Getty/Chip Somodevilla

❝ In May 2017, dozens of Americans came forward with claims that their identities had been used, without their consent, in a campaign to inundate the Federal Communications Commission with public comments critical of the Obama-era policy. Some told reporters that they’d never heard of net neutrality. Twenty seven signed an open letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai demanding a response. A year on, each of their names and addresses are still displayed on the federal agency’s website, right above, as the letter puts it, “a political statement that we did not sign onto.”

❝ What was most curious, however, is that each of these people had supposedly submitted the very same comment; a veritable word salad of telecom industry talking points. In particular, the comment was a rebuke of the Obama administration’s exercise of “unprecedented regulatory power” in pursuit of net neutrality, a policy which it accused of “smothering innovation, damaging the American economy, and obstructing job creation…”

❝ Last week, the GSA turned over the API logs in response to a records request from a reporter who had sued it and the FCC to pry them loose…

On review, they are the same records that the FCC refused to provide the New York attorney general’s office in December 2017, while claiming the state’s chief legal officer had no authority “to investigate a federal agency’s rulemaking process,” or otherwise compel the production of any materials…

RTFA. It is worth a detailed careful read. The interplay between conservative publishers, lobbyists, Roger Stone, a magic batch of 9+ million signatures appearing – from folks who never signed on to opposing Net Neutrality.

We don’t need foreign governments to be convinced of illicit political campaigns hacking their way through our diminished democracy. Conservative creeps with no shortage of dollar signs are working hard as they can to expand their abuse of democracy and responsible governance.