Teletruth’s Bruce Kushnick is the most vocal person I know opposing just about everything the telecom companies are doing. Here are some of his latest comments calling for a boycott. Most people probably aren’t familiar with terms like Astroturf so as a primer, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on the term:

A form of propaganda, industry astroturfing attempts to selectively affect the emotions of the public. Whether trying to win a campaign, be the top music record seller, the top book seller, or gain political support, the industries are constantly in search of new means of accomplishing these goals.

The most frequently identified cases of astroturfing are found in recent political history. Public interest in politics is decreasing in America, as is support for political parties. In order to keep public involvement in advocating issues high, the organizations need new and creative ways to spark interest. The most successful political movements involve the exercise of existing power to achieve widespread public consent, so observers may disagree on the line between acceptable support of grassroots activism and astroturfing.

Astroturfing techniques usually consist of a few people discreetly posing as mass numbers of activists advocating a specific cause. Supporters or employees will manipulate the degree of interest through letters to the editor, e-mails, blog posts, crossposts, trackbacks, etc. They are instructed on what to say, how to say it, where to send it, and how to make it appear that their indignation, appreciation, joy, or hate is entirely spontaneous and independent; thus being "real" emotions and concerns rather than the product of an orchestrated campaign. Local newspapers are often victims of astroturfing, by publishing letters that are identical to letters other newspapers have received.

It has become easier to structure an astroturfing campaign because the cost and effort to email (especially a pre-written, sign-your-name-at-the-bottom email) is so low. Companies may use a boiler room, full of telephones and computers, where hired activists locate people and groups that create enthusiasm for the specified cause. Also, the use of psychographics allows hired supporters to persuade their targeted audience. This correlates with the merge-purge technique that combines information about an individual from multiple databases. Companies can then turn hypothetical supporters into activists for the cause. This leads to misuse of the Internet, for one person is able to play the role of a whole group of like-minded people (see also Internet sock puppet).

News consolidation services, such as Google News, as well as PR Watch and Sourcewatch, have made it easier to spot such campaigns through the search of specific key phrases that bring up results showing identical letters, articles, blogs, websites, etc.

Wikipedia and Wikinews have been the vehicle of astroturfing campaigns. In this strategy, press releases and product information is written by an employee of a company and made to look as though some people have a genuine interest in the forthcoming product and are willing to write professional quality articles within minutes of the product announcement.

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Teletruth News Alert: February 6th, 2006.

BOYCOTT: Event February 6th, 2006.

The Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, the School of Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University and the Federal Communications Bar Association present "The Telecommunications Act of 1996:

Ten Years Later" http://www.citi.columbia.edu/events/telecom10agenda.shtml

The Telecom Act of 1996 was supposed to bring competition that would speed the deployment of broadband and lower prices. However, while America was Number 1 in the web in the 1990’s, after a decade, America is now 16th in the world in broadband and most of the competitors, including AT&T and MCI, have been closed out of competition. In these cases, they were sold to the local phone companies, SBC and Verizon.

But what you might not know is that there is a secret group of astroturf consumer groups who work for and are funded by the phone companies’
Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and claim that they represent American Consumers.

And at least two of the speakers at this event — TRAC and APT, are part of Issue Dynamic’s cabal, which is run by Sam Simon. Issue Dynamics is one of the Bells’ ringleaders in creating astroturf groups and campaigns — campaigns designed to put the phone companies’ corporate needs above the public interest. We call these coordinated networks "skunkworks".

What a slap in the face it is to have George Wash U, Columbia and the FCC Bar Association raise these front groups to the status of "authentic", putting them on their stage.

Here’s a series of resources about Sam Simon, Issue Dynamics, TRAC and APT.
http://www.newnetworks.com/skunkworks101.html

This is more insidious than campaign financing — it is large corporations controlling America‘s telecommunications and broadband services through deceit. Millions and millions of dollars in slush funds are spent on lots of lobbying, advertising, donations, and non-profit think tanks.

Truth is, they have infiltrated not only academia, but the FCC and even the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee. While Congress discusses

K Street

and paid-off politicians, the real unseen enemy are the Corporations, who, through deceptive practices, now control America‘s ‘public interest’, not the public.

Let’s be specific. Here’s some of the speakers and their unspoken bios.

1) Sam Simon, Telecommunication Research and Action Center (TRAC); President, Issue Dynamics, Inc.

"Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Ten Years Ago? Residential Consumers and Telecommunications Reform."

TRAC was designed to help the Bell companies enter long distance services and while claiming to be independent, it is run out of Issue Dynamic’s offices. And Issue Dynamics’ clients are funded by deep pockets — the telephone industry’s mega bells – Verizon and SBC,

Here’s more on TRAC
, including some of their financials.
http://www.newnetworks.com/skunkworksTRAC.html

How is the person who works for the Bell companies supposed to address what happened to consumers over the last 10 years? Issue Dynamics is also helping to run various current skunkworks campaigns to help to close down municipalities offering broadband, put Universal Service taxes on VOIP, and other nasty deeds.

Wifi Networking News collected various ties between Issue Dynamics and other groups, like New Millennium Research Council, all funded by the Bell corporations and all writing reports to harm municipalities who want to offer Wifi or fiberize their communities.
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/cat_sock_puppets.html

Speaker 2:

2) "Dan Phythyon, Policy Director and General Counsel for the Alliance for Public Technology (APT); former Chief of FCC Wireless Communications Bureau

"On the tenth anniversary of the 1996 Act, it’s time to stop agonizing over why it hasn’t worked as "intended" and move on to the process of enacting new legislation. Since that act will likely be outdated within a few years, too, let’s also think about how we can make the process of legislating on telecom matters more palatable."

What the Bio doesn’t say is this that the speaker is also Counsel for the USTA, the United States Telephone Association, which is the Bell companies’ largest lobbying association.
APT is funded by the Bell companies. The reason they don’t want to look at what didn’t work is because it would unveil the role of the various astroturf groups to influence policy and a total lack of enforcement and bad rulings by the FCC.

http://www.newnetworks.com/skunkworksAPT.html

Meanwhile, Alliance for Public Technology claims it is "composed of public interest groups and individuals, some of whom historically have been left out of the Information Age, including the elderly, minorities, low income groups and people with disabilities"

And yet, APT is sponsored by Verizon, BellSouth, SBC and the former Pac Bell. http://www.apt.org/about/sponafflt.html.

How many bought off or co-opted consumer groups does it take to harm the agenda?

APT, TRAC and the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee

What’s really appalling is that APT and TRAC are both on the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee… Talk about "Corporate capture".

Teletruth was on the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee in 2003-2004, and was not asked back after we decided that it was not proper for the Committee to have astroturf groups and the phone companies, such as Verizon, as well as the wireless companies’ association, CTIA, which is also comprised of Verizon and SBC, as members of the "Consumer Committee" — The FCC did nothing about our complaint to date.
http://www.teletruth.org/consumeradvisory.html

3) John Thorne, Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Verizon;
Adjunct Faculty, Columbia Law School

Next we have John Thorne of Verizon, who also teaches at Columbia, discussing Lenin… This is like Stalin talking about a "Free economy". He exclaims that the new enemy is "GOOGLE"?

"As Lenin once remarked on the subject of tanks, quantity has a quality all of its own. Lenin never knew Google. The drafters of the 1996 Act and the 1996 FCC didn’t know Google either. This may explain how the legal regime alternately attracts or repels investment in the new broadband media."

The Bells are now claiming that Google and other companies must pay them extortion money to use the networks and are against "Net Neutrality". Pay us or your service gets worse. — Who gave them control over the Public Switch

Telephone Network (PSTN)?

And while having Verizon on a panel about the Telecom Act is interesting, what’s missing on the panel are the independent Internet Service Provider (ISPs) and Competitive Local Exchange Companies (CLECs). The reason they are missing is because while the Telecom Act of 1996 was supposed to open the networks up for competition, the FCC’s last 5 years of actions has been to attack all competition, removing wholesale pricing for local phone service, which put AT&T and MCI up for sale, and "line-sharing", using a phone line for DSL, that helped to killed off 6000 ISPs who offered competitive products.

Do the Bells’ really ‘own’ the networks?

4) Just a Bad Analysis

We also have just-plain-wrong analysis being offered up. For example, this Speaker’s talk claims that the ‘open video systems’ plan was never worked out because of ‘onerous’ regulations?

 "In its creation of "Open Video Systems" ("OVS"), the 1996 Act attempted to create a new hybrid mass communications/telecom regulatory status, with both cable television’s programming services and common carriers’ obligations to third parties. The purpose of the provision seemed to be attracting local exchange telephone (LEC) and other companies to the multichannel video business. This plan never worked out, however, because of overly onerous regulation and lack of LEC interest. Ironically enough, however, the major Regional Bell Operation Companies have announced campaigns to offer video, voice, and data directly to the home."

Onerous regulations?

$200 Billion Broadband Scandal — The truth of the matter is that customers subsidized fiber optic networks they never received. ‘OVS’ didn’t work because the phone companies lied to the public — they couldn’t build the networks they were being subsidized to build.

Starting in the 1990’s the Bells promised to rewire America state-by-state, with fiber optics to the home if the state regulations were removed that controlled profits. Billions were collected by state with NO fiber to the home deployments completed.

By 2006, America 86 million households should have been rewired, capable of 45 Mbps and 500 channels. Instead, we got DSL over the old copper wiring.

‘OVS’ stands for ‘Open Video’, because the networks that were funded by customers were to be OPEN to all forms of competition.

We estimate that customers paid over $200 billion in excess profits and tax perks, about $2000 per household for networks they never received.

If you think Enron is a scandal, Enron is gnat compared to SBC and Verizon’s fiber optic bait-and-switch.

http://www.newnetworks.com/Scandalreslease13006.htm

Punchline:

America is 16th in broadband and the services we are getting are inferior to most other countries who are now eating our technology lunch. Korea and Japan offer 100 Mbps as standard at $40.  Verizon’s new fiber service FIOS and SBC’s Lightspeed are inferior, closed networks. FIOS cost $199 for a top speed of 30 Mbps — and Lightspeed may never get rolled out fully.

Astroturf groups at every turn have harmed the public
interest, from lobbying to give the phone companies exclusive rights to the networks and harming competition, harming municipalities’ trying to deploy because the phone companies didn’t deliver, or even helping to tax and surcharge VOIP to make it less competitive.

What we present here is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of groups involved, impacting the decisions both on a state as well as federal level.

And yet, Sam Simon, Alliance for Public Technology and TRAC are presenting as consumers. It should say — APT and TRAC are sock puppets for the Bell companies.

We are ashamed. Boycott this event and ask any reporter who covers it to start investigating the speakers. Call your Congressmen and ask for an investigation to clean up this mess.

We respect some of the speakers, such as Andrew Schwartzmen of Media Access.

Bruce Kushnick, Teletruth, [email protected]
Tom Allibone, Teletruth, [email protected]