FCC Has No Interest In Figuring Out Who Filed Fake Anti-Neutrality Comments In Your Name
Consumerist
July 11, 2017
11:00 am EDT
By Kate Cox@kcoxdc
Usually if your identity is stolen, there’s something you can do about it: Call a business, file a dispute over a charge, or contact law enforcement. But if someone “borrows” your identity to file a fake comment with an open government proceeding — like, say, the one in progress to kill off net neutrality — there may be diddly squat you can do.
One Man’s Mission…
Karl Bode is a freelance writer for the tech and broadband news sites DSL Reports and Techdirt. He and his articles are known for taking a decidedly pro-net-neutrality stance, both in 2014-2015 and in this second round in 2017 as well.
Some joker, however, apparently thought it would be funny to use Bode’s name to file a particularly strident anti-neutrality comment to the FCC.
That filing, dated in late April, claims that DSL Reports is an “unregistered PAC,” and asserts that “the Wheeler FCC presided over a model whereby Internet competition has been stifled.”
“I urge the Commission to roll back the failed Title II provisions and return the Internet to the people,” it concludes.
That of course stands in direct contradiction to the point of view the real Bode holds — and he didn’t write it. So when he discovered the comment in May, he filed a complaint to the FCC about the impersonation.
The FCC finally answered him Monday, Bode Tweeted, but the response he received [PDF] was less than useful.
“We want to make it clear that the FCC does not condone anyone impersonating anyone else’s identity,” G. Patrick Webre, the acting chief of the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, wrote to Bode.
More:
https://consumerist.com/2017/07/11/fcc-has-no-interest-in-figuring-out-who-filed-fake-anti-neutrality-comments-in-your-name/