FCC Chair Ajit Pai “jokes” about being a Verizon shill | Hacker News Reader

FCC Chair Ajit Pai “jokes” about being a Verizon shill

gizmodo.com

121 pointswarent67 comments

Ajit Pai being an ass is not news.

The more interesting item is the FCC's implicit assertion that submitting comments under fake names is not against the law.[0] That's the part that should have people overturning tables.

The FCC also said that Schneiderman has not "identified any specific law or legal authority" to support its assertion that submitting comments under fake names violates state law.

[0]https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/fcc-chair-still-...

What do identity fraud statutes cover (NY, national, or otherwise)?

Pretending to be another (real) person is different from using a fake name.

A lot of "Pretending to be another (real) person" is being alleged.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171030/11255938512/dead-...

So what is the "specific law or legal authority" that makes it illegal?

So if it's not against the letter of the law, that makes it ok?

I imagine so, as that point it would be a matter of taste.

When did I claim that?

Yes. Thats the basis of legal system.

I would say that submitting a public comment under a pseudonym is OK even if it was against the law.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but that's not actually the issue in question. The comments to the FCC board were made using (publicly available) real name and address pairs.

Someone submitted a comment using my legal name and current address. Whether that person should have been able to comment pseudonymously or not is beside the point. What they actually did is make a public statement in my name, which may or may not reflect my actual views, and which definitely impedes my ability to express those actual views if and when I desire to.

18 U.S.C. § 1001

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

Unless you were asking for the state law which would be http://codes.findlaw.com/ny/penal-law/pen-sect-190-25.html

Has this law ever been applied to public comments on a matter before a government agency?

Off the top of my head I don't know. Is the existence of a prior prosecution based on identical or substantially similar facts a condition precedent for a statute to be violated?

The reason I'm asking is that, IANAL, but I doubt that law was intended to cover something like this. So I'm simply wondering if it had been applied in a similar way in the past, because that would be the best indicator of whether or not it was applicable.

It is an enormously broad statute. Many would say too much so. This article[1] advocates that it is too broad, but provides some useful examples of how it has been interpreted and applied. Whether or not it was intended to cover something like this is not really relevant as to whether or not the statute was violated. I think what you might be getting at is the question of whether or not the statute is unconstitutionally vague, which is a pretty good argument, but has been mostly rejected by the courts.

[1] https://repository.jmls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=http...

This might be a more thorough source for that instead of arstechnica

http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/11/29/public-comments-to-the...

About 6% where unique. Most were against net neutrality, but the single most repeated one was a pro-neutrality comment submitted 2.8M times.

> That's the part that should have people overturning tables.

Overturning tables because it is not against the law, so they should make it illegal, or because it is against the law and he was lying?

This will probably get me some hate, but that speech was genuinely funny. Anyone who can't put aside their political differences and laugh along with it is a wet blanket.

And it points out how ridiculous the Verizon shill claim is — Pai worked there from 2001-03 when he was 3 years out of law school, then worked for DoJ and various congressional committees, then went to the FCC in 2007. Claims that he's beholden to Verizon are exactly as absurd as that Manchurian Candidate sketch.

> Claims that he's beholden to Verizon are exactly as absurd as that Manchurian Candidate sketch.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171205/10255738745/days-...

He sure isn't making a very good job at not looking corrupt beyond any doubt.

Color me unimpressed. Tom Wheeler spoke at the 2016 event and their 2015 annual convention.

[0] https://www.iicom.org/events/telecommunications-and-media-fo...

[1] http://www.iicom.org/events/item/annual-conference-2015-conf...

Tom Wheeler didn't promote the removal of net neutrality protections, an act which would benefit Verizon. This "it's just a joke" is about as funny as if Tom Wheeler had said the same thing Pai did while taking the same stance.

That's because it's indefensible, which is why you're pointing fingers to Wheeler instead of defending it.

It's almost like speaking at an International Institute of Communications forum is not correlated with shilling.

According to the itinerary for the event, then I suppose Robert L. Strayer from the State Department, Boutheina Guermazi from The World Bank, Nuala O'Connor from the Center for Democracy & Technology, Mozilla, Facebook, and Microsoft must all be corrupted/on-the-take by Verizon too?

http://www.iicom.org/events/item/tmf-washington-2017-event-p...

3 years is plenty of time for him to drink the kool aid and be turned to their way of thinking. Verizon doesn't need to maintain contact to have him enact their plans, they just need him to be aligned with their reasoning.

It's not ridiculous to call him a shill when he plays the exact same cards Verizon would. And in the face of huge public backlash, he still continues with his plans! If he wasn't a shill, he'd be a little bit more than dismissive of the public.

A shill makes fun of himself being a shill, while at the same time pretending he is not a shill? It's more of a bad farce, than a worthy humor.

It’s strawmanning.

Wow. Four whole years. That’s amazing and obviously disabuses anyone of any notion of conflict of interest. Yep. This puts the issue to bed forever thanks for clearing it up.

Maybe I'm a wet blanket, but I don't find it particularly funny when rich/powerful people laugh about screwing over the rest of us.

Pai's speech was funny, but his behaviour as chairman is completely indefensible, especially with all the evidence that the comment submission process was fraught with irregularities.

To put it more concretely: if you think he has no ulterior motive in acting the way he is acting, what betting odds would you give against him being given a very lucratively paid sinecure as vp in some sort of telecom as soon as he is legally allowed?

Whether or no Pai has a confict of interest is not very relevant.

Whether Pai's conclusions are based in personal opinion, or not is irrelevant.

The problem is that Pai is ignoring those whom it is duty to serve, and abusing the authority of his chairmanship to dictate policy for an entire country without any meaningful discussion.

It always helps to remember that our political opposites may also possess a sense of humor

I saw the quotes around "jokes" and didn't read the article.

Bias is obvious, it's not going to be informative reading.

A line from THGTTG springs to mind...

...A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes...

First against the wall? More likely they'll be sipping margaritas in the Caymans, Vanuatu, or wherever they can go to avoid extradition.

Former mass murdering dictators freely roam international waters, what's a bit of crony capitalism.

I’m guessing you’re not familiar with the referenced work of satirical fiction.

IMO proving the guy has some form of Antisocial Personality Disorder.

FYI Those were not fake names, they were stolen identifies, including correct addresses and phone numbers. I know that because my mom who passed away 2 years ago was on the comments list posted in August of this year against net neutrality.

Regarding duplicates entries, that is explained by multiple sites making it easy to post for net neutrality, using the same language for each person who posted.

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