FCC Under Fire After Agency Guards 'Manhandle' Reporter

FCC Under Fire After Agency Guards 'Manhandle' Reporter

The National Press Club is complaining that long-time defense reporter John Donnelly was "manhandled" during yesterday's FCC meeting simply for trying to ask a question. Donnelly said he was shoved up against a wall by plainclothes security personnel at the FCC when he tried to question commissioners when they were not in front of the podium at a scheduled press conference. The meeting drew more attention than normal thanks to the current FCC's decision to vote to begin rolling back popular consumer net neutrality protections.

"Throughout the FCC meeting, the security guards had shadowed Donnelly as if he were a security threat, he said, even though he continuously displayed his congressional press pass and held a tape recorder and notepad," the National Press Club said in its statement. "They even waited for him outside the men’s room at one point."

The odd part is that Donnelly isn't even really a confrontational reporter (not that this would justify the FCC's behavior), having dutifully covered the defense sector for years.

"When Donnelly strolled in an unthreatening way toward FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly to pose a question, two guards pinned Donnelly against the wall with the backs of their bodies until O’Rielly had passed," they added. "O’Rielly witnessed this and continued walking."

Commissioner O'Rielly apologized on Twitter, but claims to not have seen the confrontation, and pointed out he was hungry at the time.

The agency was understandably on edge given the extreme unpopularity of their ongoing attempt to remove accountability and oversight over some of the least competitive companies in American industry. FCC Commissioners didn't much want to talk about the bot stuffing the FCC comment system with bogus support for their proposal, their false claims that a spike in comments caused by John Oliver was a "DDoS attack", the fake protestors real protestors say showed up solely to make supporters look bad, or the fact O'Rielly and Pai are ignoring the overwhelming support for keeping the net neutrality rules in place.