Issa Responds to Public Outcry over Baker Departure, Questions FCC

WASHINGTON -- House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski questioning the conduct of outgoing Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, who announced last week she would be leaving the agency to become a lobbyist for Comcast-NBC. Issa’s letter suggested that the FCC’s approval of the Comcast-NBC merger was so closely timed to Baker’s announcement that public trust in the integrity of the Commission had been damaged.

Since Baker’s announcement, Free Press and CREDO Action have collected more than 130,000 letters seeking a congressional investigation into Baker’s departure and apparent conflict of interest.

Issa Responds to Public Outcry over Baker Departure, Questions FCC

Demand that Congress investigate Baker’s conflict of interest.

Say No! to the FCC/Comcast merger

FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast – just four months after she voted to approve the Comcast-NBC merger.

Help us close the revolving door. Demand that Congress investigate Baker’s conflict of interest.

FCC makes white spaces available to public

On Tues. there was another vote besides the one you cast to put Barack Obama in the White House.

...the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve the unlicensed use of 'white spaces' -- empty airwaves between television channels [that will become available next year when all TV goes to digital] -- to provide high-speed Internet access nationwide. This vote follows an exhaustive 18-month study released last month by the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology that concluded new technology can use white spaces without harming adjacent TV signals.

In letters to the FCC and Congress, the nation's leading consumer, media and public interest groups voiced their strong support for opening white spaces. These groups include Free Press, the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, MoveOn.org, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause and the Center for Media Justice, among others.

Nearly every market in the United States has available white spaces; in some communities, more than three-quarters of the broadcast spectrum is unused. [Tuesday's] FCC vote allows innovators to develop new technologies that will bring Internet service to millions of Americans in underserved communities.

(From:Free Press)