As published reports indicate FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has signaled his intent to approve the $67 billion merger of AT&T and BellSouth without adopting a single protection for consumers or competition, a group of consumer and public interest groups representing the interests of millions of Americans today held a press conference to urge the FCC to put the interests of consumers ahead of AT&T’s corporate interests.

The groups highlighted the enormous damage this merger will cause consumers, noting AT&T’s recent history of price hikes, job losses, violations of privacy, and policies of refusing to serve low income and minority communities. The groups also noted the FCC’s hasty movement toward approval despite the still-pending federal judicial review of the government’s approval of the SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI mergers.

Below are selected quotes from the remarks of the participants on the call.

Barry Steinhardt, Director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said: “We believe the FCC has both a statutory and a public interest obligation to investigate whether or not AT&T and BellSouth have been engaging in illegal cooperation with the NSA and spying on Americans. We are very disappointed that the FCC has fallen down in its obligation to conduct this investigation.” The ACLU has argued to the FCC that the agency has an affirmative obligation to determine whether AT&T has acted lawfully in its participation in the NSA spying program and that the merger should not be approved pending that determination.

Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), said: “We’re worried about the anti-competitive and anti-consumer impact of the merger. And we are unequivocally opposed to the merger going forward without the imposition of very significant conditions. AT&T is clearly one of the leaders in the fight to legalize redlining. They said they would serve 100% of upper income people and 5% of low income areas. So this entity will now have a larger territory in which to do their dirty work.” CFA is an advocacy, research, education, and service organization that works to advance pro-consumer policies on a variety of issues before state and federal governments.

Charles Acquard, Executive Director of NASUCA, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, said: “This merger may be good for AT&T and BellSouth stock holders, but it can’t possibly be good for consumers. We believe that it will stifle competition and it will harm innovation. This merger is a $60 billion mistake.” NASUCA is an association of 44 consumer advocates in 42 states and the District of Columbia. NASUCA's members are designated by the laws of their respective jurisdictions to represent the interests of utility consumers before state and federal regulators and in the courts.

Jeannine Kenney, Senior Policy Analyst, Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumers Reports, said: “The Tunney Act proceeding should affect how the administration moves forward or doesn’t move forward on this merger, but what is distressing is that it doesn’t appear to have had that effect. What the court has made pretty clear is that these mergers will be scrutinized more carefully, particularly for mergers of this magnitude. Given the record that FCC has before it, it is very difficult for us to understand how they can be moving forward this quickly.”

Andrew Schwartzman, President and CEO of the Media Access Project, a 30 year old non-profit public interest telecommunications law firm, said: “AT&T’s approach to the Internet is one which does not bode well for maintaining the Internet as an avenue of innovation, an avenue of free expression, an avenue of political speech. AT&T/BellSouth are sitting on a tremendous amount of spectrum, warehousing it, and this is spectrum that would be very useful for wireless Internet competition. One more opportunity for wireless competition has been lost.”