
An Open Letter to the FCC - throwanem
https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a
======
hysan
I'm one of the people who has had part of their identity used to submit false
comments. Found out when a journalist emailed me asking me to do a survey and
some additional comments months ago. I proceeded to sign up for an API key[1]
to confirm what was being claimed and turns out, it was true. The API is a bit
limited, but I was also able to do searches using the falsely submitted
comment to find others like it as well as what looked like a lot of fake
submissions.

I already contacted all of my representatives to investigate this, but with
the approaching FCC vote and now this AG Open Letter, I fear that nothing will
happen until it's too late. What is a citizen to do when they try to do
everything in their power and play by the rules - vote, submit comments, call
representatives, contact press for help, and repeat - results in nothing?

The FCC has effectively ignored the rules and stalled their way to victory.
I'm not even sure how to describe our government anymore...

[1] [https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-
docs.html](https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-docs.html)

~~~
paul7986
I believe that there are a lot of fake comments(possibly threads) appearing on
Hacker News. I'm sure on Reddit and everywhere on the Internet that influences
peoples' oomph to stand up for something like Net Neutrality.

I mean why in the world in 2017 are we so apathetic about something so
important? We were up in arms about in 2013 and stopped SOPA then!!!

~~~
null000
Apathetic? Have you seen Reddit today or yesterday? The top post in 90% of
subreddits are pro-net-neutrality posts, even where it makes no sense. I can't
think of a time when _that_ much of a stink was made, including SOPA.

The reason it's not working this time around is because you have an FCC chair
whose not really interested in what the public thinks - you're not his
constituents, and you're not the constituents of the people who put him in
power.

Note that the constituents of Republicans are honestly mostly wealthy donors
by this point - I doubt they care too much what their voters think beyond
ensuring that they don't screw them over directly (e.g. via increased taxes or
decreased entitlements)

~~~
maccard
I’ve seen reddit, but ultimately that means nothing. Posting a comment on a
forum (even reddit or hn) is in itself meaningless. It’s oretty much the
definitio or apathetic.

~~~
paul7986
How so when there’s a hired army of people or bots to create fake comments
that are pro Net Neutrality. There’s so many such comments.. threads even that
all real members of a community see the flood of pro Neutrality comments and
become apathetic. They think the flood of comments are what the majority of
members feel leaving them to think a) It must not be that bad & then b) do not
speak up against a majority.

This effectively drowns out the opposition. Proponents of Net Neutrality
already flooded the FCC with fake comments as the guy above noted they stole
his identity. What makes you think they don’t have an army of an army fake
social media commenters to shape the conversation in their favor? Especially
on influential tech sites like this!

------
epistasis
It's been really interesting to see the interplay between State Attorneys
General and the federal executive branch over the past decade. I don't know
enough legal history to know if this contention is new or has always happened.
But the contrast between what happened with regulation of carbon and coal is
fairly striking. The federal judicial brach said that it had to be regulated
in order to meet the laws that the legislative branch had passed, executive
branch followed through with regulations based on science and input from
stakes holders. We ended up with regulations on coal plants that are _weaker_
than Chinese restrictions on their own plants. State AGs revolted, to little
effect.

In the last year, regulatory decisions at the FCC, EPA, and DOE are being made
by fiat, without any of the typical study and justification that typically
goes into them. In particular, DOE suggestions to FERC have been denounced by
nearly everybody in the energy industry, by nearly every interested outsider,
and in a bipartisan fashion from lots of prior FERC commissioners. The general
whims of a single person are taking precedence over having market principles,
or really any other principle at all. The only parties in favor of the
regulations at all are those who directly benefit by guaranteed payments, and
they only justify their favor of the regulations through a massive and legally
questionable expansion of regulatory power of the regulatory agency, something
that these particular partisans are usually against.

With the FCC, we see something similar, an impulse to make regulations without
much reasoning behind those regulations except that they favor a small group.

This type of regulation, where particular parties are favored, rather than
particular principles, is madness.

~~~
nerdponx
Can states regulate ISP activity within their states? Could the New York state
legislature pass a law stating that ISPs who offer services in New York must
provide net-neutral services?

~~~
bognition
They could try but the FCC would almost certainly contest that the states do
not have the right to pass such laws. Additionally there is nothing stopping
the FCC from passing rules forbidding states from regulating net neutrality.

~~~
otp124
Could you explain how the FCC has superiority here? Doesn’t the constitution
allow states to set local laws for things that aren’t expressly dictated in
the constitution? Please forgive my limited legal knowledge.

~~~
howard941
The FCC is superior because it involves interstate commerce. Whether a local
law can survive alongside a federal law depends on whether there's undue
conflict, and conflict is determined by whether the local law intolerably
intrudes on the federal law's scheme. Intolerable intrusion isn't the actual
term of art but it may not matter because fed/state conflict doctrine is a big
bowl of mush.

------
ordinaryperson
The revocation of the Net Neutrality rules became a foregone conclusion once
Donald Trump was elected. The sad reality is there's not much we, Eric
Schneidermann or anyone else can do about it.

There are 5 FCC commissioners but only 3 may be of the same party. Ajit Pai,
Brendan Carr and Michael O'Rielly are locks to vote in favor, so it will pass,
3-2.

At this point the best thing people can do is prepare to vote in 2018 and
2020, whether that's registering voters or forming groups to get lazy liberals
or independents to vote to send better people to Washington.

One side aspect that I think hasn't been covered: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a
former Verizon lawyer and probably plans to parley his government experience
into a lucrative gig at one of the big telcos once the Republicans are
inevitably thrown out of office, so he stands to personally profit from this
decision.

As Donald Trump would say, SAD.

~~~
EddieRingle
> FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer

He worked in their legal department for 2-3 years 15 years ago. All of his
other time has been spent has a public servant. People need to stop bringing
this up, because it only muddies the actual policy debate.

~~~
dmalvarado
Let's wait and see where he ends up. If he doesn't immediately go back to
telecom after his appointment is over, then I'll agree bringing up his history
wasn't warranted.

~~~
epmaybe
I'm curious, where would you expect someone with years of experience in a
specific industry to go after public office? Besides public office, of course.

~~~
erikpukinskis
If I wrote regulations that benefitted Google, I would hope I’d go work at
Qualcomm or somewhere unrelated. It gives the appearance of quid pro quo.

~~~
epmaybe
If I started selling a product that may have benefited a future employer,
should I not work for that employer in the future? Not saying these are at all
equivalent situations given the amount of power Pai but curious all the same.

------
nxc18
How is refusing to participate in an identity theft investigation not
obstruction of justice?

Surely Ajit & co travel to NY from time to time... why isn’t there an arrest
warrant? Why are the states being so toothless in responding to rampant
criminal behavior?

I’d like to see how I would fare if I participated in mass scale identity
theft _and_ refused to participate in the subsequent investigation.

~~~
JTon
Perhaps because the behaviour in question is not actually criminal. Since Ajit
is a lawyer, I suspect he knows very well where the lines are drawn.

~~~
cwkoss
I suspect he also knows very well how to go past the line without leaving
enough evidence to be convicted.

------
wmf
Schneiderman is doing far more for net neutrality with his Spectrum lawsuit
than the FCC has done (even pre-Pai, the FCC did nothing about peering
extortion for example). But this stuff about fake comments seems to be nothing
more than procedural bikeshedding since the FCC ignored all the comments
anyway.

~~~
jjoonathan
Normally I'd agree, under the premise that the party who manufactured the
comments had the competence to hide/obfuscate their trail enough to make it
not worth following. However, the FCC's position is striking: they're not even
maintaining the pretense of caring. This suggests sloppy execution and makes
me revisit my priors regarding assumed competence. I think Schneidermann is
right to spend resources on this angle, even if the chances of success are far
below 100%.

------
0xB31B1B
More and more we see state agencies standing up to regime change in Washington
(ex: CA and environmental regulations). Regardless of your personal politics,
I wonder how this dynamic will affect democracy in the US.

~~~
creaghpatr
Well up until election 2016, Democrats were vehemently opposed to states
authority, and concentrated far more power in Washington during the Obama
administration.

It's nice to see them coming around.

~~~
swang
(not) surprisingly, republicans have all but disappeared from that chat.

at the federal level, both parties only care about state rights when it suits
them.

~~~
creaghpatr
Gun laws, abortion, the trans bathroom thing in NC...all recent issues that
the GOP sided on states rights vs. federal regs

On healthcare policy in particular the state specific policies continue to be
enforced by the GOP. These aren’t positions I agree with btw I’m just pointing
out recent examples.

I think it’s fair to say Democrats would rather have centralized healthcare,
gun laws, lgbt policies, and abortion access, rather than leaving it to the
states to decide.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Gun laws, abortion, the trans bathroom thing in NC...all recent issues that
> the GOP sided on states rights vs. federal regs

Nope, they aren't. They are all areas where the GOP has pushed at both the
federal and state level in the same direction, caring about policy (excluding
transgendered persons from general society, blocking abortion, and protecting
individual firearms rights) not the relative balance of state/federal power.

* Republicans vigorously oppose gun control and the state level, even suing state governments in federal court to overturn regulations.

* Republicans fight for LGBT discrimination in law and regulation at all levels, not for freedom of states to set inclusive or exclusive policies.

* And, abortion, well:

[https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/policy/healthcare/353...](https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/policy/healthcare/353709-house-
passes-20-week-abortion-ban%3famp)

~~~
creaghpatr
They aren't mutually exclusive of course.

Obviously both parties are going to fight at all levels but in recent history
GOP controls far more of state governments than Democrats so they
strategically favor states rights. My original point is still that they
haven't shifted away from that strategic view of states rights since the
election because they still hold those advantages.

When Democrats dominate at state level I'd expect the poles to shift but that
has not happened yet.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Obviously both parties are going to fight at all levels but in recent
> history GOP controls far more of state governments than Democrats so they
> strategically favor states rights.

No, they tactically see success on certain issues operating at the state
level; they don't, strategically or otherwise support states _rights_ (that
is, any consistent protected domains where states are free to act as they will
without federal interference.)

They do like, since the adoption of the Southern Strategy, to use the _phrase_
“States Rights”, but that's a 150+-year-old American political code for “we
support and demand systematic oppression of blacks”, not a position on the
relative distribution of power between the federal and state government.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Whenever I see one of these “parties purport to disagree on this issue, but
neither is actually for it” I wonder if it would be a good keystone for a new
moderate party, built on consensus.

The idea being, taking a principled stance on the aspects of those issues on
which there is consensus, while not taking a stance on the part which does not
have agreement, would expose the other parties as frauds and give you a
rhetorical advantage over them.

I wonder if states rights is one of those issues.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Whenever I see one of these “parties purport to disagree on this issue, but
> neither is actually for it”

The parties don't purport to disagree on the issue; _one_ party paints it as a
point of disagreement, but even that is just using the term as a coded
reference to a real disagreement on race policy, not a reference to a
disagreement on the policy suggested by what the words otherwise seem to mean.

> I wonder if states rights is one of those issues.

“States rights” isn't, because it's not an actual _issue_ , it's a slogan for
an issue people don't like to directly describe.

Now, you could come up with a model of a coherent set of protected zones of
state authority and try to organize a movement around them, but that's not an
existing ideology that is getting lip service but no actual support, it would
be a whole new issue.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yes, agreed on all points. I'm just saying that "whole new issue" would take
the wind out of the fake talking points version of the "states rights" debate,
and draw some of those voters.

------
eecc
What I’m most worried - as an EU citizen - is that shit happening on the
western shore of the Atlantic eventually blows over this side.

Thankfully TTIP was thrown under the bus - for now, tomorrow who can tell? -
so it won’t be easy but I’m not feeling that safe. The same greedy
multinational corporations sponsoring this public spoliation in the USA are
massively present in EU and I don’t think Chinese Walls are a meaningful
property of their structures...

------
user-on1
Seems like america is going to loose its freedom until next president

ALREADY LOST - to pick a internet plan of their choice which is affordable and
reliable to them.

ALREADY LOST - to have privacy.

LOOSING - what people will watch in their internet, so basically you will be
target fed specific info and some info you will never come across leading to
people will be kept in dark like the sugar news forever.

if we were celebrating July 4th for the freedom over internet then we can stop
celebrating it from 2018 but luckily its not that. May be american citizens
will stop being submissive and not take whatever is thrown at them and start
to make their power and presence felt and be an example to other country
citizens.

~~~
weirdstuff
I don't think it matters much who occupies the oval office. I fear the U.S. is
in a systematic regression due to deeper economic issues that so far are being
totally unaddressed and unidentified in public.

I hope other nations can begin exerting pressure on this country so that we
are forced to begin considering substantial reforms (apparently a long-lived
fiscal crisis isn't enough); otherwise these issues may worsen and spread
elsewhere as they have already begun doing.

(Divest away from U.S. securities, for example. Challenge the status of U.S.
dollar.)

~~~
tstrimple
"I don't think it matters much who occupies the oval office."

That sort of ignores the fact that Trump is undoing work done under the Obama
administration. Clearly it matters who is in office.

------
dsl
The New York AG just needs to have a judge issue bench warrants for the head
of the FCC and its general counsel. That is normally what happens when you
refuse to provide evidence for a criminal case.

------
sigmar
Do others read this as an indication AG Schneidermann is getting ready to sue
the FCC to get info on the fake comments?

~~~
pm90
I hope he does. It seems really shady. Impersonating citizens is probably a
criminal offense, and the agency/person responsible for doing so could be
charged with that crime.

Now, if it was foreign actors though, I don't think much can be done. Maybe
Congress could enact more sanctions. But if it was a domestic operation,
carried out by one of the big telecos... wow this will be huge.

------
pm90
Can Congress pass legislation to make net-neutrality something that the FCC
cannot touch? If that's the case, it might be possible to pass such a law
when(if) dems take over the House/Senate next year right?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Can Congress pass legislation to make net-neutrality something that the FCC
> cannot touch?

Yes, if they have support of the President or a veto-proof supermajority in
both houses.

> If that's the case, it might be possible to pass such a law when(if) dems
> take over the House/Senate next year right?

Unlikely, for the reasons stated above, though tying it to something the
President isn't willing to veto might work. Or, I guess, if _after_ taking
both houses of Congress (and, critically, electing a new Speaker) they also
impeach, convict, and remove the Vice President and President, and the
Democratic Speaker succeeds to the Presidency, then it would be doable.

~~~
pm90
Dammit, I had no idea Congress needs 2/3 majority in both houses to override a
veto. That seems to make it impossible, even if the Democrats do take control
of both Houses.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Stop appealing to Chairman Pai's humanity. He has none. You stop him the same
way you stop corporations: legislation, and lawsuits.

------
perseusprime11
To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated
like a public utility? Like water, we will need to pay more the more we
consume. You and I can pay but what about poor people? Will this discourage
Internet usage?

~~~
dragonwriter
> To play devil’s advocate, are we really ready for Internet to be regulated
> like a public utility?

Yes.

> Like water, we will need to pay more the more we consume.

We already do, though it's more noticeable for mobile broadband. Also, not all
public utilities are metered—I’ve lived in places with unmetered public water,
for instance, so the connection you draw between metering and public utilities
is false.

> You and I can pay but what about poor people?

Public utilities are often subsidized for the poor (that's actually one way
that broadband is _already_ treated like a public utility).

~~~
perseusprime11
Not where I live. Public utilities like water and electricity are run by
private companies and no subsidies are offered.

------
abvdasker
Does anyone know if the server logs and other info the New York AG requested
would fall under the Freedom of Information Act?

------
brightball
I wonder what it would take to really create ISP competition in the US?

I thought I remembered seeing somewhere that the big ISP's use the legal
system to essentially drive up entrance costs for smaller players. Would the
EFF be able to help with something like that?

The only real long term solution to stuff like this is more competition,
because without it you never have the option to "vote with your wallet."

~~~
moosey
We've had it before, and the way forward is very simple: Internet Service
resale at cost.

The major internet providers would be forced to resell to other internet
providers access at the costs to the company, including labor, maintenance,
etc. Resellers then compete with the company to produce the lowest overhead.

~~~
rhino369
That would get you very cheap ISP with terrible speeds and a lot of downtime.

There is no incentive for investment if they have to resell at (or near) cost.

And we've seen this in action. DSL service was covered by Title II originally,
which meant it had to be unbundled and resold. But cable internet had no
requirement. Investment flooded to cable rather than telecom. Why would
Verizon invest billions in a network that benefits third parties? Well they
didn't.

It was only after Title II repeal that Verizon went forward with Fios. Because
it didn't have to resell.

It's possible to do this sort of thing, but you have to build in a fat profit
margin. But even then, the companies wouldn't have any incentive to provide
good service.

~~~
moosey
And that situation would push us towards internet as public utility, or at
least internet infrastructure as public utility. Also, investment into
additional infrastructure could be baked into the resale cost. In my opinion,
internet as public utility is not a bad thing, although I'm sure there will be
many detractors to the idea.

------
rottyguy
Are there any legitimate arguments for anti-net neutrality proponents? Or is
it just more "republicans prefer less regulations"?

~~~
krrrh
You can hear Pai defend his position here:

[http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-
po...](http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-podcast)

He claims that 80% of smaller ISPs have said that they delayed investment in
infrastructure due to the costs associated with the net neutrality regs, and
also that there was a reduction in overall broadband investment in the last
two years and that has never happened before, outside of a recession. He
thinks that this has hurt efforts to bring connectivity to rural and
underserved areas.

Personally, I think the argument for net neutrality is strong in the present
situation where we have less competition, but he believes that the FTC
governance previous to title 2 puting ISPs under the purview of th FCC was
already protecting consumers adequately. The new proposal also enforces a
transparency requirement on any traffic shaping, or filtering.

~~~
openasocket
I don't really understand how net neutrality can hurt smaller ISPs. Net
neutrality just prevents ISPs from using certain monetization schemes. It's
not like you have to buy special equipment for net neutrality reasons, or
maintain records to prove you're compliant, right?

~~~
eduren
I think a portion of their argument is that it allows smaller ISPs to gain
footholds in niche markets. By allowing them to prioritize and shape traffic,
they can gain advantages and offer services that the larger telcos won't.

I imagine an ISP that focuses on serving low-latency gaming traffic at the
expense of other application's bandwidth. Or perhaps an ISP that rents
bandwidth from a larger one and provides its customers with better bandwidth
guarantees on weekends and nights (or balanced out with better business-day
bandwidth for commercial customers). And in some ways it makes sense from a
market perspective (that's generally how smaller companies can innovate and
create advantages).

What all that ignores is the immense locality of ISPs in general. Unless
things fundamentally change in regards to how the internet is delivered in the
US, most people are never going to have meaningful consumer choice in the one
place they live. Giving ISPs more control over bandwidth just gives them more
control over consumers.

It's like gerrymandering. The most negative consequences aren't that it gives
partisan advantage, it's that it gives representatives the power to choose
their constituents.

------
batmansmk
If you are ready to steal identities at large scale, don't you think you are
capable of faking logs, bribing judges and do whatever you want as well?

It's funny to see how trustful we are in America that the rules will save us
all from people not playing by the same rules. Changing the referee is the
real solution right? Impeachment should be the focus.

~~~
TheRealPomax
No, I don't. Do you? If so, you might need to read up on the slippery slope
fallacy.

~~~
batmansmk
I never heard of slippery slope fallacy before, but I read the wikipedia page
about it. Thanks for the info! But I miss where it applies to the reasoning I
shared. Maybe you can help me.

Do we really believe key people at FCC are persuaded to support the people
with this decision? That is just a matter of showing the truth about those
comments? I think it is just a farce and we are wasting our time and energy
opposing the FCC. The bigger problem is the constant attack against our
democratic process.

------
Hannahsbaby
You all need to convince Trump supporters to call too.

They hate 330 page document.

Ive gotten alot of feedback saying they'd support a 2 page version that
promised dumb pipes and not the other 328 pages of nonsense.

------
aeontech
So, if I as a private individual ignore and refuse to provide information to
an active investigation by a State Attorney General, I am liable to be charged
with something (obstruction of justice perhaps)?

Are there no additional avenues to escalate to compel compliance from FCC,
other than writing this type of public letter?

------
bluetwo
Good luck.

------
diebir
Meh. The sons of bitches will do whatever they want. Bend over, America!

------
_justinfunk
So... what did the fake comments say? I'm suspicious that in his open letter
he never addresses the content of the fake comments.

------
cmurf
Do we have any idea what position on net neutrality these fake comments were
taking?

~~~
LukaAl
They were allegedly against Net Neutrality according to the journalist
investigation done [1].

Also, an analysis done by the Knight Foundation for the 2014 proceeding showed
that the highest number of unique comment where pro Net Neutrality while the
only comments against NN where from templated answers [2]

[1] [http://www.zdnet.com/article/a-bot-is-flooding-the-fccs-
webs...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/a-bot-is-flooding-the-fccs-website-with-
fake-anti-net-neutrality-comments/)

[2]
[https://knightfoundation.org/features/netneutrality/](https://knightfoundation.org/features/netneutrality/)

------
deadmetheny
Why the title change? It's less descriptive now than it was before.

------
z3t4
He is basically asking for more surveillance and less anonymity ...

------
sillypuddy
His last name is misspelled in the title, only one training n.

------
monkseal
This letter has nothing to do with the substance of the regulations. It
amounts to finger pointing about "illegal conduct". Probably the next thing,
we will hear the Russians are behind all of this...

Why can't the FTC regulate or prosecute monoplies, which is its job, instead a
bunch arbitrary rules by the FCC?

~~~
learc83
>Why can't the FTC regulate or prosecute monoplies, which is its job, instead
a bunch arbitrary rules by the FCC?

Basically the FTC doesn't have regulation authority over telcos because they
are common carriers and thus statutorily exempted from regulation by the FTC.

------
user-on1
May be God's plans goes like...

2020 should be the most awesome year of humanity ever.

And he was piling up many good things for 2020.

But then he felt like there can be more good things for 2020.

So some angel suggested he will create some bad thing in few years before it
and then solve those bad things in 2020 that way the awesomeness of 2020 will
increase.

And God was like great idea, lets go for it.

