June 2013

Iran Admits Throttling Internet To 'Preserve Calm' During Election

In an unusual move, Iran's minister for communications and information technology, Mohammad Hassan Nami, has acknowledged that the country restricted the speed of the Internet in the days leading up to the June 14 presidential election.

"The reduction of the Internet speed, which some called 'disturbances', was the result of security measures taken to preserve calm in the country during the election period," said Nami. Nami said Iran's efforts were aimed at preventing "foreigners trying to disrupt the election process" from crossing into the country's cyberspace.

CPB reduces aid to longtime grantees

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is reassessing its funding commitments to several grantees that provide specialized assistance and diverse programming to the public television system.

Citing shifting priorities and reductions to its congressional appropriation that have forced cuts in station grants and its own budget, the corporation has cut off aid to the National Center for Media Engagement and is reducing its annual funding to the National Minority Consortia, which back TV programs by and about minorities, while pressing them to restructure their operations. NCME, the Wisconsin-based nonprofit that teaches and archives best practices in grassroots education work, could close by the end of the month. Wisconsin Public Television is stepping in to preserve its website, and CPB has turned to Nine Networks in St. Louis to expand what it considers a more effective approach to community engagement. The five organizations that make up the National Minority Consortia (NMC) each took a 10 percent cut in CPB support for FY13, falling from a total of $7.5 million to $6.75 million. CPB is extending its contracts with each consortium through FY14 and will hire a consultant to analyze how the organizations could operate more efficiently, possibly through some type of merger. The corporation is shifting the $750,000 saved from NMC grants to World, a multicast nonfiction channel based at WGBH that features documentaries and multicultural content.

CPB is also ending its 13-year support of the Producers Academy at WGBH, a training and mentoring program that provided training to station-based and independent filmmakers.

The New Normal for News – Have Global Media Changed Forever

Oriella’s sixth annual investigation into the role and impact of digital media in newsrooms and news-gathering worldwide.

The study is based on a survey of over 500 journalists spanning 14 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA), and finds digital media well entrenched in all countries, albeit in very different ways. More respondents than ever believe their largest readership is now online rather than off, and their performance is overwhelmingly evaluated based on digital metrics like unique visitors. These developments reflect the significant investments proprietors have made in their digital platforms, as the world turns away from print media and towards digital content.

As a result the way journalists work has changed dramatically:

‘Digital first’ publishing is changing the rules of the journalism game.
Mobile is growing in popularity as a monetization model
Digital media has cemented its role within the journalistic arsenal
For journalists, social media means more than blogs and Twitter
In spite of all the new technology, traditional values remain

FCC's Clyburn Keeps FCC Wheels Turning

Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn showed during the agency's monthly meeting that she isn't just going to be a bench-warmer for nominee Tom Wheeler.

With Wheeler's Senate confirmation perhaps weeks -- if not months -- away, Chairwoman Clyburn presided over a full agenda in her first meeting, which included an update on the FCC's progress in holding the all-important auction of wireless spectrum. Clyburn, the agency's first chairwoman in its 79-year history, was elevated to her role just six weeks ago. Visibly excited and always collegial, Chairwoman Clyburn opened the meeting by thanking the FCC staff and her father, Rep James Clyburn (D-SC), who showed his support by attending Clyburn's first meeting. All three of the items voted on by the three-member commission were unanimous.

With the FCC operating with only three commissioners until Wheeler and a GOP commissioner are confirmed, there has been a lot of speculation that the FCC will be restricted from moving as fast as it could on important initiatives like the spectrum auction. Hedging the agency's bets, Chairwoman Clyburn said the incentive auction is on track to be held in 2014. Although that's a little later than the 2013 deadline former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski had set, Chairwoman Clyburn said she was pleased that the FCC was making steady progress on several fronts. In the coming weeks, the commission plans to release more information about how it will rearrange the spectrum band following the auction, a critical detail long awaited by broadcasters who are worried about how the auction may change their business. Chairwoman Clyburn also plans to meet with the telecom officials of Mexico next week and Canada next month, to work out how the auction might impact TV stations located near border markets like Detroit. Finally, because TV broadcast participation is critical to the auction's success, the FCC plans to step up its outreach to broadcasters to encourage them to share their spectrum with other TV stations.

FCC Moves to Enable Use of 10 MHz of Spectrum for Mobile Broadband

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Report and Order opening 10 megahertz of spectrum in the bands 1915-1920 MHz and 1995-2000 MHz (H Block) for commercial licensing. By enabling 10 megahertz of spectrum to be used for mobile broadband, the Report and Order furthers the FCC’s efforts to ensure that the Nation’s wireless networks have the capacity, speed and ubiquity to keep pace with consumers’ expectations and ever rising demand for mobile services.

It is also a step towards meeting its obligation under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (Spectrum Act) to license 65 megahertz, including the 10 megahertz in the H Block, by February 2015. The Report and Order pairs the two bands that comprise the H Block, and establishes that the paired bands will be licensed on an Economic Area basis and auctioned through a system of competitive bidding. In addition, the Report and Order sets technical rules to help ensure that operations in the H Block do not cause harmful interference to PCS downlink operations, consistent with a requirement in the Spectrum Act. Finally, the Report and Order adopts flexible use regulatory, licensing, and operating rules for H Block licensees.

FCC Modernizes and Streamlines Broadband and Voice Data Collection

The Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted to change its collection of data about broadband and voice service in the US, taking measures to streamline and reduce the burden on providers. The new collection will improve and expand broadband and voice data, while simplifying the process for providers by:

Increasing consistency through creating a single, uniform format for deployment data, and replacing the current separate state-by-state voluntary collections under differing methodologies
Reducing the burden on providers by eliminating certain data collections, including the requirement to file speed data in tiers
Collecting fixed broadband deployment data by census block, and mobile broadband and mobile voice network coverage areas using a standard geographic information system software format
Obtaining mobile broadband deployment data by technology, minimum advertised speed, and spectrum band to help assess competition in the mobile wireless marketplace and mobile broadband availability to consumers
Receiving emergency contact information to expedite agency disaster response
Collecting company identification information to facilitate merger reviews, assess competition, and combat waste, fraud and abuse in universal service
Exploring development of an application that providers could use to automate their data-gathering, which would further reduce the burden of collection and improve the quality of the data

Filing of this data is expected to begin in September 2014, reflecting the first six months of 2014.

FCC Fails Once Again to Collect Data on Broadband Prices

"We’re deeply disappointed that politics once again trumped the public interest at the FCC. The Justice Department, the National Broadband Plan, numerous prior FCC proposals, the current acting FCC chairwoman, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and the incoming FCC chairman have all identified the need to collect broadband pricing data. But because powerful broadband companies oppose the collection of any information that would show just how uncompetitive this market is, the FCC is once again refusing to collect the basic data it needs to do its job. Data-driven, informed policymaking should not be political. In his confirmation hearing, incoming Chairman Tom Wheeler agreed that the Commission needs broadband pricing data to carry out its oversight duties. All eyes will be on Mr. Wheeler to see if his actions match his rhetoric. If the FCC continues to fail to collect vital broadband pricing data, we’ll know that industry capture is here to stay at the agency.

FCC Acts to Protect Private Consumer Information on Wireless Devices

The Federal Communications Commission clarified its customer proprietary network information (CPNI) policies in response to changes in technology and market practices in recent years. The Declaratory Ruling rests on a simple and fundamentally fair principle: when a telecommunications carrier collects CPNI using its control of its customers’ mobile devices, and the carrier or its designee has access to or control over the information, the carrier is responsible for safeguarding that information.

Specifically, the Declaratory Ruling makes clear that when mobile carriers use their control of customers’ devices to collect information about customers’ use of the network, including using preinstalled apps, and the carrier or its designee has access to or control over the information, carriers are required to protect that information in the same way they are required to protect CPNI on the network. This sensitive information can include phone numbers that a customer has called and received calls from, the durations of calls, and the phone’s location at the beginning and end of each call. Carriers are allowed to collect this information and to use it to improve their networks and for customer support. Carriers’ collection of this information can benefit consumers by enabling a carrier to detect a weak signal, a dropped call, or trouble with particular phone models. But if carriers collect CPNI in this manner, today’s ruling makes clear that they must protect it. The Declaratory Ruling does not impose any requirements on non-carrier, third-party developers of applications that consumers may install on their own. The ruling also does not adopt or propose any new rules regarding how carriers may use CPNI or how they must protect it.

Media is ruining the NSA debate

[Commentary] The revelation of the National Security Agency's collecting all our telephone metadata has supposedly sparked a "national conversation" -- a great debate taking on all the thorny issues surrounding privacy vs. security. Sadly, though, the "national conversation" has for the most part been shallow, often bordering on stupid.

That's because nearly everybody has retreated to their respective camps, refusing to recognize the validity of opposed arguments or the fact that this there is no easy solution to the problem of how we should go about strengthening our security while also, to the extent possible, protecting liberty and privacy. It's also because so much of the "conversation" has taken place on Twitter, where conversations, and certainly debates, should never take place, because they are engineered to be superficial. (Twitter's great for linking to stuff and for issuing pithy one-liners; it's absolutely useless for conversation.) In defending longstanding worldviews, rather than honestly addressing the issue, people are talking past each other.

NSA collected US e-mail records in bulk for more than two years under President Obama

The Obama Administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the e-mail and Internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the FISA court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata "every 90 days." A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011. The collection of these records began under the Bush administration's wide-ranging warrantless surveillance program, collectively known by the NSA codename Stellar Wind. According to a top-secret draft report by the NSA's inspector general – published for the first time today by the Guardian – the agency began "collection of bulk internet metadata" involving "communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States." Eventually, the NSA gained authority to "analyze communications metadata associated with United States persons and persons believed to be in the United States", according to a 2007 Justice Department memo, which is marked secret.

Benton

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