[antidote] FOIA Request of FCC Charman Powell and staff contacts during the Triennial Sunshine period

From: "Bruce Kushnick" <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <antidote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 23:38:42 -0500
TELETRUTH NEWS ALERT -- DECEMBER 2, 2003
Teletruth Files FOIA With FCC To Obtain Chairman Michael Powell's Contacts
During Triennial Review's Sunshine Period.

Did The Bell Companies And Their Minions Have Undue Access And Influence
Over The FCC Rule Making Process?

To read the FOIA, Backgrounder or more materials on the Triennial
http://www.teletruth.org/FOIA.html

Teletruth today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the
FCC to supply Teletruth and the public an accounting of Chairman Powell's
conversations, meetings, emails and other pertinent information in an effort
to ascertain if the Public Interest has been harmed during the Sunshine
Agenda period of the Triennial Review.

Under the law, during the Sunshine Agenda period of the Triennial Review,
starting February 14th, 2003 and continuing through August 20th, 2003, the
FCC and staff Commissioners were not meant to have contact with outside
sources, except by invitation and necessity. This includes the companies who
would benefit from rules being written in their favor, as well as influence
from senators, congressmen or their aides, associations, research firms or
lobbying groups trying to influence the outcome.

Comments and other items that have been "Sunshined" are "--- Not for staff
inspection. Submission received during the Sunshine Agenda period is
associated with, but not made part of the record."

"We are expecting to answer the question of whether there's been a violation
of the Administrative Procedure Act, APA. Was there undue influence on
Chairman Powell and any of the Commissioners in the final creation of the
Triennial Review's rules?" asks Bruce Kushnick, Chairman of Teletruth.

Recent revelations of a possible anti-trust probe of the Bell companies and
the United States Telecom Association, USTA, for "cartel-like behavior" has
only added more need for this FOIA request. (The USTA acts as the Bell
companies' primary lobbying arm.) As reported by Telecom Policy Report, a
memo was sent that stated ".it is USTA's plan to ask the manufacturing
companies' CEOs to join with USTA in meetings at the White House, on Capitol
Hill, and at the FCC; to participate in press briefings at the National
Press Club in Washington, D.C.; to 'incorporate these objectives into their
own corporate messaging, both internally and externally' and to make a
three-year financial commitment that would raise between $30-$40 million for
lobbying efforts."

Have the Bells unlawfully gamed the FCC and the regulatory system by being
able to attempt to manipulate the Triennial Review?

The safeguards in place are to avoid "regulatory capture", where a few
companies control the agenda and the destiny of the US telecommunications
market. It should be noted that because of the Bell-mergers with their
siblings, today, SBC, BellSouth, Qwest, and Verizon (which includes GTE)
control over 90% of the essential wireline network facilities. Almost all
competitors still use these same wire lines and require access to offer
their own competitive service.

The preliminary research has found that:

a) There were many instances where the Bell companies or other parties who
work
in their favor contacted and met with the FCC during the Sunshine period.
Numerous examples of phone companies or their supporters included visits,
conversations, emails, presentations, etc., by Verizon, BellSouth, a letter
from Congressmen Tauzin, Dingell and Upton on related competitive pricing
issues, and vendors and associations including Corning and the High-Tech
Coalition.

We believe this is simply the tip of the iceberg of contacts that could have
placed their own agenda's over the American Public's interests.

b) Sunshined comments - Of the 650+ comments during the Sunshine period,
about
90% were sunshined, meaning ignored. The overwhelming majority of those
sunshined were from Teletruth and others who alerted customers that the
proposed laws would stop line sharing and give the four Bell companies
exclusive use of customer-funded fiber-based phone networks.

None of these sunshined persons or Teletruth were invited to meet to discuss
the impacts of these laws, even though our filings clearly showed that the
Triennial rules would harm any customer who wishes to utilize a competitive
DSL service using line sharing, which is the ability of a customer to use
the same phoneline for voice calls as well as DSL.

c) The rules that were voted on Feb. 20th were only draft rules. Both
Commissioners Copps and Adelstein pointed out that the rules that they were
voting on lacked adequate details.

d) In various cases, these rules were substantively changed when the final
rules were announced. From the draconian decision to increase the costs of
line-sharing 75% in three years, to a critical definition of the term
"fiber-to-the-home", where the word "residential" was removed in a
post-decision 'errata', it is clear that these decisions were not changed in
favor of the Public Interest.

To see some of the details, a copy of the FOIA, or more information about
the Triennial Review, go to http://www.teletruth.org/FOIA.html or contact
Bruce Kushnick at 212-777-5418 or brucekushnick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


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[antidote] FOIA Request of FCC Charman Powell and staff contacts during the Triennial Sunshine period

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