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FCC feedback on net neutrality faked and the FCC blocks investigation, NY attorney general says
The New York Attorney General is investigating fraud aimed at FCC commenting. The FCC refused to cooperate. According to this post, tens of thousands of New Yorkers, and many more people elsewhere in the US, had their names falsely and illegally used in fake feedback on net neutrality.
Successfully investigating this sort of illegal conduct requires the participation of the agency whose system was attacked. So in June 2017, we contacted the FCC to request certain records related to its public comment system that were necessary to investigate which bad actor or actors were behind the misconduct. We made our request for logs and other records at least 9 times over 5 months: in June, July, August, September, October (three times), and November.
We reached out for assistance to multiple top FCC officials, including you [Chairman Pai], three successive acting FCC General Counsels, and the FCC’s Inspector General. We offered to keep the requested records confidential, as we had done when my office and the FCC shared information and documents as part of past investigative work.
Yet we have received no substantive response to our investigative requests. None.
Net neutrality is important. The integrity of the public record is even more important, as it is used to support policy changes (not just this one). And right now it looks like we've lost both.
You can use this site to look for fake comments using your name and, if you find them, file a complaint. With, um, somebody -- I didn't find any under my name, so I haven't gone down that path.
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I wish the site explained better what it was doing. When it said that only "suspicious anti-net neutrality comments" would be reported, I wondered why it was giving information only about comments opposing the Obama-era regulations, when content analysis is a hard task. The article linked to said that all the sock puppet comments were identical, so I assume it's filtering only for exact-match comments. But unless all the forged comments stem from one bot that's so inept it can't vary the message, it would make more sense just to let people check for whether their name is on a comment at all.
The site has other problems. It implies that Comcast is behind the forgeries, calling them "comcastroturf," without mentioning any evidence for this. Also, the "Submit a real comment to the FCC" link doesn't link to the FCC, but to a blatantly non-neutral site.
The FCC's inept response adds to the case that it shouldn't be trusted with Internet regulation.
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In short, nothing wrong here.
what is the site doing?
filers.name:(${YOUR_NAME_HERE}) AND ("Chairman Pai" OR "Mr Pai") AND (", " OR ": ") OR "") AND "I" AND ("would like to comment on" OR "have concerns about" OR "am a voter worried about" OR "concerned about") AND ("net neutrality" OR "Network Neutrality" OR "Internet regulation" OR "the FCC rules on the Internet") AND "I" AND ("urge" OR "encourage" OR "ask" OR "recommend" OR "request" OR "advocate") AND ("the commission" OR "the commissioners" OR "Ajit Pai" OR "government") AND "to" AND ("reverse" OR "repeal" OR "undo")) OR "The unprecedented regulatory power")
So no, it's not an exact-match on the whole comment, but the conjunction of a bunch of exact-matches on phrases. Each phrase by itself could match a lot of pro-neutrality comments too, but presumably the whole collection of them are taken from a sample of sock-puppet anti-neutrality comments.
(In case the parentheses in the above don't match up, I just copied the URL and manually replaced %20 with a space, while not wearing glasses, so there may be clerical errors.)
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There has been a fair bunch of analysis, going back to the beginning, of where the bot traffic is coming from. The ONLY evidence that does actual forensic analysis demonstrates 'bot traffic and forgery from the anti-Net neutrality side. This has been fairly clear since May, when multiple neutral sources reported on it.
You, oh True Believer, will no doubt respond that all such evidence ios fake news. After all, Breitbart ha said otherwise. Whi is the True Believer to dispute the pravda.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/15626278/net-neutrality-spam-bot-fcc-leak-data
http://www.zdnet.com/article/a-bot-is-flooding-the-fccs-website-with-fake-anti-net-neutrality-comments/
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43a5kg/80-percent-net-neutrality-comments-bots-astroturfing
Mind you, the FCC's comments are not "inept." That is such a useful idiot response. Ajit Pai's response has been quite calculated.
it has, however, failed miserably. Other than a handful of True Believer useful idiots, months of hard sell (including one rather laughable "Antifa" cosplay at which i was present, attempted to interview the "Antifa" protesters, was told they did not give interviews, and then saw them give interviews to conservative outlets in "support" of net neutrality as a means of blocking True News like Brietbart) Pai has been utterly unsuccessful in selling anti-net neutrality even to conservatives. Still polling, according to Harvard Harris, at 75% in favor across the political spectrum.
So, to revap -- why does the NY AG ask about fake pro comments?
Because those are the ones in evidence.
Oh yeah, including the very specific allegation of forgery by a reporter, Karl Bode, which the FCC refused to remove from the public records file -- despite the request from Bode. You can find that evidence too, if you are interested, by using your preferred search engine.
Law enforcement usually only investigate crimes for which there is evidence, not crank allegations supported by demonstrably false flag operations. Complete with video taped evidence of the false flaggie. (I mean really, these guys were a hoot.)
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http://www.wetmachine.com/tales-of-the-sausage-factory/will-pai-pull-a-putin-and-hack-the-fcc-process-or-will-he-get-over-himself-and-start-acting-like-the-chairman/
As I told reporters at the time, members of Congress know who is melting down their phones.
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I've contacted my representatives in Congress (by phone and email) several times each about this -- not "melting", but maybe it helps. (They got copies of the same comments I sent to the FCC as part of that. I doubt anybody at the FCC read them, but maybe some congressional aid did.) One of my senators is firmly on Pai's side, but the other one and my house rep say they support net neutrality. Whether they support it enough to take strong action to rein in the FCC is unclear.
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Keep working on Toomey. Collins has come out against Pai's plan. We may see more Republican defections.