LightSquared CEO Resigns Amid Appearance of Bribery 211
New submitter msauve writes "LightSquared, the company who's request to use make use of spectrum in a way likely to interfere with GPS was recently denied, has suffered another setback. CEO Sanjiv Ahuja has now resigned, only a week after a report detailing political contributions and the personal financial interests of Obama and officials in his administration in SkyTerra, the precursor company to LightSquared.
Ahuja's one and only contribution to the Democratic Party occurred on the same day he tried to arrange a meeting with Obama administration officials, apparently as part of LightSquared's desire to fast track FCC approval of a change beneficial to the company."
Re:Important to note (Score:5, Insightful)
He attempt to do what many /.ers say happen all the time, and got busted.
Oh, that's just because he tried to cheap it out. 28K for a Senate Seat, 50K for Obama.
When you're in the big leagues, you've got to drop the big bucks. Remember this kids, you get what you pay for!
Why Bother resigning? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? Chris Dodd basically dick-smacked the entire concept of "bribing government is bad" into non-existence, but they force this guy out?
I guess that "contribution" wasn't big enough.
Re:Important to note (Score:5, Insightful)
He wasn't doing it right.
First off, at that level, he needs to start bri *ahem* making campaign donations to everybody, not just to the President. Senators, congressmen, judges, even the ones running the party all need their cut. And he needs to be doing it over multiple election years.
A few thousand dollars doesn't cut it anymore these days--at least not at the Federal level. To play in that game, he needs a warchest of at least half a million.
Additionally, he needed a lobbying firm to do the dirty work on his behalf. If it was a lobbying firm who did the brib *ahem* gift-giving instead, he would be shielded from all this by plausible deniability and would have kept his job. He could've just fired the lobbying firm and re-hired them under a different company name *ahem* I mean find another one.
Of course it was Bush's fault! (Score:0, Insightful)
Solyndra was considered by the Bush Administration and rejected.
Team Obama picked it up and approved it.
When it collapsed, they said it was Bush's fault. Unsurprising, since everything that goes wrong for them is Bush's fault.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Important to note (Score:4, Insightful)
They all failed because they can't compete with China. US solar companies can't compete with Chinese solar companies because the Chinese government backs its renewable tech companies while the US doesn't.
Re:Important to note (Score:4, Insightful)
Ia lot of the noise about F&F is coming in the form of conspiracy theories from the NRA
Mainstream news is almost totally ignoring the debacle, so at least one organization is talking about it.
It's not really a conspiracy theory when gun dealers openly say, "Yeah, we knew that buyer was a drug runner but the ATF agent in our back office told us to sell him the guns anyways."
Re:Important to note (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course it was Bush's fault! (Score:2, Insightful)
you're on slashdot. No evidence IS evidence of wrongdoing.
Re:Important to note (Score:5, Insightful)
Had it been left entirely up to the FCC they would have made their money.
Their mistake was underestimating the strength of the push back from the GPS users and manufacturers.
That and overestimating the power of law. They thought all they had to do was bribe someone to change the laws of physics.
Re:Important to note (Score:2, Insightful)
Gunwalker started under Bush and was ended because the Mexican authorities weren't catching them on their side. The Mexican authorities were informed prior to the sale unlike F&F were it was unilaterally decided to let weapons go.
Fast & Furious was 0bama's baby. We're three years into this mess and time for 0bama to 'man up' to take responsibilities.