Because net neutrality is about to hit Illinois bigtime. Don’t believe me?
Leo has the goods on the first bit of the fight with AT & T laying the astroturf down.
The original article:
In the course of our earlier reporting on AT&T’s attempt to deploy IPTV to the Chicago suburbs, we discussed the Advanced Technology Alliance. It’s an interest group that pushes the AT&T agenda hard through letters to the editor and a giant chicken, but local critics have charged it with being an “astroturf” (that is, a fake “grassroots” effort) group funded by AT&T. Ars has now learned more details about the relationship between the two companies.
The ATA’s domain name, www.iltechalliance.org, is currently registered to Domains by Proxy, an Arizona business that helps obscure the true owner of a web site. A source tells us that the organization’s registration had not initially been through Domains by Proxy, though, but through a prominent Chicago public relations firm. Ars Technica has now been able to verify that information independently.
Earlier this year, the WHOIS record for iltechalliance.org pointed to Jasculca/Terman and Associates of Chicago, a PR firm that specializes in “bringing the tactics and discipline of political campaign work to the management of issues and events for private, public and institutional clients.”
Jasculca/Terman’s services include “grassroots outreach and coalition building” for their clients. Significantly, AT&T is listed among those clients.
For an example of how the firm works, consider the campaign it ran on behalf of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, a group that wanted to raise “additional tax revenues” (read: expand gambling in Illinois). Jasculca/Terman helped them to stage a massive letter-writing campaign by organizing meetings with casino employees, mailings to casino customers, a website, and “action stations” at casinos. They managed to sign on more than 6,000 people.
For the Illinois bloggers I’m starting an e-mail list for those interested in the coming net neutrality fight. E-mail me and I’ll put you on it. We haven’t done a ton of lobbying or organizing, this seems to be the issue to break out of that pattern.