CompTel to Appeal FCC Order Upholding FOIA Exemptions
CompTel will appeal an FCC order upholding the Enforcement Bureau’s denial of its Freedom of Information Act request regarding a consent decree terminating its investigation into SBC’s compliance with various universal service rules. CompTel made the request in 2005 seeking “all pleadings and correspondence” regarding the investigation of SBC -- now AT&T -- and its possible overbilling of the FCC’s E-rate program in 2004.
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"We're very disappointed with the FCC’s decision,” said Mary Albert, CompTel assistant general counsel. “We have been trying to get access to these documents since 2005, and we will pursue our remedies with the District Court.” Motions for summary judgment are due in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia July 20.
The procedural history of the case is complicated, involving trips to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit as well as the Supreme Court, which ruled 8-0 last year that, as a corporation, AT&T isn’t entitled to claim “personal privacy” exemptions to FOIA requests (CD March 2/11 p2). The Enforcement Bureau released 193 pages of information, but much of it was redacted, and CompTel has since been trying to get access to the blacked out information.
In an order released Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bncdfo), the full commission upheld most of the Enforcement Bureau’s ruling, finding email exchanges between FCC staff and SBC/AT&T staff were properly withheld because of the “personal privacy interest” of the various employees involved. The commission did order the bureau to release the names of employees “already publicly disclosed by EB,” but all the other withholdings were upheld by the full commission. AT&T did not comment.
As an organization, CompTel was not involved in the original E-rate dispute, but “it makes everyone better lawyers if they know, why was this case different than that case?” Albert said. “That was the only time I've ever seen a consent decree that the FCC entered into with someone accused of E-rate violations. ... I just wanted to see, why is this case different?"
"I don’t know what I'm going to find,” Albert said. Then why file the appeal? “Because I don’t know what I'm going to find.”