McNerney, Dingell Fault FCC Response to May DDoS Attack Claim Queries

Reps. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., criticized FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Monday for not providing what they feel is “adequate” documentation of the claim that a May distributed denial-of-service attack caused outages to its Electronic Comment Filing System (see 1705080042 and 1708170042). Congressional Democrats have repeatedly pushed for additional proof of the DDoS claims, including a request for GAO to do an independent review (see 1705310024, 1707070039 and 1710130052). The FCC declined to provide specific details on plans to protect ECFS against future attacks (see 1706280044 and 1707310071). “Given your high regard for transparency, we would expect that you would have disclosed to us by now the requested documents or an explanation of technical or legal prohibitions for your refusal to do so,” Dingell and McNerney wrote Pai. “Transparency is important, even when it’s not convenient. We expect you to live up to your commitment to transparency,” they said. “Many unanswered questions” remain about “the motive behind the alleged attacks, the response of the FCC, and whether the outage had a major impact on the ability of the American people to comment on the proceeding to eliminate net neutrality protections,” the lawmakers said. The agency “should be transparent about any potential issues with the factual record on a proceeding of this magnitude, and should not move forward with a vote until the American people know what happened.” The FCC didn't immediately comment.