FCC Staffers Routinely Held Stock In Telecom Giants They Regulated
from the normalized-corruption dept
Federal law specifically bans Federal Communications Commission (FCC) employees from owning “any stocks, bonds, or other securities of [any company] significantly regulated by the Commission.” That’s apparently news to FCC employees.
A new report (hat tip, Ars Technica) by nonprofit watchdog group Campaign Legal Center found that numerous employees hold stock in Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and other telecom giants despite the restrictions. And despite these financial conflicts of interest being abundantly evident in publicly available financial disclosures, FCC ethics officials did absolutely nothing about it, for years.
The data reviewed came from 2018 and 2019, when then FCC boss Ajit Pai was busy doling out every last fevered dream of media and telecom giants, ranging from the repeal of net neutrality to the erosion of longstanding media consolidation limits:
Citing the most recent financial disclosure reports, which cover the Chairman Ajit Pai-era years of 2018 and 2019, the Campaign Legal Center report said FCC official Rosemary Harold owned Comcast stock with a value between $3,003 and $45,000. Harold was the FCC Enforcement Bureau chief during that time and is now a deputy chief with the FCC Media Bureau. The report also said former FCC official Lisa Hone, then a deputy bureau chief, owned Charter Communications stock worth between $4,004 and $60,000.
Hone and former FCC Chief Information Security Officer Andrea Simpson owned AT&T stock, with the two employees’ AT&T holdings adding up to somewhere between $2,203 and $31,001, the report said. Harold and former Chief Technology Officer Eric Burger reportedly owned Verizon stock with a combined value between $7,007 and $105,000. The wide stock value ranges are a result of how employee stock holdings are reported in financial disclosure forms.
This is, of course, small potatoes in the broader context of government financial conflicts of interest and insider trading, but ignoring it still normalizes corruption. And the more normalized it is, the less overall incentive the FCC has to hold telecom giants accountable for much of anything, be it their widespread abuse of sensitive location data, or their massive, well documented history of fraud.
The Campaign Legal Center not only sent its findings to the FCC, it also sent a letter to the US Office of Government Ethics urging it to, you know, do its job.
Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, conflicts of interest, corruption, fcc, telecom
Companies: campaign legal center
Comments on “FCC Staffers Routinely Held Stock In Telecom Giants They Regulated”
It's only a conflict of interest if they were there to serve the public
FCC staff: ‘Conflict of interest’? Not at all, we know who’s interests we took the job to serve, holding stock just helps to encourage us to put more effort into that.
Re: fly in the soup
FCC regulators are regulated by Congress/President, who in turn are regulated by the voters.
Therefore, the voters ultimatrly control/sanction any FCC corruption.
Thus you, as a voter, must be the key flaw in current American system of government.
Re: Re:
Third party liability bullshit
Re: Re: 'Gerrymandering'? Never heard of it
I see, I wasn’t aware that police weren’t the only ones who are stripped of all free will and ability to control their actions upon taking up their jobs, it’s worrying indeed to hear that this applies to FCC staffers as well.
I assume Verizon and Comcast knew this and have used it already.
FCC staffers aspire to congress where such self aggrandizing is looked upon positively.
Stock value ranges
On first reading, I thought the low value might have been the worth of the stock at the first filing and the high value the stock’s value at the last available report. It’d make sense to me that with help from inside the FCC that the telecom stocks would shoot up that much.
But, yeah… those stock value ranges are … something
Or course they did...
Financial improprieties and using insider information for personal gain are common occurrences in situations of regulatory capture.
If the laws don’t matter, why follow them?
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Re:
Maybe its just fair for everyone that everyone follows the laws, even if they’re completely stupid. We have specific name for people who fail to understand this principle: we call them criminals.
Re: Re:
And yet someone who’s not beholden to corporate interests is blocked for being too “extreme” for the job.
naw…
for real tho?…
regulations
I wonder what has become of all the regs, that were around years ago.
Nothing is being enforced anymore.
HOw can the people take back our government?
Who has the time to pay attention to all the crap thats happening?
Most of us can see what is happening and the pressures that are put on the Lower classes. Where is the time needed, to look at whats happening, besides worrying about your paycheck.
Want to scare everyone? including the corps? Lock prices down, and Raise min wage to Survival benefits.
Allot of the retail is going back to the old tricks. Promise $13 per hour, after training. Then deny you have been fully trained. Jack your hours all over hell to get you to quit, of only hire you are PART TIME so you never get the hours you need to be considered trained.
To many games being played. Lets play uno, and add a Pinochle deck and 3D chess.