FCC process a mega-fraud: Schneiderman

ALBANY — The number of Americans whose identities were fraudulently used in comments over net neutrality filed with the Federal Communications Commission doubled to 2 million, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Wednesday.

Schneiderman released the latest findings of his investigation into the matter a day before the FCC is set to vote on whether to repeal net neutrality rules.

“Millions of fake comments have corrupted the FCC public process — including two million that stole the identities of real people, a crime under New York law,” Schneiderman said. “Yet the FCC is moving full steam ahead with a vote based on this corrupted process, while refusing to cooperate with an investigation.”

Schneiderman again called on the FCC to delay the vote. He said over 5,000 people have filed reports with his office saying their identities were used to submit fake comments to the FCC on the net neutrality issue.

His probe also found over 100,000 fraudulent comments each from New York, Florida, Texas and California. His office previously said that about half a million of the suspected fake comments came from Russian email addresses.

In a letter to FCC General Counsel Thomas Johnson, New York’s top legal officer said that “one might expect a federal agency to harbor a great deal of concern when faced with strong evidence of a massive fraud uncovered by multiple sources.”

An FCC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.