Dear Congress, Please Save Our Democracy, Clean up the FCC and Restore the Free Press

[McCamy Taylor]

"Whenever people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government." Thomas Jefferson

Dear Congressional Democrats

When you came to power, you recognized the threat created by the corrupt Department of Justice (aka the political wing of the White House), and you took steps to neutralize it, forcing out Gonzo and the worst bad apples.

I respectfully suggest that you now turn your attention to the Federal Communications Commission. Bush stole two elections thanks to national news media bias. He sold the nation a war of choice, and he continues to be able to frame all national debates, with the help of an FCC which hands out favors to a compliant corporate media like doggy treats to Fido. If the current FCC bribe machine is not taken out of commission, the next presidential election will be just like the ones in 2000 and 2004. Whatever pathetic sock puppet the Republicans nominate with be lauded by the press as a maverick savior of the people, while the Democratic nominee will be held up to shame, ridicule and even out and out lies.

Here are just some of the many crimes of the Bush FCC.

1.The Bush FCC exists to serve the telecommunications industry, not the American public, as this GAO report indicates.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2007/10/03/fcc-gao-report-biz-wash-cx_bw_lh_1003bizfcc.html

In a report released Wednesday, the General Accountability Office criticized the FCC for leaking information about regulatory proceedings to phone and cable company lobbyists before the information was released to the public. The report was prepared at the request of U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.
"When the 'corporate insiders' and 'K-Street' crowd have the inside track on decisions critical to telecommunications, media, broadband or wireless policy, then the public and consumers, are at an inherent disadvantage," Markey said Wednesday.
<snip>
Industry lobbyists and the FCC have a deeply intertwined relationship. The FCC trails only the White House and the House of Representatives in the number of employees who have passed through Washington's "revolving door" from the public to the private sector, or vice versa, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks lobbying and campaign spending.

2. Former FCC Chair Michael Powell bought the loyalty of the entire television broadcast media, especially Viacom-CBS and News Corp-FOX by unilaterally increasing the allowed TV market share a company could own to 45%. Negotiations for this rule change occurred during the run up to the invasion of Iraq. The actual ruling came in June 2003, just after all the major US news networks helped the administration sell the invasion of Iraq. Was this rule change a bribe? CBS and FOX needed it badly, because they were out of compliance with the old federal 35% rule.

Award for most prescient journalist goes to Michael Wolf who said this in summer, 2003:

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,984897,00.html

Michael Wolff, the media commentator and New York Magazine columnist, has accused American television networks of "kissing ass" in their coverage of the Iraq war in return for a relaxation of media ownership rules in the US.
Wolff put forward what he described as the "semi-conspiracy theory" that major media companies in the US meekly followed the flag-waving agenda of the Bush administration in order to persuade the federal communications commission to change its regulations.
"Ass kissing has gone on to a profound degree. It's pervasive throughout all these news organisations. They need the FCC to behave in certain ways. In order to do this we have got to go along to get along," said Wolff, who delivered the keynote speech at today's MediaGuardian forum on war coverage.

3. In 2004, a federal court had struck down Michael Powell’s attempt to write Congressional legislation through administrative decree through his 45% rule change. The administration promised it would go to the Supreme Court and fight for the change—after W. was re-elected. Kerry said “no” to the rule change. Viacom-CBS president is on record as saying Bush was better for the finances of his company and other media companies. “Kerry is a waffler”, the media lynching of Dan Rather, Swiftboat Vets treated like real news, “What Exit Polls?” and especially CBS’s handling of Abu Ghraib, Bush AWOL and Ed Bradley’s WMD story are all consistent with news networks that had been told that Bush was essential for their economic well being. In January, 2005, Michael Powell left the Bush administration, along with his dad, revealing as he did so that the promise of a Supreme Court challenge had been a lie.

4. Back to 2003 again, Powell and the FCC decided that DSLs and cable networks could lock out rival ISPs, a move that made AOL-Time Warner and Verizon both might happy, since the measure stifled competition and allowed them to raise rates. And of course, CNN had been very good with the Iraq War and Verizon had been very helpful with illegal domestic spying.

5. 2005, new FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a supporter of a la carte cable, meets with a Disney executive. Disney opposes a la carte cable, since they did poorly in the past when they were not part of a basic cable package. During the meeting, Martin announces that he will advise the Republican Congress not to pass a la cart cable legislation, even though the bill is popular with the religious right and is sponsored by McCain and Stevens. Shortly afterwards, ABC starts production on “The Path to 9/11” widely considered to be anti-Democrat and anti-Clinton propaganda scheduled to be aired before the 2006 Congressional elections.

6. FCC Chairman Martin fast tracks the mergers of Bush illegal spying accomplices ATT& and Bell South and Verizon which wants MCI. Qwest, which also wants MCI and which is willing to pay more for the company than Verizon, finds itself the target of much publicized SEC investigations and then criminal prosecutions which derail its takeover bid of MCI. Recently, Martin has refused Congressional requests to investigate the illegal actions of AT&T and Verizon, which began spying on the public well before 9/11. In agreeing to the mergers, Martin required that the new phone companies respect net neutrality for only 30 months. This time will be up soon.

7. Martin continues to pay back AT&T and Verizon for their part in the illegal spying program by putting net neutrality way back on the farthest back burner.

http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/2007/03/fcc_order_wades_into_net_neutr.html

Neutrality supporters, including such Internet content firms as Google and Yahoo, insist safeguards are needed to prevent Internet service providers from acting as content gatekeepers.
But critics, including leading providers of broadband service like Verizon Communications and AT&T, say such regulation would deter investment and is unnecessary.
The FCC acted amid growing criticism of Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, by the newly empowered Democratic congressional majority -- some of whom have been critical of Martin's deregulatory agenda and what they perceive as his heavy-handed style.
<snip>
Both Copps and the commission's other Democrat, Jonathan Adelstein, complained that an order of inquiry lacks the teeth of a rulemaking, which can result in policy changes. Adelstein said the vote in favor of an inquiry sends a message of "how low this ranks."

Think Verizon won’t censor you? They already have.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/opinion/03wed1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

8. The FCC has also used blackmail to encourage news media to fall into line. Between 2005 and 2006, it forced AOL-Time Warner/CNN to wait 404 days for approval for Adelphia acquisitions. During that time, CNN made changes to its programming that made it more favorable to the Bush administration, finally hiring Glenn Beck one month before the acquisitions were approved.


There is still plenty that the FCC can do to buy the corporate media before the 2008 election. There is a sizable chunk of wireless access waiting to be auctioned off. The FCC could decide to set some limitations on its use that would make it appropriate or inappropriate for one or more buyers based upon how a corporate media giant acts. There are mergers that companies will want action upon, before the uncertainty of a Democratic administration. News Corp, always an administration ally, has a little problem with the Wall Street Journal being located in New York, where it already has other properties. That means it will need to be on unusually good behavior. The buyer of the Tribune Co. has discovered that the organization is way out of compliance with federal media regulations. Does that mean that his newspapers and televisions will be careful to walk a GOP line to discourage an unfavorable FCC ruling from Martin? Net neutrality needs to be squashed like a bug, but since it is popular, for Congressional GOPers to stage a filibuster, they will need FCC support.

One more word. The apologist for the corporate media, Howard Kurtz says that they were afraid to sound unpatriotic or they were afraid to shock people or they were afraid that people would turn the channel or turn off the set. This excuse might have meant something fifty years ago when Edward R. Murrow was delivering his speech about the dangers of television news that cared more for the advertiser's dollar than the news content. However, news ratings and the revenues they generate are a drop in the bucket to the behemoth telecommunications giants. When you are a cable company, you make your money with subscribers, collecting your tithe on a monthly basis. The easiest way to increase profits is to drive the competition out of business and set yourself up as a monopoly. Creating a better quality product is the suckers way of doing business. Your news programming becomes much more important as an undocumented political contribution to the Party that will give you the regulation (or lack of regulation) that serves your media empire the best. This is the only way to explain the insanity that lead CBS to fire Dan Rather, with his 80% recognizability and favorability ratings, kill Wednesday's "60 Minutes" and the hire Katie Couric. It is the only reason why MSNBC would get rid of Donahue, its highest rated show, in the run up to the Iraq War. Ratings mean zilch in the new TV news. Now, it is all political posturing, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for whichever party will offer the best deal.

The FCC is just another political arm of the White House, like the Department of Justice. It is time for that dirty house to be cleaned, while we still have an internet on which to discuss it.

Congress, it is a big job, but I know you are up to it!

[ixion]

1. while we're at it, can we end the so-called War on Drugs?

It really does nothing but provide a revenue stream for private prisons.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

2. Also please break up at&t's monopoly

[onenote]

7. what monopoly does att have?

[LeahMira]

3. I hate to tell you, but

if we really want change we're going to have to make it happen ourselves.

[onenote]

4. The FCC is royally screwed up, but a lot of the OP is somewhat inaccurate

The current FCC is a mess. Chairman Martin has demoralized the staff and operates the agency as if he was the dictator of a banana republic. More importantly, the decisions made by the agency on mergers and ownership consolidation have been a disaster, dating back to the 1996 Telecommunications Act. But, having said that, a number of the statements in the OP try to build more of a case for some conspiracy than can reasonably and factually be made. There isn't some hidden agenda here -- these are ideologically motivated, deregulated, pro-big business folks. They don't need to make special deals to get to the end results that they get to.

For example, while its true that the recent IG report criticized the agency for selective leaking of information regarding pending proceedings, this was not a shock to anyone who has dealt with the FCC (and I have for more than 25 years). Selective leaking of information has been going for as long as I can remember. Doesn't make it right, but also doesn't make it something unique.

As for the 2003 ownership rule decision, as noted above, I think that was a terrible decision. HOwever, the description in the OP is unnecessarily misleading in two respects. First, it was not a "unilateral" decision by Powell. It was a 3-2 vote of the Commission (3 repubs for, 2 dems against). Second, the OP implies that the court reversed the 45 percent limit because the FCC had improperly written Congressional legsilation by administrative decree. Not so. While the case was pending, Congress stepped in and legsilatively reduced the 45 percent limit to 39 percent. As a result, the court rejected challenges to the 45 percent limit as moot. So its hard to see how the administration was going to take the case to the Supreme Court.

The court did reject other aspects of the FCC's June 03 ownership decision, but not because the usurped Congress' role. Rather, the court found that the FCC had failed to show that the record evidence supported certain aspects of its decision. There is no question that the FCC, through the powers delegated to it by Congress, had the authority to review and revise the ownership limit.

In terms of the "open access" decision, while its true that it made cable companies happy, I'd be curious to see any evidence that it resulted in higher rates for internet access.

With respect to FCC Chairman Martin and the a la carte issue, Martin has been and remains obsessed about mandating a la carte, even though the concept has virtually no support in Congress or among the other FCC Commissioners. (The OP is right that McCain supports the idea, but wrong in stating that STevens supported it. McCain's bill, introduced in 2006, had no other co-sponsors). Martin's problem is that the FCC doesn't have the authority to impose a la carte obligations on cable and he doesn't have the votes to get a measure through the FCC recommending that Congress enact a la carte. But he continues to stump for a la carte at every opportunity. For example: http://tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0014/t.6726.html As for the idea that he changed his position as part of some deal with Disney, the fact is that
Martin first expressed support for mandatory a la carte when he was a commissioner, but not yet chairman. But In both 2003 and 2004, studies (one by GAO and one by the FCC) concluded that manadating a la carte would result in higher prices for consumers. When Martin became Chairman in the spring of 2005 he started out a bit cautiously, expressing a preference for a "voluntary" approach. This was hardly a surprise -- he had been Chairman for all of about two weeks and two of the most influential repubs with oversight jurisdiction with respect to the FCC, Stevens, of Alaska, Barton of Texas and Upton of Michigan, were supportive of the family tier concept as a way to get around the issue of mandatory a la carte. So Martin, hesitantly, weighed in with his tepid support for family tiers as an alternative. But within a few months, he was back on his soapbox pushing for mandatory a la carte, going so far as to have the FCC do yet another a la carte study, this time with instructions that it come out the way he wanted -- showing that a la carte would be good for consumers. But even after putting out this study, he couldn't find suppoort either at the FCC or in Congress. In fact, a McCain a la carte amendmment, endorsed by Martin, when down in flames in 2006 by a vote of 20-2 (with Stevens voting against it).

With regard to the ATT/Bell South and Verizon/MCI mergers, the idea that they were "fast tracked" is interesting. It took the FCC over seven months to act on the Verizon MCI merger and even longer for it to approve the ATT/Bell South merger, even though the FCC has established as a goal that it complete work on merger reviews within 180 days. Should the FCC have imposed more substantial conditions on these mergers? I think so, but that doesn't change the fact that there's no evidence that they were "fast tracked".

Finally, was there "blackmail" involved in the Adelphia/Comcast/Time Warner transaction review? In a sense, yes, but not as described by the OP. Martin clearly wanted Comcast and Time Warner to "play ball" on a la carte, but didn't have the votes (the FCC was divided 2-2 at the time). He was willing and able to sit on the merger for a long time in hopes of getting something. But as it turns out, Comcast and Time Warner were in no particular rush -- Adelphia was in bankruptcy and the process in the bankruptycy court was dragging on and on, as was the process of getting local governments to approve the transactions. THe idea that the hiring of Glenn Beck had anything to do with the merger review delay is ludicrous. Finally, with the bankruptcy court reaching the end of its work and the fifth FCC Commissioner having been confirmed -- a repub, but one that doesn't necessarily follow Martin's lead in every instance -- Martin through in the towel and let the transactions go through.


Again, I don't disagree at all that the FCC has done a piss-poor job of protecting the public interest, particularly in the area of media consolidation. But trying to link particular decisions to some specific quid pro quos is unsustainable. These decisions came out the way they did because the majority at the FCC is ideologically oriented towards deregulation and pro-business rather than pro-consumer.

[McCamy Taylor]

5. DOJ could have made same case---until Congress interviewed career employees

Incompetence versus negligence. That has been the Bush excuse all along. On close examination, it has always been proved to be a lie.

The political staff that Rove and Cheney installed at the DOJ used the "prosecutors have the right to charge or not charge whomever we light and you can lump it" argument to justify their most biased political prosecutions and the way they turned their head when the voting rights and civil rights of Democrats and administration enemies were violated. However, Congressional Democrats were still able to get to the bottom of what happened at the DOJ by questioning disgruntled career employees at Justice.

I suggest to Congress that it begin questioning career employees at the FCC. Now, since they are not as many lawyers at the FCC, there will not be as many people will strict ethics as there were at the DOJ. However, I will bet that there are plenty of disgruntled employees who have just been waiting for someone with the power to immunize them from being fired by their boss to start asking the right questions.

I also suggest that Congress question the executives at Qwest. And the underlings and journalists at many of the news networks and newspapers such as the New York Times, Tribune Co. and others which have been subject to FCC favors or blackmail. These hearings will be very well received by the public---they will star people like Donahue and Peter Arnett and whole bunch more. They will lay to rest the illusion that Congress is doing nothing.

I am greatly heartened by the GAO report about the FCC's reprehensible practice of informing industry about hearing dates in advance but not other parties. This is exactly how Congress begins full blown investigations of an agency. If Henry Waxman is on the case, then I expect we will see more of the same. There is enough evidence there to make a prosecutor hold his nose and go "Something stinks!" Now it is up to Congress to start gathering evidence and put a stop to the biggest election fraud racket that this nation has ever seen. No press should do what ours did in 2000 and 2004 because one candidate promises them unlimited growth. No press should help an administration create a phony case for war to line its own pockets. No press should consider backing a presidential candidate who will prolong the war in Iraq, devastate the US economy and cause hardship for US workers, because that candidate will promise to make their industry fatter and more powerful.

[onenote]

6. I don't disagree

I think that it would be very interesting if some current and/or former FCC staff came forward to blow the whistle on how the agency has been operating: i.e., result-driven, favortisim, vindictiveness, etc.

[Time for change]

8. Thank you for all the information on this issue that is crucially important to our democracy