IP Democracy: Senate Commerce Committee Site Goes Beyond the Pale

In one of the weirdest things I’ve seen in Washington, the Senate Commerce Committee’s web site seems to have been taken over by telco lobbyists. There’s a link on the home page that says “Senate Communications Bill” that jumps to a page that could easily be mistaken for material from one of those “astroturf” outfits promoting the bill’s passage.

This page provides a laundry list of the feel-good organizations that support the bill’s passage and provides a link to an appalling “brochure” that reads like it was written by AT&T. The brochure presents nuggets about why the telecom bill is a good thing and cites all the newspaper editorials that have come out against net neutrality regulations (no editorials that favor net neutrality, of course).

This brochure is nothing short of K Street collateral and appears to have been professionally designed.

I wonder what the Democrats on the committee, or those who oppose the bill anyway, think about this? It’s such a blatant display of pro-industry blather — on a Senate web site no less — and an utterly craven example of what many people already believe to be true, namely that politicians are in the pockets of industry.

As those who read IPD on a regular basis know, I wobble all the time on whether net neutrality regulations are a good thing, and tend to think the government’s involvement will screw things up. So my dismay at this, well, icky development doesn’t stem from some anti-industry stance. There is a lot of blather on the other side too; I wouldn’t want to see that stuff up on the Senate Commerce Committee web site either.

Update: Art Brodsky at Public Knowledge points out that the brochure has been pulled down from the site. But for posterity’s sake, Public Knowledge saved a copy. It’s here.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on August 3, 2006 1:22 PM to IP Democracy