Security at Thursday's FCC Meeting Raising Questions, Criticisms
Security measures and responses at the FCC's Thursday meeting, including less seating than usual and the "manhandling" of a reporter after the meeting, are under fire, with questions of whether they may have been aimed at stifling any uproar about the net neutrality vote -- something the FCC denies. "This is very chilling and very intimidating to the public, whether you're for the rules or against," said former Commissioner Gloria Tristani, who attributed the problems to "very heavy-handed security." The National Press Club (NPC) described as "completely unacceptable" an incident in which it said John Donnelly of CQ Roll Call was pushed into and held against a wall by security using their backs when he was trying to talk to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and then was forced to leave the building.
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Press scrums can at times "get out of hand" and sources or security people sometimes "are having a bad day ... so it would be tempting to dismiss this as just one of those incidents and move on," NPC said in a blog post Friday. "But in the current climate [of attacks on the media], we cannot."
An FCC spokesperson told us the agency apologized to Donnelly multiple times "and let him know that the FCC was on heightened alert ... based on several threats." In a tweet Friday, Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., was critical of the incident, calling it "disturbing behavior for any public official, especially one overseeing communications." Udall separately tweeted a copy of a letter he and Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. sent to Pai asking for an explanation of the incident. In a Twitter conversation with Donnelly Thursday, O'Rielly said he saw FCC security "put themselves between you, me and my staff [but] didn't see anyone put a hand on you. I'm sorry [this] occurred." Donnelly on Twitter Friday thanked the FCC for its apology.
The agency spokesman said FCC security decided days earlier to adopt heightened measures for the meeting, which included not having people moving back and forth during the meeting, including staff. The spokesman also said a small number of seats might have been removed from the meeting room to accommodate what were expected to be more cameras there than actually showed.
Tristani said after attending protests against the Title II rollback outside the FCC (see 1705180047), she was able to get into the FCC meeting room for the session only after playing the "'I'm a former commissioner' card," and a colleague in the overflow room wasn't allowed in even after some seats opened up after the net neutrality vote. "I became flabbergasted about these procedures I'd never seen as a commissioner," she said. "My gut tells me it's very heavy-handed security," rather than an attempt to stifle attendance by Title II supporters, though the net result was the same, she said.
Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood, who also spent part of the meeting at the Title II rollback protests outside, emailed us that it's "readily apparent" Chairman Ajit Pai's office reduced the number of seats in the room for the meeting and filled those seats with chosen people such as staff or interns and prevented others -- including FCC staff -- from coming into the meeting room if they didn't have a seat "or even taking empty seats once the Destroying Internet Freedom vote was over." The FCC on Thursday said it didn't have interns at the meeting apart from one briefly singled out by Pai, and summer interns haven't started yet. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request Friday with the FCC on the security planning for Thursday's meeting, as well as threats Pai has received.