Senators Wyden and Schatz Wants To Know Why The FCC Made Up A DDOS Attack

Senators Wyden and Schatz Wants To Know Why The FCC Made Up A DDOS Attack

6 years ago
Anonymous $roN-uuAfLt

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180612/09180240018/senators-wyden-schatz-wants-to-know-why-fcc-made-up-ddos-attack.shtml

So we've been noting how (thanks to FOIA requests) the FCC has been caught completely making up a DDOS attack in a bizarre, ham-fisted attempt to downplay public opposition to their net neutrality repeal. In short, agency e-mails confirm agency staffers routinely fed false claims to gullible reporters that the FCC website outages caused by John Oliver's coverage of the repeal were the result of a malicious attack, then used those false claims to further prop up the bogus narrative. The goal was apparently to try and downplay massive public backlash to what Americans overwhelmingly believe to be shitty, corruption-fueled policy.

Not too surprisingly, the FCC has gone radio silent in response to press inquiries on this from numerous press outlets. For such a normally chatty agency, that suggests that FCC lawyers are well aware that this entire fracas could prove to be legally problematic, given the repeated false DDOS claims to the reporters, press, and public (pdf). Most of the e-mails provided so far via FOIA requests are heavily redacted, suggesting there's likely much more to this story that's going to emerge over time.