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The Federal Communications Commission has stealthily hidden information about its public information-gathering system on its unpopular plan to destroy net neutrality, in a lawsuit filed by The New York Times.
The FCC repeatedly rejected the newspaper's requests for the Freedom of Information Act, while the Times was trying to investigate Russia's possible influence after many comments were linked to Russian e-mails.
Stonewalling by the FCC has made the US public the "victim of a campaign orchestrated by the Russians to corrupt the process of notice and comment and undermine an important step in the democratic process of establishing rules, "says the Times trial. was filed Thursday at the USDist Court in the Southern District of New York.
The agency also ignored similar requests – at least nine times – from the Attorney General of New York last year, when the bureau was investigating millions of suspicious comments.
The FCC voted last year to end the neutrality of the internet and upset the US Internet system. This change allows ISPs to block, slow down, or charge additional fees for certain content.
The failed commentary procedure of the FCC has long been the target of criticism. Up to 2 million comments were fraudulently submitted without their knowledge to other people, and the system was invaded by robots, a favorite tool of the Russians. The system also collapsed for a period of time as the FCC was overwhelmed by a considerable number of comments in favor of network neutrality.
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel revealed in an editorial after the comment that the commission had received half a million comments from Russian email addresses and nearly 8 million comments from email domains associated with FakeMailGenerator.com .
In July, a cyber security company published a report linking FCC comment emails to Russian and Russian email addresses in the course of Special Adviser Robert Mueller's investigation into foreign interference in the United States. 2016 presidential election.
The Times initially filed a request in June 2017 for the FCC server logs linked to the system to accept public comments. The request, said the Times in the trial, "involves documents that will reveal to what extent Russian nationals and Russian government agents have interfered with the process of notifying and commenting on a subject". ;general interest.
The FCC refused, saying that responding to such a request would violate the privacy of people sending comments, endanger security practices and be too cumbersome.
Public comments are open to public scrutiny – or identification information can easily be written, argued the Times. It has also reduced its demand – on several occasions – to reduce any security risk and the burden of responding to demand.
The paper eventually filed an action after being blocked by the FCC for over a year.
"We are disappointed that the New York Times has taken action to collect the commission's web server's internal logs – newspapers whose disclosure would jeopardize the security practices of its electronic filing system," said a spokesman. of the FCC at Ars Technica.
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