Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) weighed in on the Arbitron Portable People Meter radio-measurement-system rollout in eight markets, saying that he thinks the rollout should be delayed until the system is accredited by the Media Research Center. The MRC was created by Congress to vet media-ratings systems, although seeking its accreditation is voluntary, not mandatory.
If it walks like a partisan campaign operation and talks like a partisan campaign operation, it should not qualify for the press exemption from campaign-finance restrictions. That's according to the Campaign Legal Center, which Monday asked the Federal Election Commission to rule that a proposed Internet-TV station did not qualify for the exemption. The center's filing came in response to a request from self-described proposed Internet-TV station Melothe for a ruling from the FEC on whether, as described, the group would qualify for the exemption, and if it did, if it could also solicit funds on the part of the candidates it "covered." Companies engaged in newsgathering do not have their expenditures for news coverage or commentary on a candidate counted as in-kind campaign contributions. The exemption from regulations on "contributions" to federal elections applies to "any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate," according to campaign law. The press exemption has been expanded to include online-news operations, but the definition of news operation is not a bright line and the CLC said Melothe definitely crosses it.
Public interest and concern over the bailout bill has caused a significant slowdown on the website of the House of Representatives. E-mail traffic in recent days has increased in volume by three or four times the normal rate, according to Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer. He attributed the resulting slowdown to "the extraordinary interest in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and a dramatic increase in the number of constituents e-mailing their members of Congress surrounding the bill."
[Commentary] The US broadband strategy is not to have a strategy. Not only will the market's invisible hand dig those trenches for us, and then lay down the necessary wiring, but it will ensure that speeds shoot ever upward, and US broadband is the envy of the world. Not only should the government butt out of the process, it shouldn't even set aspirational goals. How has this plan been working out? According to the Communications Workers of America and the Fiber-to-the-Home Council, not real well. This week, they called on Congress to pass a pair of resolutions that would set national goals, and come up with at least some plan for attaining speeds of 100Mbps by 2015. The resolutions in questions are H.Res.1292 and S.Res.191. Both call for the same thing: a baseline goal of universal, symmetrical 10Mbps access by 2010, increasing to 100Mbps in five more years. The resolution also asks relevant Congressional committees to talk with the President, and develop a plan by the end of 2009 to actually make the idea a reality. Much of the US remains far from these goals as 2008 winds down. The Communication Workers of America's 2008 study on broadband speeds shows, for instance, that Ars' home state of Illinois has tested median download speeds of 2.5Mbps this year, with an abysmal upload speed of 485Kbps. And numerous rural counties in the state get less than 700Kbps down. Half the states in the US are doing worse even than this, though Rhode Island takes the top spot at 6.7Mbps. As reports have indicated, this isn't good enough to keep us from falling behind the rest of the world.
The latest attempt at a federal shield law was introduced in 2007 to much fanfare. It was a bipartisan bill given the best chance in decades of finally giving journalists and their sources protections from overzealous prosecutors, a protection most states already grant. But with only a sliver of a chance of passage in a lame-duck session, that effort will likely have to wait until a new Congress and administration. As Senate Commerce Committee general counsel Christine Kurth told a group of broadcasters in Washington, D.C., last week, "It is increasingly hard to pass any stand-alone legislation." Other bills that likely will have to wait for the next Congress, if then, include the Federal Communications Commission-blocking resolution announced with much fanfare by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would block an easing of media-ownership rules. That bill actually passed the Senate by a voice vote, but a House version has not gone anywhere, mirroring a similar attempt to block the FCC's media-ownership-rule rewrite in 2003. While stand-alone bills don't stand much of a chance, the communications-related bill with arguably the best chance of making it into law would give the National Telecommunications and Information Administration an additional $20 million to send out DTV-to-analog converter-box coupons and give the FCC $20 million for DTV education/outreach. Both of those were appended last week to the continuing resolution that would allow the government to continue to be funded through the March installation of a new administration. It was passed by the House last week.
The House Sunday passed the Intellectual Property Enforcement bill, legislation backed by studios and publishers that boosts the government's effort to crack down on intellectual piracy. The bill already passed the Senate Friday after a provision was removed that would have given the Justice Department the power to pursue civil cases against copyright infringers. That and another provision still in the bill ran afoul of both the Justice and Commerce Departments. But the bill, as passed by both Houses and heading for the president's desk, still contains a provision for creating an IP-enforcement-coordinating post in the White House's Office of the President, which Commerce and Justice said they objected to strongly as a violation of separation of powers. It now remains to be seen whether the White House wants to take on a veto fight on a bipartisan bill -- it passed the Senate by unanimous consent and the House by a margin of 381-41.
The Federal Communications Commission is asking for public comment on whether to require satellite radio receivers to pick up digital radio signals. But Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) said the answer should be yes, and he's not waiting for the FCC to make the call. Markey's "Radio All Digital Channel Receiver Act" (H.R. 7157) would mandate that devices designed to receive both the new merged Sirius XM Radio service and terrestrial AM/FM radio be able to receive digital radio too. Markey's bill is co-sponsored by an interesting and bipartisan bunch of House members, including three staunch Clear Channel supporters, Charles Gonzalez (D-TX), Greg Walden (R-OR), and Lee Terry (R-NE).
Reps Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Nathan Deal (R-GA) weighed in with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin asking for a retransmission-consent quiet period that starts before the end of the year and extends beyond the Feb. 17, 2009, date for the switch to full-power digital TV. They say there is a "significant risk" that "more than a few" stations could be pulled from cable systems in January, given that a bunch of retrans deals expire Dec. 31. There are others expiring Oct. 1, as well.
On September 26, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer announced that broadband and telecommunications loans totaling more than $342 million were awarded to 18 communications firms serving 22 states. The funds are meant to help bring new and improved telecommunications services to rural residents and businesses. The loans are being made through the Rural Development Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program, which provides low-interest loans to deploy broadband and telecommunications services to rural communities of 20,000 residents or less, with first priority going to areas without broadband. Rural Development is also providing funding through the Telecommunications Infrastructure Loan Program, which makes loans to local firms working to provide both voice and broadband services in areas with 5,000 or fewer citizens.
Six of the world's biggest telecommunications companies have completed the construction of a high-speed undersea telecommunications cable system across the Pacific. The fiber-optic cable, called Trans-Pacific Express, will directly link the U.S., China, South Korea and Taiwan. The 18,000 kilometer undersea cable will offer an alternative to the single low-capacity cable that now provides the only direct link between mainland China and the U.S. Currently, most Web traffic between the two countries has to go through Hong Kong or Japan, at times causing transmission delays. The $500 million project was signed in December 2006 by Verizon and its partners; KT Corp., China Telecom, China Netcom Group, China Unicom and Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom.
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