By Donie O’Sullivan, Laurie Segall, and Tal Yellin
Margaret Mary Basco died on June 9, 2017, at Saint Peter’s Hospital in Albany, New York. She was 58.
And then, just over a month after she died, Margaret Basco submitted a comment to the Federal Communications Commission about its proposal to overturn net neutrality.
“The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation,” the comment read.
Basco’s story shows how stolen personal data can be weaponized and used to interfere in the democratic process. Investigators say the identities of more than one million Americans, both dead and alive, may have been used to hijack the FCC’s public comment process — one of the few ways beyond voting that Americans can directly share their opinion with the government.
The current rules on net neutrality, adopted under the Obama administration, bar internet providers, like AT&T and Comcast, from deliberately speeding up or slowing down traffic to or from specific websites and apps. (AT&T is in the process of acquiring Time Warner, CNN’s parent company.)
