A Citizen Commenter Fills the Dockets
In the last two years, he has perhaps submitted more comments to the FCC than any other party. He has chimed in on dozens of dockets, from media ownership to USF. He has no law degree or experience in working in the telecom industry. So far this month, he has submitted more than 300 comments.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Dedicated FCC docket watchers will recognize the name. Unlike most non-lawyers and non-executives who communicate with the agency, Maneesh Pangasa has managed to slip his filings past the “exclude brief comments” filter of the commission’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) that many attorneys use when monitoring docket activity. As a result, they regularly appear in ECFS queries in active dockets. The American Cable Association “files in dozens of proceedings every year and I track each of them closely,” said ACA Vice President Ross Lieberman. “Nobody’s name comes up more often than his."
Pangasa’s comments are distinguished in other ways from the typical public “brief comment” found in the commission’s system. Most communications from the general public to the FCC fall into a few categories: Personal complaints (e.g. “Unable to get a response from XM and Sirius radio regarding billing or to cancel service."), requests for information (e.g. “i want to renew my ham license but I would like to get a new call sign to the general class that I earned."), form letters prompted by a public interest group seeking to drum up support on a specific issue, and sometimes complete nonsense (e.g. “blah. wouldnt that be cool if raccoons could drive?! haha.") But Pangasa often spends time drafting his own submissions and takes consistent policy positions. He also regularly submits unattributed news articles, the occasional form letter, and even entire pleadings lifted from other parties.
In an interview in January, Pangasa said he teaches part time at a community college in Arizona and is looking for full time work outside the telecom sector. He also wants to pursue a graduate degree in teaching, he said. Pangasa said he Was inspired to file comments with the FCC by Free Press after the AT&T-BellSouth deal. “I am participating because I thought, as a member of the public, I want my voice to be heard, whether I support or oppose something,” Pangasa said. “I know the FCC is supposed to fulfill the public interest, but then the public has to have a seat at the table."
Born in India in the early 1980s, Pangasa said he moved to Arizona as a child and gained U.S. citizenship in 2000. “I have no education in telecom, no experience working in telecom. As a concerned citizen and a consumer of services, I comment on these things because I want people to have a choice in telecom services, whether it’s wireline or wireless,” he said.
Excluding about 700 brief comments, Pangasa has filed 5,009 times at the FCC since he first submitted comments with the commission in 2007, according to ECFS records. More than 95 percent of those filings have been submitted within the last 12 months. Each one he has uploaded to the FCC’s electronic filing system, often as a Microsoft Word file, he said. To put that in perspective, AT&T has filed or been a party to filings 4,177 times between Jan. 1, 2007, and Aug. 15, 2012, ECFS records show. Verizon and Verizon Wireless have filed 4,478 in that same time period. Free Press, the group that inspired Pangasa to pick up his pen, has submitted 1,135. On many days, Pangasa files comments that appear in more dockets than any other single entity.
Every member of the public has a right to tell the FCC about their policy concerns and how the agency’s actions affect their lives, said Corie Wright, senior policy counsel for Free Press. “Maneesh Pangasa is no different than anyone else, just more prolific,” she said. “The FCC should recognize the impact of the decisions they make on everyday people’s lives and realize that people pay attention and care about these issues very deeply."
In a few recent instances, Pangasa has filed citizen complaints with the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau using one of its Form 2000 templates and subsequently filed the confirmation notice he received from CGB in a relevant docket. CGB fielded more than 89,000 consumer complaints during Q1, the FCC’s most recent quarterly report said. Pangasa said this week that he has filed consumer complaints in the past, but only recently begun to file them again with a docket number. “I haven’t submitted every consumer complaint into a docket,” he said. “Only when I think it’s relevant.
Pangasa is trying to take breaks between filings in a single docket, he said. “I am still active, but I don’t want to be too active that it looks like I'm spamming any proceeding.”