Big Telecom Cash works its magic

As the fall elections near, the rhetoric and sheer nonsense from those opposed to important consumer broadband reforms has reached a fever pitch.  And as our reader Karen writes, too many Americans and the candidates they support just don’t get it.

Here in Delaware, Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell exemplifies what Net Neutrality supporters are up against — complete ignorance and big cash contributions.  Before she went into hiding, I attended one of Christine’s rare public events and asked her about where she stood on Net Neutrality and her response was she believed “all sides should be represented on the Internet.”  So she thinks Net Neutrality is about views expressed online, not stopping the telecom industry from slowing or blocking access to websites.

At least 35 of the Tea Party groups are opposed to Net Neutrality, mostly because their financial backers (big corporations and billionaire-funded front groups) have convinced members they should be.  Many others are stupid enough to believe Glenn Beck and his pal Phil Kerpen at Americans for Prosperity who say Net Neutrality will “censor” the Internet or turn control of it over to Barack Obama.

Conservative groups heavily funded by corporate interests they refuse to identify are backing various chapters of so-called “Tea Party” groups and feeding them talking points generated by companies like AT&T and Verizon in opposition to Net Neutrality.  The Center for Individual Freedom runs a website StopNetRegulation, edited by conservative activist Seton Motley, dedicated to derailing broadband reforms.  Motley was also quoted in The Hill in late September warning Republicans about antagonizing Tea Party types with their support for Net Neutrality in Congress.  Only then his comments came as leader of the group “Less Government.”  Judging from the organization’s website, Motley is also in favor of reduced size websites because his amounts to a single sentence.

Seton is convinced the end of the net world, as we know it, comes November 30th when the government could “seize control of the Internet.” That’s the date of the FCC’s November meeting, at which Seton suspects Julius Genachowski will finally move to reclassify broadband as a telecommunication service. 

Seton completely misrepresents reclassification as saddling the Internet with “the same rules as landline telephones.”  I read that claim somewhere before… oh yes, straight from AT&T and Verizon lobbyist talking points.

It doesn’t matter to Seton and other conservatives that Genachowski went out of his way to say he would not be applying any onerous telephone-era regulations on today’s broadband providers.  In fact, Genachowski’s actions to date have moved at such a glacial pace, friends have to occasionally check his pulse to make sure he’s still with us.

So what is so big, bad, and scary about Net Neutrality?  It simply guarantees your Internet Service Provider doesn’t start throttling your speeds when accessing websites and Internet applications they dislike, cannot block access to websites critical of their agenda, and are not allowed to extort payments from content providers just to allow traffic onto “their” networks.

While that may pose a Halloween freak-out for the profit-obsessed phone and cable companies, it’s hard to find actual consumers (not paid by said providers) who want their Internet service blocked or slowed down.

Seton goes way over the top turning this into a First Amendment free speech issue.  That argument only works for the likes of AT&T and Verizon who find their corporate right to overcharge people for broadband being infringed.

Seton then argues his view must be right because even minority groups support his position.  As readers here already know, most of the groups he names to bolster his argument are “dollar-a-holler” organizations willing to peddle the phone and cable company agenda on their letterhead in return for donation checks.

So have many additional normally Democrat paragons, including several large unions: AFL-CIO, Communications Workers of America (CWA), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW); several racial grievance groups: League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Minority Media and Telecom Council (MMTC), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Urban League; and an anti-free market environmentalist group: the Sierra Club.

If you ever wondered why AT&T and Verizon spend so much on contributions to these interest groups, Seton Motley just handed you the answer — so he and the companies he supports could name drop them in arguments against pro-consumer broadband reform.  And considering the CWA and IBEW represent phone company workers, it’s not a surprise to see them on their side of this issue either.  Wherever you look amongst those in opposition to Net Neutrality, a check from AT&T and/or Verizon is almost always waiting to be deposited.

The Obama-Has-Concentration-Camps-crowd parked on Andrew Breitbart’s website ate it up and wrote comments like this:

The communist can’t control the people with a internet that is out of control, all dictatorships have the power over what the people can read, free thinkers in this day and age are considered terrorist, Republicans, conservatives, anti abortionist, Oath Keepers, Christians, ex military, people who think the Constitution is still the law of the land, my lord, the communist can’t have these sorts communicating with each other over the internet, why, they may all come together one day and put a stop to the one world government goal, you know, the goal of making the world one big slave camp.

This kind of wild opposition has even corporate Republicans on edge, according to The Hill.  A major talking point of Net Neutrality opposition is that such “sweeping changes” should not be enforced by the FCC, but from legislation enacted in Congress.  But because Tea Party elements are opposed to the concept altogether, and Republicans are loathe to hand Democrats their votes on much of anything, even a corporate-friendly Net Neutrality bill introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) went up in flames.  Waxman’s bill would have enacted some protections, but only until 2012, at which point it was open season on broadband consumers.

The Hill piece delivered a disappointing fact of life for much of today’s Congress, beholden first to corporate interests (underlining ours):

In a striking sign that people who normally align themselves with telecommunications companies may line up behind the bill if it is industry-backed, ardent net-neutrality critic Brett Glass, founder of a wireless company, is open to it. He tweeted on Monday, in a note to Americans for Prosperity executive Phil Kerpen, that the Waxman legislation seems “more reasonable than I expected.”

In a note earlier this month, analysts at Stifel Nicolaus wrote that although Republican House members “may not have incentive to solve a political problem for Democrats,” some may support the bill “if there’s a push by” phone and cable companies and at least some Internet companies.

But the shilling for Big Telecom has never been a one-party-problem.  While Republicans appear to be moving in lock step against Net Neutrality, a number of groups and politicians on the Democratic left have also been only too willing to take AT&T money and run to a microphone to oppose a free and open Internet.

The Los Angeles Times gave plenty of space on an issue we’ve written repeatedly about on Stop the Cap!:

Key minority groups are backing the carriers’ efforts to thwart the net neutrality proposals, which would, for instance, prohibit carriers from charging more to give some residential and corporate customers priority in delivering online content.

“When you give national civil rights groups millions of private dollars, there’s no firewall strong enough to keep that money out of their policy,” said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice.

Cyril and other consumer and public advocates have been buoyed by comments from Federal Communications Commission member Mignon L. Clyburn, a prominent African American and daughter of Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.).

She said in a speech in January that she was surprised that most statements and filings by “some of the leading groups representing people of color have been silent on this make-or-break issue” of net neutrality.

“There has been almost no discussion of how important — how essential — it is for traditionally underrepresented groups to maintain the low barriers to entry that our current open Internet provides,” Clyburn said.

AT&T's cash machine benefits groups like LULAC

At issue are the enormous contributions from big phone and cable companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon that routinely translate into what we’ve called “dollar-a-holler” advocacy.  After the checks get deposited, many of these groups generate innocent sounding letters of support for the latest merger, deregulation, or policy debate — always in favor of Big Telecom and too often directly against the interests of the people they claim to represent.

No group better exemplifies this than the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a particularly eager player in the cash for advocacy game.  And the group doesn’t care whether the money comes from Verizon or AT&T.  They’re on board with both.

Brent A. Wilkes, executive director, penned this guest editorial for the Houston Chronicle, for which he was called an “idiot” by at least one of the newspaper’s readers:

Net-neutrality rules should prevent broadband providers from engaging in anti-competitive behavior, but they should not be commandeered to insulate wealthy Internet applications companies from paying their fair share of the broadband bill. Any new rules must protect consumers both by ensuring their unfettered access and by shielding them from having to shoulder all the costs for faster broadband networks that our nation so badly needs. Such an approach will not please the special interests, but it will be a double win for consumers.

From AT&T’s talking points to Wilkes editorial.  “Wealthy Internet applications companies” already pay for their own bandwidth and for the Internet’s expansion.  Search engine companies like Google and Yahoo! construct data centers with their own money just to maintain their services to consumers, generating jobs and helping local economies.  Wilkes ignores the fact broadband providers already earn plenty from their subscribers — consumers and businesses who pay a monthly fee so they can access those “wealthy Internet applications companies.”

But that is not enough.  Now broadband providers want to be paid twice.  To facilitate their argument, they’ve invested more than a million dollars in LULAC alone to defend their position, which ultimately brings Latinos (and everyone else) the high broadband bills today that Wiles scaremongers will be forthcoming tomorrow.

Wilkes was shocked, shocked by the implication that phone company money would have anything to do with LULAC going out of its way to comment on arcane telecommunications policy issues, always in favor of its benefactors.

“It’s kind of like saying the minority organizations can’t think for themselves,” Wilkes said, adding that any suggestion that minority groups were mouthpieces for the industry was “offensive.”

Verizon played along:

“I can tell you we do not, and have not ever, given money to minority organizations so that they will support our positions on any topic,” said Peter Thonis, a spokesman for Verizon Communications Inc. “We talk to many groups about our positions, and some agree with us and some do not.”

So if Verizon talked to Stop the Cap! about their positions, do you think we’d receive a handsome check from the phone company?

Britt cut out all of the middlemen and picked up the phone to personally lobby FCC Chairman Genachowski about broadband reform.

The Times documented numerous other examples:

For instance, David Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president, joined the board of the National Urban League three years ago as part of a three-year partnership to promote the league’s various educational programs. Comcast, now seeking FCC approval to buy a controlling interest in NBC Universal, was recognized that year for being one of several sponsors to donate $5 million or more to the organization.

On the local level, the Greater Sacramento Urban League has Barbara Winn, a Sacramento-area director of external affairs for AT&T, as its chairwoman and Linda Crayton, Comcast’s senior director for government affairs in California, as vice chairwoman.

That affiliate’s president, David B. DeLuz, wrote to the FCC in January that net neutrality rules “will strongly reduce broadband network investments and ultimately raise prices.” DeLuz said in an interview that the two telecom executives on the chapter’s board have not influenced its net neutrality stance.

“The Urban League does not engage in pay to play,” he said. “Just because [telecoms] write a check to us doesn’t mean they write the only check to us.”

The most remarkable part about the Urban League’s argument is that in a sea of corporate cash, competing checks can cancel each other out.

While the blizzard of bucks continues to descend on Washington, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt decided his cable company could cut out the middlemen and go right to the man with the plan to reclassify broadband.  Unlike ordinary consumers, Britt had no trouble getting FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to take his call, allowing him to personally lobby against Net Neutrality and those nasty broadcasters trying to overcharge him for permission to carry local broadcast stations on the Time Warner Cable dial.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT Net Neutrality There’s a problem.mp4[/flv]

It seems like only yesterday AT&T’s Ed “Our Pipes” Whitacre was clamoring for the right to deliver the Internet to consumers his way, complete with pay walls and speed throttles.  Very little has changed since Big Ed left for Government Motors with his $158 million AT&T golden parachute.  The name at the top has changed, but AT&T still recognizes money buys friends and influence.  (2 minutes)

Back in the 1980s, a group of ragtag rural home satellite dishowners with 10 foot dishes took on the cable television industry for forcing viewers to purchase a set top decoder unit ($395) and paying programming prices higher than what cable viewers paid.  It was all part of an effort by the cable industry, which had an ownership interest in most cable networks back then, to discourage consumers from purchasing satellite dishes to escape ever-increasing cable rates.

Back then, these consumers ran into the same kind of Congress we endure today — quick to listen to industry representatives bearing campaign contributions and slow to respond to the needs and interests of their constituents who elected them.  Indeed, in one infamous example, a call placed to then-New York Senator Al D’Amato resulted in a staff member asking “what company are you with?”

Despite the power and influence of corporate interests protecting their turf, earning enormous profits along the way, many satellite dishowners stayed in the fight, and as cable rate increases continued, major reforms were finally enacted in the 1992 Cable Act which made small satellite dish services like DISH and DirecTV possible.

The struggle for Net Neutrality reminds me of that fight, and the fact it would take time to overcome the special interests and obtain important reforms.  Here at Stop the Cap!, we’ve won more battles than we’ve lost thanks to a small army of consumers who despise Internet Overcharging schemes and are tired of paying outrageous high prices for broadband and other telecommunications services.  Giving up the fight is not an option.

As the 111th Congress draws to a close, efforts to enact Net Neutrality through legislation this year have come to naught.

We were also disappointed by Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.  Despite his promising start at the agency, after more than a year watching his performance he has proven to be far better at making speeches than actually implementing policy.  His indecision and dawdling has resulted in a failure to deliver on his promise to reclassify broadband as — what it is — a telecommunications service.  That leaves standing a federal court decision that swept away the Commission’s authority to oversee broadband and stop abusive behavior.  For providers, that’s a dream come true.  Just consider this week’s story that Clear is throttling their customers despite marketing claims they would never do such a thing.

But not to worry, America.  AT&T is “committed to an open Internet,” proclaims the company in a new, feel-good advertisement.  AT&T’s public policy ad claims the company stands with the Obama Administration on delivering universal access to broadband by 2020.

“The future,” the ad claims, “has always been our business.”

The notion is just so warm and fuzzy, it makes me want to adopt puppies and kittens.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT Public Policy Commercial.flv[/flv]

AT&T’s newest ad promotes the company’s public policy agenda, which opposes Net Neutrality while still claiming to respect its core principles.  (1 minute)

Of course, AT&T is not so warm and friendly in Washington.  This is the company that dwarfs all other Big Telecoms in spending its customers’ money on hardcore lobbying blitzkriegs on Capitol Hill, drowning Washington in cash and fooling consumers with fake front groups pretending to represent their interests.

Suz, a third-year graduate student at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture and Technology (CCT) program, noticed some of our earlier coverage on the topic of AT&T and wrote this is a company with a history:

The ad really struck me because of its message and because of the medium. In another class I’m currently taking – The Development of Electronic Media – we just came to the chapter on the development of the telephone and the major influence that AT&T held over that field for the majority of the 20th century. In part because of government regulations supporting the idea of “universal service” and in part because of the desire to connect rural areas with urban areas on the same line of service, the federal powers – though they put a little pressure on after AT&T acquired Western Union with the threat of anti-trust lawsuit – eventually support AT&T’s decompetitive nature by insisting on a compatible network and blocking “duplicative” services, giving AT&T the far-and-away lead in the market.

“The future has always been our business – AT&T.”

Now, there was a lot of history between this “golden age” of monopoly for AT&T and its eventual position today. But what I find striking is the similar-sounding stance to then-CEO Vail’s mission statement of universal service. Their motive may not have been as altruistic as the motto was (one way to attain universal service is to place it in the hands of one provider), but it eventually convinced the government that its powers could be used for good, even at the expense of a competitive (and innovative) marketplace.

Welcome to AT&T v2.0.

AT&T’s dominance in landlines is now at an end, but its influence over the telecommunications medium of the 21st century — the Internet, is just beginning.

The timing could not be more ironic, either.  While AT&T supports the goal for universal broadband service, it is fiercely lobbying to abandon a promise it made a generation earlier to deliver universal landline telephone service.  For that earlier commitment to wire every home, it was granted monopoly status for much of the 20th century.

AT&T has promised to be benevolent if it can remain a completely unregulated mega-player in the broadband industry.  It won’t openly censor opposing viewpoints, but it reserves the right to slow them down to make room for its preferred content partners.  AT&T won’t control what you see or do online, but it does want the right to limit how much of the seeing and doing you can do without overlimit usage fees kicking in.  But no worries, America — AT&T promises full disclosure, so at least you will know you’ve been network managed and overcharged for service.

Jeffrey Burnbaum — writing for the Washington Post — notes AT&T was the gold standard of high powered lobbying and little has changed today:

In the 1980s, AT&T was known for having one of the largest and most skilled corporate offices in Washington. Its representatives were everywhere and well-regarded on Capitol Hill. I remember one encounter between a tall AT&T lobbyist and an elegant McLean matron at a congressional cocktail party. The woman pecked the lobbyist on the cheek and then teased him: “I see you’re wearing your sincere blue suit.” He laughed knowingly — as did the lawmakers standing nearby and with whom he held much sway.

But personal respect wasn’t enough to hold back the tide, either. The telecommunications act of 1996 demonstrated the growing clout of the Baby Bells and AT&T made one last stab at restoring its prowess. In 1998 it hired a former White House deputy chief of staff, James W. Cicconi, to reorganize its Washington presence.

The former aide to George H. W. Bush put together what stands to this day as the model of a contemporary lobbying campaign. Under his guidance, AT&T dispensed tons of campaign cash, formed coalitions with sympathetic-sounding organizations, hired some of the biggest names in downtown Washington as lobbyists and spent millions of dollars on television advertising.

Net Neutrality advocates believe broadband reform is essential in the marketplace duopoly that exists today for most Americans.  With limited options, providers must do more than commit to an open Internet — they must be compelled to deliver it.  The industry’s scare tactics of slowed investment, job losses, and lost innovation are as patently ridiculous — and offensive — as similar claims made by the company over its breakup in the early 1980s.  With the power and influence of lobbying, telecommunications deregulation has allowed them to start putting the pieces back together again.  They are richer and more powerful than ever.

But can they be overcome?  Considering the cable industry deeply underestimated the impact of a consumer outcry over the industry’s abusive practices in the 1980s and early 1990s, the answer remains yes.  Just like the speeds of AT&T’s DSL service, it is just going to take awhile.

AT&T is buying newspaper ad space to publish a feel good message about Internet Openness that bears no reality to the company’s multi-million dollar lobbying effort to derail broadband reform, taking guarantees of a free and open Internet with it.

The advertisement’s appearance is remarkable, coming at the same time the company’s “government affairs” team of paid lobbyists and friends are browbeating elected officials and the Federal Communications Commission.  AT&T wants the right to allow preferential treatment of its selected content partners while dumping everyone else on the Internet slow lane.

The only opening AT&T supports is a new way to cash in even further on the Internet.  An “open network” to the phone giant means one that is totally deregulated and open to whatever AT&T wants to do with it.

AT&T’s “innovation” is to monetize the traffic that happens to cross their network on its way to AT&T customers.  By manipulating broadband traffic, AT&T will sell its “selected partners” priority access, shoving uncompensated traffic out of the way to make room for whatever AT&T’s special friends want you to see.  While that’s great news for companies that agree to pay AT&T’s tolls, it’s very bad news for everyone else, because the websites you choose to visit may or may not be available on the second rate “free lane.”  Given the choice between AT&T-backed video streaming or a third party provider like Netflix, guess what traffic will never get stuck “buffering” or face glitches.

Investors love the concept because AT&T can collect revenue just by sitting back and demanding tolls from content they neither produce nor host.  It’s not as if they haven’t been paid already — by their customers — to obtain access to that content.  AT&T wants another payday for their shareholders while sticking you with second-rate service.

The problem with AT&T’s world view is… AT&T’s world view.  Real innovation would mean delivering customers a world class broadband service the envy of anyone, delivered on America’s most advanced communications network, not re-purposed copper wire phone lines.  Then, “traffic management” on a mega-sized information highway wouldn’t have to squeeze the speed of some traffic to make room for “premium content.”  There would be plenty of room for one and all.

AT&T’s proposed answer for broadband reform is all about their interests, never yours.

America already experienced a corporate-sanitized online experience with preferred content partners. It was called Prodigy, and by 2000 it was fed to 77 million SBC (later AT&T) customers.

Some examples:

• Net Neutrality has been a part of AT&T’s corporate life for several years as a condition of its 2005 merger with SBC.  It didn’t harm their ability to provide all of the innovation, service, and speeds they could have, but never did.  Nothing about Net Neutrality protection harms AT&T’s ability to deliver broadband service to more of its customers. Giving AT&T whatever it wants won’t change that fact or deliver service to a single new customer;
• The freedom AT&T writes about is their idea of a Corporate Bill of Rights, which grants them the freedom to exchange their ideas and content, but says nothing about protecting your freedom of speech;
• A robust and secure network should exist regardless of Net Neutrality, considering the enormous amount of cash AT&T harvests from their Internet customers month after month.  AT&T is free to innovate all they like, on a level-playing-field, where customers can choose the best applications at the best prices, not the ones AT&T provides to them on a paid fast lane;
• AT&T’s record on competition is laughable when it spends its free cash on an army of lobbyists and “dollar-a-holler” interest groups.  Their mission?  To oppose potential competitors and enthusiastically support AT&T’s competition-busting mergers and acquisitions that further concentrate their market power;
• For AT&T’s customers, transparency alone is hardly the kind of consumer protection Internet users need.  Yes, it’s nice to be told when you are overpaying for broadband service that is “network managed.” Admitting AT&T seeks to throttle broadband speeds and potentially block websites in a monopoly/duopoly market doesn’t help much when customers can’t find another provider.  Disclosing the fact AT&T is sticking it to you is not the same thing as prohibiting them from trying in the first place.

AT&T has no interest in working with anyone that opposes their corporate interests.

The Internet should not be AT&T’s personal playground, ready and able to be “managed” out of its unique ability to deliver ideas equally — to be judged on their merit — not on the money backing them.

Americans have already experienced a corporate-sanitized online service for pre-approved ideas, products, and services.  It was called Prodigy, and by 2000 it was to become the Internet experience for 77 million SBC (later AT&T) customers. By the time the bottom fell out in 2001, SBC owned 100 percent of the service nobody wanted.  In 2005, SBC tried to sell the Prodigy brand in the United States.  There were no buyers.

That should be the outcome of AT&T’s proposal for “an open Internet.”  No deal.

Broadband for America is the product of the nation's largest phone and cable companies.

Broadband for America has begun assaulting the airwaves with a high-priced advertising campaign claiming that “broadband is leading the [economic] recovery” but is threatened by “1930s telephone regulations,” urging Congress to get involved to stop broadband reform.

The 30 second ads blanketed cable and several Sunday morning news shows yesterday.

What the ads don’t mention is Broadband for America is actually one giant front group backed by large phone and cable companies.  In a study released last fall, Stop the Cap! found virtually every single “coalition” member, including so-called “independent consumer advocacy groups,” do substantial business with, or have received significant financial contributions or board assistance from companies including AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast.

Well-financed by the telecommunications industry it directly represents, Broadband for America seeks further deregulation and wants Congress to stop the FCC from enacting broadband reforms ranging from “truth in marketing” and billing to Net Neutrality.

The “honorary co-chairs” of the group are Michael Powell, the same Bush Administration FCC chairman that badly bungled the FCC’s approach to broadband policy thrown out in the courts earlier this year, and former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., who left public service for a very lucrative career in “dollar-a-holler” advocacy and working as a lobbyist for the economic-vampire investment bank Goldman Sachs (something Broadband for America left out of his online biography.)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Broadband for America 30 sec spots.flv[/flv]

Broadband for America, a telecom-backed astroturf group, is running these advertisements promoting the agenda of AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast to try and stop broadband reform policies.  (1 minute)

Wendy

Pro-broadband reform groups continue to hit the telecommunications industry’s last nerve.  While the fight for more expansive broadband and Net Neutrality continues, some providers and their water-carrying friends are pulling out all the stops to keep broadband under the firm grasp of a phone and cable duopoly.  Both will say or do just about anything along the way to stop consumer-friendly reform.

Say hello to Mike Wendy.  He’s made it his personal mission to “expose” groups promoting broadband reform as “radicals” and “hardcore entrenched lobbyists.”  Using rhetoric that will resonate with angry talk radio listeners, Wendy is convinced broadband policies that enforce the public interest and Net Neutrality are akin to a Marxist takeover.  While Wendy calls on good Americans like himself to man the barricades protecting AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable, he just doesn’t have time to mention he happens to work for a special interest group funded by Big Telecom.  Maybe it slipped his mind?

Wendy’s ironically named “Media Freedom” blog is chock full of attacks on “Free Press and the radical media reformistas [sic].”  Special guest stars include Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Marxism, collectivism, and a whole slew of rhetoric that ultimately tells readers efforts to enact broadband reform are little more than a grand socialist conspiracy.

A real grassroots campaign is run for and by consumers. An astroturf campaign is bought and paid for by corporate interests to push their own agenda.

His visitors’ enthusiasm for such accusations might be diminished a tad had Wendy prominently disclosed his day job: Vice President of Press & External Affairs at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a “think tank” that ingests money from Big Telecom and then spews forth their talking points.  Among the backers: AT&T, Comcast, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

That takes the wind out of the proclamation that Media Freedom is a bulwark against those who “threaten to quash speech and economic freedoms.”  Wendy isn’t working for Big Government.  He’s working for the interests of AT&T and Comcast.

Many of the companies supporting the Progress & Freedom Foundation have a vested interest in maintaining today’s barely-competitive broadband marketplace, avoid oversight, and stop reform regulation and legislation dead in its tracks.  They want Progress only on their terms and the Freedom to do whatever they please.

The real chutzpah moment came when Wendy claimed pro-consumer groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge were the ones running high-powered lobbying campaigns.  That’s a pot to kettle moment to behold, especially considering who paid to print Wendy’s business cards.  From a recent blog post:

The “public interest” lobby makes itself out to be the tireless, country-poor underdog for the downtrodden consumer.  But don’t be fooled.  In the technology space, three such groups – Public Knowledge, Media Access Project and Free Press – have few rivals.  Their humble appearance belies their take-no-prisoners, oftentimes shameless, below-the-belt approach to public policy formation and gamesmanship.  How do they do it?  They use all the tools, and then some, to make them every bit as sophisticated as the largest companies they’re trying to undermine.

Shameless and “below-the-belt” might better define Wendy’s last job: “Director of Grassroots” for the United States Telecom Association, a job title that literally defines astroturf-in-action. Who is on the board of USTA?  Among others, corporate executives and lobbyists for AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, and two members who shouldn’t be able to afford the annual dues considering their employers went bankrupt — Hawaiian Telcom and FairPoint Communications.

Wendy’s line of thinking is evident soon enough from his blog’s tag cloud, a regular cocktail of conspiracy:

The ironically named "Media Freedom" blog isn't media and its freedom is limited to carrying water for the nation's largest telecom companies.

• Al Franken (the broadband industry’s ‘Boogie Man’)
• Cyber-Collectivist (the secret link between broadband and Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
• Fairness Doctrine (guaranteed to perk up the ears of any conservative talk radio fan wandering through)
• First Amendment (for corporations)
• Freedom (for said corporations to abuse your wallet)
• Free Speech (for corporations)
• Hugo Chavez (the go-to-guy for lazy smear-by-association rhetoric)
• Marxist (chalkboard time)
• New Deal (broadband users sure want one)
• … and redistributionism (something overheard at the last session of the “Communications Comintern?”)

The rhetoric is two parts AT&T to one part 1970s Radio Tirana, Albania.  A Glenn Beck swizzle stick labeled “Marxism” is included to stir the overheated rhetoric into a hot mess for Verizon and the cable lobby.

All of the “isms” aside, we’ve created a convenient, handy-dandy chart you can use to see which team Wendy and his group really supports:

Distinctions With a Difference – A Telecommunications Issue Checklist