New York Times Sues FCC for Net Neutrality Records

The New York Times is suing the Federal Communications Commission for records the newspaper alleges may reveal possible Russian government interference in a public comment period before the commission rolled back Obama-era network neutrality rules. The plaintiffs, including Times reporter Nicholas Confessore and investigations editor Gabriel Dance, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York Sept 20 under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking to compel the commission to hand over data. “The request at issue in this litigation involves records that will shed light on the extent to which Russian nationals and agents of the Russian government have interfered with the agency notice-and-comment process about a topic of extensive public interest: the government’s decision to abandon ‘net neutrality,’” the plaintiffs alleged.

The FCC has “thrown up a series of roadblocks” to prevent the Times from obtaining records, which were first requested by Confessore and Dance in June 2017, the plaintiffs said. The plaintiffs also pointed to a report from cyber-intelligence company GroupSense that links the email addresses cited in special counsel Robert Mueller’s “indictment of thirteen Russian individuals and three Russian companies” to the emails used to submit comments on the FCC’s proposal. The plaintiffs are seeking data, including IP addresses, time stamps and the FCC’s internal web server logs, linked to public comments submitted to the agency.