Internet Neutrality My Eye... Influence Peddling Is A Going & Growing Concern

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing:
Telecom Industry Front Groups and Astroturf

As consumer demand for high-tech services grows, billions of dollars are at stake for telecommunications companies. Much of the battle is being waged in the halls of Congress right now, where our representatives are considering an overhaul of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

Cable, telephone and Internet industry giants are fiercely lobbying, using every tool at their disposal to gain a competitive advantage in telecom reform legislation. Some of those tools are easy to spot - campaign contributions, television ads that run only inside the Beltway, and meetings with influential members of Congress. Other tactics are more insidious.

One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is "Astroturf lobbying" -- creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s to describe corporations' big-money efforts to put fake grassroots pressure on Congress.[1] Astroturf campaigns generally claim to represent huge numbers of citizens, but in reality their public support is minimal or nonexistent.[2]

The 1996 Telecommunications Act was an overwhelming gift to the telecom companies and an overreaching grab for our wallets supported by congress and the telecom lobbyists to begin with... now it seem that the lobbying efforts are reaching for more incentives to rob us blind via cable, telephone and other communication service bills... again with the blessing of a well-compensated congress.

Here in Indiana we have seen the "Astroturf lobbying" efforts in a recent series of television ads that make it sound like someone is doing us a favor but are really kicking us in the posterior. The same tactics have been getting play in the Chicago radio and television markets for Illinois issues.