Lee Fang

Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform. Behind the scenes, however, the company provided direct approval and internal protection to the US military’s network of social media accounts and online personas, whitelisting a batch of accounts at the request of the government. The Pentagon has used this network, which includes US government-generated news portals and memes, in an effort to shape opinion in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and beyond.

DC Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s appellate court decisions and public comments suggest that he will accelerate the trend toward a political system dominated by wealthy elites — often operating in the shadows, without any form of disclosure. At a March 2016 event at the American Enterprise Institute, Kavanaugh was asked point-blank if he believes that “money spent during campaigns does represent speech, and therefore deserves First Amendment protection.” His answer: “Absolutely.” In 2009, Kavanaugh authored an opinion in a case called EMILY’s List v.

Following the vote by the Federal Communication Commission to unwind the net neutrality rules enacted during the Obama administration, House Republican lawmakers received an email from GOP leadership on how to defend the decision. “Want more information on the net neutrality discussion?” wrote House Republican Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). “Here is a nifty toolkit with news resources, myth vs reality information, what others are saying, and free market comments.”

The attached packet of talking points came directly from the cable industry. The metadata of the document shows it was created by Kerry Landon, the assistant director of industry grassroots at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of Comcast, Cox Communications, Charter, and other cable industry companies. The document was shared with House Republican leaders via “Broadband for America,” a nonprofit largely funded by the NCTA. “The FCC is wisely repealing the reckless decision of its predecessors to regulate competing internet service providers,” reads one of the document’s talking points. “We rightly protest when governments around the world seek to place political controls over the internet, and the same should apply here in America,” according to another. The document also refers GOP caucus members to quotes they can use from other industry-funded nonprofits to defend the decision to repeal net neutrality through the rollback of Title II reclassification.

Congressional Republicans are baldly enticing donors with the promise of meetings with senior legislative staff, effectively placing access to congressional employees up for sale to professional influence peddlers and other well-heeled interests. Documents show that the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee are both telling donors that in exchange for campaign contributions, they will receive invitations to special events to meet with congressional staff including chiefs of staff, leadership staffers, and committee staffers.

While selling donors access to senators and representatives and their campaign staff is nothing new, the open effort to sell access to their legislative staff — the taxpayer-funded government employees who work behind the scenes to write legislation, handle investigations, and organize committee hearings — appears to be in violation of ethics rules that prohibit campaigns from using House and Senate resources in any way. Congressional ethics rules flatly forbid Capitol Hill employees from engaging in fundraising activities as part of their official duties. Any explicit fundraising work must be done strictly as a volunteer, and there must be a clear firewall separating government work from campaign work. It’s arguably the last fig leaf left when it comes to giving the appearance that campaign contributions are not directly linked to official acts.

The two lawmakers most responsible for rolling back landmark internet browsing privacy protections were richly rewarded by telecommunication giants. Verizon, AT&T, Cox Enterprises, the US Telecom Association, and CTIA, the trade association for the major cell phone carriers, appeared to single out the original sponsors of the repeal resolution — Sen Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and House Communications Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) — for particularly generous campaign contributions.

A Verizon political action committee filing shows that most lawmakers received between $500 and $1,000 from the firm during the first three months of this year. But Sen Flake received $8,000 and Chairman Blackburn received $4,500. Chairman Blackburn received $5,000 from the CTIA, the most of any House member. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) only received $2,500 from the group during the same time period.

Leading Civil Rights groups who for many years have been heavily bankrolled by the telecommunications industry are signaling their support for Donald Trump’s promised rollback of the Obama administration’s network neutrality rules, which prevent internet service providers from prioritizing some content providers over others.

In a little-noticed joint letter released recently, the NAACP, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, OCA (formerly known as the Organization for Chinese Americans), the National Urban League, and other civil rights organizations sharply criticized the “jurisdictional and classification problems that plagued the last FCC” — a reference to the legal mechanism used by the Obama administration to accomplish net neutrality. Instead of classifying broadband as a public utility, the letter states, open internet rules should be written by statute. What does that mean? It means the Republican-led Congress should take control of the process — the precise approach that is favored by industry.