Comcast Gets Hard Up At FCC Meeting 163
alphadogg notes a story over at portfolio.com claiming, and presenting evidence, that Comcast paid people off the street to take up room at yesterday's FCC hearing in Massachusetts. Comcast acknowledges that it paid people to hold places in line for its employees. But Save The Internet claims that people were bussed in by Comcast and then took up almost all available seats in the meeting room 90 minutes before the meeting opened, blocking scores of interested people from attending. Such tactics are not unheard of in Washington DC, but how appropriate are they in a regional meeting on a college campus?
Astroturfing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Astroturfing? (Score:5, Funny)
Judging from the photo [portfolio.com], it's not a very demanding job.
I'm in the neighborhood, and wouldn't have minded getting paid to stop by for a nap, although preferably not on Camo Dude's shoulder. And I'd have happily complained about RCN for free!
I was on campus today (Score:5, Informative)
I'm contacting some friends in the Crimson to see if they plan to cover this in tomorrow's paper.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Astroturfing? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I want to know is how much one could get per hour as a professional "warm butt"--and what sort of requirements for participation there may or may not be. Are you contractually obligated to applaud, shout, and carry on? Or can you just sit and read a book?
What if you speak out against those who pay you? "I'm here because Comcast paid me to be here, however I support net neutrality."
FalconRe: (Score:2)
Best to make sure that you get your money first. Though the implication here is that these people were paid to "reserve a seat", rather than as a Comcast proxy.
Maybe the venue should have adopted the same kind of policy as many ammusment parks. Where this is considered to be "queue jumping", likely to get both people evicted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Astroturfing? (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm all for protesting walmart although I don't think it's right to pay people to do it. And I think what comcast did was much much shadier.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Astroturfing? (Score:4, Interesting)
A wal-mart employee that protests has a fair chance of facing increased scrutiny leading to firing for some sort of jusitifiable, but trivial, violation. When the protests are outsourced to independents, the employees reduce their risk (but increase their costs since they have to pay these people).
Furthermore, despite their rhetoric, unions are about improving the situation of union members, not the population as a whole. So it may seem hypocritical to outsource the protesting, but if the end result is better for union members then so be it.
Retaliation: A Human Rights Abuse (Score:2)
"At first I agreed. But now I don't. And it is because of retaliation."
Note that according to Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [un.org], that is a human rights abuse and should be prosecuted as such; it's the sign of a sick governmental body that can't manage it.
Re: (Score:2)
Note that according to Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that is a human rights abuse and should be prosecuted as such; it's the sign of a sick governmental body that can't manage it.
You should note that the UDHR is not enforceable anywhere, it's not a law of any nation.
Furthermore it's impractical to enforce any actual laws against that sort of under-cover retaliation because it is extremely difficult to prove - you'd waste all available resources weeding out all the false positives. Sure, the egregious cases are easy, but we aren't talking about egregious cases.
Re: (Score:2)
I very much recognize that the UDHR is not particularly enforceable at present. But the United States is bound by treaty to at least recognize it, and even that aside, there are laws against retaliation in the United States. While they are difficult to prove, I don't think that difficulty is an excuse for not pursuing an injustice. If the government cannot manage to enforce it's laws, then it's not doing it's job - and that undermines the whole system.
I think that in particular, when you have a large compa
Re: (Score:2)
But the United States is bound by treaty to at least recognize it
Which has zero meaning.
I think that in particular, when you have a large company persecuting dissenting employees, the government has a duty to advocate for the people. Even if that advocacy never results in 'won' cases, it increases the friction, the energy cost, of doing business in a people-adverse way.
You are advocating for justice through barratry. In effect, the presumption of guilt.
Re: (Score:2)
"Which has zero meaning."
I refer you to the Constitution [usconstitution.net]. In Article 6 we find;
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
While you may ascribe zero meaning to it, you'd be wrong.
"You a
Re: (Score:2)
While you may ascribe zero meaning to it, you'd be wrong.
The UHDR is not a treaty. Thus article 6 has ZERO MEANING in relation to the UHDR.
I am advocating no such thing.
Sorry dude, but there is NO OTHER WAY to interpret, "Even if that advocacy never results in 'won' cases, it increases the friction, the energy cost, of doing business in a people-adverse way." except as advocating for barratry. You are welcome to retract that statement though.
Re: (Score:2)
I give you The UN Charter [wikipedia.org], a treaty signed by the United States in 1945.
As for your difficulty in interpreting statements, try this; even if an infinite number of suits are brought by one entirely abstract entity against another, more influential entity, it would be within the duty of the government to advocate for the less influential - regardless of the success rate of those suits. Perhaps you're running to the idea that they would be suits without cause - perfectly understandable, really. However, I ten
Re: (Score:2)
I give you The UN Charter, a treaty signed by the United States in 1945.
Oh boy you got me now! Totally proved your point! How could I have ever questioned you? It's right there in the first chapter of the UN Charter - ALL DECLARATIONS BY THE UNITED NATIONS HAVE THE FULL FORCE AND BINDING OF INTERNATIONAL TREATIES. Why didn't I know that?
You should not have a system that encourages behavior that makes seeking justice difficult; rather the opposite.
The path to hell is paved with good intentions. You might want to investigate the law of unintended consequences, even though Congress never passed it, the UN never made it a non-binding declaration, it is still one of the highest laws of
Re: (Score:2)
Alright... so let me get this straight. You're for the seeking justice being hard? Because to do the opposite would somehow magically conjure (negative, I assume?) unintended consequences? Whereas if you refuse to support individual rights, it's all going to be magically ok?
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to your case if you had any sort of actual basis to believe that protecting the corporations here is the smart governmental move. But I'm not seeing it. Much like I'm not seeing how you seem to object to my
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Wal-Mart is indeed big
Re: (Score:2)
Some of those waitresses get average $15/hr tips, and on a good day you can break $30/hr for some of the day (serve a large party where the tip is like 20% of $400 and they're there for 2-3 hours). Some crappy places take everyone's tips, pool them, and distribute them flat (not fair; if you serve 4
Re: (Score:2)
Tipping is what needs to die. I'm sorry, but $10/hr for transporting a single piece of paper 100ft in one direction and a couple of plates in the other direction is waaay over paid. When we talk about numbers in the range of $30/hr, it is down right vulgar. Many skilled laborers and artisans that don't make that kind of money; and when they can, often not regularly. Add in the fact that tipping is based on a percent, it is beyond idiotic! I'm sorry, but a 3lbs plate at $5.00 d
Tipping Rocks (Score:2)
As I see it, there are two possible systems. In the one you seem to support, you pay a higher meal fee - as determined by the restaurant - and that restaurant compensates the wait staff accordingly. Presumably, ethically, this also means that the wait staff has an at-least-equal-to-minimum-wage salary, rather than the commonly held less-than-minimum-wage salary legal by law because tips are assumed.
In the second system, the one we are under now, the restaurant has lower prices but it is, essentially, off-l
Re: (Score:2)
It's just that the two most common systems are cheap food with no service, or good food with service.
There is still the possibility of good food with no service(priced accordingly), which is what the GP wishes for. It occurs here and there in varying forms(buffets, order&pick-up diners), and the GP's desire is shared by others who have lamented the tip-bas
Re: (Score:2)
"Just like" the popularity of Windows may be an overstatement; tipping has been around for millenia, after all, whereas the Windows OS has most certainly not. A better analogy might be taxes; sure, it might be, in some respects, better if all the various land and property owners paid for their own services - allowing them to vote with dollars which are more important. But the needs of the overall society are not exactly served. Taxes are an imperfect but workable solution.
That said, I'm not sure you're suf
Re: (Score:2)
No one is arguing that. The primary problem with tipping is that value is not proportionate the the service. Not even close. Add to the fact that you already PAID for that service (it's included in your meal
Re: (Score:2)
"The primary problem with tipping is that value is not proportionate the the service. Not even close."
How do you figure? A $20 meal with a 20% tip is $4. Assuming a meal length of 45 minutes, I have to ask, would you serve someone for less than $6 an hour?
But that is actually beside the point; if the general populace is willing to pay $6/hr, $30/hr or $300/hr for personal service, that is the going price. That is what the service is worth because that is what people are willing to pay for it. The remova
Re: (Score:2)
In terms of numbers of people or dollars?
In terms of number of people, which is not to say the dollar figure is small (frankly I don't remember, but it's a large figure). The problem with chasing these people is that from each, the loss to our coffers are relatively small, but there are a lot of them. Worse, proving it is problematic and time consuming
Re: (Score:2)
"Worse, proving it is problematic and time consuming so the IRS would rather chase other people."
Yes. As they should. No one is benefited by the IRS going after pocket change from lots of people. In fact, given that that money is going to people who are not hoarding it, but rather turning around and spending into the system again, one might argue that the downsides are twofold. This what they classify as a 'little' problem.
With two parents working the typical case these days, eating out in many house h
Re: (Score:2)
"You seem like a smart person so I have no doubt you'll be able to figure out where the huge holes are at."
By the by, this is the worst sort of contemptuous rhetoric. If you can't cite a specific hole in the argument, don't pretend like it's there and everyone around you is too stupid to see it. I think everyone on Slashdot - myself included - could do to remember this better.
Re: (Score:2)
You've completely missed the point. If they were not on a tipping system which encourages tax fraud, there would be no reason for the IRS to be concerned with these point in the first place.
Bullshit. Eating out is not a necessity, it is a choice. There are many, many easy methods of cheaply prepping your own food, many of which do not require dishes or any other of the attendant needs of normal food prep. I do
Re: (Score:2)
I guess *I* presumed too much. It would seem you're incapable of self reflection so a request for critical examination of your position is nothing but rhetoric. I was sincere when I wrote that and continue to be. You do come across as smart. Sometimes isn't easier to ask for someone to look within than it is to bang them over the head while writing a book which is likely to
Re: (Score:2)
I think your basic misconception is that the amount you are compensated for a job should be a direct function of the work and skill it requires. This is basically untrue; you may not wish to pay wait staff for the luxury of them serving you, but the fact is that that task is valued in our economy. If it were not, it would not be paid for. It then simply becomes a matter for how you pay for it.
Further, you seek to obfuscate this by niggling over peripheral issues. If you're actually concerned with waitstaff
Re: (Score:2)
I know it is untrue. That's the basis for my entire rant!
Since you're still in denial about looks versus pay, I sincerely invite you to do some home work. You're clearly uninformed on the topic.
Regardless we don't see eye to eye, the exchange was pleasant. Enjoy.
Re: (Score:2)
You've obviously never experienced dining with an asshole waiter. The fact is, your waitress IS a skilled worker. It's fucking hard to deal with customers. You could be insignificant; you could be a dick and they actively leave; or you could inject some friendly comments and smiles in passing and good purchase/dining/whatever suggestions and make them come back purely on good service. And when you're carrying plates for 6-8 people and (by the way) at least trying to memorize who ordered what, a 20% tip
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So yeah, I was at IBM today trying to sell them on our new eCommerce platform; I don't know why they opted to build their own on WebSphere, I told them flat out we just knew what we were doing better than they did and they'd most probably screw it up and cost themselves assholis
Walmart and Unions (Score:2)
"Why is everybody so much against Wal-Mart?"
I give you these:
Article describing the impact of Walmart on local economies and the 'cost' of raising their floor wage to $10/hr [huffingtonpost.com]
Book describing what it's like living on minimum wage in America [amazon.com]
In short; Walmart is exploitative of it's workers. Greed keeps it that way, and supporting Walmart supports that same sin.
As to the rest of it; I know everyone dislikes Unions, but I'm always taken aback when people rail against them. Unions protect you as much
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe someone could start an actual "rent-a-mob" agency
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Astroturfing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It was Comcast that was reported as paying people to stuff the hearing.
P.S.: No, this isn't an ethical approach, whether in Washington DC or elsewhere. But if it isn't illegal, then immoral companies will do it. Especially if they have no rational grounds to forward in favor of the decision that they want to have reached.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's "would have jumped"!
It wasn't all bad (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like our ex-mayor (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
just like OOXML! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:just like OOXML! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it any surprise? Our political and business leaders have been teaching us more and more all that the path to success is scumbaggery. Lie, chisel, and cheat; and as long as you are powerful enough to get away with it, you will be richly rewarded. Honor, ethics, and good reputation are quaintly outmoded concepts, and those who cling to such silly traditions are in a race to be the last sucker.
The problem is not that people will attempt such venality to get ahead; this has always been the case. The problem is that, increasingly IMHO, the rest of us let them get away with this crap with their reputations intact.
business (Score:2)
Honor, ethics, and good reputation are quaintly outmoded concepts, and those who cling to such silly traditions are in a race to be the last sucker.
While a lot of businesses may not operate this way some do, and they are doing well. One of the fastest growing grocery store chains is Whole Foods Market [google.com] which does. Their mission statement, Declaration of Interdependence [wholefoodsmarket.com] goes over what they work on.
I know this is only one example but there are others.
Falcon
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I would hardly hold up Whole Foods as an example in Ethics [boston.com]
I hadn't seen that before, thanks.
FalconThey're not unheard of tactics? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Comcast branching out (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Who cares where it is located? (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? I am all for thinking that this is dick move but to ask "how appropriate" it is seems a little ridiculous. It's a fucking college campus -- if anything, it shouldn't be permitted in "Washington, DC" (whatever that means) but if someone wants to fill a campus auditorium with highlighter toting narcoleptics, so be it.
All this shows is that Comcast is willing to play dirtier than ever to ensure that their network operates in the manner they deem necessary. Normally I couldn't care less what a private business does with its customers but when they have a permitted monopoly in as many areas as they do, they should be held accountable for the bullshit they have been pulling using pipes that my tax dollars helped fund.
Re:Who cares where it is located? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who cares where it is located? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Is 'subverting the democratic process' illegal in the US?
A fair response would be to have another hearing with the folks that couldn't get in, and allow Comcast one paralegal in the meeting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All this shows is that Comcast is willing to play dirtier than ever to ensure that their network operates in the manner they deem necessary. Normally I couldn't care less what a private business does with its customers but when they have a permitted monopoly in as many areas as they do, they should be held accountable for the bullshit they have been pulling using pipes that my tax dollars helped fund.
if you really want to get the attention of comcast (and others), everyone should buy up as much stock as possible in comcast (and others), assign it to a voting block and force them to do the right thing by the power of voting stock. I know it sounds simplistic, but sometimes, its the simple things that get the job done.
Re:Who cares where it is located? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to organize the masses and get the attention of Comcast, wouldn't just having people switch to a competing service (satellite TV, DSL Internet, etc) be the sensical way to send a message?
If you don't th
Buying free speech (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh wait...
What does this say (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What does this say (Score:5, Insightful)
Desperation (Score:5, Interesting)
Commonplace in Washington (Score:5, Informative)
Since lines form hours ahead of time for meetings and other public discussions, its a waste of time to force the lobbyist themselves to be waiting in line for 2-3 hours, so they pay someone to hold a place. I believe it was the Colbert Report that actually did a piece on this within the last couple of months. I think there was possibly some legislation being floated that would make some judgments on this practice.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, the more you have these lobbyists tied up waiting, the less you have them actually lobbying--so perhaps the congresscritters might have to listen to their constituents for once, if only out of sheer boredom.
Re: (Score:2)
Ask any 1st grader.
This should not be allowed at all. You can have the person behind you save your seat, briefly. But if you are gone longer then 10 minutes, or the doors open while you are away. Too Bad, So sad.
"no Swappies", or "Cutsies" either.
Re:Commonplace in Washington (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but you make the erroneous assumption that D.C. lobbyists are as mature as 1st graders...
Re: (Score:2)
But from an economic standpoint, the market has decided that lobbyist time is very valuable (yeah, yeah, this is due to restrictions on supply of lobbyists, as well as constaints on who has access to politicians). In a capitalist system, we must assume that lobbyists produce something of value, since the market has assigned value to their labor.
So what we're left with is that it's a very inefficient use of resources to have the lobbyists waiting in line. We're all be
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the way I see it, there are other possibilities.
1) More lobbyists (which would cost their backers more)
2) The same number of Lobbyist, but spread out thinner (since each would campaign less)
3) Less Lobbyists (since some might decide that sitting in line for hours is not something they care to do), or perhaps less "Competent" Lobbyists, combined with more cheap and less compet
Re:Commonplace in Washington (Score:5, Informative)
I never liked doing line standings, though they usually paid well (relative to my average income back then); besides being deadly boring, there was always a sort of bitter ethical aftertaste, it's true. I think the last one I did was for one of the asbestos hearings; I'll never forget seeing the looks on the faces of what appeared to be genuine concerned citizens, showing up at what they thought was an early hour only to find themselves effectively locked out of the room by a ragged bunch of guys in rain jackets and shoes that close with velcro - who were only proxies for three-piece suits and wing tips, but whatever.
The deal (for whoever's interested in these things) is you show up at one of the Senate or House office buildings at some crazy hour, usually well before dawn or even a day or two ahead of time, and wait. The building isn't open yet, so you have to wait outside, and then march in to the hallway near the assigned hearing room, trying to preserve the order of the line as it was. Sometimes the hearing room is a ways from the open entrance; guys want to move up in line or at least not lose too many places, everybody starts walking faster and the line will break into a sprint. Kind of fun to run across the floor of the Hart building at 5am, bike cleats ringing on marble, but as things are generally a lot more locked down on the Hill these days I doubt if this happens much anymore.
So one problem, for the waiter, is that while this is basically an accepted practice the Capitol Hill police don't really fully condone it, either. I'm guessing that there's no clear regulations, let alone laws, covering these things, but once you're inside the cops will threaten to kick you out if you try to sit down, or leave a bag or other placeholder in line while you use the bathroom. If they catch you holding someone else's place in line (besides the one person who's paying you to be there, natch) they'll wait for the other guy to come back and throw you both out. Their right to do any of these things is pretty vaguely defined, but good luck trying to lodge a complaint.
Of course for important hearings where people are waiting for many hours beforehand, some bending of these rules has to happen, and so it does, but you have to defer to the cops by not doing it in front of their faces. They in turn give a little leeway; right up until an hour or so before the hearing, they only walk down the line once in 20-30 minutes, then as the time approaches they come by more and more often. By the time the lawyers and lobbyists show up it's a reasonably orderly scene. You're not really supposed to just have a sign out, airport-limo style, because somehow that is considered too blatant. So there's this funny school-dance thing that happens where a bunch of suits are walking up and down the line, looking for their guy or guys, both sides murmuring the names of various client firms. Once you find each other you switch out, and the cop who was diligently making sure you didn't hold your buddy's place for five minutes while he went to take a piss will stand there and watch and not say a damn thing.
I have a very low opinion of the Capitol Hill police, for reasons only tangentially related to the above, so excuse me if that colors my description; I'm just describing the phenomenon from the underling's perspective for anyone who cares to know about it.
Getting paid to sleep through an FCC hearing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, someone should open an investigation as to how many hundreds or thousands of $$$$ of cash were paid. I'll bet Comcast doesn't have 1099s for the people they paid, which they probably illegally did with CASH...
Re: (Score:2)
Using petty cash for this type of thing is interesting though. Although it's barely a rounding error in a company of their size, even a $2 pack of Bics from Staples produces a receipt. Can't imagine there's any paper trail in a scheme like this.
Comcast should lose for that (Score:2, Insightful)
Comcast (Score:4, Funny)
I was in line (Score:5, Informative)
The event was run by the Berkman Center and even people who identified themselves as working for Berkman were turned away. Even a reporter who just wanted to stand in the back and take photos was hassled by the cops - I didn't stay long enough to see if they let him in. There were a lot of people who arrived around the time I did (fifteen minutes early) and insisted that someone was holding their seat, so maybe there is some truth to the part about the people holding seats for Comcast employees - but - the Harvard cops wouldn't let these people by unless they called the person holding the seat and that person came out, so unless Comcast provided their employees with the cell numbers of the seat fillers they wouldn't have gotten in anyway.
I'm so mad about this that I want to tell everyone I know to cancel their comcast service, but because of the telecom duopoly most of the people I know who have comcast would probably have to pay a lot more to switch.
Someone has to say it... (Score:3, Funny)
Just a good thing Ballmer wasn't there, they wouldn't have been any chairs for THEM to sit on!
The Problem is a Lack of Ethics and Honesty (Score:4, Insightful)
So much of a free society depends on ethics and the deal of ethics will be the death of freedom.
This IS the FCC, after all (Score:4, Interesting)
(1) provide broad- and net-cast of the proceedings, and
(2) provide for text and voice reception to the panel for questions from the audience, local and remote, and
(3) provide a moderator whose job it is to see that the relevant questions are answered, or else specifically and overtly note that the relevant questions were non-answered with misdirection through irrelevant and worthless answers.
Announce that this is how it's going to run, and I'll give 10 to 1 that Comcast will refuse to participate. Announce that independent testing has confirmed they've lied about their "packet shaping" blockage of P2P traffic, and I'll raise it to 100 to 1.
Any day now one or another of these traffic blocking ISPs is going to blame participation in the goobermint's wire tapping program for the "unavoidable periodic slowdowns of certain types of traffic due to redirection of 'traffic of interest'" for analysis by the spooks. It's a lie that they all know will be recognized a such, but will be allowed to slip by the sheeple since it's for catching the terrorists who might want to blow up the Grand Canyon or some such.
NSA:
War Is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
We're Running a Little Behind
New Technology (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why in Massachusetts? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, I don't know about Y!, but Google, Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all have branch offices in that area.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean, Lobbyists.
All of the companies you mention have offices is Massachusetts.
As much as I'm going to get modded down for this, Comcast has been royally fucked in Massachusetts. Comcast is required to license their business with every town / city before delivering cable to them. This means that each city can set the terms of their cable service, including such pain in the ass things as 'even though you set aside channel x fo
Re:Bribery is illegal... Comcast should be penaliz (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well... no. (Score:4, Interesting)
The people Comcast brought in were paid to do something they won't feel good about themselves for. People don't like that feeling, and rationally, you'd expect them to get mad at the person who paid them, but the way this ACTUALLY works is that the people rationalize their misbehavior by siding with the people who paid them.
So Comcast just bought themselves a bunch of irrational supporters. You can guess that 20% of the people they bussed in who actually think about this ever again will be anti-Comcast. The rest who think about it will support them, in a subconscious effort to not make themselves a bad person.
A pity. I'd like your scenario a lot better.