The Federal Communications Commission has routinely favored progressive organizations’ transparency requests during President Obama’s time in office.
The Daily Caller previously reported that, in 2011, the Federal Communications Commission expedited the transparency requests of the progressive non-profit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which was seeking information about the political activities of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The agency provided CREW with 233 pages of documents within 30 days of the request and waived the processing fee.
Meanwhile, conservative government watchdog groups like Americans for Limited Government (ALG) and National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) say they were stonewalled, or left wanting by the agency, in their own transparency investigations.
When ALG requested information about Google’s political influence with the FCC, the agency fulfilled the organization’s request with three brief documents a year later, and without waiving the processing fee.
The FCC also rejected the NLPC’s fee-waiver request when the organization sought information about the influence of public interest groups advocating for the Obama administration’s pro-net neutrality position.
According to FOIA.gov, the FCC’s Freedom of Information Act denial rates for “records not reasonably described” in 2010 were even higher than FOIA denials by the CIA.
The agency’s behavior prompted action by the House in March 2012 with the passage of the FCC Process Reform Act by a 247-174 vote.
The bill, which would have reformed how the agency deals with transparency requests, went on to die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.