FCC Court Rules Must Disclose Documents That Could Explain Fraudulent Comments About Network Neutrality

A federal judge ruled last week that the Federal Communications Commission (currently chaired by Ajit Pai, a member appointed by Donald Trump) must publish documents relating to millions of fraudulent public comments filed last year, reported Ars Technica.

According to Ars Technica's report, the documents in question could reveal who was filing the fraudulent comments, which, along with the agency's later claims about a cyberattack of commenting system, could have helped the FCC to achieve its objectives. pre-established conclusion despite widespread opposition from the public. The decision is the result of a lawsuit filed by journalist Jason Prechtel, the Ars Technica wrote:

The judgment was filed in September 2017 by freelance journalist Jason Prechtel, who sued the FCC for failing to provide documents in response to his request for Freedom of Information (FoIA). Prechtel searched for data to identify the people who sent bulk comments; many of the downloads contained fraudulent comments submitted without their knowledge by other people.

Prechtel called the decision "a huge victory for transparency on an issue that has remained unanswered by the FCC and its current leaders for too long."

In his judgment, Judge Christopher Cooper, of the District Court of the United States District of Columbia, said: "In addition to the careful verification of the Board's dubious comments in the development of regulations, disclosure process". He added that the files would help clarify how the FCC has handled its approach to "questionable comments":

This would clarify to what extent the Commission has managed, as it assured the Americans, to manage a public comment process that appears to be corrupted by questionable comments. The relative public value of this information could have been a little closer if the Commission had not already published more than twenty million e-mail addresses. But this is the case and this information has raised important questions about the agency's procedures; it can not now claim that the outstanding information is not relevant to the public's examination of these procedures.

… The Commission, its Chair, members of Congress and more than a dozen Attorneys General have all expressed concern about the extent to which false comments have been submitted to the regulatory file.

According to Ars Technica, Cooper ordered the FCC to return the email addresses used to submit .CSV files en masse (a simple spreadsheet / database format) containing the mass-submitted comments. He also ordered the FCC to work with Prechtel for the delivery of the .CSV files themselves, if they are still in the possession of the agency.

However, Cooper refused to force the agency to publish server logs or un-redacted versions of e-mails that appeared to show FCC technical staff assisting the Congress news service and the

Ars Technica added:

Once contacted by Ars, the FCC refused to comment on the decision and if it would appeal the decision.

Prechtel said he did not know when he would get the records, but he assumed it could take months. He also stated that it was premature to ask whether he was going to appeal the parts of the decision he lost because the case is not over.

Prechtel told the site that other parts of his trial, such as requests for documents related to the General Services Administration Data.gov API, were still pending and he is still considering other remedies. He added that he will use all the data that he will eventually receive in an attempt to determine who was behind the bulk comments.

Pew Research Center discovered in November 2017 that, while the most common comment (2.8 million submissions) had been filed in support of the neutrality rules, the six most common (including nearly 5.5 million submissions) favored Pai's return. Another analysis by Gravwell, a data analysis firm, revealed that the vast majority of legitimate comments were opposed to the repeal. The text of a mass commentary in support of Pai appears to have been created by a conservative defense group.

"My first question is: why is the FCC spending taxpayer dollars to defend journalists in court to keep this information secret?" Evan Greer, deputy director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future by email. "What are they hiding?" Who does he cover?

"Fight for the Future is one of many groups that have used the FCC's bulk upload feature to submit real comments from people who are truly concerned about the repeal of network neutrality by the agency," M added. Greer. "We have no problem with the fact that the FCC publishes this information. The only reason for keeping it hidden is to prevent the public from learning which groups have abused this comment system by submitting fraudulent comments and funding them.

Pai, on the other hand, has not changed course. In a speech on Friday, the president fought against an unsigned California law to adopt state neutrality directives, calling the legislators involved "nannies" and "radicals" and "illegals".