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$1,595 To Talk With The FCC About Telco Policy? Lobbyists Welcome; Average Citizens... Not So Much
from the how-policy-is-made dept
Michael Marcus is noting that the Practicing Law Institute is holding a Telco and Policy Regulation "Institute," that will include a Q&A with "FCC commissioners and other senior officials." It looks like three commissioners will be there, along with four other senior officials including the heads of "wireline competition," "wireless telecommunications," and "engineering and technology." The issue, Marcus points out, is that this Q&A with key regulators costs $1,595 to attend. Affordable for lobbyists, but not so much for anyone else.
But Marcus' bigger concern is that the public won't find out what was said at the event without ponying up for the recording -- where previous recordings cost $797 for audio and $1,595 for video. As he notes:
Now I do not disagree that it is useful for public officials to meet in fine hotels with industry moguls, brief them on upcoming policy issues and answer questions. The key question is whether the rest of us will find out in a reasonably timely what was said. (Some of us might like to ask questions also, but that is getting off subject.) I have previously proposed to the the FCC's reboot.fcc.gov site that asks about "What are ways in which the FCC can better engage the public in open proceedings?" that videos of such presentations be made available to the public at the normal FCC terms - free online, nominal charge for copying - within a few days of such an event. As with the other many suggestions received from the public via this site, this has not been resolved.Again, it's understandable that it costs money to attend such events. It's costly to put them on, and events are a big business. But it gets a little troubling when public policy may be influenced at such events and the details of what was said are not revealed.
22 Comments | Leave a Comment..
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Reader Comments (rss)
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Open Meetings?
You know, the public that's paying them to attend these meetings.
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Who's with me?
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Re: Send Mike
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Still, if the FCC wants to host its own Q&A session with representatives of the industries it regulates, I daresay they could do it for less than $1,595 a seat!
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Anyboy remember?
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I am the all powerful Oz
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Charging?
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Re:
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Re: Charging?
But now that corps are people, I suppose that they are just being "represented".
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Democracy is an illusion to pacify the masses. America has always been a plutocracy.
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and ill kick in a buck or two...
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Re: Re: Charging?
i think what you are referring to maybe is the concept that they have rights to free speech and that campaign contributions have been held to be free speech when made by corporate entities?
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No company or industries should benefit financially from any event attended by a public official. It's a clear conflict of interests.
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Re:
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$1595 is cheap
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You make it sound like this is a bad thing. You wanted monied interests this last election, so here you go: Pay up!
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The people have spoken!
You make it sound like this is a bad thing. You voters wanted more influence by monied interests this last election.
So here you go: Pay up!
Why is this so difficult to understand?
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