This is only my opinion, and not the representation of Saintel Daily, LLC.
As you may recall, earlier this year, the FCC claimed that its comment system went down due to a DDoS attack. This came at a time when they were soliciting comments on the net neutrality repeal. In a turn of events, investigators have validated the suspicions that it didn’t happen. An imminent report from the agency’s Inspector General has revealed that there’s no evidence of such an attack. In other words, the comment system’s problems were more likely due to large-scale opposition to the net neutrality repeal. Not a hacking campaign. You also might remember that John Oliver encouraged his viewers to send in their comments, and well, that is likely what caused the issues. Not some kind of hacking attempt.
FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai has tried to spin the report in a statement, and in the process, he’s pulling a move straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook. Pai is placing the blame on “the prior Administration”, and more specifically the former Chief Information Officer David Bray. Pai also claimed that the report “debunks the conspiracy theory” that he and his office knew the DDoS claims were unfounded. Instead, he argued that the FCC should focus on revamping the struggling commenting system so that this failure didn’t happen again. Please note, that he also pinned the issues of the commenting system on the prior administration as well.
The problem with all of this is that the FCC, and more specifically Pai, didn’t come forward with the information that would have proved this to be the case in the first place. Instead, the FCC refused to provide the evidence that would prove or disprove the DDoS allegations. Why not just release the data that would prove what had happened before the Inspector General even got involved? If the FCC was so worried about what people would think happened, they should have released the data sooner.
That said, this report still isn’t available to the public. It’s possible that it will never see the light of day because of the some of the details in the report. Is this a big deal? Yes, and no. It’s a big deal because it suggests a cover-up. Why not just come forward with the information if you have it in the beginning? Why do you have to wait for an Inspector General’s report to come forward? It makes the FCC look bad because they’re now doing damage control. It looks worse for Pai, though.
Why do I say that? Well, all along he’s been behind the “hacking” theory. Or at least, not dispelling that it could have been something else. Meaning, he’s kind of been misleading the American people. And to what end? Just so he could make sure that net neutrality gets repealed? That’s kind of low and a bit shady if you ask me. Blaming the previous administration also suggests that he’s in over his head with this one. And again, this is something that Donald Trump does all too often. Whatever is going wrong in his administration has nothing to do with him, but rather it’s the “previous administration” who is to blame. Which makes me feel like there is more to this than we’re being told.