The FBI is still actively thwarting its oversight. Last fall, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz informed the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI was routinely denying his office documents it needed to perform investigations. The withheld documents included everything from electronic surveillance information to organizational charts. Not only did the FBI refuse to hand over requested documents, but it also stonewalled OIG investigations for so long that "officials under review [had] retired or left the agencies before the report [was] complete."

Nearly six months later, the situation remains unchanged. Horowitz is again informing the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI is still less than interested in assisting his office. The same stonewalling tactics and withholding of information continues, preventing the IG from fully examining the DEA's use of administrative subpoenas.

The unfulfilled information request that causes the OIG to make this report was sent to the FBI on November 20,2014. Since that time, the FBI has made a partial production in this matter, and there have been multiple discussions between the OIG and the FBI about this request, resulting in the OIG setting a final deadline for production of all material of February 13,2015.

Both words in the phrase "final deadline" were quickly rendered meaningless by the FBI.

On February 12, 2015, the FBI informed the OIG that it would not be able to produce the remaining records by the deadline.

The FBI's fluid definition of "final deadline" apparently includes a shrugged "We don't really know when -- or if -- these documents will be produced."

The FBI gave an estimate of 1-2 weeks to complete the production but did not commit to do so by a date certain.

The FBI claims it still needs to review the requested document list to ensure nothing that's being asked for falls into its multitudinous exceptions -- like information related to grand juries, Title III electronic surveillance and, oddly, the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Horowitz's letter points out two things, the latter of which may prompt more immediate action than the first.

In the first place, the exceptions raised by the FBI do not apply to OIG investigations. Secondly, the (apparently continual) stonewalling of OIG investigations is, at best, a misuse of taxpayer funds.

Section 218 of the Appropriations Act does not permit the use of funds appropriated to the Department of Justice to deny the OIG access to records in the custody of the Department unless in accordance with an express limitation of Section 6(a) of the IG Act. The IG Act, Section 6(a), does not expressly or otherwise limit the OIG's access to the categories of information the FBI maintains it must review before providing records to the OIG. For this reason, we are reporting this matter to the Appropriations Committees in conformity with Section 218.

We'll see if the the FBI suddenly becomes a bit more helpful now that Horowitz has made a move for its wallet. But once again, this sort of activity completely undermines the arguments of those defending these agencies by pointing to the "rigorous oversight" supposedly keeping domestic surveillance in check and abuses of power to a minimum.

Even to those of us who are not experts in foreign policy, it is obvious that the security situation is deteriorating across a huge swathe of the Near East and Africa, as attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Cameroon and elsewhere multiply. Western analysts seem to be struggling to come up with a cogent explanation for this increasing success. That makes this short but illuminating post by John Robb particularly valuable. He describes what is happening across this vast area as the "open jihad." Here are its key characteristics:

Open jihad evolves (gets better) through massively parallel co-development. All of the groups in the open jihad, no matter how small (even down to individuals), can contribute. They do this by:

1. tinkering with tactics, strategies, and technologies that can be used to advance the open jihad.

2. testing the efficacy of these innovations by using them against the enemy. In other words, throwing them against the wall to see what sticks.

3. copying the innovations that work.

These are also some of the key features of open source -- hence the name "open jihad." Their appearance in the context of international violence is a reminder that they are not limited to the digital world, with things like open source, open access, open data and all the other "opens," but are a set of very general principles for producing extremely rapid innovation in any domain. That might provide a clue to governments struggling to deal with this growing threat to stability that they ought to try something similar, rather than resorting to traditional responses that are doomed to fail when dealing with a new kind of enemy.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

More cities and states are getting behind the idea that outfitting their law enforcement officers with body cameras will result in better policing and more accountability. Unfortunately, many of them then follow this moment of clarity by gutting the "accountability" part of the programs.

Los Angeles law enforcement agencies will only turn over camera footage if it's part of a criminal or civil suit. Florida legislators are pushing for additional exceptions in the state's open records laws specifically for body camera footage and specifically at the request of the state's police union.

Minnesota seems to be taking the same route. The state wants its law enforcement officers to wear cameras but some legislators don't feel the public should have access to the footage. A bill supported by the state's law enforcement aims to keep as many recordings out of the public's hands as possible.

The bill states:

[A]udio and video data captured by a portable video recording system that is not part of an active or inactive criminal investigation must be destroyed within 90 days of the date the data were captured, unless the data subject, or any peace officer identifiable by the data, submits a written request to the law enforcement agency to retain the data for possible use in a future proceeding related to the circumstances under which the data were originally collected. Any law enforcement agency that receives a request to retain data shall retain it for a reasonable time, based upon the likelihood of its future use and the agency's policies for retention. Peace officers who are identifiable by portable video recording system data shall have unrestricted access to the data while it is retained and must be permitted to make copies.

It seems reasonable... until you realize what it's allowing law enforcement agencies to do. Anything retained by these agencies will only be accessible to civilians in the recording, and then only by request. Alleged misconduct that is cleared by law enforcement oversight will move affected recordings into the "destroy" pile, which means agencies can start deleting potentially damning footage almost immediately, provided there are no current requests for the recordings.

The bill also exempts recordings from state public records laws by deeming nearly all recordings "nonpublic" by default.

Except for data classified as active criminal investigative data pursuant to subdivision 7, portable video recording system data is private data on individuals or nonpublic data at all times. Notwithstanding subdivision 7, portable video recording system data that are part of an inactive investigation remain classified as provided in this subdivision.

Subdivision 7 pertains to "criminal investigative data" -- which is also "nonpublic" and "private."

On the other hand, peace officers will have unrestricted access to any footage they appear in. This open-ended access is the sort of thing that can lead to tampering and deletion. Any officer should, at best, have controlled access to recordings involving them if the recording system is going to maintain any sort of integrity. Anything else is completely irresponsible.

If the bill goes forward, the body cameras willed be largely robbed of their deterrent effect. By removing the general public from the information flow, the cameras will no longer be tools of police accountability, but rather just another surveillance option for peace officers. The cameras basically become "one way" collections, wholly controlled by the officers who generate the recordings.

Those representing the law enforcement side are defending this bill by presuming to speak for the public they don't want to be accountable to...

Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, said public access to body camera footage "really serves no public purpose."

… because it might make things a little tougher for peace officers:

Flaherty and other law enforcement representatives expressed concern about what wide public access would mean -- both for exposing citizens' private lives and, in their minds, spurring more complaints against officers.

"Complaints against officers" is exactly what's spurring so many states and cities to outfit their cops with cameras. Flaherty conveniently forgets that body camera footage can also exonerate wrongly-accused officers in his haste to portray body cams as somehow intrusive to public officers.

Video works both ways… theoretically. Public access is essential if the camera programs are going to have any chance at reducing complaints and misconduct. Drastically limiting the number of people who can access recordings makes it highly unlikely the goals will be met. The bill creates a cover system for abuse and allows for full narrative control by law enforcement agencies. And this is coming from a state where law enforcement already expects the public to perform its surveillance for it and turn over video recordings captured in private businesses whenever a cop asks for it.

That's not accountability. That's nothing more than a bunch of government agencies attempting to dodge their responsibilities to the public they're supposed to be serving.

The problem of storing digital data usually involves transferring data from an older format to a newer one -- with the hopes that the newer one won't be replaced as quickly as the older format it just replaced. Maybe some archivists out there like to go through this periodic technology shift and verify that the data we've stored is still readable, but wouldn't it be nice if there was a "store it and forget it" format?

• A single gram of DNA can store up to 455 exabytes of data, and roughly four grams of DNA could store all of the world's collected information. It's not cheap to store arbitrary data on DNA yet, but the costs are coming down. [url]
• Stored data on DNA encased in glass at freezing temperatures could survive for a couple million years. The DNA of a woolly mammoth in Siberia was preserved for 40,000 in a tundra, so it's not unthinkable that we might want to keep a few backups of our data on ice. [url]
• Making large DNA crystals with precisely-controlled structures is something that can be done with a "DNA-brick self-assembly" method. Being able to do this could help fabricate all kinds of nanoscale designs and create a manufacturing process for complex, artificial DNA structures. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Sure, Verizon may be endlessly misleading when it comes to everything from the spectrum crunch to network investment. And when it comes to anti-competitive telecom behavior it wrote the book. Hell, Verizon's even in many ways directly responsible for this week's net neutrality ruling by suing to overturn the original flimsy net neutrality rules -- rules every other ISP had absolutely no problem with. But while you can say a lot of things about Verizon, you can't say the company doesn't have a sense of humor.

As you might expect, Verizon took to the company's blog to protest the FCC's new TItle II based net neutrality rules. Amusingly however, it posted the entire thing in Morse code -- piggybacking on the oft-repeated ISP mantra that applying older Title II regulations to broadband is a dangerous and historically backwards proposition (because all old laws are automatically bad laws, get it?).

If you look for a translation, you're further directed to a press release (pdf) that appears to be written on an old typewriter. In that, Verizon trots out ye olde bogeyman that the FCC is using "antiquated regulations" for a modern era:

"Today’s decision by the FCC to encumber broadband Internet services with badly antiquated regulations is a radical step that presages a time of uncertainty for consumers, innovators and investors."

Of course if we were to stop using laws just because they smell like mothballs, we'd be in for quite an adventure. After all, the Constitution is pretty old, right? As is the Communications Act of 1934 and the revamped Telecommunications Act of 1996, which govern spectrum allocation and without which Verizon couldn't function as a company. Stupid old laws. So unnecessary! It's an overly-simplistic argument, made more so by the fact that Verizon's FiOS network -- and the voice component of their wireless network -- are governed by Title II in some instances to glean Verizon some lovely tax breaks.

Verizon stumbles forth unabated, insisting that it has your best interests at heart:

"What has been and will remain constant before, during and after the existence of any regulations is Verizon’s commitment to an open Internet that provides consumers with competitive broadband choices and Internet access when, where, and how they want."

Yes, so committed is Verizon to an open Internet, it has violated the principles of Internet and device neutrality more aggressively than perhaps any other company, whether that's trying to block GPS radio functionality unless you use their navigation software, or charging completely illogical fees to use basic functionality embedded in phones (like tethering, or Bluetooth). Verizon's also fairly insistent on ignoring the fact it was their lawsuit that pushed the FCC toward Title II in the first place, so if there's "regulatory uncertainty" at play, the lion's share of the blame belongs on Verizon's shoulders.

Still, you've got to hand it to Verizon for at least showing a sense of humor about the whole thing. That's more than Comcast or AT&T were capable of.

Despite the feds' best efforts to keep IMSI catchers (Stingray devices, colloquially and almost certainly to the dismay of manufacturer Harris Corporation, as they head to becoming the kleenex of surveillance tech) a secret, there's still enough information leaking out around the edges of the FBI's non-disclosure agreements to provoke public discussion.

The discussion appears to have reached the top of the food chain. Sen. Bill Nelson -- following the lead of Senators Leahy and Grassley -- has sent a letter to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler asking the following:

[image credit: Julian Sanchez]

Dear Chairman Wheeler:

On Feb. 23, The Washington Post published a front-page article “Secrecy around Police Surveillance Equipment Proves a Case’s Undoing.” That article indicated that the Tallahassee Police Department and other law enforcement agencies around the country have been using a device called the StingRay to collect cell phone call information.

That article and previous others concerning the device reveal the StingRay was certified for use by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), contingent upon the conditions that StingRay’s manufacturer sell these devices solely to federal, state, and local public safety and law enforcement; and that state and local law enforcement agencies must coordinate in advance with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) before acquiring or using this equipment. According to the article, these devices now have been purchased by 48 law enforcement agencies in 20 states and the District of Columbia and used in hundreds of cases.

Yep, the devices are pretty much everywhere and no one wants to talk about them. When the US Marshals Service isn't stepping in to physically remove Stingray-related documents, local law enforcement agencies are disguising their use of these devices behind vague warrants and subpoenas.

What Sen. Nelson wants to know is what the FCC knows about Stingrays.

What information the FCC may have had about the rationale behind the restrictions placed on the certification of the StingRay, and whether similar restrictions have been put in place for other devices;

Whether the FCC inquired about what oversight may be in place to make sure that use of the devices complied with the manufacturer’s representations to the FCC at the time of certification; and

A status report on the activities of the “task force” you previously formed to look at questions surrounding the use of the StingRay and similar devices.

What we DO know so far about the interplay of Harris, the FBI and the FCC is that the first two parties have been less than forthright with the third. Harris managed to push its devices past the FCC by implying they would only be used in emergencies -- even though it was already clear at the point it made that statement that law enforcement agencies were frequently deploying them in non-emergency situations.

The FBI has performed its own obfuscation, implying in a letter to law enforcement agencies that the FCC required the signing off a non-disclosure agreement with the FBI. The FCC has since denied this, and obtained documents indicate it's the FBI that wants to control the flow of information regarding Stingrays, not the other way around.

I imagine the FCC would be compliant with this request, considering its past relationship with the FBI and Harris. But it can expect to run into significant resistance from the DOJ, which still believes that the long-exposed technology should still be afforded NSA-level secrecy -- especially when answers to Sen. Nelson's questions will likely expose its less-than-honest dealings with the FCC.

Sen. Nelson deserves some extra praise for being willing to put himself in an awkward situation. As the ACLU's Chris Soghoian notes, the senator has picked a very public fight with his second biggest campaign contributor.


Somebody needs to provide some answers and, while it's really the FBI that should be talking at this point, the FCC's take on this -- and its dealings with the FBI -- should be enlightening. The FBI's insistence on secrecy is not only screwing defendants during the discovery process, but it's also harming local law enforcement itself, which has shown an alarming willingness to drop cases/charges rather than reveal the use of Stingray devices.

At some point, this whole fad of trademarking phrases that leap into the public consciousness through public events is going to have to stop. Between trying to lock the language of the recently slain, the foreign policy story du jour, and all the rest, eventually the public and the courts are going to have to realize that this can't go on unchecked. For some reason, professional and college sports organizations seem especially prone to this kind of nonsense, from the attempt to exert control over a colloquial term to a team simply treating its own fanbase like so much trademarkable chattle.

That last example, concerning the Seattle Seahawks' apparent attempt to trademark roughly all the things, is particularly apropros in the latest trademark news, which features the team's running back, Marshawn Lynch. See, Lynch likes to paint himself as an anti-establishment guy. Far from the spotlight-seeking nature enjoyed by some of this league-mates, Lynch shies from the press, refusing to do the mandatory press engagements collectively bargained between the players union and the league. When he deigns to grace the press with his presence at all, he typically keeps things to one-word or one-phrase non-sequitors in answering reporters' questions, such as when he most recently responded to all questions with, "I'm just here so I won't get fined." It was petty, childish and a departure from the rules agreed upon between the league and the union. Oh, and now it's the subject of a trademark application by Lynch as well.

Lynch last week filed for the trademark to the phrase "I'm just here so I won't get fined" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Lynch famously uttered the phrase as the answer to more than 20 questions on Super Bowl XLIX media day before walking off the podium.

"We heard from our fans, and so many of them were saying that they wanted that phrase on the clothing," Chris Bevans, who runs Lynch's "Beast Mode" apparel line, told ESPN.com. "This is just listening to the marketplace."

That last bit is nonsense, of course, because no fan of Marshawn Lynch's anywhere ever pined for the running back to get a trademark for a phrase he happened to utter. Why such a generic sentence deserves any manner of protection is simply beyond me. A brand is a brand, but simply going out and putting a mark on ever half-garbled jab at his employer that Lynch's fans happen to enjoy isn't what trademark is for. At some point, with the acknowledgement that the USPTO has been so lax in allowing the culture of permission and gates to spring forth, some kind of litmus test is going to have to be introduced to keep otherwise common language from being locked out of commerce this way.

And it's not like this is the first time Lynch has gone around applying for trademarks on whatever happens to come out of his mouth that grabs any measure of attention.

Last year, he trademarked "About that action BOSS," which he said to Deion Sanders of the NFL Network in the only interview he conducted during Super Bowl XLVIII media day. Lynch is expected to be the owner of that trademark by this summer, but in the meantime, he has already started selling clothes with the phrase on it. Lynch owns four "Beast Mode" trademarks and has filed for four more. He has also filed for the phrase "Power Pellets."

Devin Lacerte of Octagon, who works with a trademark attorney on all of Lynch's trademarks, told ESPN.com last month that hundreds of cease-and-desist letters have been sent to people who try to sell products with the "Beast Mode" name.

Delightful, especially considering the origins of "Beast Mode" don't exactly start with Marshawn Lynch (it almost certainly was used in conjunction with video game Altered Beast as well as the cartoon Beast Wars). So here we have a guy who paints himself as anti-establishment, but who is quite happy to run to the USPTO and turn himself into language authoritarian any time something he says grabs attention.

Maybe it's time for the USPTO to go all beast mode on phrases getting trademarks like this, please?

Over the last year, there's been plenty of good news in the fight against the abuse of patents to stifle innovation. A bunch of court rulings have gone the right way, with the biggest being the Supreme Court's ruling in the Alice v. CLS Bank case, that has resulted in many courts invalidating patents, the US Patent Office suddenly rejecting more patents and a rapid decline in patent lawsuits.

Based on that, you might think that we no longer need patent reform. But you'd be wrong. Patent trolls are regrouping and fighting back. Despite the big drop in patent lawsuits following the Alice ruling, patent trolls have come up with some new ideas, and have recently ramped up the filing of new trolling lawsuits at a rapid pace. And there have even been a few victories. While the dollar amounts were relatively low (especially compared to what was asked for), a troll who claimed to have a patent over Bluetooth 2.0 (despite "inventing" it years after Bluetooth 2.0 was on the market) was awarded $15.7 million, and the world's biggest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures actually won a case against Symantec (but got "only" $17 million).

But, earlier this week, there was the big one. A pure patent troll, Smartflash, with a collection of vague and broad patents (US 7,334,720, US 8,118,221 and 8,336,772 -- all for "data storage and access systems") has been awarded $532,900,000 from Apple, despite everyone happily admitting that Apple came up with the idea on its own. Here's the East Texas (of course) court jury form: And, yes, Apple could probably pay that off with the spare change falling off the edge of Tim Cook's desk, but that's not really the point. Rulings like this don't seem to create any value towards actual innovation. Smartflash once had a product, but it failed in the marketplace over a decade ago. Apple built a product that people actually wanted. Shouldn't we be rewarding the people who actually make the things people want, rather than subsidizing failure by the successful?

Smartflash's lawyer told Ars Technica's Joe Mullin that this ruling is actually a "great example of why the patent system exists." Actually, it's a great example of how screwed up the patent system is. The lawyer also spewed this load of bullshit:

The thing about a patent is—let's say you have a university professor who spent two years researching something. It's irrelevant the effort that [an infringing company] spent to build it. It's the person who came up with it first. That's the way the Constitution, and the patent laws, are written. It's designed to cause people to spend money and time innovating. The patent office publishes it, so that advances the state of the art. In exchange for that, you get a property right.

That's also not how the Constitution is written, though it is (unfortunately) how patent laws are written. But that's not a way to get people to spend "money and time innovating" because the actual innovators here -- Apple -- had to pay out to the guy who failed in innovating. Being "first" isn't innovating. Building the product someone wants is.

Either way, Apple will appeal this ruling (and those other rulings are likely to be appealed as well). And in the last few months, CAFC has actually been shown to have gotten the message about problems with its previous interpretation of patent law. But, in the meantime, we still need serious patent reform.

The billion-dollar lawsuit against the producers of the Edward Snowden documentary CitizenFour rolls on, gradually unraveling as it does. Since we last covered the story (where the United States of America was added as an involuntary plaintiff -- a plaintiff since forcibly removed by the court), a lot has happened. For one, CitizenFour won an Oscar for Best Documentary, something that can't be sitting too well with Horace Edwards and his legal representation, which sought to have the film removed from consideration during the early days of this lawsuit.

The film has also been put into limited release and is streaming on HBO GO -- something that makes the following developments even crazier than they would be without these key details. Over at Vice, Jason Koebler has compiled a timeline of Edwards' (and his lawyer, Jean Lamfers') descent into paranoiac craziness.

Around January 23rd, Lamfers requests that a copy of the film not be allowed to be entered as evidence, what with it being full of highly-sensitive documents, espionage and whatever. She asserts that the movie contains so much classified info that it should only be reviewed in camera.

Then, no hell at all breaks loose, although in Lamfers' and Edwards' eyes, the espionapocalypse is nigh.

Poitras and her attorney deliver a copy of the film to the Lamfers. She does not take it well.

"I said I did not want to take possession of it. This was because of my understanding the film contains classified information based on my having seen the film. I received no response to [my] request from defendants' counsel [to bar the film from being entered as evidence in court]," Lamfers wrote in an email sent to the judge presiding over the suit. "To the contrary defendant's counsel delivered a copy of the DVD to my office (which remains unopened and under lock and key)."

That time when the normal process of discovery became a cheap knockoff of a le Carré novel.

From this point on, it's a long but fast slide downhill into amateur cloak-and-dagger awkwardness.

Two DVDs and a transcript of the film are entered as evidence because this is how that process works. Lamfers immediately files a motion asking for these to be sealed. The requested injunction would have no effect on the public release of the film, as the judge notes.

"Given the inherently public nature of this film, the Court can discern absolutely no interest that could justify sealing this exhibit. Moreover, even if this DVD contained some sort of confidential information for which Plaintiff had an interest in preventing public disclosure, it has already been publicly filed…"

[Side note: For reasons only comprehensible to Cryptome, a copy of the movie is being made available at the site, apparently under the mistaken belief that publicly-filed evidence automatically enters into the public domain. This perhaps-willful misunderstanding of both the court system and copyright law may be at least partially due to Cryptome's ongoing animosity towards anyone involved with the Snowden leaks for their refusal to make every single document Snowden gave them available in one massive dump -- and without redactions.]

Undeterred by the judge's logic, Lamfers proceeds to pester the court with "emergency" phone calls in hopes of sealing the Very Dangerous DVD. The judge reminds Lamfers that there are certain ways these things are handled during court proceedings and making "emergency" phone calls isn't one of them. Lamfers reads this rebuking email and decides the judge is suggesting she pester the court with "emergency" emails.

Lamfers emails the judge, at 12:46 AM local time (according to the court record), chastising the court for endangering national security and not immediately responding to her call.

"This situation has placed the plaintiff in an untenable position regarding avoiding irreparable harm and obtaining appropriate relief sought on a serious issue in a timely manner," she wrote. "The denial of a sealing motion has furthered the irreparable harm and relief necessary to address such harm, among other things, by the continuing injury through repetition of classified, stolen information that reaches a broader constituency of extremists with each showing."

Lamfers follows this up with a filed motion stating that the DVDs and transcript should be locked up under the legal precedent of "better safe than sorry." (No, I am not making this up. If I was, it would be more credible.)


Apparently further phone calls from Lamfers ensued, because the court is forced to formally -- via a court order -- tell her to knock it off.

Plaintiffs counsel has been instructed that the Court prefers informal communications with the Court be made by e-mail, with copy to the opposing counsel. In the Court's experience, such informal communications are rarely necessary and are typically limited to coordinating hearing dates after the court has determined a hearing is necessary, or to address routine, procedural questions. The does not and will not entertain requests for relief in this manner and the Plaintiff shall refrain from this practice going forward.

Well, we'll see if that works. Nothing else has so far. The docket shows things have remained eerily quiet over the past several days, but there's no telling how many phone calls and emails have made their way to Judge Julie Robinson's court in the meantime.

Of course, the lawsuit doesn't hinge on the misguided actions of the plaintiff and his counsel but on the actual merits of the case. However, even if Edwards' suit has its legal merits, he and his counsel appear to be the worst people to argue them.

Today was, no hyperbole intended, probably one of the more historic -- albeit at times one of the dullest -- days in FCC history. The agency, led by a former lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries few expected anything from, bucked a myriad of low expectations and voted 3-2 to approve Title II-based net neutrality rules after an unprecedented public-driven tech advocacy campaign. While net neutrality will likely get the lion's share of today's media attention, the FCC also today voted to begin a prolonged assault on ISP-driven, protectionist state telecom law.

First, it's important to note that despite a 3-2 vote approving the Title II-based rules, we won't get to see the actual rules today. Despite claims by neutrality opponents that this is some secret cabal specific to net neutrality, the agency historically has never released rules it votes on (pdf) until well after the actual vote. It's a dumb restriction that's absolutely deadly to open discourse, but it's not unique to one party or to this specific issue.

As for when we'll actually get to see and start dissecting the actual Title II rules ourselves, we may be waiting weeks -- in part, ironically, thanks to neutrality opponents on the Commission that spent the last few weeks professing to adore transparency:

"In fact, it could take weeks before the final rules are published, the official said. That’s because the two Republican commissioners, Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly—who oppose net neutrality of any sort—have refused to submit basic edits on the order. The FCC will not release the text of the order until edits from the offices of all five commissioners are incorporated, including dissenting opinions. This could take a few weeks, depending how long the GOP commissioners refuse to provide edits on the new rules."

Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Reilly voiced their opposition to the new Title II-based rules by not only voting against them, but by trying to bore meeting attendees to death. Pai, a former Verizon regulatory lawyer, offered a mammoth speech in which he ironically lamented "special interests" and claimed repeatedly to only be opposing net neutrality out of a concern for consumer wallets. O'Reilly tried to top Pai with an even longer, duller speech that continually insisted the FCC was trying to conduct a secret, regulatory takeover of the Internet. A visibly emotional Wheeler was having none of it:

"This proposal has been described by one opponent as, quote, a secret plan to regulate the Internet. Nonsense. This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concepts: openness, expression, and an absence of gate keepers telling people what they can do, where they can go, and what they can think."

While the net neutrality rules are incredibly important, the FCC's decision on municipal broadband may actually wind up being more meaningful over the long run. As we've noted for years, neutrality violations are really just a symptom of a lack of competition. Around twenty states now have laws in place -- usually based entirely on ISP/ALEC model legislation -- that prohibit towns and cities from improving their own broadband infrastructure -- even in instances where nobody else will. In some cases these rules even go so far as to prohibit towns and cities from striking public/private partnerships to improve broadband service.

Specifically, the FCC voted 3-2 to approve petitions by EPB Broadband in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Greenlight in Wilson, North Carolina. Those petitions requested that the FCC use its authority to ensure timely broadband deployment using "measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment." While some politicians have lamented the FCC's move as a trampling of states' rights, these individuals ironically have had no problem with ISPs writing state telecom law that tramples those same rights. The justifications for these restrictions have never been coherently supported, and Wheeler was quick to highlight the hypocrisy of the position:

"You can’t say you’re for broadband and then turn around and endorse limits on who can offer it. You can’t say, ‘I want to follow the explicit instructions of Congress to remove barriers to infrastructure investment,' but endorse barriers on infrastructure investment. You can’t say you’re for competition but deny local elected officials the right to offer competitive choices."

Needless to say, this is likely only a new chapter in the debate over both issues, the precise wording of the neutrality wording will be debated for months if not years, and you can expect ISP legal action on both fronts aimed at protecting the uncompetitive status quo. It also probably goes without saying that opponents of net neutrality and those who like it when AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are allowed to write protectionist telecom law aren't taking the day's events very well. One of the best freakouts of the day belonged to Hal Singer, author of that misleading study we've previously debunked claiming that you'd face $15 billion in new taxes under Title II:

With today's @FCC vote on #NetNeutrality, millions of innovation angels will die. It's our job to document the loss. pic.twitter.com/XGxT8EDx7u

— Hal Singer (@HalSinger) February 26, 2015

While some grieve the death of imaginary "innovation angels," thousands of others are celebrating a rare instance where Internet activism was able to overcome lobbying cash and push a government mountain toward doing the right thing.