Ajit Pai Refuses to Brief Lawmakers Over Phone-Tracking Scandal, Dubiously Blames Shutdown

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Saying there is no legal reason why Ajit Pai should rebuff an invitation to brief lawmakers during the government shutdown, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday criticized the FCC head for refusing to appear for a briefing about the ongoing controversy over wireless carriers disclosing to unauthorized parties the real-time location of American consumers.

 

President Donald Trump talks with Ajit Pai, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission

 

Saying there is no legal reason why Ajit Pai should rebuff an invitation to brief lawmakers during the government shutdown, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday criticized the FCC head for refusing to appear for a briefing about the ongoing controversy over wireless carriers disclosing to unauthorized parties the real-time location of American consumers.

 

In a call on Monday, Pai’s staff told Democrats that he would not appear to discuss his agency’s progress in tackling the issue due to the shutdown. His presence was requested last week for an “emergency briefing” by the committee’s chair, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., who, citing a threat to law enforcement, military personnel, and domestic abuse victims, said the matter could not wait for the shutdown to be resolved.

 

Significant portions of the federal government have been closed since Dec. 22, as President Trump has refused to sign any spending bill that doesn’t include billions of dollars to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. (The House and Senate have passed separate bills excluding the money.) After the FCC’s funding dried up on Jan. 3, the commission said it would cease all work irrelevant to “the protection of life and property.”

 

Attention spiked over the phone-tracking issue last week after Motherboard revealed that one of its reporters managed to acquire the location of a cellphone in Queens, New York, through a $300 back-alley deal. The report followed a New York Times story last April that disclosed how phone-location data was being funneled by “middleman” companies from carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile to law enforcement officials who would otherwise require a warrant to obtain it.

 

Motherboard security reporter Joseph Cox wrote that he had acquired phone-location data from a source in the bail bond industry during the course of an undercover investigation and that the sensitive data was being routinely acquired by bond agents (read: “bounty hunters”) without a subpoena or prior approval from the courts.

 

In a letter to the FCC chairman last week, Pallone said it was paramount his committee investigate the matter at once and that it could not wait “until President Trump decides to reopen the government.” However, the committee reported on Monday that Pai had refused to appear for the emergency briefing citing the shutdown, asserting the matter was “not a threat to the safety of human life or property.”

 

The phone call to inform Pallone of Pai’s refusal was not placed by the FCC chairman or his chief of staff, Matthew Berry, according to a senior Democratic aide, who said the news came instead from a lower-level staffer.

 

Pallone responded to Pai’s decision in a statement, saying: “There’s nothing in the law that should stop the Chairman personally from meeting about this serious threat that could allow criminals to track the location of police officers on patrol, victims of domestic abuse, or foreign adversaries to track military personnel on American soil.”

 

Neither the FCC nor Berry immediately responded to a request for comment.

 

In an email to Gizmodo, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, who initially notified the FCC to the location-data issue last spring, said that Pai had “enough time to tweet cat videos and tired memes, but refuses to brief Congress about a real threat to every American’s security,” a likely reference to an NFL meme and a video of a cat retweeted by the chairman on Monday.

 

“It’s a new low for someone who has spent his tenure at the FCC refusing to do his job and stand up for American consumers,” added Wyden.

 

In his letter to Pai last week, Pallone wrote:

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Bad actors can use location information to track individuals’ physical movements without their knowledge or consent. If recent reports detailing the cheap, accurate, and easy accessibility of legally protected, real-time location data are true, we must work expeditiously to address these public safety concerns. If we don’t, the privacy and security of everyone who subscribes to wireless phone service from certain carriers—including government officials, military personnel, domestic violence victims, and law enforcement officials—may be compromised.

 

Due to the shutdown, the FCC ran out of funding on January 3 and was forced to cease all work not considered necessary for “the protection of life and property.”

 

Pallone noted that FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who is also a Democrat, said she was available to discuss the location-data matter with the committee, despite Pai’s refusal.

 

“This is an issue of personal and national security,” Rosenworcel told Gizmodo by phone. “It needs an FCC investigation, the public deserves answers. There’s absolutely no excuse for delay.” She concurred with Pallone’s assessment, saying that nothing in the law prevents Pai from meeting with the committee during the shutdown.

 

“What strikes me most, having spent some time studying this,” she said, “is that this is a data ecosystem with no oversight.” It’s very troubling, she added, that major phone companies, which have legitimate uses for location data, have allowed that information to be turned over to “shady middlemen, who in turn will sell it to people who knock on their doors and ask for it, with very little oversight or control.”

 

“It’s not clear to me that I ever consented to that happening, and I bet you didn’t either,” she continued, adding: “The FCC should be investigating from top to bottom, we should be auditing to identify every one of those third parties that had access to that information, and we should be figuring out if consumers ever gave their consent for this to occur.”

 

T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T have each said publicly that they plan to terminate their contracts with location aggregators—the companies, like Zumigo, that are responsible for turning their consumers’ location data over to unauthorized third-parties, including, reportedly, bail bond agents. T-Mobile, the company that initially gathered the location data relevant to the Motherboard investigation, first said it would do so around eight months ago and recently said it would finish terminating its aggregator contracts in March.

 

The nation’s other major wireless carrier, Verizon, whose data was not available for purchase in Motherboard’s story, told Gizmodo that it had severed its contracts last year.

 

“As you’re most likely aware, Verizon is not among the companies cited in recent media accounts regarding issues with location tracking. We have followed through on our commitment to terminate aggregation arrangements and provide location information only with the express consent of our customers,” a Verizon spokesperson said.

 

The company added that it had maintained prior arraignments with four roadside assistance companies during the winter “for public safety reasons,” but that those companies “agreed to transition out of the existing arrangements by the end of March.”

 

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