internet service outages. AT&T has taken things one step further, and has been suing cities like Louisville for passing such reform laws.

After the city council voted to approve similar reform last week in Nashville, AT&T has now filed suit against the city of Nashville (pdf), claiming city overreach and immediate injunctive relief. The complaint trots out all of AT&T's greatest hits for opposing the streamlined pole attachment rules, including claims that it allows random troublemakers to "seize" AT&T's property:

"The Ordinance thus purports to permit a third party (the Attacher) to temporarily seize AT&T’s property, and to alter or relocate AT&T’s property, without AT&T’s consent and with little notice. AT&T would be deprived of an adequate opportunity to assess the potential for network disruption caused by the alteration or relocation, and to specify and oversee the work on AT&T’s own facilities to ensure any potential for harm to its network, including harm to the continuity and quality of service to its customers, is minimized."

Except that's not true. Most implementations of "one touch make ready" give ISPs ample warning of impending work. Meanwhile, Google Fiber currently needs to wait for incumbent ISPs to prepare the poles for attachment -- a process that can take as long as 9 months if the incumbent ISP has an incentive to stall the process (worse if Google Fiber has to wait for multiple ISPs working in concert). That's something that Google Fiber documented in a blog post recently that has been a real problem in Nashville, where just 33 of the approximately 44,000 poles in the city have been prepared for Google Fiber work.

From Texas to California, AT&T has been accused for years of using its control over city utility poles as yet another avenue to discourage broadband competition. And the telco is surely furious somebody is finally doing something about it in Tennessee, a state whose legislature is so eager to protect AT&T's monopoly it effectively lets the telco write awful state law. Hell, Nashville's city council last week even had the gall to shoot down a Comcast and AT&T written proposal that would have bogged Google Fiber down in committee for months.

Of course these incumbent ISPs know they can't win. Pole attachment is generally supported by communities, many tech associations and government alike, all collectively tired of AT&T's stranglehold over the status quo. But the goal isn't to stop deployment but to slow it down, giving incumbent ISPs more time to not only lock down existing customers into long-term contracts, but to fuel ongoing rumors that Google Fiber is out of its depth.

Filed Under: google fiber, nashville, one touch make ready
Companies: at&t, google

Nashville Council Member Admits AT&T & Comcast Wrote The Anti-Google Fiber Bill She Submitted

from the hired-marionettes dept

We've been talking about how the next great battlefield in broadband is utility pole attachment reform. In many cities, the incumbent broadband provider owns the utility poles, giving them a perfect opportunity to hinder competitors. In other cities, the local utility or city itself owns the poles, but incumbent ISPs have lobbied for laws making it more difficult for competitors to access them quickly and inexpensively. Google Fiber has been pushing "one touch make ready" rules in several cities aimed at streamlining this bureaucracy by letting a licensed, third-party installer move any ISP's gear (often a matter of inches).

And while incumbents like AT&T and Comcast will often breathlessly proclaim they're all for streamlining regulations, in this instance they're actively preventing the streamlining of these rules in a feeble attempt to slow Google Fiber down. In Louisville, AT&T sued the city after it passed one touch make ready rules. And in Nashville, both Comcast and AT&T have been actively working to prevent Google Fiber from getting similar rules passed. In a recent blog post explaining the stand off, Google Fiber highlights just what this entrenched, anti-competitive regulatory capture looks like in graphical form: This week Nashville's city council is planning the final in a series of votes to approve Google Fiber's one touch make ready rules. But AT&T has already promised to sue the city if Nashville passes the ordinance. Meanwhile AT&T and Comcast have taken another route to try and delay Google Fiber; they've urged a Nashville city council member to propose an alternative city resolution that would supplant Google Fiber's plan with a plan that doesn't appear to actually do anything outside of stalling the Google Fiber proposal.

Under this alternative "right touch" proposal, pole attachment would see only modest changes, leading Nashville city councilman Jeremy Elrod to deride the move as little more than a last gasp effort by AT&T and Comcast to protect their duopoly fiefdom:

"Google Fiber service and other competitors will be forced to rolling out their service at a trickle, when under the One Touch ordinance it will be like opening the floodgates," Elrod said in an emailed statement.

"This resolution coming at the last minute, to be considered the same night as third reading of the One Touch bill, just shows it’s the last gasp of Comcast and AT&T, desperately trying to hold on to their top place on the utility pole. "These two companies should not be the gatekeepers that get to decide when and where their customers get access to a competitor, but (a Memorandum of Understanding) like this one enshrines that they stay that way. Comcast and AT&T would win, and competition and consumers would lose."

AT&T and Comcast's competing resolution was proposed by Nashville council member Sheri Weiner, who amusingly admits to Ars Technica that the incumbent ISPs wrote the proposal, and while she intended to edit some of it herself, that just didn't happen:

"I told them that I would file a resolution if they had something that made sense and wasn’t as drastic as OTMR,” Weiner told Ars in an e-mail today, when we asked her what role AT&T and Comcast played in drafting the resolution. Weiner said she is insisting on some changes to the resolution, but the proposal (full text) was submitted without those changes.

When asked why she didn't put her suggested changes in the version of the resolution published on the council website, Weiner said, “I had them [AT&T and Comcast] submit it for me as I was out of town all last week on business (my day job)." Weiner said an edited resolution will be considered by the council during its next meeting.

Yeah, whoops-a-daisy. If the AT&T and Comcast proposal passes, it will likely delay Google Fiber's market entry by a notable margin. If it doesn't, AT&T will simply sue the city of Nashville, insisting the city council overstepped its authority. Either way, Google Fiber gets delayed thanks to regulatory capture. And note this is all occurring while AT&T lobbyists happily mock Google Fiber for receiving "government favoritism."

Again, this is all par for the course for American broadband, where beholden lawmakers on every level from city council to state legislature work tirelessly to make sure incumbent ISPs like Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and Charter never have to work too hard, lest the campaign contributions stop flowing. And again, while any day of the week you'll find these companies' executives and lobbyists prattling on at length about how they despise "onerous regulation," when push comes to shove you'll repeatedly find them aggressively supporting just such regulation -- if it protects them from having to actually compete.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, corruption, google fiber, nashville, one touch make ready, pole attachments, sheri weiner
Companies: at&t, comcast, google

AT&T, Comcast Fight Utility Pole Reform To Slow Google Fiber's Arrival In Nashville

from the get-the-hell-out-of-the-way dept

We've talked a few times about how incumbent broadband providers often use their ownership of city utility poles (or their "ownership" of entire city councils and state legislatures) to slow Google Fiber's arrival in new markets. In California and Texas, AT&T has often been accused of using the process of pole attachment approval to intentionally block or slow down the arrival of competitors. AT&T also recently sued the city of Louisville for streamlining utility pole attachment rules intended to dramatically speed up the time it takes to attach new fiber to poles.

This week this fight extended into Nashville, where Comcast and AT&T are again fighting pole attachment reform. Google Fiber supports "one touch make ready" pole attachment rules, which lets a licensed, insured third party contractor move any ISP's gear on a utility pole (often a matter of inches) to install new fiber. Being incumbents with networks already deployed, Comcast, AT&T and Charter obviously have a vested interest in making sure this doesn't happen. As such, they've started loudly bitching about Google Fiber to local Nashville news outlets:

"Just because you spell your name with eight different colors doesn’t mean you can’t play by the rules that everybody else has to fucking play by,” says one operative, venting about Google’s reputation for wooing local officials in various cities into accommodating the company.

These incumbents have, as a refresher, spent a generation paying for, writing and lobbying for state and local rules that make it hard or impossible to actually compete with them. That anybody would believe these companies' complaints about "fairness" is dumbfounding, yet given their political power, these arguments go much further than they should. AT&T, for example, is telling Nashville politicians they only oppose Google Fiber's reform plan because they care so much about unions:

“While we have not seen the proposed ordinance, we are concerned that a make-ready ordinance would interfere with our contractual commitment to have our skilled employees represented by the Communications Workers of America perform make-ready work on our behalf,” says AT&T Tennessee spokesperson Joe Burgan. “Beyond that, we have serious concerns with other companies being allowed to perform work on our facilities without providing us notice, which could put service reliability and public safety at risk in some circumstances. Additionally, jurisdiction to regulate pole attachments rests with the FCC, and municipalities have no authority under federal or state law to enact the ordinance being proposed here.”

To be very clear, such "one touch make ready" reform rules are broadly supported as a way to speed up broadband deployment. Contrary to AT&T's claim, under most implementations of these rules, incumbent ISPs still receive forewarning about upcoming work, they just have to respond and approve (or reject, with reasons) these requests on a much shorter time scale so they can't use the system to unfair advantage. And it's not "other companies" performing the work, it's independent, licensed and insured third party contractors that have already been doing this kind of work all over the country -- often for the incumbents themselves.

These are the same companies that bitch endlessly about "burdensome regulations," yet consistently write, lobby for and pass regulations that hinder competitors from disrupting the market. In this case, AT&T's next likely step is to file a lawsuit against Nashville just as it did in Louisville, all the while pretending (despite a generation of contradictory evidence) it's just a stickler for level playing fields.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fiber, google fiber, incumbents, nashville, pole attachments
Companies: at&t, comcast, google

DailyDirt: Bacon A La Mode

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Bacon is an almost universally-loved food item -- it's salty and fatty and meaty all at the same time. So it's not too surprising that people will try to add bacon to almost any dish. Everything is better with bacon... and here are some examples that test that assertion.

• The makers of Baconnaise and Bacon Baby Formula have created a bacon-themed coffin for sale. For about $3,000 plus shipping, you too, could be preserved in a casket that looks like bacon. [url]
• Bacon-scented hand sanitizer is a great way to pickup stray dogs. Or to get your hand bitten... [url]
• Burger King has introduced a bacon sundae to its menu. It's not available at every location yet -- only a few hip places around Nashville, Tennessee. [url]
• Jack in the Box has a bacon milkshake that packs 773 calories into 16 ounces of bacon-flavored refreshment. No actual bacon was harmed to create this milkshake, just bacon-flavored syrup. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: bacon, baconnaise, coffin, food, hand sanitizer, nashville, sundae
Companies: burger king

Announcing The Free! Summit... And Some Other Speaking Gigs

from the talk-talk-talk dept

As regular readers of this site know, I'm pretty passionate about how businesses need to understand the economics of "free" in figuring out how to create business models that work. So, I'm excited to announce that I'll be hosting and emceeing the newly announced Free! Summit, to be held in Silicon Valley on May 11th.

Chris Anderson (whose book on "Free" will be coming out in just a few months) will be keynoting, and we're pulling together the rest of the participants as well. The event is being produced by the fine folks from Tech Policy Central, and works as a nice lead-in to their Tech Policy Summit that will start immediately after the Free! Summit concludes. In fact, attending the Free! Summit gets you access to the opening session of the Tech Policy Summit as well. And, yes, registration to The Free! Summit is, in fact, free. But... there are a limited number of seats, so sign up now. Also, we're very much looking for individuals or organizations interested in presenting case studies on how they've used free as a part of their business model. We already have a few lined up, but feel free to suggest others of interest.

I hope that many of you can join us for what I'm sure will be a great series of discussions on "free" and what it means for business models, policy and the economy.

---

Separately, there are a few other events I'll be participating in that are worth mentioning:

• First up, I'm going to be keynoting the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, to be held on March 23 -- March 25th, where I'll be doing an updated version of my MidemNet talk. It's yet another chance to talk with folks from in and around the music industry.



• Next, I'm thrilled to be keynoting the Mesh Conference in Toronto, Canada, being held April 7th and 8th. I've attended Mesh the past two years, and it's a fantastic event for (as they say) connecting, sharing and inspiring around all sorts of new ideas relating to the internet, media and new business models. That talk will be a brand new one focusing on digital media business models, followed by an interview with Mathew Ingram and a Q&A. If you're in the Toronto area, don't miss it.



• Also, the week of March 8 - 14th, I'll (once again) be in Edinburgh, Scotland, giving a whole series of talks at the University of Edinburgh. I'm not entirely sure which of the talks are public and which are for students only, but two events that I know are public are the talk I'll be giving to the Edinburgh Entrepreneurship Club on What Makes Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley on March 10th and then I'll be attending/participating at a special BarCamp Scotland on March 14th.



• Because I'm in Scotland that week, I won't be able to attend Canadian Music Week in person in Toronto, unfortunately, but they will be showing my MidemNet talk during one of the sessions on music business models.



• Finally, unfortunately with all the travel on my schedule, I'm going to be unable to personally attend David Isenberg's fantastic Freedom to Connect even in Washington DC on March 30th and 31st, but if you're anywhere in the area, you shouldn't miss it. It's a great event focused on "the emerging internet economy" with a strong focus on the policy angles related to internet connectivity these days. You're probably already aware of Isenberg from his regular writings on the subject, but he pulls together such a great braintrust for his events that you'd be crazy to miss it if you're in the area. And, along those lines, he's agreed to offer Techdirt readers a special $100 discount on registering for the event. Prices actually go up this Saturday, so if you want to attend, you should register now...

That's it in terms of speaking events for now. There are, of course, a few other private speaking engagements that I'm doing (if you're interested in having me speak at private events, please contact us), and some other events that are in the works... In the meantime, I hope to see you at one of these events!

Filed Under: edinburgh, events, free, nashville, speaking, toronto