TechDirt reports
Last year, you'll recall that somebody abused the nonexistent privacy protections at the FCC website to flood the net neutrality repeal proceeding with millions of fake comments. While the vast majority of real people oppose the repeal, a bad actor was able to either fraudulently use the identities of real people (like myself), or hijack the identities of dead people to spam the proceeding with bogus support. The goal: undermine public trust in the public comment period in order to downplay the massive opposition to the FCC's handout to AT&T and Comcast.
Up to this point, the FCC has done less than nothing to investigate the fraud or prevent it from happening again, largely because it aided the FCC's agenda. In fact, the FCC went so far as to block a law enforcement investigation into who was behind the fraud.
Hoping to pull the scandal back onto a front burner, Senators Jeff Merkley and Pat Toomey this week sent a letter to the FCC stating that they've discovered that their names were also used to post fake comments during the repeal. The two demanded the FCC implement some kind of CAPTCHA system to help police automated bogus comments (a bot seems to have posted millions of bogus comments in alphabetical order), and asked what the agency was doing to prevent the problem from occurring again:
"Late last year, the identities of as many as two million Americans were stolen and used to file fake comments during the FCC's comment period for the net neutrality rule," the letter to Pai, dated May 21, read.
"We were among those whose identities were misused to express viewpoints we do not hold. We are writing to express our concerns about these fake comments and the need to identify and address fraudulent behavior in the rulemaking process."
The letter comes more than a year after alarms were first sounded over the tsunami of seemingly faked comments submitted by "astroturfing" campaigns to sway the commission's opinion. Many of the comments were put up in the name of actual people without their knowledge or permission.
Ultimately, about 22 million messages were submitted, and while three in five were in favor of net neutrality, once duplicates and those with garbage email addresses were tossed out, the overall sentiment was against net neutrality. About 17 per cent of the total, though, were likely filed by real people logging into the FCC's website rather than through the watchdog's API designed for accepting submissions via third-party applications and websites. It is suspected someone, or some people, abused this gateway using automated software to cram the regulator with millions of bogus submissions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @02:04AM (2 children)
It's clear that it doesn't serve Labor (or consumers).
When Neil Gorsuch wrote his dissenting opinion (in a 6 - 1 decision) in the Frozen Trucker case (where he thought that the worker should have stayed with his trailer with the brakes that had been frozen in a blizzard and should have allowed himself to die in order to prove his loyalty to the corporation), many have said that Gorsuch was auditioning for a Reactionary seat on SCOTUS (which the GOPers in the Senate had left open for a year, in violation of the Constitution).
His anti-worker vote the other day leaves no doubt on whose side he will be during his tenure there.
I'm not real thrilled about the Dumbocrats[1], but the GOPers in government should be immediately rounded up and shot for treason or dereliction of duty or taking taxpayer money under false pretenses or whatever you want to call it.
(Can't think of a single one worth sparing.)
[1] ...and we can see about those folks in the second round.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @11:35AM (1 child)
I mean if you're going to make an accusation like that, at least include this:
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/23/in-a-case-of-a-truckers-life-vs-his-cargo-judge-neil-gorsuch-ruled-for-the-cargo/ [denverpost.com]
https://www.nbcnews.com/card/confronted-freezing-trucker-case-gorsuch-pushes-back-im-not-legislator-n736511 [nbcnews.com]
http://www.businessinsider.com/senators-grill-gorsuch-over-absurd-dissent-in-frozen-trucker-case-2017-3 [businessinsider.com]
https://www.truckdrivingjobs.com/blog/881/a-closer-look-at-alphonse-maddins-trucking-case.html [truckdrivingjobs.com]
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/22/gorsuch-trucker/99519750/ [detroitnews.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FUgm3STcDw [youtube.com]
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017/03/24/frozen-detroit-trucker-neil-gorsuch/99590588/ [freep.com]
https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/477996 [illinois.edu]
And here is a link to the actual opinions: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/15/15-9504.pdf [uscourts.gov]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 25 2018, @08:03PM
Alphonse is not very credible. Gorsuch's decision isn't very smart, but Alphonse's story just doesn't hang together.