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FCC Tries Something New: Making Proposals Public Before Voting on Them
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai yesterday announced a seemingly simple step to make the FCC's rulemaking process more open to the public: the FCC intends to release the full text of rulemakings before they're voted on instead of days after the vote.
Pai and fellow Republican Michael O'Rielly repeatedly complained about the secrecy of rulemakings when Democrat Tom Wheeler was chairman. Wheeler followed the practice of previous chairs by publicly releasing a summary of the proposed rules a few weeks before the FCC's meetings, while negotiations over the final text of orders continued behind closed doors. The actual text of rulemakings wasn't released until after the vote. In the case of net neutrality, Pai complained three weeks before the vote that he couldn't share the full text of the draft order with the public. The full text wasn't released until two weeks after the vote.
"Today, we begin the process of making the FCC more open and transparent," Pai said yesterday. He then released the text of two proposals scheduled for a vote at the commission's meeting on February 23, one on allowing TV broadcasters to use the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard and another on "giving AM radio broadcasters more flexibility in siting their FM translators."
[...] This would certainly make it easier for journalists to report on the impacts of rulemakings before they're voted on. Congressional Republicans pressed Wheeler to make releasing the text of orders in advance a standard practice, and there is pending legislation that would make it a requirement. But Wheeler said during his chairmanship that such a practice would cause long delays in rulemakings. Wheeler told Republicans in Congress in May 2015 that making the full text public in advance could make it easier for opponents to kill proposals they don't like.
[...] While Pai hasn't yet committed to making the pre-vote release of orders permanent, O'Rielly said he's confident that the pilot project will go smoothly. "If this initial attempt goes well—and I see no reason why it wouldn't—I think we will all find this to be a significant upgrade in terms of quality of feedback, quality of process, and ultimately quality of the commission's work product," O'Rielly said. O'Rielly acknowledged that the change "may make our jobs a bit more challenging," but he added that "it is the right thing to do for the American people, the practitioners before the commission and the professional press who report on commission activities."
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FCC Rescinds Claim That AT&T and Verizon Violated Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission's new Republican leadership has rescinded a determination that AT&T and Verizon Wireless violated net neutrality rules with paid data cap exemptions. The FCC also rescinded several other Wheeler-era reports and actions. The FCC released its report on the data cap exemptions (aka "zero-rating") in the final days of Democrat Tom Wheeler's chairmanship. Because new Chairman Ajit Pai opposed the investigation, the FCC has now formally closed the proceeding.
The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau sent letters to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile USA notifying the carriers "that the Bureau has closed this inquiry. Any conclusions, preliminary or otherwise, expressed during the course of the inquiry will have no legal or other meaning or effect going forward." The FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau also sent a letter to Comcast closing an inquiry into the company's Stream TV cable service, which does not count against data caps.
The FCC issued an order that "sets aside and rescinds" the Wheeler-era report on zero-rating. All "guidance, determinations, and conclusions" from that report are rescinded, and it will have no legal bearing on FCC proceedings going forward, the order said.
[...] Pai opposed Wheeler's zero-rating investigation, saying that free data offerings are "popular among consumers precisely because they allow more access to online music, videos, and other content free of charge." He has also vowed to overturn the FCC's net neutrality rules and hasn't committed to enforcing them while they remain in place. "While this is just a first step, these companies, and others, can now safely invest in and introduce highly popular products and services without fear of commission intervention based on newly invented legal theories," Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said today.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday February 04 2017, @06:43PM
This is the money quote:
Wheeler told Republicans in Congress in May 2015 that making the full text public in advance could make it easier for opponents to kill proposals they don't like.
This is Progressivism in a nutshell. It is Nancy Pelosi's "We have to pass the bill to find out what is in it" evil all over again and we see this repeatedly because it really is at the heart of the mindset. A self selected elite know better, so they will rule over us, and they will do it in secret because we are so stupid that we would object to what they are doing in our name and prevent all of the wonderful plans they have.
Isn't it wonderful to see it ending, to see transparency being placed as a fundamental principle of governance?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04 2017, @06:52PM
Because the people who kill rulings like these are little guys, not big telcos with astroturf campaigns.
I like the idea of open deliberations. Buts lets not pretend who its that typically mobilizes against them - the people with lawyers specifically on staff to kill them.
Wheeler was a lobbyist for the telcos, he knows exactly how it works.
You, on the other hand, are a one-note johnny who knows nothing outside blind ideology.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Saturday February 04 2017, @07:48PM
When I was reading the article I kind of figured that corporations who would be effected already have a back door to get all of this information before it is voted on. If I am wrong I would be extremely surprised and impressed by how honest our politicians are.
I could not disagree more with their backing away from net neutrality, but I like the idea of opening this stuff up so people other than the megacorps can see it before it becomes rule.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday February 04 2017, @07:52PM
Of course they do: It's quite common for those corporations to be the ones writing the proposal for their favorite pet politician or regulator to introduce.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04 2017, @09:02PM
I'll grant you that's true for politicians because they spend half their time fund-raising, they barely have enough time to legislate at all.
But regulators don't need to glad-hand, they are salaried and they don't really campaign. They certainly can and should talk to the affected parties, and I am sure there are some who are happy to take dictation from their buddies because of the revolving door. Idjit Pai is certain to be a shining example of that.
But as we saw with Wheeler and how much the telcos utterly fucking hated everything he did, they weren't writing his proposals.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday February 04 2017, @07:46PM
No, it isn't: It's your straw-man version of progressivism in a nutshell, and the Democratic Party in a nutshell. The part that you seem to not understand is that the Democratic Party stopped being progressive approximately 25 years ago when Bill Clinton took over the Democratic Party with the help of the same corporate donors that had taken over the Republican Party a decade before that.
A good way of showing the difference: Progressives demonstrated repeatedly during the Obama administration trying to get the Democratic-controlled government to actually hold the largest banks and their executives legally accountable for their many crimes. The Democratic-controlled government responded by organized police efforts to disrupt, discredit, beat up and arrest those demonstrators regardless of whether they had committed any crimes.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04 2017, @08:09PM
Careful, too much truth on a Saturday is liable to explode some brains... Oh what the hell, those ones don't srrm too valuable!
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday February 04 2017, @08:31PM
organized police efforts to disrupt, discredit, beat up and arrest
Citation needed. Occupy was allowed to act like f*cking retards for months on end. How many times have rioters 'protested' G20 meetings and other gatherings, and gone unpunished? Let us not forget the burned cities your friends in BLM gave us. And you have the balls to say that after the last couple of weeks of Progressive street violence has went almost entirely unpunished?
I look forward to seeing Soros' minions introduced to the concept of "felony rioting." Should only take a few hundred convictions to bring order back to the streets.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05 2017, @01:06AM
Jesus Christ, you are a reprehensible piece of shit!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05 2017, @06:05AM
Good luck with the felony riot bit. With Nancy Pelosi sitting in Washington, praising rioters, it's going to be tough to pass legislation.
Better just to shoot some of them, dead, dead, dead. Then, shoot the judges who lean to far left. But, careful - we do need some balance. If we leave only right wing judges, we're still stuck with a truly fucked judiciary.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday February 05 2017, @08:13AM
Don't need Congress, it is already a thing. The problem up to now is the authorities are either "amendable" or cuckservative (i.e. too afraid of what the NYT would say about them) to actually file the charges. After the festivities in DC, over two hundred were charged, which has totally alarmed the professional protesting community. The masks are what push it over the felony line in most cases. Now we only need an AG (a certainty the DA in the District will be trying to dismiss all charges) who will follow through and ensure most of them either go all the way to a trial and conviction or a plea deal that leaves a felony on their criminal record. That should discourage a fair number of the less die hard. Without the masks it is harder to get a felony on most of them but so easy to arrest in the age of pervasive video it is still #winning. With our broken (by Democrats) criminal justice system the process is the punishment. A year or more of being drug through the system, god awful amounts of money if you actually try to defend yourself (something the rioters generally do not have so Soros would have to pay up) and you usually end on probation which would end following the riot tour since you can't leave the State.
And then there is the fun we can have with the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ in cases like the recent Berkley riot. All those police who stood down, the politicians who ordered it, etc. were ALL in an obvious conspiracy to deprive Milo and those students their civil rights. Could that go all the way to a conviction? Who cares, bleed em and find out, either way it is #Winning. Viewpoint discrimination, the bold new frontier in Civil Rights enforcement. And Hell, considering some of the crap caught on camera we could go for plain old racial hatred too. Making the enemy live by his own book of rules can be fun.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:32PM
So how do I become one of these magical special citizens who have a right to be paid thousands of dollars by a government entity to spew a bunch of garbage?
Yes, he has a right to speak. But he is not entitled to a platform for that speech. The right to free speech does not conscript the rest of us into slavery to propagate that speech. He was perfectly free to go deliver his speech elsewhere; he apparently chose not to.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday February 07 2017, @10:37PM
So how do I become one of these magical special citizens who have a right to be paid thousands of dollars by a government entity to spew a bunch of garbage?
Right from the start your premise fails. Ignorance isn't pretty. Milo does not charge for appearances, he doesn't like the idea of 1% people like himself sucking up funds from college students.... unlike some people I could point to... (Hillary Clinton) In point of fact, Milo had to pay $7,000 (provided by an anonymous benefactor) as a "security fee" to be granted permission to accept an invitation to speak. In light of the fiasco which occurred the fee was returned due to the non-performance by the university police.
Yes, he has a right to speak. But he is not entitled to a platform for that speech.
More failed premise. He was invited by the Berkley College Republicans. Five hundred plus people had tickets to attend a talk by a popular newsworthy speaker. The administration had approved and scheduled the event. (while unofficially backing the Antifa goons of course) Violent street thugs violated their rights.
As best as I can ascribe any sort of "thought" to your scribblings it comes down to "Berkley is ours, we assert the right to assault or kill any who intrude." Please be aware that we are now "Making the Enemy live by his own book of rules." so if it your side's actual position that there are now "no go" zones for people like Milo, please ask an authority on your side to define these areas where you claim to rule and be prepared for Team Red to assert zones where your kind may no longer safely go. Also be prepared for us to contest your control of some areas, violently. And remember who is currently in charge of much of the machinery of the State and has far more people trained in the use of violence and the most weapons. Pajama Boy and masked Black Bloc goons vs Tactical DeathBeast (and if he has an MRAP, air cover and artillery support.....) probably won't end well for your team but if Civil War II: Democrats Want A Rematch is really your final offer then we must accept your decision and meet you on the field of honor. Or perhaps you would care to revise and extend your rash remarks?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday February 08 2017, @03:53PM
Yes, he was invited. And then that invitation was rescinded. The university has every right to do that. If Milo or the College Republicans have a problem with that, they can follow whatever dispute resolution process the university has or file a lawsuit for breach of contract.
Obviously the university did do *something* wrong, I'm not saying everything that happened was perfect. Nor am I saying every single protester was fully complying with the law. But people have a right to pressure the university to change their decision, and the university has a right to make those changes, and if the university ends up paying a ton of fees to cover those cancellations then maybe they need to reconsider the process they use to grant such invitations in the first place. But none of that is really a *free speech* issue, it's a matter of contracts and property rights.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Sunday February 05 2017, @02:05PM
to see transparency being placed as a fundamental principle of governance?
The reason we have governance is delegation. We could do that job ourselves, but it's better (for the delegators) to have someone else do that job - under the assumption that this will lead to a better personal outcome at the expense of maybe a slightly worse general outcome.
Transparency is nice. But delegation isn't based on transparency, it's based on trust.
The point is: transparency itself does not prevent problems or makes them known - it merely makes them knowable. To make them known, effort is needed. It's easy to make that significant effort (obscure language in many-page documents with lots of references to other documents).
Who here makes it a daily effort to read public documents produced by their government? Now let's extend that to every department in the city, the city council, any municipal collaboration bodies, state/province level with assorted departments, and finally country level with assorted departments. No one has time to read even a fraction of all of that. So, basically, the public will get riled up when someone on the inside decides to spill the beans and point journalist / activists the way through the information jungle. Given that most policy issues are not black-and-white, the devil will be in the details. And your friendly insider will surely point out some of the details...
TL;DR: Being transparent is nice, but absolutely no guarantee of nor substitute for having good intentions towards the public you serve.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday February 05 2017, @05:50PM
Agreed, but transparency is far better than the alternative we have now. It usually went something like: "An anonymous source inside the agency tells [legacy media outlet] that there are efforts to [do something horrible]." Now we sometimes get "An anonymous source inside the agency tells [blogger|Drudge] that there efforts to [do something horrible]." That is a lot less information to work with compared to someone inside or outside (the industries impacted by regulation DO read this stuff) being able to point to the actual current draft language of a law or regulation about to be voted on. There is a reason they want to keep this stuff secret.