After Chat With Ethics Lawyers, FCC Boss Declines NRA Gun Award For Killing Net Neutrality

from the good-call,-hoss dept

Last month you might recall that the NRA gave FCC boss Ajit Pai the Charleton Heston Award for Courage for his decision to dismantle popular net neutrality rules. The tone-deaf celebration was a pretty hollow attention seeking move, but was also an ouroboros of blistering idiocy. One, the NRA appears oblivious to the fact that net neutrality rules would have helped it as well, since the entire point is to ensure the internet is a level playing field for all competitors and voices. Net neutrality protects free speech (even speech you don't agree with), something you'd think the folks at the NRA would be able to appreciate.

Two, there's simply nothing courageous about teaming up with Comcast to screw over the public and the nation's small businesses and startups. Pai's decision is widely derided as the dumbest decision in the history of modern tech policy. And while ISPs like to frame net neutrality as partisan to sow division and prevent meaningful rules, surveys repeatedly indicate the rules had broad bipartisan support.

It didn't take long for ethics experts to point out that the award and the NRA's gift to Pai (a Kentucky long rifle) was over $200 and therefore violated ethics rules and lobbying restrictions:

After a chat with FCC ethics lawyers, Pai appears to have finally realized that accepting the award probably wouldn't be a particularly bright idea. As such, Pai wrote a letter to the NRA declining the gun while insisting this whole thing simply caught him by surprise:

"As you know, once my staff became aware of what was happening, they asked backstage that the musket not be presented to me to ensure that this could be first discussed with and vetted by career ethics attorneys in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel," Pai wrote, according to an FCC source who relayed the text of the letters.

“Therefore, upon their counsel, I must respectfully decline the award,” he wrote. “I have also been advised by the FCC’s career ethics attorneys that I would not be able to accept the award upon my departure from government service."

Of course Pai and his staff could have rejected the award at any point (the award occurred on February 23), but then they wouldn't have been able to enjoy all the yucks at the expense of startups, consumers, and the health of the internet. From stem to stern this was just a PR disaster, and you couldn't have paid a fiction author to craft a dumber, more absurd narrative. And while those behind the effort likely believe they were being clever trolls, Millennial voters likely got a decidedly different impression from the tone-deaf gala.

Filed Under: ajit pai, awards, ethics, fcc, net neutrality, nra
Companies: nra

NRA Gives FCC Boss An Award For 'Courageously' Killing Net Neutrality, May Have Violated Ethics Rules

from the idiocy-supernova dept

The NRA last week thought it would be a good idea to give FCC boss Ajit Pai an award for killing net neutrality. More specifically, the NRA gave Pai the Charleton Heston Award for Courage at the CPAC conference for killing the popular consumer protections. The entire affair was a tone deafness supernova from beginning to end, with American Conservative Union (ACU) Executive Director Dan Schneider making it abundantly clear that he and other attendees have absolutely no coherent idea what net neutrality even is. Schneider went so far as to declare the unpopular agency boss the "most courageous, heroic person that I know":

"Pai "fought to preserve your free speech rights" as a member of the FCC's Republican minority during the Obama administration, Schneider said. Pai "fought and won against all odds, but the Obama administration had some curveballs and they implemented these regulations to take over the Internet." "As soon as President Trump came into office, President Trump asked Ajit Pai to liberate the Internet and give it back to you," Schneider added. "Ajit Pai is the most courageous, heroic person that I know."

Of course if you've been paying even a shred of attention, you should realize there's nothing courageous about ignoring the public, ignoring the experts, ignoring all objective data just to give a sloppy wet kiss to despised telecom monopolies like Comcast. Pai's repeal is widely derided as one of the worst tech policy decisions in the modern internet era, making the backlash against legislative shitshows like SOPA look like a cozy beach side picnic in comparison. And despite every effort by the telecom industry to frame net neutrality as a partisan issue, that is, and continues to be, bullshit.

While a petty and blatant attention-seeking move, the stunt may have given both the NRA and Pai a little more than they bargained for. As part of the award Pai was given an antique musket, a move former Office of Government Ethics boss Walter Shaub was quick to criticize as a violation of FCC ethics rules:

It's possible Pai can tap dance around this by claiming the musket (which the NRA said would be stored and displayed at their offices in Virginia) never formally entered Pai's legal ownership. Of course that doesn't make this effort any less idiotic and tone deaf. CPAC apparently doesn't realize that Millennials are starting to vote in greater numbers than ever before, and while CPAC leadership may have thought combining the NRA (while in the middle of a massive PR kerfuffle) with the attack on net neutrality was an "epic troll," all younger voters are going to see here is a giant neon sign blinking the words "incompetence" and "corruption" in endless repetition.

Pai wasn't alone in potentially violating ethics rules during CPAC. Under the Hatch Act, FCC Commissioners can't openly pitch for a specific political candidate, a rule Pai's fellow Commissioner Mike O'Rielly violated when he urged CPAC attendees to vote for Trump:

"O’Rielly, however, later found himself embroiled in his own controversy. His trouble started with a question about what the FCC could do to stop the constant “ping-pong” of issues, such as net neutrality, every time the party in power changes in the nation’s capital.

“I think what we can do is make sure as conservatives that we elect good people to both the House, Senate and make sure that President Trump gets reelected,” O’Rielly began.

The GOP commissioner’s plug for the president riled some ethics watchdogs. Under a set of rules known as the Hatch Act, government officials such as O’Rielly generally aren’t supposed to use their stations to advocate for election outcomes.

Remember, these are the same FCC staffers that had an epic hissy fit a few years back when they claimed the former White House "improperly" violated nonexistent ethics rules by openly advocating for tough net neutrality rules. They're now embroiled in numerous GAO inquiries, face a growing mountain of lawsuits, and now face an FCC Inspector General Inquiry for potentially being too cozy with the industries they're supposed to be holding accountable on behalf of the American Public. Keep digging that hole, gentlemen.

Filed Under: ajit pai, cpac, ethics, ethics rules, fcc, mike o'rielly, net neutrality, nra, walter shaub
Companies: nra

Sandy Hook Video Game Prompts Everyone To Get Everything Wrong

from the know-what-you're-talking-about dept

It's been nearly a year since the Sandy Hook tragedy and if we've learned anything at all in the aftermath it's that we've learned nothing at all in the aftermath. Whether you're an advocate of gun control, an advocate for the link between violence and video games, or an advocate of the NRA, it really doesn't matter. The only thing to come out of the tragedy was a ton of talk, a boon for our stupid cable news networks' ratings, and the exceptional vacuum in which absolutely no conclusions were drawn and nothing was done. Twenty-six people were murdered, most of them children, and the needle hasn't moved in either direction one iota. Well done, everyone.

Wait, I forgot one other lesson we should all have learned from the tragedy: major media and a large swath of our fellow citizens somehow combine being reactionary and willfully ignorant in a way that would be cartoonishly hilarious if it weren't so damned maddening. And now we have the opportunity to re-learn that lesson as we watch the reaction to a "video game" inspired by Sandy Hook in which everyone gets everything wrong from every side possible. Here's how the game is described in the media:

"The Slaying of Sandy Hook Elementary" directs gamers to storm virtual classrooms with an AR-15 assault rifle in the same vein as Lanza and displays a kill ratio at the end. The game's release comes less than a month before the first anniversary of the Dec. 14 massacre.

This is, at best, only half the story. What most reports omit or bury is that the second part of the game has you attempt the same assault, but you're forced to use a sword because theoretical gun-control laws have kept you from being able to use a gun. Under the limitations of a countdown, the entire point of the game is that with a sword you can't rack up the body-count you can with a gun. It's an artistic statement on gun-control.

Now, I can already hear my friends in the comments section gearing up for a conversation about freedom, the 2nd amendment, and the uselessness of gun control. Don't. Not because I disagree with you or think your arguments are invalid (I don't), but because that isn't what this post is about. This is about freedom of speech and the importance of artistic expression on the issues of our day, as well as how completely incapable our media and some citizens are at having even a semblance of an intelligent conversation about this. And this comes from all sides, gun-rights folks and gun-control folks, conservative or liberal, it doesn't matter. Everyone comes out of this sounding stupid, because nobody seems to bother actually learning what this game is and is all about. Take a family member of one victim, for instance:

"I'm just horrified," Llodra said. "I just don't understand, frankly, why anyone would think that the horrible tragedy that took place here in Sandy Hook would have any entertainment value. It just breaks my heart."

Great, except the game isn't designed for entertainment purposes, it has a message about the useless reaction to the tragedy. In other words, you don't know what you're talking about. Because you didn't actually see the game or the site, where you would have heard:

In an audio recording on the site, Lambourn describes himself as a U.S. expatriate from Houston who resides in Australia. There, he said, gun laws enacted after the fatal shooting of 35 people at a popular tourist destination in 1996 have stemmed the tide of violence.

Llodra missed the message. As did the NRA:

The NRA called the simulation "reprehensible," but was reluctant to comment further, saying it didn't want to give more ink to "this despicable excuse for a human being."

It's not a simulation, it's artistic commentary, and it's especially funny for an organization that puts out its own "games" about shooting all kinds of things. And those games are targeted to elementary-aged school children. Note: I don't have a problem with the games themselves, only the hypocritical commentary from the NRA. This hatred of hypocrisy isn't reserved for conservative groups like the NRA, either. Here's champion hypocrite Richard Blumenthal, Democrat Senator from Connecticut.

"I find the exploitation of this unspeakable tragedy is just shocking," Blumenthal told Hearst. "From what I've heard and what's been shown to me, it's absolutely abhorrent. My hope is that it will be voluntarily taken down because it's offensive and hurtful."

Got it? It's shocking for anyone to exploit the Sandy Hook tragedy for their own aims. I wonder how shocking Blumenthal found, you know, himself back in March, when he said:

A "sensible compromise" can still be reached on gun-control legislation in the Senate, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said on Sunday, saying the "shock and terror of Newtown" was still a major motivating factor for lawmakers.

So it's cool to exploit the tragedy to pass the laws you want, but not cool to exploit it to advocate for passing...the same damn laws you want? Which you didn't know was the message of the game, because some reporter called you up, told you someone made Doom but set it in Sandy Hook, and your head exploded into a shower of dumbass responses. What the hell?

So, please, please, please learn this lesson: thou shalt know what thou art talking about before talking about it. I know, it's really hard, especially for ratings-driven controversy whores like the media or grandstanding politicians, but just try it out. In other words, it's entirely possible to hate what happened at Sandy Hook while still leaving room for artistic, even controversial, speech on the matter. Cowboy-up, Americans, this really shouldn't be too hard.

Filed Under: advocacy, free speech, gun control, nra, over reactions, richard blumenthal, sandy hook

High School Student Forced To Remove NRA Shirt, Because Pictures Of Guns Are Scaaaaary

from the the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-10mm-pistol dept

Being a strong, if not fanatical, supporter of free speech sure does make you occasionally jump in bed with strange folks. See, I think the National Rifle Association is largely a group of privileged blowhards who have gone so far past their original purpose as to be a caricature of their former selves. Any virtuous purpose it may have served has been pushed from the public eye by the kind of actions that make me think the NRA is being run by under-fed six-year-olds that found mommy and daddy's liquor cabinet.

And now, for my next magical trick, I'm going to defend a high school student's right to wear an NRA shirt to school. A sophomore from Orange County, California was ordered to remove an NRA t-shirt that included an image of a deer, an American flag, and the silhouette of a hunter.

Canyon High’s principal emailed Bullwinkle’s father, stating, in part, that “The shirt had a gun on it, which is not allowed by school police.” Note that the principal invokes, ominously, the authority of the school police – it’s the police, not administrators, who are enforcing this rule! Nevermind that administrators wrote the dress code and that the principal, according to CBS, enforced it. Pass the buck on the shirt about shooting bucks, if you will.

I don't care if you're the biggest gun-control supporter out there, you should think this is stupid. And, frankly, it's hard to divorce the school's actions from political leanings, because I'd bet everything I own that this young man wouldn't have been asked to remove a shirt with the US Army National Guard logo, which has a gun on it, or perhaps one of the US Army's secondary logos, which include swords. What this is, plain and simple, is a reactionary stifling of speech due to a combination of public opinion against the NRA and silly cautionary rules for expression in schools due to recent shooting incidents. And that isn't acceptable. In fact, courts in the past have said that kind of thing is likely a first amendment violation.

Besides all that, the school's dress code is hilariously broad.

Clothing or Jewelry that promotes or depicts: gang, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, violence, criminal activity, obscenity, the degrading of cultures, ethnicity, gender, religion and/or ethnic values. (In general, anything that is divisive or offensive to a staff member).

Oh, great, let's leave the definition of disallowed clothing up to the whims of a potentially easily-offended faculty. What could go wrong? You know, other than faculty claiming offense at something they dislike but is not offensive.

Let's be clear: the NRA may suck, but it doesn't make a habit out of promoting general violence and school shootings. It has its problems, to be sure, but the NRA is a legitimate lobbying organization. The t-shirt had a picture of a hunter, not an AK-47 spitting bullets into a series of small puppies. To pretend that there was any danger worth censoring a student's speech in any of this is as ridiculous as it is dangerous.

Filed Under: free speech, nra, students

NRA: To Protect The 2nd Amendment, We Must Trample The 1st & 4th Amendments

from the well-that's-one-strategy dept

As predicted, one element of the NRA's "big announcement" today was to lash out and blame media, music and movies for violence. Most news stories are focusing on the wacky idea of putting armed guards in every school (and to do so in the next few weeks as well) and creating a database of the mentally ill, but the lashing out at video games and movies, despite no evidence that they actually lead to violence, seems equally ridiculous.

In some manner, it appears that the NRA's response is that the 2nd Amendment is more important than other amendments in the Constitution. Blaming music and movies is an attack on the 1st Amendment, which allows for freedom of expression, while turning our schools into police states, patrolled by armed guards, at least toes the line on the 4th Amendment. The database of mentally ill patients also raises significant privacy issues. No matter what you think of various gun control proposals, it seems rather ridiculous to take a strong Constitutional stand as the basis for your argument... only to make a complete mockery of other amendments.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 2nd amendment, 4th amendment, constitution, gun control, guns, media, movies, nra, privacy, video games, violence, wayne lapierre

It May Soon Be Illegal For Doctors In Florida To Ask About Gun Safety

from the missing-the-point dept

Via Boing Boing, we learn of a bill in Florida -- apparently lobbied for heavily by the NRA -- that would make it illegal for doctors to ask patients about their gun safety habits. This is especially targeted towards pediatricians, who regularly ask that of parents:

As parents know, pediatricians ask a lot of questions. Dr. Louis St. Petery says it's all part of what doctors call "anticipatory guidance" -- teaching parents how to safeguard against accidental injuries. Pediatricians ask about bike helmets, seat belts and other concerns.

"If you have a pool, let's talk about pool safety so we don't have accidental drownings," he says. "And if you have firearms, let's talk about gun safety so that they're stored properly � you know, the gun needs to be locked up, the ammunition stored separate from the gun, etc., so that children don't have access to them."

For decades, the American Academy of Pediatrics has encouraged its members to ask questions about guns and how they're stored, as part of well-child visits.

Seems reasonable, right? Well, not according to the NRA, who claims that this is a "moral judgment" and a "privacy intrusion."

I have to admit that I'm at a total loss to see what the NRA is concerned about here. I thought the NRA was a huge proponent of gun safety. I mean, on the NRA's website it has a section on gun safety where it declares:

Since the NRA's incorporation in 1871, public safety and community service have been among our highest priorities.... At the NRA, we're dedicated to the lawful, effective, responsible and above all safe use of firearms. And today, we do more to ensure Americans are safe around firearms -- whether or not they choose to own them -- than any other public or private group.

So, um, why would they possibly want this ban?

Filed Under: doctors, florida, gun safety, nra