February 2012

A coalition of about 70 advocacy groups and companies sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to take their time in drafting anti-piracy legislation.

"Now is the time for Congress to take a breath, step back, and approach the issues from a fresh perspective," the groups wrote. "The concerns are too fundamental and too numerous to be fully addressed through hasty revisions to these bills. Nor can they be addressed by closed door negotiations among a small set of inside the-beltway stakeholders." The letter was signed by advocacy groups including Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Free Press, Amnesty International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Companies such as Mozilla, reddit and Twitpic also signed the letter. The groups argued that Congress paid too much attention to the interests of the entertainment industry and not enough to the interests of the Web community when drafting SOPA and PIPA. "The Internet’s value to the public makes it necessary that any legislative debate in this area be open, transparent, and sufficiently deliberative to allow the full range of interested parties to offer input and to evaluate specific proposals," the groups wrote. "To avoid doing so would be to repeat the mistakes of SOPA and PIPA."

For the third consecutive year, the Super Bowl set a record as the most-watched television show in US history.

Nielsen estimates 111.3 million people watched the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots. That narrowly beat the 111 million who watched Green Bay's win over Pittsburgh last year. NBC was blessed by a competitive game between two teams that played in one of the Super Bowl's most memorable contests four years ago, with one of them representing the largest media market in the country. The game wasn't over until Tom Brady's last-second heave into the end zone dropped onto the turf. That play itself had the biggest audience of any play in the game, according to the digital video recorder maker Tivo. Nielsen said 117.7 million people were watching during the last half hour of the game. The last two Super Bowls, along with the 2010 game between New Orleans and Indianapolis and the finale of "M-A-S-H" in 1983, are the only programs to exceed 100 million viewers in US television history. Madonna has some bragging rights, too. Her halftime show was seen by an estimated 114 million people – a higher average than the game itself – and was the most-watched Super Bowl halftime entertainment show on record.

There was lots of chatter and twitter over the bird flipped during the Super Bowl half-time show on NBC and whether that could possibly draw the Federal Communications Commission's attention as a violation of indecency policy. Currently, there are over a million complaints pending due to the current court challenges and ongoing uncertainty about the FCC's ability to enforce its policy, but the middle finger could fall under that current policy since the FCC has said that if they know what you mean, and the middle finger definitely conveys a specific four-letter command, the fact that the words, or images are not literally conveyed is not necessarily a shield.

House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) recently outlined a 2012 agenda that focuses on job creation, innovation, good government, and protecting the American people. The agenda includes:

1. Promoting Good Government: The communications sector is increasingly a driver of our economy, yet poor Federal Communications Commission process can discourage companies from investing and hinder innovation. To bring greater transparency and predictability to the FCC’s operations, and with an emphasis on practices that help the American public and regulated parties interact with the Commission, the committee will finalize its work, begun last year with a series of hearings and a subcommittee vote, on legislation to focus the agency on its core responsibilities and make certain its decision-making processes are consistent and open.
2. Prioritizing Jobs and Stimulating Innovation: Spectrum auctions have been a promising part of Congress’ latest and highest-profile debates, and as a Conference Committee meets to negotiate a yearlong package of payroll tax relief, spectrum is back on the table. The House-passed spectrum legislation known as the JOBS Act significantly expands the availability of much-needed wireless broadband, generates hundreds of thousands of jobs, helps build a public safety network, and produces nearly $17 billion for taxpayers. The JOBS Act is currently the best deal on the table for taxpayers.
3. Foiling Threats to Communications Networks: This spring, the subcommittee will resume an aggressive review of cybersecurity to ensure our policies address emerging threats of the 21st Century. Many Americans are familiar by now with the spyware and malware that affect personal computers. But most do not know about the cyberbattles that occur within the networks each day—the supply chain vulnerabilities, the man-in-the-middle attacks, the botnets, and the millions of hacking attempts that our cyberdefenses deflect. The subcommittee will focus on these and other threats to America’s communications networks, and the response of the private sector to combat those threats.