June 2009

FCC's McDowell nominated for another term

President Barack Obama plans to nominate Robert McDowell, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission, to serve another term, the White House said on Tuesday. Commissioner McDowell was confirmed by the Senate on June 1, 2006. During his tenure McDowell has helped create rules governing wireless auctions and incentives to encourage the development of new broadband technologies, the White House said. President Obama has chosen Julius Genachowski to lead the FCC. The Senate is considering Genachowski and other nominations to fill that seat and one vacancy set aside for another Republican. Sources say McDowell was the choice of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Apparently, Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, is backing former National Telecommunications and Administration acting head Meredith Attwell Baker for the other GOP seat at the FCC.

Julius Genachowski to ramp up efforts to ensure equal access on the Internet

The political sea change brought by Democratic dominance that's already affecting the energy and health care sectors is about to wash over a new one: technology. President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate later this month — and activists expect him to ramp up efforts to ensure equal access on the Internet. The so-called Net neutrality issue has been roiling the Internet community for three years, pitting Internet access providers such as Verizon, Comcast and AT&T against consumers and content providers including Google, Microsoft and Amazon. It's also an issue that offers a striking illustration of how elections matter.

Homeland Security Names New Cybersecurity Officials

The Department of Homeland Security filled out its cybersecurity team Monday, two months after Rod Beckstrom resigned as director of the department's National Cybersecurity Center. He had clashed with the National Security Agency and complained about lack of funding. Taking Beckstrom's place as director of the National Cybersecurity Center will be Philip Reitinger, who is currently Homeland Security deputy undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate. Reitinger, who also worked in cybersecurity for Microsoft and fought cybercrime for the Department of Justice, will help to coordinate cybersecurity efforts across the government.

Experts want more detail on Obama cybersecurity plan

President Barack Obama's new cybersecurity report is short on details and creates a federal coordinator position that may have limited power, some cybersecurity experts say. The new cybersecurity coordinator will report both to the US National Security Council and the National Economic Council, raising concerns that whomever Obama names will have split priorities, said Stewart Baker, a partner in the Steptoe & Johnson law firm and a former assistant director for policy in the US Department of Homeland Security. "That is not an indication that this office will be given large amounts of authority," said Baker, who served at DHS during former President George Bush's administration. While many initial reactions to the release of the Obama administration report were positive, speakers at a Congressional Internet Caucus event Monday raised some concerns, particularly that the report is short on details.

Craigslist Founder Seeks Larger DC Role

Craig Newmark, the founder of popular online community Craigslist.org, said Tuesday he is considering whether to "dedicate a big chunk of my life" to those who are driving change in Washington and wants to spend more time practicing his own brand of public service. Was his comment during a keynote at the annual Computers Freedom & Privacy conference a hint he is considering joining President Obama's stable of tech-savvy advisers or running for Congress? Probably not (although he was involved in Obama's campaign). But the Web freedom advocate is eager to get more engaged in the policy debate in the nation's capital. As the government tries to figure out how to effectively use consumer products like micro-blogging site Twitter and photo-sharing site Flickr, Newmark wants to weigh in.

Sotomayor, Gingrich, and the demise of our press corps

[Commentary] Last week's press coverage of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court was gruesome in so many ways, as reporters routinely fell down and failed to reflect even the most basic tenets of journalism. Given the near ubiquity of the press failing, it's hard for me to believe that it wasn't been done intentionally. I'm not into newsroom conspiracies, but it's just difficult to believe that among these elite, college-educated journalists, that virtually every one of them covering the Sotomayor story mysteriously forgot to provide even the slightest context for the "Latina woman" quote -- a single sentence from a speech given eight years ago. Having looked at this story from every angle, I can only conclude that the lack of context has been a conscious, deliberate decision by journalists to, in a sense, purposefully un-inform news consumers, which, of course, is the opposite of what journalism aspires to accomplish.

Sotomayor Nomination Dominates the Narrative

The May 26 nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the nation's first Latina Supreme Court Justice not only topped the news agenda last week. As a ritual set piece of Washington, the nomination also offered a clear look at the velocity and ferocity of the new media ecosystem in 2009, one forged by the election, by the rise of social media and cable, and even more than ever defined by speed, political surrogates, diversity and argument. From May 25-31, Sotomayor accounted for 24% of the newshole as measured by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. That exceeded coverage of North Korea's nuclear test (12%), the troubled economy (9%), GM's impending bankruptcy (7%) and a California ruling affirming a gay marriage ban (5%), in PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index. So far in 2009, only one story not about the economy or the new Obama administration—the late April swine flu outbreak—has generated more weekly coverage than last week's historic nomination.

A Fiber-Rich Diet

[Commentary] While data zips across the country on beams of light carried by fiber optic cables, when it reaches the vast majority of last-mile access networks it hits copper wires, which regardless of whether it's DSL or cable will always be slower than fiber. The more fiber you have the more capacity that's available to handle Internet traffic. And when you lay fiber all the way to users' front doors then you fundamentally redefine their connectivity paradigm, evolving from an era of bandwidth scarcity to one of abundance. As the Internet's backbone is all fiber, anything with lesser capacity will be a bottleneck. So let's acknowledge that the next-generation of the Internet means extending the power of fiber optics to every house.

Ten days and Counting to DTV Transition

With 10 days remaining before the transition to digital television on June 12, the Federal Communications Commission is providing boots on the ground, messages over the airwaves, help over the phone, and answers in cyberspace for consumers who still need help preparing for the switch. The level of preparedness has steadily increased since Congress delayed the digital television (DTV) transition in February. The gap of unready households across America has narrowed by over 50 percent in the past six months based on Nielsen data - in January, 5.7 percent of U.S. households were estimated to be unready for the DTV transition, and that number has now dropped to 2.7 percent. However, that 2.7 percent represents about 3.1 million homes nationwide that risk losing free over-the-air television unless they act before June 12. Over the next 10 days, the FCC will be issuing a drumbeat of daily messages designed to highlight the most important issues concerning the impending nationwide transition. In addition to this media information campaign, approximately 250 FCC staffers will be working with the public at events and DTV clinics nationwide, while the Commissioners will be traveling the country for local DTV events and making television and radio appearances in target markets.

Industry Stakeholders Expect 'Meaningful Use' Criteria This Month

The federal government might publish criteria for the definition of "meaningful use" of electronic health records by June 16, according to the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association, a trade group for EHR firms. The Medicare and Medicaid financial incentives mandated under the federal stimulus package require meaningful use of certified EHRs. The publication of meaningful use criteria could be followed by a brief public comment period while the federal government undergoes the rules-development process. It is unclear when the final rule will be released, but industry stakeholders expect the rule on meaningful use by late summer or early fall, according to Justin Barnes, chair of the HIMSS EHR Association and vice president of marketing and government affairs for physician software vendor Greenway Medical Technologies. The federal stimulus package requires publication of a final rule on meaningful use by the end of 2009.