Blogger Pachacutec on the Corruption of Telecoms

This aricle appeared in the Huffington Post of October 11, 2007-m2k

[Right, that's crime boss Randall L. Stephenson, CEO of AT&T]

Monday I shared a train ride with Jane. She was headed to New York to make an appearance on a panel at NYU, and I was headed to Philly on business.

We talked and worked, though Jane was hampered by the failure of her Verizon mobile wireless service to connect her online. Why? Because, though she had been told her bill would be bundled with her cellphone service at the time she purchased the additional wireless service, they didn't do it, so her autopay system did not pay her wireless bill. Result? No service. Further result? An hour of senseless haggling, time on hold, and so forth with a "customer service" representative who researched the problem and then insisted on charging Jane a reconnection fee. . . for Verizon's mistake!

Everyone I know has stories like this. My AT&T wireless charges me out the wazoo and drops my calls with demonic frequency. Meanwhile, it seems Comcast, Verizon and AT&T garner an ever growing proportion of my monthly payments while providing me with less and less service.

If we had been on a train in Europe, not only would we have gotten to our destinations faster, but we would have had free wireless with no hassle. The reason the telecom industry is so bad is because it has bought congress, written anti-competitive, anti-consumer regulations into law, so that its services get worse and worse while it places itself on precisely the business path to destruction the US auto industry has already trod.

It lies to consumers on an individual level, as Jane experienced, and more broadly, launches dishonest anti-net neutrality campaigns and seeks to absolve itself from its participation in illegal surveillance of US citizens. Oh, and it tries to destroy free speech, thank you very much. The more it builds its business model around anti-competitive, anti-consumer corporate welfare and lies, the more it must cling to protectionist, anti-innovation strategies just to survive, systemically cutting the knees out from small businesses and innovative startups. It's a slow, steady slog toward business death. Just ask Ford how that works out.

What's more, the rumor is the Senate version of the new FISA bill, with the blessing of Harry Reid and the Democrats, will include retroactive immunity for the telecoms for their lawbreaking. We've been fighting today to prop up the House progressives to fight for a better version of the FISA bill in the House, but we also need to let Harry Reid and the rest of the capitulation caucus in the Senate know that retroactive immunity is purely unacceptable during the next few days.

Gee, are there any Democratic senators who might consider launching a filibuster on the Senate FISA bill, even against the will of the leadership, like maybe, anyone from a state that likes cheese, or a senator who guest blogs at SavetheInternet.org or anyone running for president who asserts he's truly committed to the Constitution?
What are your telecom nightmare stories? Share them in the comments.

(Send comments to:)
Pachacutec at Firedoglake.

Monday I shared a train ride with Jane. She was headed to New York to make an appearance on a panel at NYU, and I was headed to Philly on business.
We talked and worked, though Jane was hampered by the failure of her Verizon mobile wireless service to connect her online. Why? Because, though she had been told her bill would be bundled with her cellphone service at the time she purchased the additional wireless service, they didn't do it, so her autopay system did not pay her wireless bill. Result? No service. Further result? An hour of senseless haggling, time on hold, and so forth with a "customer service" representative who researched the problem and then insisted on charging Jane a reconnection fee. . . for Verizon's mistake!
Everyone I know has stories like this. My AT&T wireless charges me out the wazoo and drops my calls with demonic frequency. Meanwhile, it seems Comcast, Verizon and AT&T garner an ever growing proportion of my monthly payments while providing me with less and less service.
If we had been on a train in Europe, not only would we have gotten to our destinations faster, but we would have had free wireless with no hassle. The reason the telecom industry is so bad is because it has bought congress, written anti-competitive, anti-consumer regulations into law, so that its services get worse and worse while it places itself on precisely the business path to destruction the US auto industry has already trod.
It lies to consumers on an individual level, as Jane experienced, and more broadly, launches dishonest anti-net neutrality campaigns and seeks to absolve itself from its participation in illegal surveillance of US citizens. Oh, and it tries to destroy free speech, thank you very much. The more it builds its business model around anti-competitive, anti-consumer corporate welfare and lies, the more it must cling to protectionist, anti-innovation strategies just to survive, systemically cutting the knees out from small businesses and innovative startups. It's a slow, steady slog toward business death. Just ask Ford how that works out.
What's more, the rumor is the Senate version of the new FISA bill, with the blessing of Harry Reid and the Democrats, will include retroactive immunity for the telecoms for their lawbreaking. We've been fighting today to prop up the House progressives to fight for a better version of the FISA bill in the House, but we also need to let Harry Reid and the rest of the capitulation caucus in the Senate know that retroactive immunity is purely unacceptable during the next few days.
Gee, are there any Democratic senators who might consider launching a filibuster on the Senate FISA bill, even against the will of the leadership, like maybe, anyone from a state that likes cheese, or a senator who guest blogs at SavetheInternet.org or anyone running for president who asserts he's truly committed to the Constitution?
What are your telecom nightmare stories? Share them in the comments.
Pachacutec blogs at Firedoglake.

Response To Pete Kott's Theory On Appeal

Kott asks judge to toss jury decision : comments
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Posted: October 9, 2007 - 3:37 pm

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8 October 9, 2007 - 4:26pm | metanoia2k

This Is An Interesting Legal Theory

Forget "intent", established by the Giver through confession; set aside "force and effect" revealed through recorded conversations in which Kott clearly establishes a "duty" to the Giver by reporting on PPT developments, there is no "nexus" because Pete Kott was a FRIEND?????

yeah, sure.

Based on this theory, the only time someone could be convicted of insider trading, corruption or abuse of office would be if they had no relationship other than the business of bribery...

I give Kott's lawyer snaps for trying. I guess he feels he's gotta do something for all the money he's being paid.

Politics is,by its nature, a process of "influence" and the leveraging of "relationships". The question before the court is not whether there was a warm and fuzzy relationship between the suckuh and the suckee but whether he performed his duty in a corrupt and criminal manner. Kott's efforts to engineer a shut-out of the House with no PPT bill and his breathless play-by-play reporting to "Uncle Bill" is enough of a nexus to satisfy me.

Whether one is a whore for pleasure, for money or for devotion, one are still a whore;peddling one's influence for the approval of the Pimp Daddy is no less corrupt than a straight quid pro quo. In this case, money may not have turned the wheel, but it sure greased it.

The evidence shows that Pete Kott saw his job was to stand and deliver for Bill Allen and he saw his role as a state legislator as means to that end. He was not elected to work for Bill Allen.

(Exit with banjo playing the theme from Deliverance)

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Airport security struggles with reality

ELSTUN LAUESEN
COMMENT

(Published: October 3, 2007)
Do you remember this old joke: A guy comes into a bar wearing a tinfoil hat. He sits down and orders a drink. The bartender asks him about the tinfoil on his head. "I have a mortal fear of being eaten by bears, so I wear this on my head to keep them away." The bartender replies that bears haven't been seen in these parts for years. The customer replies proudly, "See ... it works!"

Lately, whenever someone tells me that the so-called "War on Terror" is working because there has been no attack on the United States since 2001, I look for the tinfoil hat.

We should call the Department Homeland Security by its functional name: Department of Homeland Insecurity. In the wake of 9/11 this nation has unquestioningly accepted layers of stupid rules each piled upon the other, from shucking shoes to placing liquids and gels in quart-sized plastic bags on the airport screening conveyor belt. I was recently annoyed by Coast Guard rules that force inter-island ferry passengers in Ketchikan to carry their luggage in the driving rain from the terminal to the cart left parked hundreds of feet away at the ferry ramp. After assisting an elderly couple struggling with heavy bags, I returned to the ticket agent and asked her why the driver doesn't pull up to the terminal and let us load our luggage more conveniently. "Coast Guard rules" she said quickly. Obviously I was not the first to ask. "They don't want the loading and unloading to be so close to their building -- it's for security reasons." I rolled my eyes. The agent added: "I know ... it doesn't make any sense. If someone really wanted to do something ... well ... you know."

My travel experiences under the Idiocracy of Homeland Security have given me lots of waiting time to stew about what our country has become in the years since Sept. 11. My thoughts frequently turn on two of the main dogma of the Warrior-In-Chief.

• The world changed on Sept. 11, 2001 -- Of course this statement is untrue. This is still the same old world as before, fraught with dangers and uncertainties. What has changed is our frontier perception of fortress America: We have been dramatically attacked on our own soil. The attack caught us offguard in much the same way as the attack on Pearl Harbor shocked and surprised us. But unlike the ebullient FDR who took us into World War II calling for courage and sacrifice, GWB calls on us to be afraid and to keep consuming.

By embracing fear, our political leaders have created a kind of post-9/11 traumatic stress disorder. It just seems to me that our domestic and foreign policies have become more insular, violent and paranoid. For the past several years, poor old Uncle Sam has been sitting up in the attic cleaning his rifle and peeking out of his curtain, scaring the neighbors. Now the crazy old goat is building a giant fence around his yard to keep out the "aliens."

• Our enemies hate us for our freedom and our values -- By that measure, I think we are losing the war -- not militarily, since this war has no military objectives; we seem to be compromising the very freedoms and values we are defending. As comedian Bill Maher says, "If we lose our sense of humor, the terrorists will have won." Likewise, if we are fighting to defend our freedom, then the USA Patriot Act is an act of friendly fire, badly wounding our cause. The 9/11 PTSD also seems to be draining our optimism as a people, a terrible fate for the nation that has been a beacon of hope to others for over 200 years.

All that being said, however, I will probably continue my own sheeplike compliance with the silly rituals of Homeland Insecurity, including submitting my smelly shoes for security screening and schlepping my bags around concrete barriers to the ferry dock.

I have recently noticed something hopeful, however: A lot of us sheep are starting to snarl at the herders -- especially the ones wearing the tinfoil hats.




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Elstun Lauesen is a rural development specialist. E-mail, elauesen@oz.net.