Bruce Kushnick

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission et al have created a series of interconnected proposed rules, regulations and actions. Unfortunately, we, the public, are now facing at least 10-20+ different cuts into the public interest, (depending on how you count). Killing off net neutrality is just one of the many planned harms. While none of this is new, it is now a sped up, concealed, heavily funded and very well coordinated plan, aided by the ability of the companies to control the FCC’s votes.

[Commentary] In every industry we hear horror stories of how the government agencies that are supposed to provide oversight of the companies and protect the public interest have been taken over by the industry. The Federal Communications Commission, which has oversight over most of the phone and cable companies’ business – i.e., the wireline, wireless, satellite, cable, TV, Internet, broadband, phone and data service services—all communications services—has been captured.

[Commentary] On Thursday, February 23rd, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission held its first official meeting with the new FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai. And like a polluted stream filled with dead fish floating belly up, the meeting just added to the stench from the FCC we’ve seen in this ‘transition’. As I previously mentioned, Pai is a former Verizon attorney, while the head of the transition team, Jeffrey Eisenach, has been a consultant to Verizon, wearing multiple hats, for two decades. But I’ll let the FCC’s actions or in-actions speak for themselves.

• Overarching Theme: Remove All Regulations & Consumer Protections
• Block Privacy Rules
• Erase the Accounting Rules
• There Should be Audits of the Accounting to Expose the Billions in Cross-Subsidies.

[Commentary] Vice President-elect Mike Pence is supposedly cleaning house of lobbyists who are part of the Trump transition team. We would suggest that Jeffrey Eisenach fits the bill.

We already wrote about some of his ties to Verizon and the other phone and cable companies, including Comcast. In a 2014 email, Eisenach encouraged Federal Communications Commission member Michael O’Rielly to use an American Enterprise Institute event to ‘lay out the case against’ network neutrality regulations. Eisenach reinforced this message by writing commentary pieces, using his title as a think tank scholar. AEI is a 501(c) (3) educational organization and it claims it does not take positions on public policy issues. Comparing this quote and the email, one has to realize AEI is not supposed to be lobbying for Verizon and the other phone, wireless and cable companies. It could even be violating their IRS granted non-profit status. Now, it could be that this just shows the coziness of the FCC transition team leader with the FCC staff, but considering that Eisenach’s client, Verizon, benefits from these dealings, this brings up a host of ethical violations, or other acts that need investigation.

[Bruce Kushnick is Executive Director of the New Networks Institute]

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump claims that he is going to ‘drain the swamp’ of ‘special interests’. It has not started out well. A recent New York Times article claims, “President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests, is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.” And the New York Times article features a picture of Dr. Jeffrey Eisenach, front and center.

Eisenach is formerly the founder of a coin-operated group called Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF), and is now a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute as well as working for the telco-friendly, NERA Economic Consulting as Managing Director Co-Chair, Communications, Media, and Internet Practice. But, as the Times wrote, he also works for Verizon, yet is the head of the transition team to fill the Federal Communications Commission with new staff. “Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for years on behalf of Verizon and other telecommunications clients, is the head of the team that is helping to pick staff members at the Federal Communications Commission.” If Trump is serious about ‘draining the swamp’, then he should worry he is instead creating a new toxic garbage dump, filling it with the same bad actors he claims he wants to clean out.

[Bruce Kushnick is the Executive Director of the New Networks Institute]