Why Our Phones and Internet Are Being Threatened by a Big Telecom Privatization Scheme

July 26, 2012

Regulatory capture is when private corporate interests take over an agency and instead of serving the “public” good, it serves the interests of private corporations. Such capture is playing out at both the state and federal levels throughout America, eroding the basic ethical standards in government.

Nowhere is this more evident than at the Federal Communications Commission, one of the most influential agencies in which capture is part of the operating culture.

The most scandalous recent example of the FCC’s cozy relationship with the companies it ostensibly regulates took place in January 2011. Just a few weeks after the agency approved Comcast’s acquisition of NBC-Universal, a deal worth $30 billion, Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker left to take a senior position at Comcast. One unanswered question is whether Baker was negotiating her compensation package while the agency deliberated the acquisition.