Report: Consumer 'advocates' flack for telecom industry

Nine groups purporting to be consumer advocates or think tanks are fronts for large telecommunications carriers as the U.S. Congress debates telecom reform, said a report issued by Common Cause Tuesday.

Common Cause, a nonprofit group promoting open government, listed advocacy group Consumers for Cable Choice and think tanks the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF) and the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC) as being "front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power." The report is available at http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1499059.

Common Cause accused the groups of "astroturf" lobbying, of artificial grassroots efforts. Billions of dollars are at stake in the current telecom reform debate in Congress, and interested parties are spending millions of dollars on lobbying and advertising, said Chellie Pingree, Common Cause's president.

"Unfortunately, a lot of them are also spending millions on astroturfing front groups," she said. "These astroturf campaigns and industry front groups purport to represent citizens' interest, but they are actually pushing the industry's agenda. They deliberately mislead citizens and lawmakers who are already charged with the difficult task of making sense of complex telecom policy."

Representatives of PFF and Consumers for Cable Choice disagreed with Common Cause, saying while they take money from telecom providers, they have independent voices. Both groups have disclosed funding sources, while Common Cause does not, their representatives said.

Among PFF sponsors are AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. and tech vendors Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. AT&T and Verizon are among those that fund Consumers for Cable Choice, which says it represents 1 million users.

PFF fellows regularly take positions that disagree with the corporate positions of some funders, and sometimes disagree with each other, said Patrick Ross, vice president for communications and external affairs at the conservative think tank.

"We take pride in the fact that PFF takes no institutional position on any issue," Ross said. "Our fellows are free to take any position they please. We do share a commitment to limited government, free markets and individual sovereignty, but we respect our fellows enough not to force them to conform to a group-think."

Robert Johnson, president of Consumers for Cable Choice, said his group accepts funding from anyone who wants to promote the causes his board of directors advocate. "Just because Common Cause ... doesn't like our conclusions, that doesn't mean our conclusions are illegitimate," he said. "I think Common Cause is trying to raise an issue because it's trying to raise money."

Johnson's group promotes competition for the cable industry, and Verizon and AT&T have backed legislation that would streamline cable franchising rules and allow them to roll out their Internet Protocol television products more quickly.

Common Cause has also taken positions on telecom reform, backing net neutrality provisions that would require large broadband providers to refrain from blocking or impairing Internet service to companies offering competing products. An animation on Common Cause's Web site pictures executives at large broadband providers with devil's horns on their heads.

Telecom giants have a right to advocate for their positions, but the groups they fund need to better disclose their backers, said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "They have to make it clear on their Web sites," he said at the Common Cause press conference. "They have to make it clear in their statements. We need that disclosure."