Broadcasting&Cable

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) has privacy concerns about the new ATSC 3.0 next generation broadcast transmission standard and has asked both the Federal Communications Commission and the National Association of Broadcasters for some answers.

In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai copied to the other commissioners, the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties said that if the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDCA) is to continue, "We also request you provide for an appropriate level of local government representation." They defined that "appropriate level" in some of the same terms as those proffered by Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) in her recent letter to Chairman Pai:

David Redl's Senate confirmation Nov 7 as the new head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration continued to draw attention from telecom interests in Washington. NTIA, housed within the Commerce Department, is the chief communications advisor to the White House. It also oversees government spectrum use, much as the FCC oversees commercial users.

The Senate confirmed David Redl as head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Trump Administration's chief telecom advisor. NTIA also oversees government spectrum holders in much the way the Federal Communications Commission oversees private ones. Redl was nominated by President Donald Trump back in May. Redl is the former chief counsel of the House Commerce Committee's Communications Subcommittee. Redl had been chief counsel of the subcommittee 2013, before that serving as counsel to the full committee.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, fresh off a two-day fact-finding trip to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, talks with B&C Washington Bureau Chief John Eggerton about what he saw, including devastation unlike any of the preceding hurricanes, the need for more Universal Service Fund money, the value of creative thinking about communications solutions, and the lack of an FCC field office that could have helped before and after the storm, he suggests.

Reps Ted Poe (R-TX) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) have proposed amending the USA Liberty Act to toughen protections against warrantless searches and seizures of emails and other online communications. In Oct, House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) introduced the USA Liberty Act, which would reform and reauthorize Sec. 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes the surveillance of communications from non-U.S. residents.

The Coalition to Save Local Media, which is the coalition to block the Sinclair-Tribune merger, has added six new members, according to organizers, including a big union and leased access advocates.

Reporters Without Borders, the group that works to protect journalists, and journalism, across the globe, has asked Facebook to abandon a news feed test it is conducting in six countries, saying the change, if implemented, would imperil many media outlets. Facebook says it is testing ways to improve its news feed, a test being conducted in Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Slovakia, Serbia, Guatemala, and Cambodia. "The goal of this test is to understand if people prefer to have separate places for personal and public content," Facebook explained.