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posted by chromas on Sunday May 03 2020, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the 127.0.0.1 dept.

Judge Orders FCC to Hand Over IP Addresses Linked to Fake Net Neutrality Comments:

A Manhattan federal judge has ruled the Federal Communications Commission must provide two reporters access to server logs that may provide new insight into the allegations of fraud stemming from agency’s 2017 net neutrality rollback.

A pair of New York Times reporters—Nicholas Confessore and Gabriel Dance—sued the FCC under the Freedom of Information Act after it refused their request to view copies of the logs. The logs will show, among other details, the originating IP addresses behind the millions of public comments sent to the agency ahead of the December 2017 net neutrality vote.

The FCC attempted to quash the paper’s request but failed to persuade District Judge Lorna Schofield, who wrote that, despite the privacy concerns raised by the agency, releasing the logs may help clarify whether fraudulent activity interfered with the comment period, as well as whether the agency’s decision-making process is “vulnerable to corruption.”

The FCC argued in court that making the millions of IP addresses contained in the logs publicly accessible would constitute an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” And while Schofield didn’t entirely disagree, she said the agency had failed to adequately spell out how anyone would be harmed by the disclosure.

Regardless, Schofield said she also decided to weigh any hypothetical harm against the potential value of the information to the public. “In this case, the public interest in disclosure is great because the importance of the comment process to agency rulemaking is great,” she said, adding: “If genuine public comment is drowned out by a fraudulent facsimile, then the notice-and-comment process has failed.”


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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @08:48AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @08:48AM (#989726)

    aristarchus doesn't work? What a surprise - NOT!!

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday May 03 2020, @10:26AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday May 03 2020, @10:26AM (#989738) Journal

    Well, of course not, having been retired for some 2320 years, and living off investments of the artificial grain Electric car shortage of Septimus SeverusMusk, and doing quite well, thank you. But, I do understand that money is nothing, the thing that makes thieves and whores, businessmen and entrpreneurs, politicians and Republican Senators,, um do things. But the motivating factor of no one who is not a slave. As our poor khallow is. Poor khallow, slave to money, and since he cannot make it himself. slave to those who have money, whom he worships on bended over. Poor khallow.