December 2011

Extended Deadline for Public Access and Digital Data RFIs

In November, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued two Requests for Information (RFI), one on open access to scientific publications and the other on the management of digital data. On Dec 20, responding to numerous requests, we submitted to the Federal Register an extension of the deadlines for those RFIs to January 12, 2012. We anticipate the official notice of that extension appearing in the Federal Register this Friday, but wanted to ensure that all stakeholders knew as soon as possible about the extended deadline.

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, signed by President Obama earlier this year, calls upon OSTP to coordinate with agencies to develop policies that assure widespread public access to and long-term stewardship of the results of federally funded unclassified research. Towards that goal, OSTP issued the two RFIs soliciting public input on long-term preservation of and public access to the results of federally funded research, including digital data and peer-reviewed scholarly publications.
We encourage stakeholders to carefully consider the questions in the RFIs and provide comments to the addresses specified. Soon after the conclusion of the comment periods, OSTP will make all comments available on its website (including the names of the authors and their institutional affiliations, so please do not include any proprietary or confidential information when responding). All comments are now due by January 12, 2012.

Scientific Integrity Policies Increasingly in Place

Departments and agencies across the Federal government submitted to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) their latest and, in some cases, final, drafts of their scientific integrity policies this past week, in compliance with a deadline I set in October for completion of final or draft-final versions for review. The latest versions—produced by 20 Federal entities—reflect inputs received from OSTP this past fall to ensure that each includes the full range of assurances called for in President Obama’s March 2009 Memorandum on Scientific Integrity and my December 2010 Memorandum that outlined in greater detail the minimum requirements expected by this Administration.

The scientific integrity policies now final or being finalized by departments and agencies will help ensure that federally supported science and scientific information remain undiluted and untainted—not only for policymakers but also for the public. All of the policies also ensure that Federal Advisory Committees—which provide outside expert advice to the government, including in many instances from scientists and engineers—operate transparently and free of problematic conflicts of interest. Finally, all the policies also provide assurances that Federal scientists have the freedom to advance their careers in much the same way they would in the private sector in terms of their participation in outside professional activities and receipt of awards. This is key to ensuring that the public sector remains an attractive place for high-quality scientists and engineers to pursue their careers in service to the Nation.

The Future Of The Internet's Here. And It's Creepy

In Gary Shteyngart's 2010 novel Super Sad True Love Story, ordinary Americans are glued to superpowered iPhone-like devices while authority figures monitor their every move. Two newly released research papers on the Internet's future, it seems, prove the author did a good job of predicting things.

One Pew study has found that text messaging is growing more quickly than anyone has imagined, while a new Brookings paper is predicting cheap and total monitoring of all electronic communications by authoritarian governments in the next few years. First, the dystopian future. John Villasenor of UCLA conducted research for the Brookings Institution that paints a depressing picture of where Internet monitoring is headed. In the paper, Recording Everything: Digital Storage As An Enabler Of Authoritarian Governments, Villasenor has uncovered convincing evidence that repressive regimes worldwide will soon be able to cheaply monitor all voice and data communications in their country. According to Villasenor, “For the first time ever, it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders--every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner.” The same technological advances that enable amazing consumer gadgets like iPhones also help fuel ominous government surveillance projects.

2011: A Year of Big Stories Both Foreign and Domestic

The threat of nuclear disaster in Japan and the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs were two of the breaking news stories that captured the greatest amount of public attention in 2011. But Americans also kept a steady watch on the economy at home.

More than half said they followed news about rising fuel prices very closely in April, while the struggling economy remained a top story throughout the year. In the week after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, 55% said they were following news about the disaster very closely, the highest for any news story over the course of the year. News about the situation in Japan proved to be the most closely followed news story for six consecutive weeks, as the extent of damage to a nuclear power complex became a more grave concern. But 2011 was a year of many big stories. In early May, half (50%) of Americans very closely followed news about Osama bin Laden’s death. And on the domestic front, 53% said they tracked news about rising gas and oil prices very closely in mid-April. The January shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson, Arizona was closely tracked by 49%. Since the meltdown of 2008, the economy has routinely been among the public’s top stories. And across most of the 2011 weekly News Interest Index surveys, about four-in-ten said they followed news about the economy very closely. About half (49%) said this in late February, a high point for 2011.

The Year in New 2011

The faltering U.S. economy was the No. 1 story in the American news media in 2011, with coverage increasing substantially from a year earlier when economic unease helped alter the political landscape in the midterm elections, according to The Year in the News 2011, a new report conducted by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The year 2011 was also characterized by a jump of more than a third in coverage of international news, by a growing contrast in the content of the three broadcast networks and by a series of dramatic breaking news events that dominated coverage in ways unprecedented in PEJ's five years of studying news agenda.

The biggest story of the year, however, was the economy. As the recovery weakened and Washington engaged in partisan warfare over the debt ceiling, news about the state of the economy jumped to the same level of attention it had received in 2009 when newly elected president Barack Obama passed his controversial stimulus package in response to the "Great Recession." For all of 2011, the economy made up 20% of the space studied in newspapers and online and time on television and radio news, an increase of more than 40% from 14% of the newshole studied in 2010. The unfolding uprisings in the Middle East-from the mass protests in Egypt in February to the hunt for Muammar Gaddafi in October-was the second biggest story of the year. Those events filled 12% of the newshole studied in 2011. That makes the Middle East uprisings the second- biggest annual foreign story on record since PEJ began analyzing the news agenda five years earlier. The only bigger international story was Iraq in 2007, the year of the "surge" under George Bush.

The biggest component of the Mideast story in 2011 was the uprising in Libya, which involved international military intervention and the dramatic search for the fleeing Libyan dictator. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was the second biggest part of the Mideast uprisings story. The ongoing violence in Syria was the third biggest element.
The No. 3 story of the year overall in 2011 was the race for U.S. president, even though no primary or caucus has yet been held or single vote cast. The race for president consumed 9% of the news space in the last year. What was once called pre-primary period, or the invisible primary, is invisible no longer. Four years ago, in 2007, with nomination battles raging in both parties, the presidential campaign was a bigger story, however, accounting for 11% of the newshole.

Sun-Times company to be sold for more than $20 million

A group of investors led by Merrick Ventures LLC CEO Michael Ferro Jr. and Madison Dearborn Partners LLC Chairman John Canning Jr. is expected to pay more than $20 million to acquire Chicago's second-largest newspaper company, Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC, according to sources familiar with the transaction.

The new owners will tap Tim Knight, CEO of Chicago-based Internet company CraftEdu and a former Tribune Co. executive who was publisher of New York tabloid Newsday, to lead the enterprise formed by the new owners, a source familiar with that appointment said. Knight joined Tribune in 1996 from law firm Skadden Arps Meagher & Flom LLP, where he was a lawyer, and held several posts in Chicago, including at the Chicago Tribune, before shifting to Newsday in 2003 to become an executive vice-president and general manager. A year later, he became president and chief operating officer at the paper before being promoted to publisher and CEO in 2004. He resigned in 2009 and now lives in suburban Chicago. Ferro and Canning, a member of Merrick Ventures' board, appear to be making the investments as individuals and not through their firms. They are also both board members at the Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit that provides local news content twice weekly to the New York Times and publishes on its own website.

Verizon says network is returning to normal

Verizon Wireless has released a statement saying that its 4G network was back to normal after reports that users were having connectivity problems on the morning of Dec 21.

“Verizon Wireless 4G LTE service is returning to normal this morning, after company engineers worked to resolve an issue with the 4G network during the early morning hours today,” said Verizon spokeswoman Melanie Ortel. “Throughout this time, 4G LTE customers were able to make voice calls and send and receive text messages. The 3G data network operated normally.” Some users had reported problems with 3G connections as well, but those issues did not affect all customers.

Carrier IQ: Motorola, T-Mobile detail use

Motorola and T-Mobile responded to requests from Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) for more details on how they use Carrier IQ software.

In its letter to Sen Franken, T-Mobile revealed that it uses the device on some of its premium smartphones including the HTC Amaze and the Samsung Galaxy S II. It estimates that 450,000 of its customers “use devices that contain Carrier IQ’s diagnostic software” to collect some information, such as the telephone numbers a user dials and the phone numbers from incoming calls. It does not collect the content of text messages sent or received, the content of e-mails sent or received, the URLs of Web sites visited, information from users’ address books or any other keystroke data.

Motorola replied that it installs software on four models — the Admiral, Titanium, Bravo and Atrix 2 — at the request of its carrier partners, AT&T and Sprint. “As of the end of the third-quarter of 2011, we have sold a total of approximately 145,000 units of these models to our wireless carrier partners,” wrote company government relations senior vice president Dale Stone. However, Stone said, Motorola has no mechanisms in place to track how many of the devices are currently in use or how the devices are collecting data.

AT&T may eye Dish or Clearwire deals next

AT&T may look to Dish Network or Clearwire for its next deal as it recovers from its failure to buy T-Mobile USA.

AT&T said its $39 billion proposal to buy T-Mobile USA was motivated solely by its spectrum shortage, so the No. 2 U.S. mobile service now needs to look for another acquisition to bolster its wireless airwaves holdings. AT&T is already seeking regulatory approval for its deal to buy a small amount of spectrum from wireless chip maker Qualcomm. Dish and Clearwire are seen as the most likely places AT&T will look for new spectrum because Dish is poised to buy a massive chunk of airwaves and Clearwire needs funding and it has large amounts of spectrum it is not using today.

Billionaire Sam Zell Sues Shareholders Over Tribune Buyout He Engineered

Billionaire Sam Zell sued former shareholders of the bankrupt publisher Tribune Company, claiming he should be paid along with other creditors should a court rule the 2007 buyout he engineered was a fraud.

The suit, filed by the Zell-controlled company EGI-TRB LLC, defends the buyout as legitimate while also attempting to preserve Zell’s ability to collect money should a court disagree. “If it is determined that the selling shareholder payments represent fraudulent conveyances, EGI-TRB is entitled to recover from such transfers or conveyances in an amount in excess of $225 million,” Zell’s attorneys said in court papers filed in state court in Chicago

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