Lawmakers Not Happy with FCC Inspector General Report

Democratic lawmakers weren’t happy with the Federal Communications Commission inspector general concluded that the agency "misrepresented facts and provided misleading responses to Congressional inquiries" regarding an outage of the FCC’s online commenting system. The watchdog at one point referred its probe to federal prosecutors (though they declined to launch a criminal case) after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, relying on information supplied by the agency’s then-chief information officer, relayed to lawmakers the now-debunked claim that cyberattacks prompted the site to crash as Chairman Pai sought input on his plan to roll back net neutrality rules. “This is unacceptable behavior from a federal agency, and unbecoming behavior from its leadership,” tweeted Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), the ranking member of the Telecommunications Subcommittee. “This report shows that the American people were deceived by the FCC and Chairman Pai as they went about doing the bidding of Big Cable,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). The findings are likely to turn up the heat on Chairman Pai and the agency when all four commissioners testify before the Senate Commerce Committee for an FCC oversight hearing Aug 16. “This investigation proves that it wasn’t an attack that shut down the FCC’s website, but millions of Americans speaking out to protect the free and open internet,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), ranking member of the telecom subcommittee. “This report raises more questions about the FCC’s crusade to end net neutrality. I look forward to hearing from Chairman Pai when he testifies before the Senate next week.”