Eleven House Democrats are asking for a Government Accountability Office investigation into claims that phony comments were submitted to the Federal Communications Commission in advance of the agency's efforts to repeal net neutrality rules, The Hill reported.
The group, led by Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., sent a letter to the GAO raising questions about fake or stolen identities used to comment.
"We are writing to request the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate and report on the extent and pervasiveness of fraud and the misuse of American identities during federal rulemaking processes, including for example, the net neutrality rulemaking process used by the Federal Communication Commission."
"We understand that the FCC's rulemaking process requires it to address all comments it receives, regardless of who submits them. However, we do not believe any outside parties should be permitted to generate any comments to any federal governmental entity using information it knows to be false, such as the identities of those submitting the comments."
The Hill noted the FCC received nearly 22 million comments on its plan to repeal the net neutrality rules. Those rules prohibit internet service providers from discriminating against certain content, The Hill said.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, writing on Medium, said his office "has been investigating who perpetrated a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC's notice and comment process through the misuse of enormous numbers of real New Yorkers' and other Americans' identities."
And over the weekend, Schneiderman said his office has identified about 1 million comments that may have been turned in using stolen identities, according to The Hill.
Meanwhile a growing number of Democrats are urging the FCC to postpone its Dec. 14 vote to repeal the rules, according to The Hill.
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