Government & Communications

I am honored to be here on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Pai extends his warmest appreciation to our regulatory friends in the Caribbean. And he is excited to support the launch of the US-Caribbean Resilience Partnership. In these brief remarks, I’d like to talk about three topics: (1) the FCC’s role in disaster preparedness; (2) a few key lessons learned from the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season; and (3) what the FCC can do to support a working group for the U.S.-Caribbean Resilience Partnership

We have more work do if want to truly modernize the public file system that is the subject of our decision April 12. These filings include things like station authorizations, contour maps, ownership reports, equal employment opportunity filings, reports on children’s television programming, materials related to investigations and complaints, and joint sales agreements.

The White House moved to exert greater control over the federal regulatory process by imposing additional scrutiny over independent government agencies when they establish new policies, guidelines or rules that affect large swaths of the economy.

British authorities arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in response to an American extradition request, and a US federal court unsealed an indictment charging him with a single count of conspiracy to hack a classified Defense Department computer.  Assange was taken into custody by British police after Ecuador rescinded his asylum at its embassy in London, ending a media-saturated standoff that lasted nearly seven years.

Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) filed a $150 million lawsuit against the McClatchy Company, alleging "character assassination" by the newspaper chain, which owns The Fresno Bee in his home state. Rep Nunes claimed in a Virginia state court that Republican consultant Liz Mair conspired with McClatchy reporter MacKenzie Mays to spread smears and falsehoods, including an allegation the congressman "was involved with cocaine and underage prostitutes" during a 2015 charity yacht party.

The man who edited Wikipedia with several senators’ private phone numbers and addresses has pleaded guilty to computer fraud and other offenses. Jackson Cosko, a former employee of Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), was arrested in 2018 on suspicion of doxxing five members of Congress. He’s now admitted to breaking into Sen Hassan’s office after being fired, stealing data that included personal contact information, then posting that information online during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.

Few private citizens have ever been more central to the state of world affairs than Rupert Murdoch. As the head of a sprawling global media empire, he commanded multiple television networks, a global news service, a major publishing house and a Hollywood movie studio. His newspapers and television networks had been instrumental in amplifying the nativist revolt that was reshaping governments not just in the United States but also across the planet.

The US Census Bureau has asked tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter to help it fend off “fake news” campaigns it fears could disrupt the upcoming 2020 count.  The push follows warnings from data and cybersecurity experts dating back to 2016 that right-wing groups and foreign actors may borrow the “fake news” playbook from the last presidential election to dissuade immigrants from participating in the decennial count. Apparently, evidence has included increasing chatter on platforms like “4chan” by domestic and foreign networks keen to undermine the survey.

Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR), Rand Paul (R-KY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Steve Daines (R-MT) asked the Department of Justice a series of questions about when and how the government can collect information about Americans’ location, in a bipartisan letter to Attorney General William Barr. The senators asked Attorney General Barr how the Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter v. United States, that the government must get a warrant to obtain location information about Americans in most circumstances, has impacted federal government surveillance, including by the National Security Agency.

On March 12, Utah legislators voted unanimously to pass landmark legislation in support of a new privacy law that will protect private electronic data stored with third parties like Google or Facebook from free-range government access.