NY AG Says FCC Obstructing Law Enforcement in Comments Probe

The FCC is obstructing a law enforcement investigation, the New York attorney general’s office said Friday. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel slammed her agency’s general counsel for refusing to cooperate with the probe into allegedly fake comments in the proceeding to rescind some net neutrality rules (see 1712040046). FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson wrote in a Thursday letter to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) the commission declined the request.

An AG spokeswoman called the letter “obstruction,” in a statement Friday. “Everyone -- especially the FCC -- should want to get to the bottom of this before deciding vital public policy based on a corrupted process that seemingly involved illegal activity,” she said. Rosenworcel, who supported Schneiderman at a Dec. 4 news conference, again said the vote should be delayed. Johnson’s letter “shows the FCC’s sheer contempt for public input and unreasonable failure to support integrity in its process,” she said Friday.

Johnson said a proceeding this important “carries the potential for advocates on either side to abuse the process to create an appearance of numerical advantage. But the Commission does not make policy decisions merely by tallying the comments on either side of a proposal to determine what position has greater support, not does it attribute greater weight to comments based on the submitter’s identity.” Johnson said Schneiderman provided no evidence alleged fake comments affected FCC ability to review and respond to comments. The draft Communications Act Title II rollback of regulation doesn’t rely on or cite nonsubstantive comments submitted under multiple different names stating support or opposition, the general counsel said: Schneiderman cited no authority for his state “to investigate a federal agency’s rulemaking process or to compel that agency to produce documents.” Disclosing technical information about the comment process could hurt integrity, security and transparency, Johnson said. There are privacy issues with revealing IP addresses of public commenters, and hackers might take advantage if they learned security protocols, he said. The FCC sent us Johnson’s letter; it wasn’t available on the agency’s website, which Rosenworcel noted.