FCC's answer to scandal of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile US selling people's location data: Burying its head in the ground America's comms watchdog, the FCC, is under fire for refusing to brief Congressional staffers on what exactly it is doing about cellular networks selling citizens' location data to dodgy characters. Earlier this month, the fact that mobile operators continue to sell access to their users' real-time whereabouts to unscrupulous …
AT&T sent out text messages claiming that I agreed to their use of my location data and allow them to resell it.
I never agreed and this is tantamount to either slamming or opt-out.
Looks like AT&T are setting it up to say that they only sell data of people who gave them permission to sell it.
Clearly that's a joke and they should be held accountable.
My mum uses AT&T & has a very old 4G phone. She was "amazed!" how her piece of crap smartphone from circa 2010 is "now capable of a technology that hadn't even been invented yet when ((her phone)) was made!" All because AT&T pushed out the icon change to a device they couldn't be arsed to issue *security updates* for in over five years.
AT&T: putting the fun in dysfunctional.
They don't get bribes while they have their administration posting. That is clearly illegal and would lead to guaranteed jail time if exposed so only a few clueless idiots do that. Instead, after they leave they get big money as "consultants" that don't actually do anything, or for serving on boards that hardly ever meet. IF they play ball. If they don't, they won't get such offers.
No one needs to make any promises, no money needs to change hands in exchange for favors, so nothing is done which violates any laws. It is all just understood, because everyone does this and always has, in both republican and democrat administrations. This is the swamp Trump promised to drain, which has instead been getting deeper since he took office. Don't look for that to change, even if a "do-gooder" like Sanders is elected in 2020.
I just want to say... THIS is how the U.S. government truly works. In the third world, people pay bribes. Bribes for everything to get anything done. We don't pay bribes in the U.S. At least, the average citizen does not. The vast majority of graft is exactly the way the previous comment stated. Campaign contributions and a promise of a 250k per year consultant job when its all over. Just play ball. The lobbying game IS the graft in our society, and its graft from the weathiest to the wealthiest. Bernie Sanders has been in public life all his life... yet he's a multimillionaire. The Clinton's were just about broke when they went to the White House, and now they have hundreds of millions. That Clinton charity wasn't the focus of the GOP for nothing. As long as one can get rich (million$ and million$) serving in public office in the U.S. .. through shady book deals, though shady stock deals, though shady deals of ALL types that LOOK on the surface as if they are legit, then the graft in the U.S. system just keeps pouring in.
As far as Bernie goes, I would think pretty poorly of the financial management skills of anyone who failed to become a millionaire on a senator's salary. You'd have to REALLY work hard to avoid it, by either getting yourself a really big drug habit or giving away several tens of thousands of dollars a year to charity.
A US Senator's salary is 174,000. Majority Leader and other posts make more. Nobody is getting rich off that. They are also allowed million(s) in some cases, for staff, office expenses and whatever else they can make look official. But skimming that money for personal use would be frowned upon. They are also limited to 15% of their salary in outside earned income.
WSJ showed that most Senators are already millionaires before they are elected. Bernie Sanders is not that wealthy, most of his net worth is tied up in home equity and his recent 6 or 7 figure book deal.
If you make $174,000 a year and have no children living at home you have absolutely not excuse for not socking away plenty of that and with normal investment gains from a safe portfolio like index funds getting to a million dollars is easy.
I made it to "millionaire" status by my mid 30s and my best earning years weren't all that much more than $174K. Granted I wasn't living in a city as expensive as DC, but I daresay I spend more on booze and women than Bernie :)
A decamillionaire is the real mark of success, that's what a millionaire was in the 70s.
Both. They had considerably more assets than normal people tend to ever have, however they were also up to their ears in debt, as most of those assets couldn't be easily converted to useable money and they were spending more money than they had coming in.
The Clintons were 'broke' when they left the White House.
Due to legal expenses over Monica.
They made their first big money from the Presidential Library Foundation which morphed in to the Clinton Foundation that raked is much more cash...
Then his speaking engagements and Hillary as SoS... 500K for 45 min of work? sign me up....
Every ex-president gets paid big bucks for speaking engagements. Reagan used to make at least that much (after adjustment for inflation) as did both Bushes and more recently Obama.
Instead to trying to use the presidency to get rich through shady hotel deals with Russia or whatever, Trump should have realized that merely being president would open him up to big speaking fees. He's better at speaking in front of crowds than he is as a businessman anyway so it would be win/win for him. As it is now he's going to need do a lot of speaking engagements afford the lawyers to keep himself and his kids out of jail after he leaves office! Real ones not "TV lawyers" like Rudy "truth isn't truth" Guliani.
Instead, after they leave they get big money as "consultants" that don't actually do anything, or for serving on boards that hardly ever meet.
Indeed. Pai was a Verizon employee before he was in the FCC. He's still a Verizon employee; it's just his compensation is deferred until he leaves the FCC.
Sure, the Ajit is abusing it in bad faith, and he would have found another one uf needed, but the shutdown does play nucely i to his hand.
In fact, perhaps paralyzing governmental bodies and getting their employees to resign massively (in order to get a paid job and foot the bills, buy food etc) was really yhe Donald's hidden goal all along ?
The bigger problem is there is nothing codified in the law just agency rules which are at the whim of the figurehead. If the congresscritters were serious they'd be pushing for legislation which actually has teeth and not finger wagging at the particular burrocrat acting as figurehead for not tweaking the agency rules to their liking.
Note - this applies to all agencies not just the FCC and it's a broader symptom of congresscritters shirking their own responsibilities and being too busy tweeting insults back and forth instead of getting on with their real job. It doesn't matter if we're talking about net neutrality or the war powers act, congress largely just sits aside inciting division, outrage, and hate while drumming up support from their base because all that's really important is keeping their cushy job.
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