Wisconsin Congressmen keep Rural Voters in Broadband slow lane by denying access!!!

You'd think if something were consumer friendly, it would be a no brainer that business would flourish. Not so much.

What about that scary old Net Neutrality thing Republican hate so much? It's a consumer-friendly, pro-constituency idea that benefits all American voters, especially those in rural areas...but it doesn't benefit GOP campaign coffers desperate for funding from ISP lobbyists.

How can anyone argue with these benefits:

Rules require (1) the Internet to be made equally accessible to all users. (2) They prohibit service providers such as Verizon and Comcast from offering faster content delivery to customers in return for higher fees while leaving other customers in a slower lane ... (3) give the FCC permanent authority to prevent Internet gatekeepers from blocking or throttling customer access, (4) retains FCC programs that expand broadband access in rural areas and make the Internet more accessible to low-income persons.

Who would argue against consumer benefits promoting business and jobs?

Wisconsin Congressional Republicans, that's who. Next time you see them, ask them why? Keep in mind a few things; like how providers are now devising ways to game the system to increase profits; trying to fleece customers despite their income. And because the net is a vital lifeline, Democrats are determined to classify it as a "utility:"

Classifying ISPs as utility companies under Title II meant they had to treat the internet like every other utility — that is, just like gas, water, or phone service — and that they couldn’t cut off service at will or control how much of it any one person received based on how much that person paid for it. The idea was that the internet should be a public service that everyone has a right to use, not a privilege, and that regulating ISPs like utilities would prevent them from hijacking or monopolize that access.

The Republicans voting against their constituents best interests:

Voting no: Bryan Steil, R-1st; Jim Sensenbrenner, R-5th; Glenn Grothman, R-6th; Sean Duffy, R-7th; Mike Gallagher, R-8th

These Republicans stand to gain at the voter's expense, despite being elected to serve the public:

The communications industry is one of the largest lobbying groups in US history; internet providers and the telephone companies before them are notorious for spreading wealth across the aisle. 

And those who voted yes? Give them credit: Mark Pocan, D-2nd; Ron Kind, D-3rd; Gwen Moore, D-4th

Despite the popular talking point, net neutrality did not discourage ISP's from investing in their systems:

Some broadband providers, like Comcast and Charter, actually increased investment in 2015 and 2016. Others, like AT&T, decreased investment, but told shareholders years before the FCC adopted its rules that they planned to slash infrastructure spending after completing network upgrades.

Can we afford the mistakes that no regulation will create?

"Consumers don’t have anywhere to turn when they are wronged by these large corporations, because the FCC took itself off the beat entirely,” said Representative Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey). “Consumers are left watching the internet slowly change in front of their eyes."

One particular incident has become a flash point in the debate. During the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018, Verizon throttled mobile internet speeds for firefighters, according to a brief filed by the county of Santa Clara, California, as part of the federal suit against the FCC. The county paid for "unlimited" plans for the firefighters, but the plan limited connection speeds to 1/200th of their usual speeds after exceeding 25 GB of data. "This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services," the brief says. The county was able to restore full speeds only after contacting Verizon's billing department and switching to a new plan that cost twice as much.

Still...

Vox: Even though public support for restoring net neutrality rules is overwhelming (including among Republican voters), due to conditions in the Senate and Trump’s veto threat, net neutrality is still dead and doesn’t appear headed for resurrection.

Trump's Canadian Dairy agreement of "little use...too small and too far in the future to help." GOP doing nothing about Rural Broadband!!!

It turns out, Trump is gaslighting farmers for their vote and sending them a $12 billion bride for good measure. But will rural communities and dairy farmers let some city huckster con them?

Trump's trumped-up NAFTA renegotiation is a major swing and a miss, doing almost nothing, and get this, the tariffs Mexico and Canada slapped on ag, pork, and dairy products are still in place because of Trump's steel tariffs.

Trump's Smoke and Mirrors meant to deceive Dairy/AG Farmers Exposed: Why rural voters keep coming back to the Republicans for a few relaxed regulations, bad roads, and lousy broadband coverage is a mystery to me:

1. The renegotiated trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada is of little use to the dairy farmers Trump insisted on helping, Federal Reserve banks in the Midwest are reporting.

2. Gains from the new agreement are seen as “too small and too far in the future to help dairy farmers,” the Chicago Fed reported in the central bank’s periodic report on economic conditions across its 12 districts.

3. The Chicago Fed reports “dairy farmers continued to struggle,” and Canada and Mexico kept their tariffs on pork, dairy and other agricultural products that they imposed in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum products imported to the U.S.

4. The Minneapolis Fed reported that “a substantial number of dairy operations have exited the business since the beginning of the year.”

Broken Rural Broadband Promise makes things Worse...thank you Republicans: At the same time Trump put farmers on the frontline in his trade war, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is putting off broadband rollout until he can put together perfect rural broadband maps that accurately show how bad the problem really is...I wish I were kidding: 

The FCC's current broadband maps grossly misstate where internet or wireless service exists and where it doesn't. One of the major reasons: The FCC has relied on wireless and broadband companies to report … but the agency doesn't check the data … providers only need to report advertised maximum speeds and not actual speeds.
 Pai blames the previous Democrat-led administration for creating the problem and says his administration has been left to clean up the mess. But he says this process will take some time to play out. "The maps as they currently stand aren't perfect," Pai said. "But our goal is to make sure with respect to wireless connectivity that we have a clear-cut idea about where those connections are and where they aren't."

 Republicans aren't that into you (rural voters) either:

The Trump ... infrastructure proposal called for $50 billion in rural spending, including on broadband, but so far neither his budget nor the Republican Congress have allocated additional funds for rural broadband deployment.

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in early October, Democrats and Republicans were critical of cuts the FCC has made to a program funded through its Universal Service Fund, which reimburses some of the costs for phone companies offering broadband in rural communities. Committee Chairman John Thune said Pai had committed to conducting a "thorough economic analysis on funding cuts" ... But no analysis has occurred and that cuts had increased by almost 25 percent.

Pai believes the "trickle-down theory" for rural high-speed broadband could work? Imagine what a smaller corporate tax cut and more revenue money going to total broadband coverage in the U.S.:

Pai argues that if the FCC limits the fees that big cities can charge wireless companies to deploy their 5G infrastructure, these carriers will be more willing to plow that money into rural broadband. But critics called this a false premise and does nothing more than strip local communities of negotiating power. "Saving money in New York of Los Angeles has zero impact on investment in Montana."

But pushing fiber closer to customers or directly to their door is expensive. An FCC report estimated it would take $40 billion to expand internet access to cover 98 percent of Americans and another $40 billion to deliver broadband to 100 percent of the US population. 

Burger King's Net Neutality Pricing System, ATT wants Law Back, and Local Community's targeted by Big Telecom.

Today net neutrality came into focus, thanks to Burger King? Beautiful.

Hitting the Twitter fan in a big way was this Burger King ad explaining net neutrality to its customers in the most obnoxious way. And yes, I will be buying a "slow MPBS" Burger King order:

Burger King's new ad has become a sensation, with more than a million views on YouTube and it's lighting up Twitter. In the ad customers, whom the restaurant says are real, are told they will be charged different prices for a Whopper, based on speed, or MBPS (making burgers per second). Prices range from $5 to $26. And the customers grow increasingly furious in an art-imitating-life display that mocks new internet rules that have led to wide-scale protests, even death threats.

ATT now backs Net Neutrality: This is a twist...but are they serious?

ATT is calling on Congress for a national net neutrality law that would govern Internet providers and tech companies alike, which the telecom giant says would end a fractious, years-long debate over the future of the Web. In a series of full-page ads Wednesday in major newspapers such as The Washington Post and the New York Times, AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson proposed an “Internet Bill of Rights” that could help guarantee an open Internet, one in which online content is not blocked or slowed down by telecom or cable companies, nor by Internet companies such as Google or Facebook.

AT T's legislative campaign aims to head off what many analysts say could be another swing of the regulatory pendulum against broadband providers. Many states are also moving to pass their own net neutrality rules to replace the federal regulations. On Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) signed an executive order requiring that state agencies purchase Internet access only from broadband providers that abide by net neutrality.

The prospect of having to comply with perhaps dozens of state-level net neutrality rules is a nightmare for Internet providers. Although the FCC has said it will take states to court if they seek to circumvent its decision, companies such as AT&T want a guarantee of stability. AT&T's call for the bill to apply equally to Internet companies and providers reflects a turning point for the long-running net neutrality saga as well as for Silicon Valley's fortunes in Washington.

One tech industry official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely. “This is like the big, bad wolf promising better building codes after blowing down all the houses in town,” the official said.

Big Telecom taking Over Broadband Control: Ajit Pai's plan is to turn the internet over to the big players, leaving local government and consumers to Big Telecoms monopolized market prices:

San Jose mayor Mayor Sam Liccardo says he’s quitting FCC broadband committee because Big Telecom is running it: the FCC, under Trump-appointed chairman Ajit Pai, launched an advisory committee on high-speed internet access, saying it planned to bring broadband to more people. 

At a recent meeting, Mayor Liccardo said, a working group with no municipal representatives considered a plan to eliminate municipal control of broadband infrastructure. The goal, he now believes, is to give the industry “publicly-funded infrastructure at taxpayer-subsidized rates.” 

In August, the Center for Public Integrity explained how local governments believed they were being played, as the FCC reportedly stacked more than three out of four positions on the panel with business-friendly interests. 

With 83 Percent of Voters supporting Net Neutrality, Republican Repeal a betrayal of Representation!

Another fine mess Republicans got us into. Keep in mind, this didn't have to happen.

Our "small government" Republicans have forced every state government to create a patchwork of new laws protecting net neutrality. Hoops and red tape have always saved taxpayers money...?

The Federal Communications Commission repealed the nationwide, Obama-era net neutrality rules in December of last year. At the time of the rollback, the FCC prohibited state and local governments from creating regulations of their own.

Now that's small government? And like Wisconsin Republicans eliminating local control here, our Republican Congress is suddenly a big believer in a one-size-fits-all standard:

But the FCC and net neutrality critics argue creating patchwork regulations across the country would make it difficult for these broadband companies to operate. "If there were individual states that pursued net neutrality regulations — creating a patchwork of regulations across the company — it would be difficult, if not impossible for those companies to conduct business."

Corporate GOP Servitude and Nothing Else: Thanks to Republican meddling and repeal of a regulation the public did not want to be repealed, they created this patchwork of statewide regulation.

Democrats to the rescue again:

Fifty U.S. senators have already voiced their support for a bill to override the FCC’s decision ending net neutrality. One Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, joined all 49 of the Senate’s Democrats to support of the bill (one vote shy). At the state level, a collection of more than 20 Attorneys General from around the country filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the ruling.

Montana Governor Bullock's Executive Order Model: This just might get around any possible legal problem:

Bullock’s advisors are confident that this method of regulating government contracts and not the providers directly provides a legal loophole to reinstate the spirit of net neutrality rules. The state government is not doing anything to specifically stop telecommunication companies from throttling traffic. But now, if the providers choose to do so, they are also choosing to give up any government business.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai wants to Laugh in your Face!!!

So what does repealing net neutrality mean to Americans? That's simple, ISP's can now do what they couldn't do, with no restrictions until of course they get caught. That's why we have regulations, protections, that prevent bad things from happening:

Those rules prevented internet providers from blocking and throttling traffic and offering paid fast lanes. 

If you thought your internet phone connection was your lifeline to help, it isn't anymore, thanks to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai's repeal of Title II. Soon you may not be able to afford it:

They also classified internet providers as Title II common carriers.

After Ajit Pai slam dunked the repeal of net neutrality, he taunted the losers with an in your face condescending Christmas message. He even used the ultra right wing's fake news propaganda network The Daily Caller. PC Gamer:

Smirking FCC chairman posts video mocking net neutrality supporters.

Pai's bad judgement didn't stop with the video. He also didn't mind appearing next to a conspiracy drenched "alt-righter:"

One of the people who appears in the video, during the "You Can Still Ruin Memes" bit, is Martina Markota, a video producer for The Daily Caller. Markota's website includes links to a video called "Come to Pepe," the alt-right frog mascot, and another on Pizzagate, the infamous conspiracy theory about a child sex ring run by the Democratic Party out of the basement of a Washington DC pizzeria. That video has since been removed...

...that's not entirely true:



Another Republican fiasco...:

Moments before the FCC voted to overturn net-neutrality regulations, the hearing room was briefly evacuated over a potential security threat ... a security team scanning the empty room with bomb-sniffing dogs. “On advice of security, we need to take a brief recess,” Chairman Ajit Pai told the room before the evacuation. Security advised those in their room to leave their belongings behind; reporters waited in the hallway until the room was cleared for re-entry. The commission eventually voted 3-2 to end the Obama-era rules.

The Brutal Death of Net Neutrality...

It all seemed to innocent, based on a few simple common sense principles:

Net neutrality regulations, which ensure all traffic on the internet is treated equally, prevents broadband and wireless providers from blocking or slowing online content.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai doesn't want to prevent anything, but instead wants to see what happens, taking legal steps only after American consumers are hurt, robbed of their money, or treated unfairly:

Pai: "Today, I have shared with my colleagues a draft order that would abandon this failed approach and return to the longstanding consensus that served consumers well for decades."

Net neutrality failed? Missed that. Pai also wants you to believe that the internet isn't about communicating anymore, turning oversight responsibility over to the Federal Trade Commission:

Pai's is stripping the FCC of its authority to regulate the internet.

Former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said Pai's proposal "raises hypocrisy to new heights" as the agency abdicates its authority to the FTC. "They are 'protecting consumers' by disavowing responsibility to do just that. They are providing for 'better regulation' by giving authority to the FTC, which has no regulatory authority."

And because net neutrality made the internet a "utility," rates were regulated to prevent providers from pricing consumer out of their only life line for help. Say goodbye to that:

Companies like AT&T and Verizon have argued that as a public utility, (it was) a disincentive to invest in their networks. They say they were less likely to build their networks in hard-to-reach areas like rural regions or to offer faster, more innovative service because they were afraid the government would regulate rates or force them to open the infrastructure to competitors.

Skies the limit, and we'll be paying outrageously high rates for this "freedom:"

Gigi Sohn, a former adviser to Tom Wheeler, the FCC chairman who championed the 2015 rules, said, "In a few short weeks, the big broadband providers will be free to double their prices, extract extra tolls on fast lanes for online businesses, and track and sell their customers' web browsing activity. When they're done, what will remain of consumer protection on the Internet will be nothing more than a carcass."

But FCC Chairman Pai isn't done yet, promising full and transparent disclosures by the only ISP in your area, so you and your attorney can approve or disapprove getting any internet or not. Lots of choices huh? And can they make the legalese and print any smaller?

Small print disclaimer nightmare!

Companies will also be required to disclose any paid priority services they offer and explain how they manage network congestion.

Here's the Republican version of "small government," a blanket law nationwide:

The proposal would also ban states from passing their own versions of the old rules.

Anti-competitive Customer Robbery: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is quietly encouraging it: 

In February, for example, he ended an investigation into whether ATandT and Verizon used data limits for anti-competitive purposes, effectively ruling that the two companies could exempt their own video services from customers' data caps but still charge for data used by their competitors’ services.

Wacky "Government Controlling Everything" Theory: Lacking any substance, right wing Chicken Little's can always rely on this:

Fox News: "All the nonsense about paid prioritization and Internet fast lanes that would favor some content over others is nothing but fear mongering by consumer groups that want government controlled everything. Net Neutrality is ObamaCare for the Internet."

_________________________________________________________________________________

Washington Post: "Your Internet isn’t getting any faster, but the government might soon call it ‘high-speed’ anyway:" Yup, Pai wants to replace the word "slow" with "fast." It's magic:

That year, the agency revised its minimum definition of broadband to be any service that offered at least 25 Mbps downloads and 3 Mbps uploads. By this definition, the FCC said, 55 million Americans lacked high-speed Internet. Almost overnight, the FCC essentially created a big mission for itself to solve, using all of the policy tools and money at its disposal.

Pai has asked whether it would be appropriate to use a looser standard to define broadband. Specifically, he's asked if it makes sense to use a 10 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up definition. In Pai's view, continually moving the goal posts is counterproductive.

Democrats say reverting to a definition that makes it easier for the FCC to claim it's done its job simply sweeps the problems of affordable access under the rug. Concluding that there's nothing to see here has myriad implications for the average consumer. If there is no problem, there is no need for action.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Washington Post: "FCC net neutrality process ‘corrupted’ by fake comments and vanishing consumer complaints, officials say." This is a huge story. 

“The process the FCC has employed,” wrote New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman this week in a letter to the FCC, “… has been corrupted by the fraudulent use of Americans’ identities” ... more than a million comments, supporting Pai's effort to repeal net neutrality, may have been faked ... the FCC has declined to provide further evidence that could help move the investigation forward, such as data logs and other information.“It’s scary to think that organic, authentic voices in the public debate  are being drowned out by a chorus of spambots,” said Jeff Kao, a data scientist who published a study of the pro-repeal comments Thursday, in a blog post.

The FCC's Response? You won't believe this...

Brian Hart, an FCC spokesman, said the agency lacks the resources to investigate every comment. Supporters of the net neutrality rules are not blameless either, he added, pointing to 7.5 million comments filed in favor of the regulations that appeared to come from 45,000 distinct email addresses, "all generated by a single fake e-mail generator website." Some 400,000 comments backing the rules, he said, appeared to originate from a mailing address based in Russia. "The most suspicious activity has been by those supporting Internet regulation," said Hart.

Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic FCC commissioner added that some 50,000 consumer complaints appear to have disappeared from the agency's records. She also highlighted a Government Accountability Office probe into an alleged denial-of-service attack that the FCC claimed prevented consumers from filing submissions on the net neutrality plan.

Keep this list as an "I told you so" reminder:

1. Marketplace Weekend: By keeping the web neutral, these regulations ensure that every site is accessible at the same speed. Netflix can't pay to load faster than Hulu, internet service providers like Spectrum and Verizon can't block specific sites or make subscribers pay more to access them

2. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said "the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet." 

3. Internet service providers will be raking in the dough without net neutrality ... ISPs can create tiers of service to access different sites and can charge businesses more for faster speeds ... 

4. But it could hurt small businesses. If ISPs can block sites or make them more expensive to maintain ... And that could mean fewer businesses and less competition. Think of Facebook ... it was run entirely out of a college campus. Without net neutrality, it might not have made it new businesses could be iced out in the future.

5. Uncompetitive prices or increased membership costs will hit customers right in their wallets,

6. Wired: INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS like Comcast and Verizon may soon be free to block content, slow video-streaming services from rivals, and offer “fast lanes” to preferred partners. When ATT customers access its DirecTV Now video-streaming service, the data doesn’t count against their plan’s data limits. Verizon, likewise, exempts its Go90 service ... T-Mobile allows multiple video and music streaming services to bypass its data limits, essentially allowing it to pick winners and losers in those categories.

FCC says Internet NOT a Utility now...yet Wisconsin GOP starting to think it is?

This isn't just about the inability of the Republican Party to run our government responsibly, it's also about a lack of awareness and the eventual realization that the "lefties" were right all along.

Well guess what? A few contradictory things just happened: The Republican dominated FCC is now saying the internet is NOT a public utility, essentially repealing net neutrality, while Republican legislators in Wisconsin are now realizing it just might be a public utility. Huh? God these people are slow. 

1. Walker Stopped Rural Job Creation and the Internet: Take one of Scott Walker's biggest initial mistakes; turning down federal rural broadband funding. Like the Journal Sentinel wrote in this Feb. 18, 2011 editorial:

The state is turning down $23 million because state taxpayers would have been on the hook for the entire amount if the state could not meet the grant's precise requirements, Mike Huebsch, secretary of the state Department of Administration said. Actually, high-speed Internet is part of the necessary infrastructure that is vital to communities that want to grow. The state will get there anyway, but this money could have speeded up the journey.

That's an understatement. 

Fast forward to December 2015, and to a state taxpayer corporate giveaway amounting to $1.5 million, a drop in the bucket to Obama's federal stimulus offer. Heck, Walker doled out $500,000 in 2014 and $450,000 in 2015, instead of  spending it on schools or transportation.

Fast forward to today with the news Microsoft picked our state to pilot a rural broadband experiment. It appears WPR is under the impression Republicans have been leading the rural broadband charge all along, not the Democrats:

For state lawmakers, bringing high-speed internet to rural Wisconsin has been a top priority. In May, the state Assembly passed a bill that would allocate $35 million to expand broadband in rural areas (state revenue folks).

Peanuts. 6 and half years ago we could have been well on our way, creating rural businesses and jobs with that $23 million federal offer.

 

2. Suddenly, Republicans think High Speed Internet is a Utility and Job Creator? It's not just hypocrisy, it a contradiction to their party position and federal policy. First, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, seeing a conspiracy theory behind net neutrality:

Pai said he would reclassify the internet through Title I of the Communications Act, rather than Title II. Without further explanation, Pai also claimed that the earlier net neutrality rules were actually a deliberate distraction created by the Obama White House: “In order to energize a dispirited base, the White House released an extraordinary YouTube video instructing the FCC to implement Title II regulations,” Pai said.

Here's what a few suddenly "enlightened" state Republican legislators are now saying, 6 years after the fact. See if you can see the contradiction:

State Assembly Rep. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, said her constituents are worried about being able to complete daily tasks without reliable internet access.

"One of the biggest things that I hear repeatedly is that people would like to work from their home or help their children with school projects. A lot of other things are necessitated by having a good internet connection, and that is something that is very sketchy in up in our area as of now."

For state Rep. Romaine Quinn, R-Rice Lake, the lack of decent internet in all parts of Wisconsin could slow the state's growth.

"It's a health care issue. It's an economic driver issue. And it's an educational piece too. Everything that we do in life now kind of revolves around having internet access, whether we want to use it or not. It affects everyone. Especially business parks. If you don't have a business park that is wired to high-speed internet with a large bandwidth and capacity for users, you're not going to have businesses move there. Plain and simple."

Here's the outrageous kicker, and what made me write this blog post:

Felzkowski said  ... she'd like to see the internet be treated as something akin to a utility in the future.

Huh, that's what it is now!!!! But not for long: 

"Back in the 50s, when the government said that everybody was entitled to electricity — that it's an economic driver, it's a quality of life issue — we made sure that everybody had electricity and everybody had access to a telephone. This is the same concept that we're working under with broadband. So, the investment will be there to get broadband to the residents of the state of Wisconsin."

FCC unshackles Cable Industry to start restricting U.S. internet services and consumer choices.

When your one single cable company offered bundle packages that included telephone service, they committed themselves to being a telecommunications service, an essential public service like a utility company providing heat and electricity. It "subjects them to tough, utility-style regulation." They should have known this.

But with the Republican free market FCC repealing net neutrality, we're getting a taste of a repressive government movement that will be difficult to unwind, if ever. 

The Verge: At the end of the day, internet providers are still doing well and have seen their stock prices rise, which suggest investors aren’t as devastated by net neutrality as they let on.

The Internet Association, a group that represents more than 40 top internet companies, including Google, Facebook, and Netflix, said there was no reason to change the rules. A group of 800 startups and investors, led by Y Combinator, also released a letter this morning FCC directed to Pai, saying, “We’re deeply concerned with your intention to undo the existing legal framework.” While the ACLU and 170 other advocacy groups wrote Pai last month asking for him to preserve the 2015 rules.

Hold onto to your seats, the corporate takeover and profiteering has begun:

1. CABLE INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS WRITE REPUBLICAN TALKING POINTS ON NET NEUTRALITY: House Republican lawmakers received an email from GOP leadership on how to defend the decision. Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference. “Here is a nifty toolkit with news resources, The attached packet of talking points came directly from the cable industry. “The FCC is wisely repealing the reckless decision of its predecessors to regulate competing internet service providers,” reads one of the document’s talking points.

Here’s their press release:

Victims whose stolen names and addresses were used to submit fake anti-net neutrality comments send letter to FCC demanding investigation: Victims of a campaign that spammed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with over 450,000 fake anti-net neutrality comments have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai asking him to remove the fraudulent comments from the public docket and demanding an investigation into who is behind the identity theft.  

“Whoever is behind this stole our names and addresses, exposed our private information in a public docket without our permission, and used our identities to file a political statement we did not sign onto,” the letter reads. The letter also warns that “hundreds of thousands of other Americans may have been victimized too.” See the full letter here. Following the launch of Comcastroturf.com, a site encouraging Internet users to investigate the fake comments, Fight for the Future received dozens of verified reports from impacted people across the country. 

Then this happened:

2. Comcast tries to censor pro-net neutrality website calling for investigation of fake FCC comments potentially funded by cable lobby: Fight for the Future received a cease and desist order from Comcast’s attorneys for our site Comcastroturf.com. Without net neutrality rules, Comcast could have censored the site outright.

Digital rights group Fight for the Future has received a cease and desist order from Comcast’s lawyers, claiming that Comcastroturf.com - a pro-net neutrality site encouraging Internet users to investigate an astroturfing campaign likely funded by the cable lobby - violates Comcast’s “valuable intellectual property.” The letter threatens legal action if the domain is not transferred to Comcast’s control.

“This is exactly why we need Title II net neutrality protections that ban blocking, throttling, and censorship,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, “If Ajit Pai’s plan is enacted, there would be nothing preventing Comcast from simply blocking sites like Comcastroturf.com that are critical of their corporate policies,” she added. “It also makes you wonder what Comcast is so afraid of? Are their lobbying dollars funding the astroturfing effort flooding the FCC with fake comments that we are encouraging Internet users to investigate?”

The legal notice can be viewed here. It claims that Comcastroturf.com violates the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and infringes on Comcast’s trademarks. Of course, these claims are legally baseless, since the site is clearly a form of First Amendment protected political speech and makes no attempt to impersonate Comcast. (See the case “Bosley Medical Institute vs. Kremer” which held that sites critical of a company’s practices could not be considered trademark infringement.)

And finally, the ultimate insane act of right wing political belligerence. Try and find this freedom in the Constitution:

3. Robocalls swamped my voicemail, and they snuck in without a ring: Republicans and others want the FCC to give the OK for spammy messages that slip into your voicemail without notice. Free speech? Or voicemail meltdown?

No ring, no "call" -- which would let the messages sidestep a rule that says groups must get your written consent before targeting your phone with pleas for votes or pitches for products. That's the thinking anyway, and supporters of the strategy want the FCC to make it official.

Subjecting such sneaky robocalls to the prior consent rule "would not only restrict an important form of nonintrusive communication; it would have serious consequences for the First Amendment rights of those engaged in political communication via telephone," the Republican National Committee said in comments filed with the FCC earlier this month (PDF). The RNC didn't respond to a request for further comment.

Critics, on the other hand, say bye-bye voicemail. Margot Freeman Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, told Recode that allowing this kind of stealthy spam would leave many people "completely overwhelmed by messages" they can't block.