He worked in their legal department for 2-3 years 15 years ago. All of his other time has been spent has a public servant. People need to stop bringing this up, because it only muddies the actual policy debate.
ugh. No one ever bothers to bring up this document either, which isnt going away... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Open_Internet_Order_2010
The telecoms have many sophisticated strategies they pursue; one is alternating between "states rights" and FCC-friendly arguments to create a ratchet locking out competitors. If you break one side of the ratchet, at least some folks can have first-world bandwidth.
I don’t care if he was a professional kitten killer, it has little relevance to actions currently being taken. I say this for two reasons: Pai has spent more time in public service than he did at Verizon, by multiples. And second, who cares what his motivation is? Does that amplify or mitigate the circumstances in some way? No? Then it’s just a distraction from the issue at hand, which is bad enough that we best not derail the conversation worrying about where someone worked twenty years ago.
Knowing his motivations (is he simply misinformed? is he corrupt? does he believe in strict libertarianism?) has a big impact in shaping a winning strategy to oppose him.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t upvote a reasonable POV with which I just happen to disagree.
but you cant be a lobbyist
so what do you work for? other goverment jobs, or back to the private sector.
what if we had a google exec become some internet government position, then went back to google? would there be this public outcry?
If I were telecom lawyer, I'd rather Title II to be honest. Creates more work.
> The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is reportedly set to release copies of roughly two dozen ethics waivers for federal officials next week, showing which officials are focusing on issues that they worked on in their private sector jobs.
> The waivers are in addition to the ones the Trump administration released this week, The Wall Street Journal reports. The White House released those ethics pledge waivers Wednesday, exempting at least a dozen White House officials.
Serving 5 years in a government position when you could be an exec at a Telecom company is a gigantic opportunity cost so the point here is that he's not getting paid off, unless fraudulently, which can't be completely ruled out.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-lobbying-ban-we...
I seem to recall one of the arguments of Pai is that the FCC shouldn't be responsible for regulation of the internet, it should fall under the FTC.
So as head of the FCC he can effectively strip it of all power, the governance shifting to the FTC. Once his commission is up he takes a job at Verizon/At&T/etc, lobbying the FTC.
Or, as burkaman noted, they will just issue a waiver.
We need to get the corruption out of congress.
My biggest fear in our current situation is the threat of voter suppression and election fraud. Any suggestions on shining a light on these issues, and combating them?
If Ajit Pai continues to obstruct investigations, I would consider it obstruction of justice. That's something that an Attorney General should seriously consider in the current light.
Well, relating to the identity misappropriation itself. Should there be litigation over the final regulation (as is near certain) and should the content of public comment and the FCC’s handling of it be an issue (as is also near certain), then things become a lot more interesting.
My recurring thought as I read the fine article: "you're an attorney general, a lawyer who has asked politely, multiple times and been ignored; why TF haven't you filed for a subpoena yet?"
If the FCC is cooperating with criminals to cover up fraud, can they be RICO'd?
There should be some effort to get more moderate Republicans involved. There are plenty of Republicans who support net neutrality, but do not consider that as important an issue as other issues on which Republicans and Democrats differ, such as immigration, taxes, gun rights, abortion, and many others.
I think that most of the less moderate Republican voters who oppose net neutrality mostly do so because their representatives and party officials tell them to. It's not like, say, their opposition to abortion which they came to on their own and then used that to help choose their party.
If that is true, it should be possible to move the GOP to a place where net neutrality is something that a Republican candidate can either support or oppose and still have a chance of winning a GOP primary or caucus.
There are 5 FCC commissioners but only 3 may be of the same party. Ajit Pai, Brendan Carr and Michael O'Rielly are locks to vote in favor, so it will pass, 3-2.
At this point the best thing people can do is prepare to vote in 2018 and 2020, whether that's registering voters or forming groups to get lazy liberals or independents to vote to send better people to Washington.
One side aspect that I think hasn't been covered: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer and probably plans to parley his government experience into a lucrative gig at one of the big telcos once the Republicans are inevitably thrown out of office, so he stands to personally profit from this decision.
As Donald Trump would say, SAD.