Former Comcast and Verizon Shills Now Manage the FCC and Are About to Kill the Internet

excerpt

The backgrounds of the new FCC staff have not been reported until now.

Take Daniel Alvarez, an attorney who has long represented Comcast through the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. In 2010, Alvarez wrote a letter to the FCC on behalf of Comcast protesting net neutrality rules, arguing that regulators failed to appreciate “socially beneficial discrimination.” The proposed rules, Alvarez wrote in the letter co-authored with a top Comcast lobbyist named Joe Waz, should be reconsidered.

Today, someone in Comcast’s Philadelphia headquarters is probably smiling. Alvarez is now on the other side, working among a small group of legal advisors hired directly under Tom Wheeler, the new FCC Commissioner who began his job in November.

As soon as Wheeler came into office, he also announced the hiring of former Ambassador Philip Verveer as his senior counselor. A records request reveals that Verveer also worked for Comcast in the last year. In addition, he was retained by two industry groups that have worked to block net neutrality, the Wireless Association (CTIA) and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

In February, Matthew DelNero was brought into the agency to work specifically on net neutrality. DelNero has previously worked as an attorney for TDS Telecom, an Internet service provider that has lobbied on net neutrality, according to filing

http://www.vice.com/read/former-comcast-and-verizon-attorneys-now-m...

Favorite

1 member favorited this

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

Comment by truth on April 25, 2014 at 4:56pm: Obama breaks 2008 campaign pledge on net neutrality --This is what one might call a net-discrimination rule, and, if enacted, it will profoundly change the Internet as a platform for free speech and small-scale innovation. 24 Apr 2014 In 2007, at a public forum at Coe College, in Iowa, Presidential candidate Barack Obama was asked about net neutrality. Specifically, "Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to reinstate net neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint F.C.C. commissioners that support open Internet principles like net neutrality?" "The answer is yes," Obama replied. "I am a strong supporter of net neutrality." If reports in the Wall Street Journal are correct, Obama's chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Thomas Wheeler, has proposed a new rule that is an explicit and blatant violation of this promise.

All links are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Previous edition: US sends 600 troops to Eastern Europe, warship USS Taylor enters Black Sea (Google subscribers: Google Filter Instructions for CLG Newsletter.)