A communications industry lobbyist who has represented some of the nation’s most powerful cable, Internet and telecommunications firms is drawing scrutiny for his role on President-elect Obama’s transition team.

James Halpert, an attorney and registered lobbyist with DLA Piper, is advising on matters involving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and intellectual property, according to many sources in the technology sector who are familiar with Obama’s transition operations.

Critics are crying foul because they insist Halpert lobbied these issues just a few months ago, in violation of Obama’s strict ethics guidelines, which state that parties joining the transition effort are prohibited from working in areas in which they focused as registered lobbyists in the last 12 months.

“When we saw his name pop up as the transition guy for IP, I mean, everybody nearly had a heart attack,” an industry source said.

The flap over Halpert comes as corporate stakeholders and watchdogs jockey for position to influence decisions the new administration will make in the coming weeks and months that could profoundly affect their businesses and reverse eight years of largely deregulatory communications policies.

While the Obama team has released the names of its top transition advisers, several of whom have deep ties to communications firms and associations, hundreds more  including Halpert have not been disclosed to the public.

SOURCE: Nationaljournal

Change we can count on, may I quit laughing now? Everything Obama is doing looks like old Washington corruption to me. Where is the change? Like I said change can be bad as well as good and Obama’s change looks to be bad!!