Top Verizon executives, including CEO Ivan Seidenberg and President Dennis Strigl, wrote personal checks to Rockefeller totaling $23,500 in March, 2007. Prior to that apparently coordinated flurry of 29 donations, only one of those executives had ever donated to Rockefeller (at least while working for Verizon).

In fact, prior to 2007, contributions to Rockefeller from company executives at AT&T and Verizon were mostly non-existent. But that changed around the same time that the companies began lobbying Congress to grant them retroactive immunity from lawsuits seeking billions for their alleged participation in secret, warrantless surveillance programs that targeted Americans. The Spring '07 checks represent 86 percent of money donated to Rockefeller by Verizon employees since at least 2001. AT&T executives discovered a fondness for Rockefeller just a month after Verizon execs did and over a three-month span, collectively made donations totaling $19,350. AT&T Vice President Fred McCallum began the giving spree in May with a $500 donation. 22 other AT&T high fliers soon followed with their own checks.

There's more at the link, including a list of all of the contributors to Rockefeller's campaign. And it's almost unfair to single him out, although the brazen nature of the largesse coming RIGHT AT THE TIME when these telecom companies needed Rockefeller to immunize them from lawsuits is telling.

Turns out Harry Reid's on the take as well.

And look how friendly Senator Reid is with AT&T. $22,000? They may rank donor number 17, but their contribution to the Majority Leader is far greater than what they give to their lackey mr. Rockefeller! Are things beginning to come together now? Is it beginning to make sense why the Senate can’t seem to stop this President’s insanity? Why we can’t seem to get past this problem of warrantless surveilance? The Majority Leader, it seems, loves his contributors more than he loves the Constitution.

There are times when I really hate how perverted our political system has become.

As Glenn Greenwald notes today, this is but a drop in the bucket for the telecom industry, which consistently ranks among the top contributors to Congress. Overall, at least $118 million dollars in telecom money has gone to members of Congress over the last several election cycles. And people are somehow shocked when special laws are created to stop civil lawsuits against them.

We can see how this can bleed over into more than just illegal wiretapping, too. Comcast is already violating net neutrality, because it's a "tradition" and not a full law currently, and anyway telecommunications companies don't have to comply with the law anymore according to the US Senate.

NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally. The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

Right now they're just trying to block bandwidth hogs to relieve pressure on their system. But that's the whole point. Telecoms have every incentive to make that pipe as narrow as possible. That way, they can monetize it that much easier. It's a hop, skip and a jump from stopping file-sharing to restricting content.



Telecoms have an enormous about of money that they're using to buy off politicians and force open a new revenue stream. And like so many other industries, they're trying real hard to buy off Democrats now at the expense of meaningful progressive legislation. The corporations see which way the wind is blowing.

The endless amounts of money in politics is among the most corrosive aspects of our current political culture, but it's nothing new, nothing that hasn't been tried since virtually the beginnings of the American experiment. What's really troubling is how easy it is now to buy off these Congressmen, who are already predisposed to maintain an establishment status quo that is about pleasing elites and staying in the good graces of those who hold the cocktail parties.

Which is why we must embrace the real leadership we get from folks like Chris Dodd, public servants who actually have the public interest at heart. Over the last 24 hours Dodd has received $150,000 in small-dollar donations. I say we go for a million. We must reward the good behavior of those who take the initiative to lead.

UPDATE: Given the questioning over why a Rockefeller would need a piddling 20K (although that's just one company in a few months, and I consider it more like "building a relationship"), here's more from the Wired blog from a West Virginian reader:

Rockefeller is believed to have a personal fortune over $100 million. He spent $12 million of personal funds on his first Senate campaign. (http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-3521561.html) However "in recent campaigns, he has downplayed his personal wealth in one of the nation's poorest states. 'I will not spend one single dime of any money that I have,' he said in 2002. 'So that I if I don't raise money, I won't spend money. I am on exactly the same playing field, so to speak, with anybody else who runs for office.'" AP He's up for election in 2008. The cost of Senate races has increased several times over the last two decades. With a serious Republican challenger in WV, which Bush won twice, such as Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, he could be forced to raise tens of millions of dollars. That, or break his promise not to use his personal fortune, which wouldn't play very well in one of the country's poorest states. So yes, even a Rockefeller has to raise money. And in West Virginia, $50,000 is a lot of money. It's about 2% of all the money he raised last year. (But I'll bet he's slightly more worried about being red-baited for suppurtin' terrists.)

I think there are a variety of factors, but money - both to you and away from your opponent - is certainly one of them. There's also the "protect the herd" mentality from our elites in the Senate that factors in as well.