Merkley and Toomey Call on FCC to Address Identity Theft and Fraud in Public Comments

Both Senators – one Democrat, one Republican – had their identities stolen to file fake comments on the FCC’s net neutrality rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) today issued a strong call to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai to identify and address fraudulent behavior that has led to potentially two million fake comments being filed under stolen identities on public rulemakings.

Though they come from different sides of the aisle, Merkley and Toomey share a personal connection to this issue: Both had their identities stolen to file false comments on the FCC’s net neutrality proposals.

“Late last year, the identities of as many as two million Americans were stolen and used to file fake comments during the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) comment period for the net neutrality rule,” the Senators wrote in a letter to Pai. “We were among those whose identities were misused to express viewpoints we do not hold. We are writing to express our concerns about these fake comments and the need to identify and address fraudulent behavior in the rulemaking process.”

The Senators specifically encouraged the agency to consider using CAPTCHA technology to help weed out comments posted by bots.

The Senators also pressed Pai to investigate who is behind these millions of fake comments, requesting answers to the following specific questions:

How is the FCC working with the Department of Justice to identify those who submitted fake comments?

Is the FCC working with state attorneys general to determine whether state crimes were broken when these identities were stolen?

What measures is the FCC taking to ensure this does not happen in the future?

How can the FCC track down who misused the identities of two million Americans?

Can the FCC determine how many of the fake comments on record were submitted by bots, a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet?

Has the FCC considered using a CAPTCHA, or other security technology, to prevent fraudulent machine input?

Is the FCC aware of any foreign government submitting fake comments and for what purpose?

“The first three words in our Constitution are, ‘We the People.’ The federal rulemaking process is an essential part of our democracy and allows Americans the opportunity to express their opinions on how government agencies decide important regulatory issues,” the Senators wrote. “As such, we are concerned about the aforementioned fraudulent activity. We need to prevent the deliberate misuse of Americans’ personal information and ensure that the FCC is working to protect against current and future vulnerabilities in its system.”

The full text of the letter is available here and follows below.