Monday, April 23, 2012

#Leveson : #FCC Responds To #Crew Request For Murdoch Documents - Ignores Grassley Lightsquared Demand.


The Federal Communications Commission made at least one exception to its notoriously slow pace of responding to information requests, promptly forking over a significant cache of documents on News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch last year.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — a group funded in part through the philanthropy of left-wing billionaire investor George Soros — obtained 233 pages of records on Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. media empire, from between Jan. 1, 2006 and July 15, 2011, according to documents available on CREW’s Scribd account.

The FCC’s response included correspondence about News Corp.’s acquisition of Dow Jones & Co., the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, and News Corp.’s transfer of its control of Direct TV to Liberty Media Corporation.

“The records consist of 176 pages of e-mail communications between parties outside of the agency and Commission personnel and 57 pages of Congressional correspondence,” said Michael S. Perko, chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau Office of Communication and Industry Information, in the agency’s response letter to CREW.

The Daily Caller previously reported that the agency denies approximately 46.8 percent of the Freedom of Information Act requests it receives, making it one of the more secretive outfits in federal government.

CREW’s request sought “any and all records … of any kind … regardless of format, medium, or physical characteristics” within that four and a half year timespan “referencing or pertaining to News Corp and/or Rupert Murdoch.” (RELATED: FCC more secretive than the CIA)

The July 15, 2011 request, the organization said, was made in response to the U.K. phone hacking scandal that rocked Murdoch’s News Corp. media empire. On August 9, 2011 the cache was delivered.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/23/fcc-responds-quickly-to-crew-request-for-murdoch-docs-ignores-grassleys-lightsquared-demand/#ixzz1srvw0WGK