New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office is investigating "a massive scheme to corrupt" the Federal Communications Commission’s comment process on net neutrality.
He said the investigation centers on comments made by those impersonating hundreds of thousands of real Americans.
Schneiderman made his remarks in a tweet on Tuesday. And he maintained the FCC is not willing to provide information "critical to the investigation."
In his Twitter posting, Schneiderman linked to an open letter he wrote to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Medium.
In the letter, he said: "As you recently announced, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under your leadership, soon will release rules to dismantle your agency’s existing "net neutrality" protections under Title II of the Communications Act, which shield the public from anti-consumer behaviors of the giant cable companies that provide high-speed internet to most people.
"Yet the process the FCC has employed to consider potentially sweeping alterations to current net neutrality rules has been corrupted by the fraudulent use of Americans’ identities — and the FCC has been unwilling to assist my office in our efforts to investigate this unlawful activity."
He maintained the FCC has "refused multiple requests for crucial evidence" vital to the investigation.
Schneiderman said it was important for millions of individuals and businesses to be able to comment on net neutrality.
"My office analyzed the fake comments and found that tens of thousands of New Yorkers may have had their identities misused in this way. (Indeed, analysis showed that, in all, hundreds of thousands of Americans likely were victimized in the same way, including tens of thousands per state in California, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and possibly others.) Impersonation and other misuse of a person’s identity violates New York law, so my office launched an investigation."
However, he said his office has not received an "substantive response" from the FCC to investigative requests. And he encouraged the FCC to reconsider its refusal to assist the investigation.
"In an era where foreign governments have indisputably tried to use the internet and social media to influence our elections, federal and state governments should be working together to ensure that malevolent actors cannot subvert our administrative agencies’ decision-making processes" he said.
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