| Abstrakt: |
Universal service, or the goal of connecting all American citizens to a robust telecommunications network, is a massive public policy regime in which the Federal Communications Commission redistributes billions of dollars of consumers’ money to telecommunications firms in the interests of expanding networks and services. There is a public interest in oversight of this program, from its standard operations to the possibility of fraud and mismanagement. This article examines the ramifications of a recent Freedom of Information Act dispute in which the FCC refused to disclose documents related to the management of universal service funds, with the Commission and then a federal district court continuing troublesome trends in FOIA jurisprudence, in which the public interest is trumped by unsupported interpretations of privacy and confidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
