Stevens

Sen. Ted Stevens death last week in a plane crash has shined a light on increasingly cozy relationships between Alaska’s most powerful politicians and the special interests that court their support.  Winning favor with a politician that can control and direct financial resources from Washington can secure your company millions in taxpayer dollars and legislative favors in America’s most rural state.

When he died, the former Alaskan senator was on his way, as an invited guest, to an isolated lodge owned and maintained for the use of executives at Alaska’s largest broadband provider — GCI.  Time alone in the Alaskan wilderness delivered the ultimate captive audience for those the company sought to influence and Stevens was always a company favorite.

Accompanying Stevens on the doomed flight were GCI’s senior lobbyist Dana Tindall and William D. Phillips Sr., a lawyer, lobbyist and former chief of staff for Mr. Stevens.  Both also perished in the crash.

Even after Stevens was voted out of office after being initially found guilty in a federal corruption trial, special interests like GCI continued to court Stevens, who all-too-willingly mixed business and pleasure — including the ill-fated fishing trip sponsored by the Alaskan telecom company.

Stevens didn’t go quietly out of politics after losing to Democrat Mark Begich in 2008.  The New York Times noted he split his time between Washington and Alaska, providing “consulting” services and worked on resource issues.

His close connections to beltway politics kept him in favor among Alaska’s corporate interests, many of whom had supported Stevens financially and rhetorically for decades.

Tindall’s close relationship to Stevens paid GCI dividends in favors and support — both of which they returned in the form of generous campaign contributions, as the Times reports:

Ms. Tindall, 48, did not work for Mr. Stevens, but several people said they had a strong mutual respect and a warm rapport. She is credited with helping the company she worked for, GCI, grow rapidly in Alaska at the same time that Mr. Stevens was influential in telecommunications issues in Congress. He frequently brought members of the Federal Communications Commission to Alaska and helped steer money toward improving communications in rural areas. Another of his former chiefs of staff, Greg Chapados, is a vice president at GCI.

Tindall

“Senator Stevens was instrumental in helping get a satellite project started so that people in Alaska could watch same-day television and live events,” said Mike Porcaro, a radio personality and advertising executive whose clients include GCI. Mr. Porcaro recalled not being able to watch live network television in Alaska as late as the 1970s. “We went from the 1800s to the 20th century in one day, mostly because of him,” Mr. Porcaro said.

Executives at GCI were generous campaign contributors to Mr. Stevens. Since 1994, Ms. Tindall was the most generous, donating $7,100 to his campaigns, records show. But in 2007 and 2008, as the corruption case surrounded Mr. Stevens, Ms. Tindall and other GCI executives gave less. Ms. Tindall initially gave $1,000 that year, though she later reduced the amount to $400.

Roberta Graham, a public relations executive and a close friend of Ms. Tindall’s, said Ms. Tindall and Mr. Stevens were “kindred spirits,” similarly tenacious and dedicated to their work.

GCI can afford to wine and dine Alaska’s politicians from the rate hikes they will visit on their broadband customers with a proposed Internet Overcharging scheme that will limit customers to how much Internet access they can enjoy.

That abusive pricing is something Senator Stevens would have undoubtedly supported, even if he lacked an understanding of its implications.

The late senator embarrassed himself in 2006 when he sought to defend his friends in the telecommunications industry against Net Neutrality.  At one point, Stevens reduced the Internet down to a “series of tubes.”

But then companies like GCI didn’t contribute generously to his campaign for his broadband knowledge — they just wanted to make sure he was a safe vote in their column.

Dick Cheney's ghost is haunting the halls at the FCC these days as the agency conducts secret, closed-door meetings with just four companies to achieve "common ground" on broadband regulation. Consumers are not invited to attend.

In 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney convened the first meeting of the always-off-the-record National Energy Policy Development Group.  Secretly inviting executives of the nation’s largest oil companies and lobbyists for natural gas and mining, Cheney hoped to find “common ground” on energy issues that he could translate into legislation on Capitol Hill.  The final report kept the names of the self-interested corporate executives off the member roster, and predictably called for legislative actions that would directly benefit those in attendance.

In June 2010, a series of meetings with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s chief of staff and executives from AT&T, Verizon, Google and Skype got underway to find “common ground” on the issues of broadband regulation and Net Neutrality.  With irony, the same FCC that promised it would be “the most open and transparent ever” has barred the press and the public from participation.  No consumers were invited.  No minutes from the meetings will be disclosed.  In short, these are “closed-door” meetings.

Even more surprising, apparently the FCC forgot to invite Comcast, the cable conglomerate most directly responsible for the agency having its authority cut from beneath it in the first place.

When the Washington Post asked Eddie Lazarus, Genachowski’s chief of staff, what was on the agenda, only vague notions about “seizing the opportunity” to find common agreement on issues like Net Neutrality were disclosed.  Lazarus added the big four were also there to give input on Congress’ interest in revising the Communications Act.

That’s great news for thousands of Washington’s lobbyists who helped fashion the disastrous 1996 Communications Act that represented Christmas morning for corporate interests — more deregulation in the broadcast business which lead to massive consolidation, giveaways to the cable and telephone industry, and more handouts to wireless companies.

What was supposed to be a law to govern the public interest of the airwaves and telecommunications turned into a lobbyist feeding frenzy.  Consumers couldn’t afford the price of admission. Reopening the Communications Act means telecom companies from coast to coast can get busy working on their Christmas wish lists for the 500+ Secret Santas that live and work in the legislative branch of government these days, especially on the Republican side of the aisle.

Of course, the real outrage here is the FCC’s hope that the four companies can reach some agreement on contentious broadband issues and then the agency can do away with the entire matter of broadband regulatory reform.  Why fight the battle if you can compromise the issue away?  No matter what the four agree on, there are still many outstanding issues relating to consumer protection which cannot be negotiated by four corporate entities.

Those on both sides of the broadband regulatory issue are appalled at the secrecy.  Brett Glass, who opposes Net Neutrality and runs a WISP in Wyoming asked, “What happened to Chairman Genachowski’s promises of “the most open and transparent FCC ever?”

Indeed.

Lazarus tried his best to paper over the serious implications of holding secretive meetings in a blog post:

Senior Commission staff are making themselves available to meet with all interested parties on these issues. To the extent stakeholders discuss proposals with Commission staff regarding other approaches outside of the open proceedings at the Commission, the agency’s ex parte disclosure requirements are not applicable. But to promote transparency and keep the public informed, we will post notices of these meetings here at blog.broadband.gov. As always, our door is open to all ideas and all stakeholders.

In part, here was our response to Mr. Lazarus:

There is no transparency or openness in closed-door meetings that bar the public from participation. It’s just more of the same inside-the-beltway deal-making that will undercut consumers. Believe it or not, there is more at stake here than whatever issues Verizon, AT&T, Google, and eBay have to discuss.

And what if the four agreed on anything (improbable)? Does that mean the rest of us are expected to go along to get along?

The FCC’s door is -not- open to all ideas and stakeholders when the chairman’s chief of staff only invites four voices to his table.

There is nothing open and transparent about secret meetings peppered with excuses about why disclosure rules do not apply.

[Update 10:30am ET Wednesday — The DailyFinance quotes a government source: “We fu*ked up,” a government source familiar with the meetings told DailyFinance. “We deserve the bad press. It was a process foul at a minimum.”]

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Heath Shuler Campaign Ad.flv[/flv]

Congress doesn’t seem to know right from wrong, but we do.

It’s not right when big insurance companies write health care laws when millions can’t afford to see a doctor.

It’s not right when big oil companies write energy laws as gas prices skyrocket.

It’s not right when Congress passes trade bills that send our jobs overseas.

Congress won’t change until we change the people we’re sending to Washington.

–Rep. Heath Shuler’s 2006 campaign commercial

That was less than four years ago.  Apparently these days Rep. Heath Shuler (D-North Carolina) believes it -is- right for large telecommunications companies to censor online content, slow down Internet services they don’t want you to use, and allow the phone and cable industry to control broadband policies in this country.

Shuler’s abandonment of his mountain values was made easier with $23,000 in campaign contributions from a grateful industry.

Shuler

When those telecom checks cleared the bank, Shuler went to work for big telecom companies, becoming a leading opponent of consumer-friendly Net Neutrality.

For his supporters who once had high hopes for the Democratic congressman first elected in 2006, it’s been one disappointment after another.

Last fall, Shuler was a co-signer of a letter to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski opposing Net Neutrality.  To reiterate the point, many of the same co-signers of last fall’s letter were back on board with a second letter sent last month.

The latest letter was a godsend to AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and other Net Neutrality opponents who are using it to suggest there is considerable bipartisan opposition to broadband reform.

Many of his constituents are not impressed with Shuler’s legislative record these days.  One of them is Dave Houck:

I have long since had it with Mr. Shuler.  I admit it, I have no more patience for him.

[…]

I campaigned for you, and phone banked for you, and made cash contributions.  Today I find out that you are against net neutrality, that you signed a letter to the FCC Chairman supporting AT&T and other large corporations — choosing corporations over the people.

In 2010 I will be voting for anybody who runs against you, Democrat or Republican, as you have consistently demonstrated in the three years you have been in Congress that you are quite simply not up to the job of representing the people of Western North Carolina.  You and the “Blue Dog Coalition” are surrogates for corporate interests; you do not have the interests of the people of North Carolina at heart.  Or at least that’s the message you are sending to me.

I’m just fed up.

North Carolina's 11th District is currently served by Rep. Heath Shuler

Similar sentiments from upset residents in his district are voiced all over Shuler’s Facebook page.  Why not add yours?

Then give his office a call or drop him an e-mail.

Ask Rep. Shuler how standing with big phone and cable companies against consumer broadband protection could ever represent western North Carolina mountain values.

Tell him trusting AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable with our broadband future is like trusting BP to protect the Gulf Coast.

Let him know you were disappointed with his decision to sign the first letter opposing Net Neutrality last fall, but now you are simply appalled he’s done it again.

It’s not right when big phone and cable companies have the power to write their own legislation and stop pro-consumer protections like Net Neutrality.  Where is the Rep. Shuler who campaigned on doing the right thing in 2006?

If Shuler won’t change his mind on an issue as important as this, perhaps we need to take his own advice and change the person the 11th district sends to Congress.

NoNetBrutality characterizes itself as a "grassroots campaign," but new evidence suggests it's actually just another telecom industry-backed astroturf group pretending to represent consumer interests.

On April 12th, a new voice joined the opposition to Net Neutrality reforms.  That was the date someone registered the domain name NoNetBrutality.com.  Just a few short days later, the group launched a basic website with a mission:

NoNetBrutality.com is a grassroots campaign with a triple mission. It seeks:

(1) to raise public awareness for the imminent threat of government take-over of the internet,
(2) to bring all net neutrality opponents together under one common banner,
(3) to petition the FCC not to go ahead with its attempts to regulate the internet.

NoNetBrutality.com was initiated by six liberty-minded activists from six different countries who fear that the current attempts of the U.S. government to restrict access to the internet might soon be followed by other governments if we don’t fight these flawed and dangerous ideas now – before they take root elsewhere.

The NoNetBrutality.com campaign was created by Kristin McMurray (United States), Yolanda Talavera (Nicaragua), Vincent De Roeck (Belgium), David MacLean (Canada), Huafang Li (China) and Aykhan Nasibli (Azerbaidjan), and formally launched in Washington D.C. on April 14th, 2010.

The group’s talking points about Net Neutrality are eerily in lockstep with those distributed by large phone and cable interests who oppose net freedom:

Net neutrality will take away incentives to invest and innovate – that means the internet will stop improving. Do you really want an internet czar to run the worldwide web and bureaucrats in charge of cyberspace?

Net neutrality will literally put the internet in “neutral.” Demand for Youtube, Bittorrent and streaming will grow, but who will pay for additional bandwidth if they aren’t allowed to charge for it anymore? Less options and less freedom for the consumers will be the ultimate consequence of these flawed ideas.

The FCC and others aim to regulate the internet in the same way as they control the television… There’s the real censorship! What will be the next step? Once the government has the mechanism in place to restrict internet access and to set prices, it is only a tiny step towards content control and taxes on internet use.

Everybody agrees that the internet is a resounding free market success story. If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

You know what that means — that “grassroots campaign” is in reality yet another corporate-backed astroturf campaign desperately trying to hide its true backer — the telecommunications industry.

Here’s what NoNetBrutality left out of its “facts”:

1. YouTube is owned by Google, which is a strong believer in Net Neutrality.
2. No online service has suffered more at the hands of Internet Service Providers’ throttles than Bittorrent.  Net Neutrality would ban those throttles.
3. The group ignores the multi-billion dollars in profit the broadband industry earns today from Internet service that is increasing in price at the same time costs to provide it are rapidly falling.
4. The FCC proposes no content controls for broadband — only consumer protections to prohibit providers from manipulating broadband traffic for money.
5. Everyone does not agree that the Internet is a “resounding free market success story.”  In fact, the United States has lost its former lead on Internet speed and adoption, and today is still dropping.  We now have worse service than many Asian and East European countries, and providers are trying to test new Internet Overcharging schemes t0 limit consumption and increase prices even higher.  That’s success?  Only for them.

So who is NoNetBrutality.com and Kristin McMurray, the American creator of the campaign?

McMurray's day job is to develop and run social media campaigns for corporate interests seeking to build support for their public policy agenda

Kristin McMurray is a social media strategist — a hired gun for corporate interests that want social-network-street-cred but don’t exactly know how to create an authentic-looking campaign that fulfills their corporate agenda.

McMurray has a history with corporate-backed conservative think tanks, particularly Americans for Limited Government, a group the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity reports is 99 percent funded by three unnamed sources.  The group has routinely denied requests to identify where their backing comes from.  She also was hired to run a campaign for a climate change denial group.

McMurray tracks her site visitors carefully with Alterian’s SM2, a social media monitoring and analysis solution designed for PR and Marketing professionals. Alterian SM2 “helps you track conversations, review positive/negative sentiment for your brand, clients, competitors and partners across social media channels such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, social networks, video/photo sharing sites and real-time alerts.”

Grassroots this isn’t.

Accidental Evidence: The Consequences of An Exposed PowerPoint Presentation

Someone left their PowerPoint slides laying around for anyone to pick up and review.  That turned out to be about as foolish as the guy who left his field test version of Apple’s newest iPhone in a bar.

Now the truth can be told.

Think Progress managed to obtain a copy of the presentation, and it says quite a bit about just how much grassroots are actually growing at NoNetBrutality.com.  Let’s put it this way, if you were allergic to actual grass, you’d have no problems at all rolling around in NoNetBrutality’s astroturf.

It turns out NoNetBrutality is the creature of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, itself heavily backed by corporate interests.

And you thought it was “six liberty-minded activists from six different countries.”  Not so much.

Atlas, which counts among its proud moments a corporate strategy to protect Big Tobacco, helps corporations coordinate their front group strategies.  Norquist takes corporate agendas and spins them into grass roots efforts in return for money.  He was caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal when the disgraced lobbyist promised one of Norquist’s front groups $50,000 in exchange for “grassroots” support.

Of course, you aren’t supposed to know any of this.  Groups like NoNetBrutality are designed to hide their true ties and claim they are run by ordinary concerned citizens making their individual voices heard.  Too bad that PowerPoint presentation blew the lid off by telling a much different story.

One of the PowerPoint slides that wasn't supposed to become public knowledge

Net Neutrality is like what China does: “Putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.” — Grover Norquist

Norquist’s bizarre interpretation of Net Neutrality shines through in NoNetBrutality’s own campaign.  On one of the PowerPoint slides, NoNetBrutality even cooks up a Chinese blog to underline Norquist’s world view that Net Neutrality can be compared with Chinese government censorship.

Every astroturf group has a target audience.  NoNetBrutality is no different:

Target Groups

• Libertarian like minded Internet users and video gamers
• Fiscal and Social Conservative Activists, Campaigners and Think Tanks
• Internet Service Providers and Communications companies
• Policy makers (Legislators, Regulators, Public officials)

For groups like NoNetBrutality, getting corporate and conservative support means being a cog in the wheel at Grover’s infamous Wednesday strategy sessions.  One of the PowerPoint slides calls attention to just how important these meetings are in the effort to coordinate opposition to consumer-friendly broadband reform.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, outraged consumers have invaded the group’s primary social media outlets.  Their Facebook page is now loaded with comments from those upset about the fact the entire effort is little more than another bought-and-paid-for deception effort from the telecom industry.  Twitter is now used more to expose the group than to promote it.

The ironic part is that the very group that seems so alarmed by the prospect of “government censorship of the Internet” has no problems censoring its own Facebook page to remove posts that it determines are “off topic” or “not polite.”

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[Update Wednesday 3:20pm — This “group” came out of the closet this morning as a “class project” funded by Atlas, and attacked Think Progress for overreaching as to the group’s own importance in the Net Neutrality debate.  You can read my extended thoughts on today’s developments in the Comments section.  In short, I think today’s revelations may actually do even more damage to their credibility than earlier thought.  What does it say about a group of people willing to attend a “school” (and the “school” itself) that actively teaches how to develop and launch highly-deceptive fake grassroots campaigns designed to fool consumers?  Today they are downplaying the entire affair as “funny,” but if you were a visitor to their website, would you be laughing to learn the group isn’t really run by “six liberty-minded activists from six different countries” but rather those budding to learn the craft of sock-puppetry?

I think it’s sad some people have a moral code that says intentional deception in a public policy fight is just fine.  When you lie to your supporters and opponents about who you really are, and then say it’s “funny” when you come clean later,  they are left with little more than to ponder whether you were lying to them then or lying to them now.]

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski wins the Cowardly Lion Award for reports he's set to sell out American consumers for corporate interests

The Washington Post this morning reports FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is preparing to sell out a free and open Internet by adopting a provider appeasement policy that would abandon consumers and broadband users to the whims of big telecom companies.

In an extraordinarily disappointing move by the Obama Administration, which promised to adopt Net Neutrality and better broadband service for consumers, political expediency and typical Democratic party cowardice are likely to derail any hope for adopting consumer protections for the Internet.

Three sources at the [FCC] said Genachowski has not made a final decision but has indicated in recent discussions that he is leaning toward keeping in place the current regulatory framework for broadband services but making some changes that would still bolster the FCC’s chances of overseeing some broadband policies.

The sources said Genachowski thinks “reclassifying” broadband to allow for more regulation would be overly burdensome on carriers and would deter investment. But they said he also thinks the current regulatory framework would lead to constant legal challenges to the FCC’s authority every time it attempted to pursue a broadband policy.

Genachowski is living in a dream world — the non-reality-based community — if he believes for a second the nice telecom industry will happily go along with his plans for better broadband while leaving the current anti-competitive duopolistic framework of deregulation in place.

Telling a multi-billion dollar broadband industry to keep their paws off content and preserve an open and free network would be burdensome… for Stalin.  It should not be for AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.  If it is, that is why we are supposed to have checks and balances to protect Americans from a corporate oligarchy.  But money talks, and despite all of the repeated promises from President Barack Obama to preserve an open Internet, once the political pressure gets applied and the Money Party of corporate contributions gets going, you can always count on these people to cave in the end. “What Net Neutrality promise?”

Stop the Cap! supporters, with the help of a few “get it done” elected officials and other consumers who stood up and said “no more” to Time Warner Cable and the North Carolina legislature, managed to beat back Internet Overcharging experiments and corporate-friendly legislation to ban municipal broadband networks.  We accomplished both in a matter of weeks last year.  What was our secret?  Integrity.  We’re not behest to corporate lobbyists and industry-funded think tanks who hold the keys to post-administration job opportunities with super-sized salaries.  The Obama Administration and its appointed FCC chairman seem utterly impotent to do what a regulatory agency is supposed to do — regulate.  We might as well have Neville Chamberlain as FCC Chairman, because consumers are starting to feel a bit like 1938 Czechoslovakia, about to be sold out for peace inside the Beltway.

Readers, we will not be Julius Genachowski’s Tylenol.  To the contrary.  Chairman Genachowski appears exceptionally naive to believe he can enact any of his broadband policies over lawsuit-happy big telecoms that will promptly have them tossed out in court rulings.  If you and I already know this, why doesn’t he?  We need bold action, not policy capitulation.  Perhaps it’s time to replace the chairman with someone who isn’t afraid to do the job.

It always shocks me when we elect an administration to lead on the issues it pursues during an election, and then cowers in fear and abandons the American people the moment some lobbyists turn up the heat and start handing out checks.  Even when the overwhelming majority of Americans want a free and open Internet, somehow a handful of bureaucrats in Washington are too afraid to actually get the job done.

“The telephone and cable companies will object to any path the chairman takes,” said Art Brodsky, a spokesman for Public Knowledge, told the Post. “He might as well take the one that best protects consumers and is most legally sound.”

It’s too bad that is considered the radical solution in a lobbyist-infested Washington.  It looks like we’re going to need to start counting the money and making it clear in no uncertain terms that abandoning consumers means we’ll abandon them at the next election.

Marvin Ammori, a CyberLaw Advocate:

If the Post story is predictive, there is almost no list of “horribles” that are not fair game. I’m listing ten. Most of these “horribles” have actually happened as business practices where the carriers got their way. And media companies are believed to refuse ads or stories that criticize them or oppose their position.

Comcast (or AT&T or Verizon or Time Warner Cable) could do any of the following and the FCC could do Big Fat Nothing:

(1) Block your tweets, if you criticize Comcast’s service or its merger, especially if you use the #ComcastSucks hashtag.

(2) Block your vote to the consumerist.com, when you vote Comcast the worst company in the nation. No need for such traffic to get through.

(3) Force every candidate for election to register their campaign-donations webpage and abide by the same weird rules that apply to donations by text message.

(4) Comcast could even require a “processing fee,” becoming the Ticketmaster of campaign contributions.

(5) Comcast could reserve the right to approve of every campaign online and every mass email to a political party’s or advocacy group’s list (as they do with text message short codes).

(6) If you create a small online business and hit it big, threaten to block your business unless you share 1/3 or more of all your revenues with them (apps on the iPhone app stores often are forced to give up a 1/3 or more; so are cable channels on cable TV).

(7) Block all peer to peer technologies, even those used for software developers to share software, distribute patches (world of warcraft), distribute open source software (Linux). In fact, Comcast has shown it would love to do this.

(8) Block Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Moveon.org (and its emails), because of an “exclusive” deal with other blogs. Or alternatively, block FoxNews.com because of a deal with NBC and MSNBC.

(9) Monitor everything you do online and sell it to advertisers, something else that some phone and cable have done, with the help of a shady spyware company.

(10) Lie to you about what they’re blocking and what they’re monitoring. Hell, the FCC wouldn’t have any authority to make them honest. The FCC couldn’t punish them.

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