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.
Cynthia Brumfield at 1:22 PM|Comments(0)
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