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San Jose Mayor Quits FCC’s Industry-Stacked Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee

Phillip Dampier January 25, 2018 Astroturf, Broadband "Shortage", Public Policy & Gov't, Rural Broadband, Wireless Broadband Comments Off on San Jose Mayor Quits FCC’s Industry-Stacked Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee

Liccardo

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has resigned from the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), claiming the panel has been stacked with telecom industry players that will advocate for the interests of the telecom industry, not the public.

“It has become abundantly clear that despite the good intentions of several participants, the industry-heavy makeup of BDAC will simply relegate the body to being a vehicle for advancing the interests of the telecommunications industry over those of the public,” Liccardo wrote in his resignation letter.

The corruption was baked in from the earliest days of the BDAC, originally created by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in January 2017 to help resolve the digital divide between those who have access to internet service and those who don’t. BDAC was charged with providing advice and recommendations on how to accelerate the deployment of high-speed internet access. Pai used the BDAC partly as a front group to advocate for his own long-standing goal of reducing or eliminating what he believes are regulatory barriers to infrastructure investment.

Controversy erupted almost immediately as the BDAC member nomination process began. Pai and his staff packed the 30-member group with telecom industry corporate executives, trade groups, and free market scholars frequently funded or sponsored by telecom companies. According to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), the FCC initially accepted only two of the 64 city and state officials nominated to serve on a committee that was likely to recommend major changes to local and state zoning and permitting laws. Liccado was one of the two.

CPI filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC to force the agency to divulge detailed information about applicants and those approved to serve as panel members. They found three out of four members appointed worked for big telecom companies like AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, and TDS Telecom. Crown Castle International Corp., the nation’s largest wireless infrastructure company, and Southern Co., the nation’s second-largest utility firm, also have representatives on the panel. The “broadband experts” chosen as members largely came from conservative think tanks that have industry funding ties or connections with wealthy conservative donors like the Koch Brothers.

Liccardo sensed trouble on the committee as early as last August.

“It’s not lost on us that among the 30-odd members of the BDAC, only two represent local government,” Liccardo said. “We’ll see where things go in the weeks ahead, but it’s fair to say the footprints are in the snow.”

Gary Carter, who works for the city of Santa Monica, Calif., where he oversees City Net, one of the nation’s oldest publicly owned networks, thought he would be the perfect candidate to serve on the BDAC. The FCC didn’t think so.

“When I called [the FCC] to check on the status of the BDAC selection process [earlier this year] and identified myself as an employee from the City of Santa Monica, the gentleman on the phone laughed hysterically,” Carter said. “At first I didn’t get the joke. When I saw the appointees for the municipal working group—only three out of 24 positions were from local government—I got the joke.”

The corruption has not been a surprise to one telecommunications executive serving as a BDAC member. He candidly told CPI the committee was purposely “stacked” to guarantee findings and proposals that echo Pai’s anti-regulatory agenda.

“It’s definitely stacked towards private enterprise,” said the executive, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation from FCC officials. “It’s nothing new. The [current] FCC serves private enterprise.”

Nick Degani, senior counsel to the FCC and Pai’s wireline legal advisor, told BDAC members at a July meeting that only a few city officials were chosen because they are the ones that need guidance, not telecommunications companies.

City and state officials locked out of Pai’s panel warn that BDAC recommendations could soon lead to new rules that will ignore local residents’ wishes in favor of the interests of cable, phone, and wireless companies. Recommended rule changes could allow telecom companies to gain free or very low-cost access to public buildings on which it can place cell towers or the small cells that will end up on utility poles. Much of the equipment the industry wants to place threatens to clutter neighborhoods with unsafe, overloaded utility poles and some new infrastructure could block scenic views or be placed in sensitive environmental areas.

CPI spoke with many local officials who asked to participate as a member of BDAC, but were turned down:

“There are reasons you have to get a permit if you want to dig up the side of the street,” said David Frasher, city manager of Hot Springs, Arkansas, who also was nominated—but turned down—for a seat on the BDAC.

“The city needs to know if you’re going to block traffic or create a hazard to sidewalk users,” Frasher said. Maybe there’s a way to streamline those regulations, “… but with only 10 percent city government representation, how helpful will the end product be?”

The FCC also didn’t choose David Guttenberg, member of the Alaska state legislature. He said service providers writing local rules for internet deployment makes him fear for Alaskan residents, many of whom have such poor wireless service that they have trouble downloading emails.

“They [telecommunications companies] are only going to look after their own self interests,” Guttenberg said. “Find me the guy that works for telecommunications on this committee that’s going to sign onto a plan telling their business to do something they don’t want to do. Find me that guy.”

What Pai has done by packing the panel with industry representatives is, in the end, “pretty standard in Washington,” said Sarah Treul, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “The FCC expects certain outcomes from this advisory committee.”

Pai

That point was not lost by San Jose Mayor Liccardo, who finally had enough after witnessing several cases of BDAC’s industry members wielding veto power and unilaterally rewriting collaborative proposals to fit the agenda of large cable and phone companies.

“One working group, which did not have a single municipal representative among its 30+ participants, created a draft model state code that included provisions to eliminate all municipal control over when, how, and whether to accept industry applications for infrastructure deployment,” Liccardo complained. “Another working group had an industry representative dramatically re-write its draft municipal code in the 11th hour, pushing aside the product of months of the working group’s deliberations. The result, in each case, were provisions that plainly prioritized industry interests.”

Also dovetailing with Pai’s narrative, many telecom companies griped about the cost of complying with local rules and regulations. In April, Larry Thompson, CEO of the National Exchange Carrier Association, with 1,300+ local telephone company members, complained one member had to pay $700,000 in costs to comply with environmental laws, historical preservation rules, zoning, and construction-related paperwork.

A representative from Comcast worried that the BDAC’s work has been so polarized towards the telecom industry, excluded state and local officials will have every reason to resist the BDAC’s findings and recommendations and refuse to adopt them.

“If they don’t feel included, not only are they outside throwing [darts] at this process, but then in the end it’s those groups that we want to adopt these model codes,” said David Don, vice president of regulatory affairs at Comcast.

But Liccardo warns Pai and his Republican allies are laying the foundation to “steamroll” over local officials by bulldozing local control of zoning and code rulemaking. For that reason, he quit the committee.

“The apparent goal is to create a set of rules that will provide industry with easy access to publicly funded infrastructure at taxpayer subsidized rates, without any obligation to provide broadband access to underserved residents.”

If Pai does manage to enact new federal rules that are as industry-friendly as Liccardo and other city officials fear, the FCC could overrule local zoning and permitting rules on a scale never seen before.

“It’s obvious that this body is going to deliver to the industry what the industry wants,” Liccardo said.

That appears to be Mr. Pai’s agenda as well.

Here Comes the First FAKE Net Neutrality Bill, Courtesy of Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-AT&T)

Phillip Dampier December 19, 2017 Astroturf, Competition, Consumer News, Editorial & Site News, Net Neutrality, Public Policy & Gov't 1 Comment

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee, but mostly AT&T and Comcast)

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who claims to represent the interests of voters in Tennessee but generally prefers the views (and campaign contributions) from AT&T and Comcast, is the first Republican to propose a bait-and-switch “net neutrality” broadband bill she claims will protect a free and open internet, but will actually prohibit net neutrality as America has known it over the last two years.

“No blocking. No throttling. The Open Internet Preservation Act will ensure the internet is a free and open space,” Blackburn tweeted to her followers shortly after giving an exclusive interview introducing her bill to Breitbart News. An early copy was also furnished to TechFreedom, an industry-funded front group that has opposed net neutrality. “This legislation is simple, it provides light-touch regulation so companies can invest and innovate, and make sure our internet is up to 21st century standards.”

Congresswoman Blackburn hopes you will take her word on that and not bother to actually read and understand what her bill actually does to the concept of a free and open internet.

We did read the bill and are prepared to help you understand it.

No overt censorship but plenty of “reasonable network management”

Blackburn’s bill non-controversially forbids the censorship of “lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.” Virtually every ISP in the country has already volunteered they have no intention of censoring legal content on the internet. But Blackburn’s bill includes a safety clause that allows ISPs to avoid accusations of tinkering with traffic — “reasonable network management,” which in this case is vaguely defined in the bill as “a practice that has a primarily technical network management justification.” Blackburn also defines a network management practice “reasonable” if “it is primarily used for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management purpose, taking into account the particular network architecture and technology of the broadband internet access service.”

Despite that word salad, there is nothing in her bill that clearly defines what is “legitimate” and what is not. Comcast, for example, has its own view about how it manages and prices traffic on its broadband service. Stream XFINITY content and it does not count against your Comcast cap. Stream Hulu and it does. Comcast claims that is fair if one considers the ‘particular network architecture’ that delivers Comcast’s own content is allegedly different from the public internet. Blackburn’s bill would treat data caps, zero rating, and Comcast’s version of “fairness” as all perfectly legal.

Large telecommunications companies have insisted there is no need to pass laws or enact regulations governing internet censorship because they would never contemplate blocking legal content,  making the need for legislation unnecessary. But they are strongly likely to favor her bill, creating a direct contradiction to their repeated insistence net neutrality was “a solution in search of a problem.” There is a reason for the sudden support among many Republicans for Blackburn’s concept of net neutrality — blocking regulatory agencies from oversight of internet service provider interference and abuse.

The “Specialized Services” Hindenburg-sized loophole

Blackburn’s bill covers all the bases for the telecom industry she routinely supports.

Most importantly, her bill creates an enormous loophole allowing internet service providers to offer “specialized services” to the public any way they choose, as long as they do not “threaten the meaningful availability of broadband internet access service or [offer services] that have been devised or promoted in a manner designed to evade the purposes of this section.”

Blackburn defines a “specialized service” as “services other than broadband internet access service that are offered over the same network as, and that may share network capacity with, broadband internet access service.’’

That effectively means any website, streaming service, cloud storage or app could qualify as a “specialized service.” Blackburn’s bill would allow an ISP to establish paid prioritization (fast lanes) for selected content, usage cap non-preferred content, or steer web users to preferred websites and services. It effectively makes all internet content open to ISP manipulation. Just to be certain ISPs are protected from net neutrality rules for next generation applications and services, her bill also permanently forbids regulatory agencies from expanding the definition of net neutrality.

Obliterating the concept of states’ rights

Republicans are usually strong proponents of limiting the power of the federal government, especially when it comes to preempting state laws, but that concept is turned on its head when Big Telecom campaign contributions are at stake. Blackburn completely abandons any pretense of a state being able to write its own laws governing internet openness by specifically banning that option:

“No State or political subdivision of a State shall adopt, maintain, enforce, or impose or continue in effect any law, rule, regulation, duty, requirement, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to or with respect to internet openness obligations for provision of broadband internet access service.”

Permanently assuring ISPs easy court victories if net neutrality violations are uncovered

Blackburn’s bill ignores several years of court rulings on net neutrality cases that have called out the flaw of the FCC’s earlier dependence on defining the internet as an “information service” subject to oversight under Section 706 of the 1996 Telecom Act. The courts have ruled this foundation is inadequate to enforce net neutrality. The foundation that has proved adequate and has so-far survived court challenge exists in Title II of the Communications Act, made applicable when the internet was redefined as a common carrier “telecommunications service.” Rep. Blackburn’s bill would return net neutrality enforcement to the same flawed authority courts have already ruled does not apply, neutering net neutrality in the courts.

Critics contend Rep. Blackburn’s real motive is to permanently end oversight of large cable and phone companies and prevent federal agencies from coming to the rescue of content providers and consumers.

“Blackburn’s legislation fails at the very thing it claims to accomplish. It prohibits a few open-internet violations, but opens the door to rampant abuse through paid-prioritization schemes that split the internet into fast lanes for the richest companies and slow lanes for everyone else,” said Craig Aaron, Free Press Action Fund President and CEO. “This bill’s true goal is to let a few unregulated monopolies and duopolies stifle competition and control the future of communications.”

“Congress must reject last week’s FCC ruling and restore Title II authority at the agency,” Aaron added. “The 2015 rules worked extraordinarily well from the get-go, with investment and innovation flourishing across the sector. That’s because they gave the FCC the authority to prevent paid prioritization and other forms of discrimination, while promoting competition, open markets, universal service and equal access.”

Boston Globe Columnist Pushes for Broadband Dereg; Fails to Disclose He’s On Time Warner Cable’s Board

Phillip Dampier August 26, 2015 Astroturf, Public Policy & Gov't Comments Off on Boston Globe Columnist Pushes for Broadband Dereg; Fails to Disclose He’s On Time Warner Cable’s Board
Broadband for America, the latest front group from big corporate telecom interests

Broadband for America is a front group funded by the telecom industry.

The Boston Globe has asked an industry-funded columnist to stop writing about broadband issues because he failed to disclose his conflicts of interest.

John E. Sununu is a former Republican U.S. Senator from New Hampshire and the son of former New Hampshire Governor John H. Sununu. Since leaving office, he has earned a significant sum representing the interests of large telecom companies while assisting the Republican presidential primary campaign of Ohio Governor John Kasich. He has used his column in the influential newspaper to help both, without any disclosure to readers he has direct financial and personal conflicts of interest.

Media Matters criticized the paper after it allowed the former Republican senator to complain about the “unnecessary regulation of the internet” without disclosing he has been paid over $750,000 by corporate interests.

Sununu: Co-shill

Sununu: “Honorary co-chair”

In an August 17 column, Sununu attacked the Obama administration for reaching “ever deeper into the economy, pursuing expensive and unnecessary regulation of the Internet, carbon emissions, and even car loans.”

The editors of the Globe failed to tell readers Sununu has a dog in the fight over broadband regulation, serving as a board member for Time Warner Cable and a paid “honorary co-chair” for Broadband for America. As Stop the Cap! first reported in 2009 in an extensive two-part expose, almost every member of Broadband for America is either a cable or phone company, a lobbyist for the telecom industry, an equipment supplier relying on the industry to stay in business, or a non-profit group that receives direct financial contributions from cable and phone companies.

Sununu also failed to mention he serves as the chair of John Kasich’s presidential campaign in New Hampshire when he wrote a column on June 22 claiming Donald Trump was “running a race where both the chance of winning and the risk of losing are zero.”

The lack of proper disclosure of conflicts of interest is not limited to the Globe. Shills for AT&T’s interests routinely appear in “guest editorials” in newspapers across AT&T’s service areas. Newspapers rarely disclose the authors have direct financial ties to AT&T, appearing to the uninformed as “independent voices.”

Dan Kennedy, an associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University, wrote that Globe Editorial Page Editor Ellen Clegg stated “Sununu has told me he will avoid writing about issues pertaining to cable and internet access because of his seat on the Time Warner Cable board.” Clegg reaffirmed that the Globe is “posting bios for our regular freelance op-ed columnists online and linking those bios to their bylines” to provide “more transparency.”

One down, countless more to go.

“Free State Foundation” Sock Puppetry: Big Telecom Front Group Hosts Net Neutrality Bashing Session

Phillip Dampier March 30, 2015 Astroturf, Editorial & Site News, Net Neutrality, Public Policy & Gov't, Video 1 Comment
Walden

Walden

When a group advocating broad-based deregulation and less government suddenly takes a laser-focused, almost obsessive interest in a subject like Internet Net Neutrality, it rarely happens for free.

Randolph May’s Free State Foundation claims to be a non-profit, nonpartisan think tank to promote the free market, limited government, and rule of law principles. But in fact it primarily promotes the corporate interests of some of the group’s biggest financial backers, which include the wireless and cable industry.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), no stranger to big checks from cable companies himself, was in friendly territory at the group’s annual Telecom Policy Conference, a largely consumer-free affair, where he served as keynote speaker. Walden used the occasion to announce a solution to the Net Neutrality problem — defunding the FCC sufficiently to make sure it can never enforce the policy.

Walden, ignoring four million Americans who submitted comments almost entirely in favor of Net Neutrality, said the idea of the FCC overseeing an open and free Internet represented “regulatory overreach that will hurt consumers.”

Big Telecom Funded

Big Telecom Funded

Walden serves as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Walden told the audience he will be spending his time in Congress taking a hard look at the FCC, its budget request, and its policies after Net Neutrality became official FCC policy. Walden’s plans to punish the agency include a limit on FCC appropriations, making enforcement of Net Neutrality more difficult, if not impossible. Longer term, he hopes to bleed the agency dry by depriving it of resources to manage its regulatory mandate.

Walden’s third largest contributor is Comcast. He also receives significant financial support from the American Cable Association and Cox Cable. He spoke to a group that depends heavily on contributions from the same telecom industry Walden’s campaign coffer does.

According to tax filings by two cable and wireless lobbying groups, the Free State Foundation has cashed almost a half a million dollars in checks written by the groups in the last five years. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) paid FSF $280,000. The wireless lobby, represented by CTIA-The Wireless Association, managed $213,000 in contributions. These two groups are likely among FSF’s most substantial donors.

In 2012, Free State Foundation reported a total of $797,500 in contributions. After Stop the Cap! and other groups began reporting on the connection between the Free State Foundation’s agenda and its Big Telecom sponsors, the group began hiding its donor list. That earned FSF an “F” for donor transparency by PCWorld.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Free State Foundation Seventh Annual Telecom Policy Conference March 2015.mp4[/flv]

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) delivered the keynote address at the 7th Annual Telecom Policy Conference of the Free State Foundation. Despite receiving nearly a half million dollars in contributions from the cable and wireless lobbies, the group did not think to invest in a tripod to keep the camera steady. (38:42)

Marsha Blackburn Angry that FCC Chairman Wants to Run Tenn. Broadband… When AT&T Should

Phillip Dampier October 7, 2014 AT&T, Comcast/Xfinity, Community Networks, Competition, Editorial & Site News, HissyFitWatch, Public Policy & Gov't 2 Comments
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee, but mostly AT&T and Comcast)

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee, but mostly AT&T and Comcast)

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is angry that FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is sticking his nose into AT&T, Comcast, and Charter Communications’ private playground — the state of Tennessee.

In an editorial published by The Tennessean, Blackburn throws a fit that an “unelected” bureaucrat not only believes what’s best for her state, but is now openly talking about preempting state laws that ban public broadband networks:

Legislatures are the entities who should be making these decisions. Legislatures govern what municipalities can and cannot do. The principles of federalism and state delegation of power keep government’s power in check. When a state determines that municipalities should be limited in experimenting in the private broadband market, it’s usually because the state had a good reason — to help protect public investments in education and infrastructure or to protect taxpayers from having to bailout an unproven and unsustainable project.

Chairman Wheeler has repeatedly stated that he intends to preempt the states’ sovereign role when it comes to this issue. His statements assume that Washington knows best. However, Washington often forgets that the right answers don’t always come from the top down.

It’s unfortunate Rep. Blackburn’s convictions don’t extend to corporate money and influence in the public dialogue about broadband. The “good reason” states have limited public broadband come in the form of a check, either presented directly to politicians like Blackburn, who has received so many contributions from AT&T she could cross daily exercise off her “things to do” list just running to the bank, or through positive press from front groups, notably the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

According to campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, three of Blackburn’s largest career donors are employees and PACs affiliated with AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. Blackburn has also taken $56,000 from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the lobby for the big telecoms.

Combined, those organizations donated more than $200,000 to Blackburn. In comparison, her largest single donor is a PAC associated with Memphis-based FedEx Corp., which donated $68,500.

Phillip "States' rights don't extend to local rights in Blackburn's ideological world" Dampier

Phillip “States’ rights don’t extend to local rights in Blackburn’s ideological world” Dampier

Blackburn’s commentary tests the patience of the reality-based community, particularly when she argues that keeping public broadband out protects investments in education. As her rural constituents already know, 21st century broadband is often unavailable in rural Tennessee, and that includes many schools. Stop the Cap! regularly receives letters from rural Americans who complain they have to drive their kids to a Wi-Fi enabled parking lot at a fast food restaurant, town library, or even hunt for an unintentionally open Wi-Fi connection in a private home, just to complete homework assignments that require a broadband connection.

Blackburn’s favorite telecommunication’s company — AT&T — has petitioned the state legislature to allow it to permanently disconnect DSL and landline service in rural areas of the state, forcing customers to a perilous wireless data experience that doesn’t work as well as AT&T promises. While Blackburn complains about the threat of municipal broadband, she says and does nothing about the very real possibility AT&T will be allowed to make things even worse for rural constituents in her own state.

Who does Blackburn believe will ride to the rescue of rural America? Certainly not AT&T, which doesn’t want the expense of maintaining wired broadband service in less profitable rural areas. Comcast won’t even run cable lines into small communities. In fact, evidence has shown for at least a century, whether it is electricity, telephone, or broadband service, when large corporate entities don’t see profits, they won’t provide the service and communities usually have to do the job themselves. But this time those communities are handcuffed in states that have enacted municipal broadband bans literally written by incumbent phone and cable companies and shepherded into the state legislature through front groups like ALEC.

Chairman Wheeler is in an excellent position to understand the big picture, far better than Blackburn’s limited knowledge largely absorbed from AT&T’s talking points. After all, Wheeler comes from the cable and wireless industry and knows very well how the game is played. Wheeler has never said that Washington knows best, but he has made it clear state and federal legislators who support anti-competitive measures like municipal broadband bans don’t have a monopoly on good ideas either — they just have monopolies.

That isn’t good enough for Congresswoman Blackburn, who sought to strip funding from the FCC to punish the agency for crossing AT&T, Comcast and other telecom companies:

Marsha is an avowed member of the AT&T Fan Club.

Marsha is an avowed member of the AT&T Fan Club.

In July, I passed an amendment in Congress that would prohibit taxpayer funds from being used by the FCC to pre-empt state municipal broadband laws. My amendment doesn’t prevent Chattanooga or any other city in Tennessee from being able to engage in municipal broadband. It just keeps those decisions at the state level. Tennessee’s state law that allowed Chattanooga and other cities to engage in municipal broadband will continue to exist without any interference from the FCC. Tennessee should be able to adjust its law as it sees fit, instead of Washington dictating to us.

Notice that Blackburn’s ideological fortitude has loopholes that protect a very important success story — EPB Fiber in Chattanooga, one of the first to offer gigabit broadband service. If municipal broadband is such a threat to common sense, why the free pass for EPB? In fact, it is networks like EPB that expose the nonsense on offer from Blackburn and her industry friends that claim public broadband networks are failures and money pits.

In fact, Blackburn’s idea of states’ rights never seems to extend to local communities across Tennessee that would have seen local ordinances gutted by Blackburn’s telecommunications policies and proposed bills. In 2005, Blackburn introduced the ironically named Video Choice Act of 2005 which, among other things:

  • Would have granted a nationwide video franchise system that would end all local oversight over rights-of-way for the benefit of incumbent telephone companies, but not for cable or other new competitors like Google Fiber;
  • Strips away all local oversight of cable and telephone company operations that allowed local jurisdictions to ensure providers follow local laws and rules;
  • Prohibited any mechanism on the local level to collect franchise payments;
  • Eliminated any rules forbidding “redlining” — when a provider only chooses select parts of a community to serve.

More recently, Blackburn has been on board favoring legislation restricting local communities from having a full say on the placement of cell towers. Current Tennessee law already imposes restrictions on local communities trying to refuse requests from AT&T, Verizon and others to place new cell towers wherever they like. She is also in favor of highest-bidder wins spectrum auctions that could allow AT&T and Verizon to use their enormous financial resources to snap up new spectrum and find ways to hoard it to keep it away from competitors.

Not everyone in Tennessee appreciated Blackburn’s remarks.

Nashville resident Paul Felton got equal time in the newspaper to refute Blackburn’s claims:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn is on her high horse (Tennessee Voices, Oct. 3) about the idea of the Federal Communications Commission opposing laws against municipal broadband networks, wrapping herself in the mantle of states’ rights. We know that behind all “states’ rights” indignation is “corporate rights” protection.

The last I heard, there was only one Internet, and anyone can log into Amazon or healthcare.gov just as easily from any state. Or any budget.

No, this is about the one Internet being controlled by one corporate giant (or two) in each area, who want to control price and broadband speed, and now want to link the two. They don’t want competition from any pesky municipal providers hellbent on providing the same speed for all users, at a lower price. Check the lobbying efforts against egalitarian ideas to find out which side of an issue Marsha Blackburn always comes down on.

But comments like these don’t deter Rep. Blackburn.

“Congress cannot sit idly by and let a federal agency trample on our states’ rights,” she wrote, but we believe she meant to say ‘AT&T’s rights.’

“Besides, the FCC should be tackling other priorities where political consensus exists, like deploying spectrum into the marketplace, making the Universal Service Fund more effective, protecting consumers, improving emergency communications and other important policies,” Blackburn wrote.

Remarkably, that priority list just so happens to mirror AT&T’s own legislative agenda. Perhaps that is just a coincidence.

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