Judicial Watch sued the FCC over a Freedom of Information Act Req...
Judicial Watch sued the FCC over a Freedom of Information Act Request seeking communications between the White House and the commission about the delay in the DTV switchover. Judicial Watch sought “any records concerning the decision to delay” the…
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switch and “any and all records of communication” between the White House and commission about putting off the switch, it said in a lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court in Washington. The FCC fulfilled the first part of the request with volumes of heavily blacked-out material, but it told Judicial Watch it would need to check with the White House before releasing the documents, the lawsuit said. Judicial Watch is concerned that political motivations besides protecting consumers affected by the switch were at play in the decision to delay, said President Tom Fritton. “We're not pursuing the FOIA necessarily just to get more information about the DTV transition, but to uncover whether or not there was any corruption behind the decision to delay the transition,” he said. Judicial Watch is concerned the delay may have given a leg up to Clearwire by delaying Verizon and AT&T’s access to 700 MHz spectrum. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., raised those concerns in February and questioned Clearwire Executive Vice President Gerard Salemme’s involvement with federal DTV policy (CD Feb 4 p8).