Lawsuit seeks Ajit Pai's net neutrality talks with Internet providers

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 3:40 AM
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Lawsuit seeks Ajit Pai's net neutrality talks with
Internet providers
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>


Lawsuit seeks Ajit Pai’s net neutrality talks with Internet providers
FCC accused of not complying with FoIA request for Pai's talks with ISPs.
By JON BRODKIN
Jul 26 2017
<
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/lawsuit-seeks-ajit-pais-net-neutrality-talks-with-internet-providers/
>

The Federal Communications Commission was sued today by a group that says
the commission failed to comply with a public records request for
communications about net neutrality between FCC officials and Internet
service providers.

On April 26, a nonprofit called American Oversight filed a Freedom of
Information Act (FoIA) request asking the FCC for all records related to
communications on net neutrality between Internet service providers and
Chairman Ajit Pai or Pai's staff. The group asked for "correspondence,
e-mails, telephone call logs, calendar entries, meeting agendas," and any
other records of such communications.

The group also asked for similar records related to FCC communications with
members of Congress, congressional staff, and members of the media. But
American Oversight's lawsuit against the FCC says the commission hasn't
complied with the requests.

“The FCC has made it clear that they’re ignoring feedback from the general
public, so we’re going to court to find out who they’re actually listening
to about net neutrality," American Oversight Executive Director Austin
Evers said in the group's announcement of its lawsuit. "If the Trump
administration is going to let industry lobbyists rewrite the rules of the
Internet for millions of Americans, we’re going to make them do it in full
view of the public." (Evers was previously a US State Department lawyer.)

FCC repeatedly asked for delays, lawsuit says

American Oversight describes itself as an "organization committed to the
promotion of transparency in government" that files public records requests
to educate the public about federal government operations. The group's
complaint against the FCC in US District Court for the District of Columbia
was detailed in a Gizmodo story and is available here.

"After initially agreeing to process American Oversight’s requests quickly,
the FCC repeatedly delayed releasing the records even as the Trump
administration continued its work to roll back the open Internet rules,"
American Oversight said.

The FoIA law requires an agency to inform a records requester of the
agency's decision to grant or deny access to requested records within 20
business days and to release the records shortly after that.

The FCC repeatedly requested extensions after getting the FoIA request from
American Oversight, the group's complaint says. The nonprofit agreed to the
first two extension requests, giving the FCC until July 24 to respond. The
FCC asked for another one-month extension on July 21, but American
Oversight refused to agree to a third extension.

Since the July 24 deadline passed, "American Oversight has received no
further communication from FCC regarding the processing of its FOIA
requests," the complaint said.

American Oversight asked for a court order requiring the FCC to produce the
required records within 20 days and to pay damages and court costs.

[snip]

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