FCC's Secretive Culture Hampered Debate Over Airwaves Auction

The AP reports:

It's odd for an agency that has the word "communications" as its middle name, but the Federal Communications Commission routinely leaves the public in the dark about how it makes critical policy decisions.


That secrecy was on display during the recent debate over how the government should auction off the rights to billions of dollars worth of publicly owned airwaves.

For three weeks, potential bidders such as AT&T Inc. and Google Inc. and a coalition of public interest groups waged a war through the media over proposed rules, prepared under FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, that would guide the auction.

The debate advanced largely on rumor and speculation, because Martin's draft, as required by agency rules, was never made public. In fact, even when commissioners approved the auction rules at an open meeting on July 31, they still hadn't been made public.

That didn't happen until 10 days later, after the FCC staff had a chance to proofread and fine-tune the language.

Who ever said government of any form is accountable? What better proof than this.It's time to separate the airwaves from the state.