Former FCC Boss Ajit Pai Gets Handsomely Rewarded For Years Of Broadband Policy Falsehoods

from the whiplash-from-the-revolving-door dept

What's the career penalty for spending four straight years lying repeatedly about the illusory benefits of mindless telecom deregulation? None, apparently.

Surprising nobody, former FCC boss Ajit Pai and his giant goofy coffee mug are headed to private investment firm Searchlight Capital Partners, which invests in the telecom and other sectors. He's also been rewarded with a new gig at the American Enterprise Institute, where he'll be given a platform to spend another twenty years falsely claiming that lobotomizing U.S. telecom regulators, turning a blind eye to the perils of telecom monopolization, and generally ignoring consumer welfare results in telecom investment Utopia:

"As FCC chair, Pai justified his deregulatory agenda by using faulty data and taking credit for broadband deployments that were planned before he became chairman. Pai claimed that the Title II common-carrier regulations he repealed had prevented broadband-network investment, even though ISPs themselves told investors that wasn't true. He never raised the FCC's broadband-speed standard and claimed on his way out of the FCC that Americans still only need download speeds of 25Mbps and upload speeds of 3Mbps."

There was also that time that Pai blocked a law enforcement inquiry into the broadband industry using fake and dead people to generate artificial support for policies the public (and most objective experts) aggressively disagreed with. And there was also that time his office made up a DDOS attack to try and explain away the fact the agency website crashed in the wake of millions of pissed off John Oliver viewers. But again, Pai was mostly known for just making up data that supported policies that, with the occasional exception, largely just benefitted the industry's most dominant players.

Pai's entire policy schtick was that if you obliterate both state and federal oversight of regional telecom monopolies, magic happens. But while deregulation can sometimes help functional, healthy markets, there's twenty years of evidence showing that when you neuter oversight of Comcast and AT&T, these natural monopolies just double down on predatory behavior. It's why Americans pay some of the highest prices in the world for spotty, sluggish broadband and terrible customer support. While there's a large contingent of industry-allied folks and free marketers who want to pretend this is a debate, it isn't.

US broadband is mediocre in nearly every major broadband metric because our policy makers have spent twenty years crafting policies that prioritize one thing: the revenues of the biggest, most politically powerful telecom giants. That the revolving door undermines public trust and results in policies that coddle these monopolies won't even enter the conversation, since we stopped caring about that stuff years ago. After all, former FCC boss Michael Powell, also a huge fan of baseless claims that deregulation fixes everything, has enjoyed a long, healthy stint as the cable industry's top lobbyist without anybody batting an eyelash.

The same goes for a bipartisan assortment of other FCC officials, whether it's Mignon Clyburn (immediately left the FCC to go lobby to help T-Mobile's merger), Meredith Attwell Baker (wireless industry, Comcast), and countless others. And the U.S. press, ever desperate to cover complicated policy subjects from the view from nowhere, is more than happy to parrot the positions of these folks while either downplaying or ignoring any conflicts of interest.

When you can spend four years spreading obvious nonsense about the benefits of coddling natural monopolies and the only penalty is...a big wad of cash and a big platform to continues spreading falsehoods... it's not hard to understand why the U.S. telecom sector has spent the better part of two decades stuck in a state of perpetual, expensive, dysfunction.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, private equity, revolving door
Companies: searchlight capital partners

Revolving Door Revolves Some More: Head Of Copyright Office Leaves To Join MPAA

from the hollywood's-hooks dept

For many years we've been covering the rather disturbing revolving door between the US Copyright Office and Hollywood. This includes a bunch of copyright maximalists going back and forth between entertainment industry lobbying organizations and government positions. It seems to happen over and over and over again. Indeed, the former head of the Copyright Office, Maria Pallante, now leads the Association of American Publishers, where she's been advocating for ever more ridiculous copyright laws.

And, now we find out that the current head of the Copyright Office, Karyn Temple, a former RIAA VP, who only just became the official Copyright Register (after a few years of being the "interim" Copyright Register after Pallante was fired), has jumped ship to the MPAA. Because of course.

Karyn A. Temple, one of the world’s leading authorities on copyright, has been named Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel at the Motion Picture Association, Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin announced today.

Temple will join the association in January after serving more than eight years in the U.S. Copyright Office, most recently as the Register of Copyrights, where she fulfilled her statutory authority to administer U.S. copyright law and advise members of the U.S. Congress, federal courts, and executive branch agencies on issues of copyright law and policy.

This is all perfectly legal, but given some of the many questions people have raised over the years about why the Copyright Office frequently appears to be more an arm of Hollywood, rather than the American public (as is supposed to be the case), this move should raise a few more eyebrows. It won't, of course. This is just how things are done.

But even Hollywood folks should be concerned about this. For all the laughable claims it makes about how we need more "respect" for copyright, the one doing the most to undermine that respect is Hollywood itself, with such a blatant display of "soft corruption." No one actually believes the Copyright Office has any of the public's interests in mind, when the head of the office is simultaneously lining up her next job directly with Hollywood's biggest lobbyist.

No one respects copyright because Hollywood has made sure it deserves no respect.

Oh, and I guess it deserves mention that the reason the MPAA needed a General Counsel is because the last one got arrested on charges of blackmail and sexual assault.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright office, karyn temple, lobbying, public interest, revolving door
Companies: riaa

The Revolving Door Spins Hard: FCC's Clyburn Now Lobbying For T-Mobile

from the pivot-on-a-dime dept

If you hadn't noticed by now, U.S. lobbying restrictions are the legislative and police equivalent of damp, musty cardboard. While there are some basic guidelines in place, they're so filled with loopholes as to be largely useless. One of the bigger problems is the far-too-generous definition of lobbyist we currently employ, which lets lobbyists tap dance around disclosure rules if they just... pretend they're doing something else.

One case in point is Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen, who routinely lobbies the government, but tap dances around the rules by calling himself the company's Chief Diversity Officer. Lobbying rules updated in 2007 require that if an employee spends more than 20% of their time lobbying in DC, they have to register with the government as a lobbyist. As such, folks like Cohen just call what they're doing something else, usually obfuscating their lobbying under what superficially appear to be more altruistic endeavors that often involve lobbying state and more local officials outside of DC.

Since US rules prevent regulators and Senators from immediately jumping into direct lobbying for the first year or two post-government, they'll often just call themselves "consultants" or "advisors" as they help their new clients lobby the government. Case in point: recently departed FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn this week announced that she'd be "advising" T-Mobile as the company tries to gain regulatory approval for its job and competition-eroding megamerger with Sprint:

"I’m advising T-Mobile and Sprint as it seeks to accelerate the creation of an inclusive nationwide 5G network on how to best build a bridge across the digital divide,” Clyburn told Politico.

Clyburn left her post last year, telling media outlets at the time she would “be a better public servant not serving on the FCC."

The move caught the consumer advocacy and activist community by surprise, given Clyburn's support of net neutrality (which T-Mobile opposed), and the solid work she did at the FCC trying to rein in an utterly broken prison telco monopoly. While T-Mobile and Sprint have tried to claim that the merger will somehow speed up America's quest for faster 5G networks (a claim Clyburn's clearly piggybacking on), they themselves have even acknowledged that's not really true.

Let's be real: Clyburn's there to help T-Mobile seal the deal via concessions. Concessions that aren't likely to actually thwart the most harmful impacts of the deal, particularly the 10,000 to 30,000 jobs that are expected to be cut as the combined company streamlines operations and inevitably eliminates redundant retail, support, and middle management positions. And concessions that the FCC probably won't enforce anyway, especially in the wake of the telecom lobby and T-Mobile having successfully convinced the Pai FCC to effectively neuter its oversight authority over the broken telecom sector.

Here in reality, T-Mobile's quest for regulatory approval for its merger hasn't been going particularly well. Every single consumer group has warned that the deal will consolidate an already troubled wireless sector, reducing the number of major wireless carriers from four to three -- dramatically reducing an already muted incentive to actually compete on price. Americans already pay some of the highest prices for wireless and fixed broadband among all developed nations, and the idea that more consolidation and fewer competitors will somehow fix this is simply not supported by factual data or reality:

"“This is not that complicated,” Fight For the Future Executive Director Evan Greer told Motherboard.

“More centralization and less competition isn't good for anyone except wealthy CEOs of telecom companies,” Greer said. “Telecom lobbyists have a long history of pretending that their policy goals are somehow magically aligned with helping the downtrodden, but it's a lie. This merger will mean more expensive, crappier cell phone plans, and hit the people who can least afford it the hardest."

Clyburn may have done some important work while at the FCC, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that revolving door regulation is highly corrosive.

FCC Commissioners have a long proud history of claiming to represent the public (once in a great while even actually doing so!), then shuffling off to lobby for telecom operators who'll actively make the problem (limited competition, high prices, terrible customer service) worse. Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell was already on T-Mobile's payroll, telling anybody who'll listen this merger will be "great for America." Former FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker quickly hopped from the FCC to lobbyist spots in both the wireless sector and at Comcast. Former FCC boss Mike Powell is now the chief of the cable industry's biggest lobbying operation, the NCTA.

Efforts to actually fix the very broken US broadband sector are routinely derailed by revolving door lobbyists. And any efforts to shore up our flimsy lobbying guidelines are quickly derailed by those same dollar per holler influence peddlers. Across countless sectors we're stuck in a catch 22 where meaningful progress is routinely thwarted until public anger finally boils over, and the United States finally acknowledges it has a very real problem that will require more than just routine grumbling to resolve.

Filed Under: fcc, lobbying, mergers, mignon clyburn, revolving door, soft corruption
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

The Copyright Office Acts As Hollywood's Lobbying Arm... Because That's Basically How It's Been Designed

from the regulatory-capture dept

Last month, we wrote about a blog post by Public Knowledge questioning why the Copyright Office kept acting like a lobbying firm for Hollywood, often stepping into issues where it has no business and almost always pushing the Hollywood viewpoint. It turns out that was just a sneak peak of a much larger report that PK has now released on The Consequences of Regulatory Capture at the Copyright Office. The full 50-page report is worth a thorough read.

It details the obvious bits concerning the revolving door between copyright maximalists and the Copyright Office, with much of top management coming from jobs in the entertainment industries, and then many former top Copyright Office folks going right back into that industry upon leaving. But the more interesting part of the report is looking at how frequently the Copyright Office appears to blatantly misinterpret copyright law in an attempt to expand what the law actually covers.

From safe harbor provisions to statutory licenses, the Copyright Office has, for decades, misapplied, ignored, or “creatively interpreted” statutory and common law. It assumed a strained and flatly unfeasible reading of safe harbor provisions in order to strip websites of statutory legal protections when they are sued by certain sound recording rightsholders; concluded against the force of common and statutory law that a broad “making available” right existed where it does not; and mischaracterized key aspects of copyright law with regard to proceedings at the Federal Communications Commission, all in support of the position of rightsholders against other industries and the public

That seems like it should be a pretty big concern, no?

There are some eye-opening examples of problems as well. For example, the time when the Copyright Office provided a memo in a lawsuit the record labels had filed against Launch Media. It originally included a footnote saying that Launch Media was likely a "non-interactive service" (which has many, many fewer restrictions than an interactive one). Magically, the footnote was then updated to say it wasn't a non-interactive service, but an interactive one. What changed?

In a memorandum from Kenneth L. Steinthal, attorney for Launch, admitted into evidence at trial, Steinthal stated that he spoke with the individual in the Copyright Office who drafted the footnote. Steinthal stated that according to that individual, someone from the RIAA had called the Copyright Office and as a result, the substance of the footnote was changed.

Yup. Apparently the RIAA can just make a phone call, and the Copyright Office is willing to switch positions overnight.

The report also notes how the Copyright Office keeps expanding its own mandate, and keeps getting smacked around for it. The examples of courts looking skeptically at the Copyright Office is fairly telling:

Courts have repeatedly taken a dim view of the Copyright Office’s analysis of larger questions—and, on occasion, even of their judgment in their core function of issuing registrations. The Second Circuit in Vimeo took the Office to task, slamming its analysis of safe harbors in the Pre-1972 Sound Recordings report as “arbitrary and without legal foundation,” “incompatible with a literal and natural reading of the text,” and “based in major part on a misreading of the statute.” The Court also commented that the Office’s position was “[a]t the very least, a strained interpretation—one that could be justified only by concluding that Congress must have meant something different from what it said.”

The conclusion is that we need to rethink the Copyright Office and how it's set up:

The Copyright Office, isolated from effective mechanisms of governmental accountability, has become deeply and troublingly captured by major entertainment industries and other rightsholder interests. As a result, it has regularly disregarded the concerns of other stakeholders, such as libraries, archives, and the public at large. It has frequently aligned itself with the agendas of industry trade groups, pushed for expansion of copyright at the expense of consumers’ established rights, and published reports that embrace extreme interpretations that rise above and beyond the scope of settled law.

Of course, it's not too difficult to see how this came about. If you're not deep in the weeds of copyright issues, it's actually fairly natural to assume that the people who best understand copyright law are those in companies who use copyright law to their own advantage. Of course, that ignores that the very purpose of copyright law is not to benefit copyright holders, but the public (this is also something that the Copyright Office has, consistently, gotten wrong). But, that's like saying that the best banking regulators should be former bankers (oh wait...) and the best FCC commissioners should be ex-telco lawyers (oops). In the end, what we're seeing is pure regulatory capture, but it's especially troubling in the copyright context, given that copyright is explicitly designed with the benefits of the public in mind, and it's only over time (thanks to this kind of regulatory capture) that the mission has been warped and twisted to the false belief that maximizing copyright is important, rather than maximizing the public's benefit.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright office, hollywood, regulatory capture, revolving door
Companies: public knowledge

New Appointees To Congressional Oversight Committees Have Deep Ties To Military/Industrial Contractors And The CIA

from the what-if-they-gave-a-war-and-nobody-wanted-to-end-it? dept

There are several reasons why the US government's War on Terror will never end, but every one of them traces back to two prime motivators: money and power. They're inseparable, as are the interests that almost always conflict but almost always get overlooked as the Congressional revolving door spins.

If you want a war -- possibly even a CYBERwar -- you'll get one. The oversight committees that are charged with keeping the NSA and others in line are actually acting as filters. Those on the committees pick and choose what's passed on to other Congress and Senate members. In addition, the oversight has been further compromised by recent additions whose employment histories indicate there will be continued expansion of government powers in the future.

Lee Fang of The Intercept has a rundown of the new oversight committee members. To no one's surprise, they have ties to government contractors and secretive government agencies.

In January, Jeffrey Shockey became the most powerful staffer on the House Intelligence Committee after Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., named him staff director, the highest ranking staff assignment. Shockey has gone in and out of lobbying and congressional work for over two decades…

Shockey's ties to an appropriations scandal, in which he helped obtain $150 million in contracts for his military-industrial clients via improper earmarks, hasn't prevented him from taking a seat at the intelligence table, where his decisions can alter the flow of funding to and from intelligence agencies. His former clients -- and there are a lot of them -- stand to benefit from any expansion of surveillance programs or newly-approved offensive cyberweaponry. Over the course of his lobbying career, Shockey has represented Academi (formerly Blackwater), General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and a handful of closely-related corporations.

Rep. Bill Hurd -- a newcomer -- has scored a choice seat at the head of the brand new House Oversight Committee for technology. How fortuitous.

Before running for office, Hurd worked in offensive cyberoperations as a CIA officer, joined the Crumpton Group, a private intelligence firm led by a former CIA official, and later helped build a cybersecurity company called FusionX.

It's not just the NSA and CIA that stand to benefit from appointees who empathize deeply with the work the agencies do, as well as the private companies that help them get it done. The DHS is also honing its synergy by appointing former Chertoff Group senior associate Jena Baker McNeill as Deputy Staff Director for the Senate Homeland Security committee. The Chertoff Group was founded by former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. McNeill's appointment keeps DHS control "in the family," so to speak.

A lot of entities -- both inside and outside the government -- have grown accustomed to running a well-funded war machine. They're in no hurry to give it up. If the Snowden leaks ever result in serious surveillance reforms, the shift to Plan B (cybersecurity) will ensure no one goes hungry. The players may change periodically but the underlying interests will continue to be well-protected by company men (and women) and intelligence insiders.

Filed Under: congress, intelligence community, oversight, revolving door, surveillance

The OTHER Government Revolving Door: Sheriff's Departments, State Troopers Provide New Homes For Bad Cops

from the I-wouldn't-join-any-club-that-would-take-me-as-a-member dept

It's not just our nation's legislators that enjoy a "revolving door" -- one that moves them from Congress to the private sector and back again, to the mutual benefit of legislators and certain industries… not so much the rest of America.

There's another revolving door out there -- one that keeps bad cops employed in the law enforcement sector. It's incredibly difficult for police departments to shed their "bad apples," what with police unions pushing back hard on the few occasions that the blue line fails to hold. But even if they do manage to cut one loose, there's a good chance this former officer will just end up carrying a badge and gun for someone else.

As we covered earlier this year, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department made sure a plethora of bad cops weren't hurting for money, either by bringing them on board directly or placing them in open positions at the jails under its control.

For nearly 100 hires, investigators discovered evidence of dishonesty, such as making untrue statements or falsifying police records. At least 15 were caught cheating on the department's own polygraph exams.

Twenty-nine of those given jobs had previously had been fired or pressured to resign from other law enforcement agencies over concerns about misconduct or workplace performance problems. Nearly 200 had been rejected from other agencies because of past misdeeds, failed entrance exams or other issues.

Out in Lincoln, Nebraska, other law enforcement agencies are acting as halfway houses for police officers with a history of misconduct.

John McGahan, the Lincoln Police Department’s 2013 Officer of the Year who resigned this year after Internal Affairs accused him of using excessive force, is now working at the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.

A second police officer accused of using excessive force, Jeremy Wilhelm, is a trooper candidate with the Nebraska State Patrol.

Here's some more uniform-switching, this time in Ohio.

Former New Albany Police officer Steve Mowery faced several accusations of misconduct while he worked for that force… Mowery allegedly used excessive force against a teenager and was sued. That case was settled, according to those who were involved.

Mowery resigned before the police department could make a final recommendation for discipline, according to sources at the New Albany Police Department.

Today, Mowery works as a deputy for the Lucas County Sheriff's office in the Toledo area.

Thanks to WBNS-10TV, the Sheriff's office is finally looking into Mowery's law enforcement record. But Mowery isn't an anomaly.

[F]ormer Nelsonville police officer Randy Secoy was hired despite a reprimand from the Athens County Sheriff's office for his "inability to control his anger." Secoy made the news last year after surveillance video showed him lunging toward a seated teenager and forcefully gripping the teen's throat.

Franklin Township Police Chief Allan Wheeler has hired multiple officers who have had troubles elsewhere. One officer resigned his position as a police chief at Marietta College in eastern Ohio… Printed reports that are still available online say that the former Marietta College Police chief was accused of making unwanted sexual advances toward a woman and stalking her.

From Florida, here's the story of a well-traveled officer who might just be "the most crooked cop in America."

[Major Joseph] Floyd joined the Crestview Police Department in the Florida Panhandle in 2007 after a brief stint with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. Unbeknownst to his new colleagues at the time of his hiring, Floyd had a rap sheet that stretched back more than a decade. Over the course of eight years, Floyd was terminated, forced to resign, or quit three police departments while under investigation for insubordination, lying, and falsifying records. Before becoming a cop, Floyd had been arrested for battery, disorderly conduct, and assaulting a law enforcement officer.

The article at Reason details some of Floyd's past misconduct, which includes having subordinates tase unresisting suspects, planting evidence, striking suspects with rifles and referring to female officers as "department whores." Charming. And yet, apparently still employable. (Here's the 11-page indictment.)

From Texas:

[Roy] Logan was fired in 2001 from his last job as a licensed peace officer before becoming a Precinct 5 deputy. His explanation on a Dallas County job application: "terminated by newly elected sheriff."

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes said Logan was fired after a Texas Department of Public Safety officer reported seeing him playing an eight-liner gambling machine while on duty - about eight months after Byrnes took office.

Deputy Constable Juston Coffman resigned from the Celina (TX) Police Department after having been disciplined "several times." He found a new home as a school district police officer.

More from Texas. Nearly half of Jonestown's seven-member police force had a history of misconduct. (Two were immediately fired by an interim police chief earlier this year.)

Yvonne Gunnlaugsson had been suspended several times from the Austin Police Department before retiring under a cloud in 2005, public records show. She’d come to work for Jonestown a short time later…

Gunnlaugsson had compiled a long list of infractions as an Austin police officer. She’d been suspended six times, including for wrecking a patrol car after falling asleep and for failing to interview a suspect who had been identified by a robbery victim. Her involvement in another case led to a federal lawsuit against the city that raised questions about her judgment while responding to a call.

Andre Anderson, was sacked from the Jonestown department May 7. An internal investigation accused him of omitting an important piece of history from his job application: He’d lost his job at the Travis County sheriff’s office in 2001, after acknowledging he’d had sex with two inmates while they were in custody.

The third officer, still employed at this point, was suspended and fired by the Georgetown Police Dept. for failing to investigate suspected crimes.

Another police officer from elsewhere in the state managed to parlay being fired for drunken driving (and being named in a wrongful death suit that resulted in a $750,000 settlement) into a new position as a sheriff's deputy in another county.

The problem is so pervasive it has its own term: gypsy cops. Moving from agency to agency tends to obscure incriminating paper trails, especially if the switch involves moving from a city agency (police department) to a county agency (sheriff's department) or state agency (state troopers, highway patrol). Changes in background check requirements and decertification stipulations can be abused to keep bad law enforcement officers employed by law enforcement agencies.

The background checks themselves are their own problem. Agencies have been known to hire officers who've failed checks or while background checks were still pending. For smaller agencies or those pressured to add officers, these background checks may not be as thorough -- if they're even performed at all.

Police union pressure has led to legislation that further insulates police officers from being held accountable for their actions. Called a "law enforcement bill of rights," it's actually a long list of extra rights that makes it nearly impossible to fire bad cops, much less have their misconduct harm their future employment prospects. Mike Riggs' writeup of these special, police-only due process "rights" is eye-opening. And infuriating.

At this point, it pretty much takes a felony conviction to ensure a fired cop won't just end up wearing a different badge somewhere else. Most police departments aren't willing to battle police unions to ensure fired cops stay out of circulation. Neutral references are given instead of recommendations against hiring. Dishonorable discharges are upgraded to honorable or "general."

Those doing the hiring are also falling down on the job. When pressed about hires of cops with negative histories, those responsible for their continued employment plead ignorance. Despite the fact that these incidents are usually part of public records, law enforcement agency heads act as though it's everyone else's job to perform their due diligence. To some extent, it is. Those integral to the hiring process should be more thorough. But ultimately, the buck stops at the top. There's enough information out there that bad cops should only slip through the cracks of the vetting system on rare occasions, rather than finding open doors nearly everywhere they look. The problem with bad cops will never go away if they can simply become some other agency's "bad apple" just by filling out a job application.

Filed Under: bad cops, police, revolving door, sheriffs departments, state troopers

White House Reverses Course: Now Allowing Lobbyists To Serve On Insider Government 'Advisory' Boards

from the just-making-it-official dept

For many years, we've talked about the very questionable practice by the USTR to set up "Industry Trade Advisory Committees" (ITACs), who had full access to the various documents concerning the trade agreements that were being negotiated. Obviously, for big companies, being one of the very small group of people on the inside, helping to shape trade agreements, is enormously powerful -- especially since industries long ago learned that you can "launder" policy changes that Congress doesn't want to make via the international trade agreement process, thereby putting pressure on Congress to act. It's why we've pointed out that it seems rather unfair that the RIAA has direct access to the TPP agreement, but Senate staffers (including experts on international trade) have been refused access.

Of course, one of the lame responses from the USTR and others is that, technically President Obama's ethics rules forbade "lobbyists" from being on those and other committees. But that was already very narrowly focused just on people who met the official definition of lobbyist. And, you could still have other people who work directly with lobbyists on the committee. So, for example, Neil Turkewitz, a VP with the RIAA is currently on the IP advisory committee. He can do that because he's not technically a "lobbyist" -- he just happens to work for an organization where the main function is lobbying, and where most of his colleagues are lobbyists.

Apparently, that sort of looseness wasn't enough. The White House has now changed the rules to make them even friendlier to lobbyists:

In new guidance issued Tuesday, the administration said registered lobbyists will once again be allowed to serve on the boards so long as they are representing a client.

The new rules now say:

Under the Memorandum and this Revised Guidance, federally registered lobbyists may not serve on an advisory committee, board, or commission (hereinafter, “committee”) in an “individual capacity.” In this Revised Guidance, the term “individual capacity” refers to individuals who are appointed to committees to exercise their own individual best judgment on behalf of the government, such as when they are designated as Special Government Employees as defined in 18 U.S.C. 202. The lobbyist ban do es not apply to lobbyists who are appointed in a “representative capacity,” meaning that they are appointed for the express purpose of providing a committee with the views of a nongovernmental entity, a recognizable group of persons or nongovernmental entities (an industry sector, labor unions, or environmental groups, etc.), or state or local government.

The original ban was one of President Obama's apparent "sweeping" changes, and which the President insisted showed how he was reducing the influence of lobbyists in government. Here's what he said back in 2010 about this:

My Administration is committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests that for too long has shaped the national agenda and drowned out the voices of ordinary Americans. Special interests exert this disproportionate influence, in part, by relying on lobbyists who have special access that is not available to all citizens. Although lobbyists can sometimes play a constructive role by communicating information to the government, their service in privileged positions within the executive branch can perpetuate the culture of special interest access that I am committed to changing.

Apparently, the administration is a little less committed to changing that these days. Admittedly, the White House was somewhat pressured into this by a lawsuit from some lobbyists who (I'm not joking) argued their First Amendment rights were being violated. While a lower court rejected this argument, earlier this year, the DC Circuit appeals court claimed it was a legitimate First Amendment issue and that "the ban pressures them to limit their constitutional right to petition."

Frankly, that's ridiculous. Almost no one is allowed on these advisory committees. The Intellectual Property Advisory Committee has a grand total of 16 people. I'm sure there's no way in hell I would be allowed on it. Does that mean that my constitutional right to petition the government has been denied? Of course not, because that's a ridiculous interpretation of the First Amendment.

The Appeals Court ruling wasn't the end of the case, as it was was sent back to the lower court for further review -- but it appears that the Obama administration has effectively thrown in the towel and will allow the lobbyists back onto the committees that none of us are likely to ever be allowed on. Because that process wasn't corrupt enough already...

Filed Under: advisory committees, first amendment, influence, itac, lobbying, lobbyists, politics, president obama, revolving door, secrecy, tafta, tpp, trade, trade agreements, transparency, ttip, ustr

Revolving Door: Main Architect Of PIPA (Senate Version Of SOPA) Now... Lobbying For The MPAA

from the just-swings-around-and-around-and-around dept

A couple of years ago, we wrote about an interview with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in which he explained one of his most effective strategies in getting legislation in his favor. The key trick: find key staffers working for elected officials and tell them they had a job waiting for them whenever they wanted it. Here was the key bit:

And he would ask them: "When do you want to start?" If they said "two years," he knew that the guy was already working for him, but on the inside. As he says "I really hired him that day," even though he went on for two more years working as a chief-of-staff to someone in Congress.

Just yesterday, we wrote about Rep. Howard Berman -- famous for his support of ever expanding copyright law -- who has now been hired to lobby for the MPAA. Berman, the former Congressman, is obviously the headline piece. But, along with that news came some further news that didn't get as much attention -- which is that in hiring the firm that Berman works for, Covington & Burling, the MPAA didn't just hire Berman, but also Aaron Cooper, who was Senator Patrick Leahy's chief intellectual property staffer, and the main guy behind the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), the Senate's version of SOPA.

The MPAA, of course, was the main driving lobbying force (along with the US Chamber of Commerce) to get SOPA/PIPA approved. And here we are, just a couple of years later, and the Congressional staffer who was the main internal architect of that bill is... now officially paid by the MPAA. The old "revolving door" continues to swing round and round. Jack Abramoff would be proud.

Filed Under: aaron cooper, howard berman, lobbying, pipa, protect ip, revolving door, senate judiciary committee, sopa
Companies: covington & burling, mpaa

Former 'Representative From Disney' Howard Berman Makes It Official: Starts Lobbying For Hollywood

from the hollywood-howard-gets-his-payday dept

For years, Hollywood's biggest player in Congress when it came to copyright policy was Rep. Howard Berman. He was often referred to as the Representative from Disney for his willingness to always push for more expansive copyright policies. While he was sometimes called the Rep from Hollywood, I believe his actual district was "adjacent to" Hollywood, though it "included parts of" Hollywood as well. Either way, in 2012, thanks to redistricting, Berman went up against another longterm LA Representative, Brad Sherman, and lost. Berman quickly became a lobbyist, and now it's come out that he's officially lobbying for the MPAA on "issues related to intellectual property protection" because of course he is. Not much else to say about this other than it's yet another example of the revolving door and the nature of back-scratching that happens in DC.

Filed Under: congress, howard berman, lobbying, revolving door
Companies: mpaa

Emails Show Cozy Relationship Between Comcast Execs And DOJ Antitrust Folks; Party Invitation Blocked By 'Rules Folks'

from the darn-rules-folks dept

A new FOIA discovery via Todd Feathers at MuckRock has turned up some emails showing a rather cozy relationship between top Comcast execs and Justice Department antitrust officials. In fact, just days before Comcast announced its intent to acquire Time Warner Cable, Comcast Senior VP of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs, Kathryn Zachem, had invited Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Renata Hesse, to "attend a celebration of the opening ceremony" of the Sochi Olympics, care of Comcast NBC Universal. Hesse sent an email saying that she really wanted to attend but "the rules folks over here tell me I can't do this." Though, she still says that they need to get dinner sometime soon. When Zachem responds that she had hoped it would still be okay because "we have nothing formally before you all," Hesse notes "our ethics rules are very restrictive." Two weeks later, Zachem was again emailing Hesse to give her "a heads up on an announcement we are making in the early AM." It was, of course, the proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. A couple days later, there's another email exchange between Zachem and Hesse, in which Hesse introduces Zachem to David Gelfand at the Justice Department who "will be working on this for the front office with me." She notes "If you don't know him, you will and I know you will like him. He's just terrific." Zachem replies: "Hello David - if Renata says I will like you then I already do!" Gelfand jokingly replies:

In the interest of full disclosure, Renata sent her nice email while still under the influence of my having just bought her a cup of coffee. But hopefully I can live up to the advance billing!

Just the kind of chummy, friendly relationship you want to see from the people tasked with determining whether or not your multi-billion merger should be allowed to go through. And, yes, I recognize that regulators and top execs in charge of regulatory affairs are going to have personal connections and relationships with each other. That happens. But given the situation and the timing, this certainly raises the usual questions of just how objective the DOJ's review of the merger will be.

Filed Under: doj, kathryn zachem, regulations, renata hesse, revolving door
Companies: comcast, time warner cable