February 2010

Local governments already are starting to lobby Google for a spot along an experimental super-speed network the company announced Wednesday.

Axcess Ontario, a public-benefit corporation overseeing the development of Ontario County, N.Y.'s community fiber network, began the application process on behalf of the county government on Thursday. Ontario County, a rural and suburban community near Rochester, has pledged $12 million for its own 180-mile endeavor. About 60 miles are complete and the rest is expected to be deployed by year's end. "What Google seeks to accomplish is exactly what the Ontario County fiber optic ring was built for," Ed Hemminger, Axcess Ontario president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Ontario County should be at the top of Google's list of potential test sites -- we've been working on this project for seven years." Currently, service providers including Verizon Wireless, are providing cost-effective telecommunications to businesses along the 60 miles, according to Axcess Ontario. "This means Ontario County actually has the infrastructure to do what Google wants to do -- and quickly," a company press release states.

[Commentary] Recently, Rucker -- the executive director of ColorofChange.org -- wrote about why there are so many civil rights groups and members of the Congressional Black Caucus opposing network neutrality and why so much of this opposition echoes discredited telecommunications industry talking points. He thinks it's incumbent on leaders opposing or questioning net neutrality to publicly make clear why. Unfortunately, none have done so.

Rucker's piece was answered by Navarrow Wright, a former television and Internet executive and current strategic consultant. Throughout his piece he asserts that the civil rights groups are only "asking questions" that we "shouldn't be afraid to answer." After reading it a couple of times, Rucker realized where he had seen this technique before: Wright's piece -- and the broader arguments he seeks to defend -- are the rhetorical equivalent of a push poll. Push polls are a well known and highly effective political trick. They ask questions that insert into the public consciousness a false idea, positioning a baseless assumption as plausible. Navarrow Wright, and the civil rights organizations he is defending, are effectively "push-polling" net neutrality. They are asking the question, "If you knew that net neutrality would widen the digital divide, would you support it?" The question is asked without any evidence to suggest that the premise of the question is true, but the question itself alters the frame of the debate. The effect has been real -- FCC commissioners who know the truth about net neutrality are being held hostage by debunked theories, as they don't want to be perceived as embracing policy that could hurt minority communities.

The US Justice Department argued on Friday that it should be allowed access to people's cell-phone records to help track suspected criminals. In arguments before a federal appeals court, the government asked the court to overturn lower court rulings denying it the right to seek information from communications companies about the call activity of specific numbers that authorities believe are associated with criminal activity. Civil rights lawyers argued that providing information such as dates, times and call duration, and which cell towers the calls used, would be an invasion of privacy and a violation of constitutional protections against unjustified arrest. Attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology said the government should have to obtain a warrant to track an individual via a cell phone and show probable cause that the information would provide evidence of a crime.

Since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials -- people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests -- have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them.

Many have been regulars on more than one of the cable networks, turning in dozens -- and in some cases hundreds -- of appearances. For lobbyists, PR firms and corporate officials, going on cable television is a chance to promote clients and their interests on the most widely cited source of news in the United States. These appearances also generate good will and access to major players inside the Democratic and Republican parties. For their part, the cable networks, eager to fill time and afraid of upsetting the political elite, have often looked the other way. At times, the networks have even disregarded their own written ethics guidelines. Just about everyone involved is heavily invested in maintaining the current system, with the exception of the viewer. While lobbyists and PR flacks have long tried to spin the press, the launch of Fox News and MSNBC in 1996 and the Clinton impeachment saga that followed helped create the caldron of twenty-four-hour political analysis that so many influence peddlers call home. Since then, guests with serious conflicts of interest have popped up with alarming regularity on every network. Just examine their presence in coverage of the economic crash and the healthcare reform debate, two recent issues that have engendered massive cable coverage.