In a message dated 10/12/2004 6:00:56 PM Eastern Standard Time, dick@pobox.com writes:
Very well done work on very short notice. It's a virtual certainty that FCC Chairman Michael Powell will continue to disregard various rules and procedures in his unholy haste to jam ET Docket 04-37/03-104 through to a Report and Order... and the rest of the commissioners support his move, or are at least afraid to go against it because it has been ordered by the neocon-controlled White House to make it so.
Thanks, Dick. Late last evening, I received a call from two underlings in the FCC Office of the General Counsel, somewhat abashedly telling me that they had been asked to call me, and had reviewed our complaint (they didn't yet know about the motion). They suggested that the Chairman's attendance at the BPL demonstration and presentation was not an ex parte violation, because it fell, they believed (post-hoc) within one of the eleven very narrow and, in my view inapplicable, exceptions to the Sunshine Agenda period prohibition. The exception applies where "the presentation is requested by, or made with the advance approval of, the Commission or staff for the clarification or adduction of evidence, or for resolution of issues, including possible settlement. They also said something about how the presentation was mostly technical (which isn't true, apparently; a PVRC ham shot the event for the local NBC affiliate). The above, of course, is pure Bravo Sierra, and I essentially told them so (I think I said something to the effect that their post-hoc rationalization doesn't meet the "red face" test"). I thanked them for their call, since no one else had the professional integrity to call me back. I told them that we would address the issue in a different forum because we vehemently disagreed with their conclusion. I also told them that had filed a motion to recuse the Chairman, which seemed to worry them. I told them I had served their boss, the GC. They said they would deal with that. So the coverup is continuing..... Chris