EXCERPTS FROM THE BLOG
FILE: PAUL HEINTZ
SEVENDAYSVT.COM 12.13.17-12.20.17 SEVEN DAYS 20 LOCAL MATTERS
A comment submitted to the Federal Communications Commission says Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is a staunch opponent of Obama-era net neutrality rules designed to protect the open internet. The only problem: Leahy is a longtime vocal proponent of net neutrality, and he had no idea there was a comment filed in his name. “Oh, my God. I wasn’t aware of that,” Leahy said when he was asked Sunday about the comment. “I have been a consistent and noisy proponent of net neutrality.” Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan raised the issue of apparently fake FCC comments purportedly filed by Vermont residents this month, following New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s efforts to bring attention to the matter in his state. The FCC is collecting comments from the public as the five-member commission decides whether to proceed with a proposal from chair Ajit Pai to reverse regulations designed to protect net neutrality. Donovan’s office created an online portal that allows Vermont residents to search for fake FCC comments filed in their names and then report them to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. Donovan also advised people who find fake comments Sen. Patrick Leahy filed on their behalf to contact the FCC. “A free and open internet is the lifeblood of modern commerce, and consumers expect transparency and fairness when they go online,” Donovan said in a news release. Leahy held a hearing on net neutrality at the University of Vermont in 2014, and numerous Vermont business owners testified in favor of net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat all internet traffic equally. Thousands of the apparently fake comments are voicing opposition to net neutrality. The comments take the position favored by large internet service providers and industry groups: They say net neutrality rules amount to government overreach that will stifle innovation.
When Seven Days told Leahy that a similar comment had been filed on behalf of the Northeast Kingdom ski resort Jay Peak, the senator laughed aloud. (A spokesman for Jay Peak confirmed that the comment is fake.) “I wonder who’s doing it,” Leahy said.
TAYLOR DOBBS
Fake Leahy Comment to FCC Decries Net Neutrality
Columnist John Walters contributed reporting.
TAYLOR DOBBS
Activists Unhappy With Updated Fair and Impartial Policing Policy Vermont’s Criminal Justice Training Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an updated Fair and Impartial Policing policy to serve as a model for law enforcement agencies across the state. The policy is meant to prevent cops from discriminating while interacting with the public, but civil liberties and immigration advocates say the new rules actually remove protections from a 2016 version. The changes allow local police to alert federal immigration officials if they discover that victims or witnesses of a crime are in the United States illegally. The previous version encouraged officers to avoid doing so. The original earned Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Anderson a letter in November from the U.S. Department of Justice, which threatened to withhold federal funding if the state did not update its policy. Miguel Alcudia, who attended the council’s meeting with the advocacy group Migrant Justice, said he was unhappy with the result. “Many of us, if we’re victims of a crime or witnesses to a crime, we’re going to have fear to come forward and denounce that crime, because instead of focusing on the criminal activity, they’re going to be able to focus on the victim’s immigration status,” he said through an interpreter. Alcudia himself was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in September 2016 while leaving the dairy farm on which he worked. Advocates said the policy unnecessarily opens the door for discriminatory policing, but law enforcement officials say they’re bound by federal law. Christopher Brickell, the chair of the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council and the Brandon police chief, said it’s illegal to enact a policy that prohibits local police from passing information to the feds. “We don’t want to overstep that bound of doing something that would be against federal law, but we’re truly trying
Bitter on Twitter: Vermont Democratic Party Flames GOP A Twitter account run by the Vermont Democratic Party on Sunday called David Sunderland, the former Vermont Republican Party chair, “a racist and a serial liar” — with no supporting evidence. It was the latest in a series of caustic tweets coming from the @VTHouseDems account. VDP executive director Conor Casey declined Tuesday to disclose which staff member composed the tweets, telling Seven Days, “The buck stops with me.” And while Casey conceded that “maybe calling someone a racist goes a bit far,” he defended the general tone and content of the account’s tweets. “It’s a little more hard-hitting, a little more conversational,” he said.
American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont attorney Jay Diaz (left) and Brandon Police Chief Christopher Brickell
to recognize those concerns that those communities have,” Brickell said. “And I think what gets lost here is that this is not a policy that protects 1,500 migrant workers in this state. This is for everybody in this state. It’s fair and impartial policing, so it’s not about a specific population. It’s about every citizen that we come into contact with.” Advocates pointed to video of an August traffic stop by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department to illustrate the importance of the protections to immigrant communities. The body-camera video shows a sheriff’s deputy stop Luis Cordova Ordaz and then quickly call for backup from U.S. Border Patrol upon learning that Cordova Ordaz does not speak English and does not have a Vermont driver’s license. The video, which Seven Days wrote about last Friday, features the federal agents using the term “wet” — apparent shorthand for the ethnic slur “wetback.” After being stopped for what was originally a traffic infraction, Cordoba Ordaz and his father have been in federal custody for months and now face deportation. Will Lambek, an organizer for Migrant Justice, said the August traffic stop underscores the need for a policy that insulates local police work from federal immigration officials. “The reason why immigrant communities are concerned about protecting their rights is because they’re being discriminated against,” Lambek said. “And that’s exactly what we saw in the Franklin County Sheriff Department stop of Luis and Hernando Cordova, where, based on their Mexican ID, Border Patrol was called to the scene and used racial slurs against them. So you can’t separate this from questions of discrimination. It’s part and parcel.”
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Vermont Republicans have recently taken to Twitter to complain about the @VTHouseDems account. And, in a Monday press release, Vermont GOP executive director Jeffrey Bartley characterized the tweets as “namecalling, outlandish accusations and outright hostility to anyone with whom they may have political differences.” Many of the tweets have taken aim at Sunderland, calling him a “scumbag surrogate” as well as a racist. Other tweets refer to Gov. Phil Scott staffer Hayden Dublois as “dumb” and onetime Republican state legislative candidate Scot Shumski as a “crybaby bigot.” “I think their feelings were hurt,” Casey said. “It just seems like way overly sensitive.” He continued, “They’re the ones who are mostly engaging in this Twitter war.” How do top House Democrats feel about the content of an account being run in their name? House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D-South Hero) and House Democratic Majority Leader Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
ALICIA FREESE