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Submission + - Capitol Hill's Uber caucus (publicintegrity.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, 2015 @10:06AM

An anonymous reader writes: In all, some 275 federal politicians and political committees together spent more than $278,000 on at least 7,625 Uber rides during the 2013-2014 election cycle, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign spending records indicates.

That’s a roughly 18-fold spending increase from the previous election cycle, when federal committees together spent about $15,000 on Uber services. It represents a veritable monopoly, too: Almost no political committee used Uber’s direct competitors, Lyft and Sidecar, according to the analysis, and traditional taxi use declined precipitously.

Bipartisan love of Uber abounds, with politicos of all stripes composing a de facto Uber caucus, voting with their money for a wildly popular but controversial company.

Submission + - 'Revolving door' spins between AT&T, government (publicintegrity.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 12, 2014 @02:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: That AT&T just won an eight-figure contract to provide the federal government’s General Services Administration with new mobile devices isn’t itself particularly notable.

What is: Casey Coleman, an AT&T executive responsible for “delivering IT and professional services to federal government customers,” oversaw the GSA’s information technology division and its $600 million IT budget as recently as January.

Submission + - Comcast-Time Warner deal may hinge on anemic low-cost Internet plan (publicintegrity.org)

Submitted by techpolicy on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @09:50AM

techpolicy writes: Comcast Corp.'s proposed $45 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc. has brought the issue of the digital divide and the federal government's failing policies to decrease it back onto center stage, according to an article by the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative journalism group in Washington, D.C.

Comcast has told the Federal Communications Commission that it will offer its discounted Internet program for low-income customers to residents living in Time Warner Cable's service areas — if the FCC approves the purchase. Comcast offered FCC the same deal in 2011 when it bought NBCUniversal. But the low-cost program, called Internet Essentials, has signed up only 12 percent of the 2.6 million families eligible for the service since it was launched nearly three years ago. While the FCC and other federal agencies have spent billions of dollars trying to provide broadband access and training programs to the poor to close the divide, so far the policies haven't worked much. The percentage difference between Americans earning below $30,000 who have an Internet connection in their home and those earning $75,000 or more who have an in-home connection has narrowed only 4 percentage points from 2009 to 2013. As the Comcast purchase moves thorhg its regulatory approval process, the center reports that it may be time to revisit the policies that will get more poor Americans connected, especially because to function in society today you have to be online.

Submission + - Wireless carriers in huge Washington lobby fight over spectrum auction (publicintegrity.org)

Submitted by techpolicy on Friday March 21, 2014 @09:32AM

techpolicy writes: The big four wireless carriers are spending millions of dollars to hire professors, fund Washington think tanks and to meet with the Federal Communications Commission to try to convince the agency to write rules for an upcoming auction of spectrum that favor them, according to an article posted by the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. The frequencies are needed to bolster or build out their nationwide networks — and this kind of low-band spectrum won't be up for sale for a very long time. The biggest fight is over a rule that would limit how much AT&T and Verizon can get of these valuable frequencies. How it plays out will determine who has control over your smartphone.

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