According to the Los Angeles Times [1], the Government Accounting Office says the FCC is giving inside information to major phone companies. When corporate moguls inside the "beltway" are given private information, it provides an unfair advantage to pitch what they want to legislators who unknowlingly are lead to believe the companies are smart enough to read their minds. The crime is that it gives consumers no advantage. It's as if a powerful person in a lawsuit has access to the judge to learn what he/she is thinking and to take this unique opportunity to establish a decision before the "common person" and his/her counsel have a chance to present the case. In the case of the FCC, lobbyists working with any FCC officials in secret discussions result in both the FCC and the lobbyists cheating the system. The article relates a couple of instances where an FCC staff person was fired in 2000 for leaking documents to a lobbyist. There's a legal time for discussion and a time where all parties are to keep their mouths, notes meetings and other means of communications on an issue totally silent.
Can the common person or the major company provide the most money in contributions and other special events? This question needs no answer in words because this answer is crystal-clear in almost all decisions made over the past few years where rulings are in favor of big industry and not the rest of us.