July 2013

Nation Will Gain by Discussing Surveillance, Expert Tells Privacy Board

A retired federal judge, who formerly served on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, praised the growing public discussion about government surveillance fostered by the leaks of classified information by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor whom the Obama administration has charged with espionage and who remains a fugitive. “The brouhaha after the Snowden leaks and this meeting indeed establishes what I think is true — that we need to have a more wide-open debate about this in our society, and thankfully we’re beginning to have the debate and this meeting is part of it,” said James Robertson, formerly of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia.

He made his remarks during an all-day “workshop” by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency that is trying to scrutinize surveillance in light of Snowden’s revelations. The workshop doubled as something of a coming out for the full five-member privacy board, whose creation was recommended by the Sept. 11 commission. Although some of its members held a public organizational meeting last year, the Senate did not confirm its full-time chairman, David Medine, until May, shortly before Snowden’s revelations began spilling out. The board has an annual budget of $800,000 and by law has access to classified information. It plans eventually to issue a report and recommendations about whether the surveillance programs properly balance security and privacy, along with recommendations.

Controls Over NSA Spying Considered by U.S. Privacy Board

A citizen’s privacy board will consider whether opponents of U.S. spying programs should be represented before a secret court overseeing government surveillance -- as recommended by a former judge on that court.

Altering how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court operates is one of several suggestions that deserve “serious” consideration, said David Medine, chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The five-member board held its first public meeting in Washington to hear from former government officials and legal and civil-rights experts on U.S. programs exposed by ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to spy on Americans’ phone records and e-mails. The secret court is “one-sided” because it only hears from the government, James Robertson, a former federal judge based in Washington who served on the court from 2002 to 2005, told the panel. He told the Associated Press that he left the court over concerns about the surveillance. “We had a range of recommendations on all sides that have given us a lot of things to think about,” Medine said after the seven-hour meeting. “We are going to continue to review the FISA court opinions and we’re going to continue to get briefings from the government so that we can better understand the details of these programs.”

Five things Snowden leaks revealed about NSA’s original warrantless wiretaps

As stories based on Edward Snowden’s trove of leaked National Security Agency (NSA) documents continue to trickle out, most reporters have focused on what they can tell us about the spy agency’s current or recent surveillance activities. Yet one of the most interesting documents from Snowden’s cache sheds new light on the granddaddy of them all: President Bush’s original warrantless wiretap program.

The program was broader than originally reported
Vice President Cheney’s office wanted domestic communications
The phone companies suggested using call records
The scale of the snooping
Secrecy impeded effective oversight

Live From the Oval Office: A Backdrop of History Fades From TV

At historic moments in the television age, past American presidents turned to the Oval Office as their stage. The current president? It was three years ago this summer that President Barack Obama gave his only two prime-time addresses from the Oval Office — the first on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the second on ending combat operations in Iraq. That ties the number for George W. Bush at a similar point in his presidency. After President Bush’s first Oval Office address, on Sept. 11, 2001, he gave just five more in eight years.

The statistics come from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I wouldn’t say the Oval Office address is a thing of the past,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidency scholar at Towson University in Maryland. “It’s just going to be reserved for those presidents and those occasions where they feel they have to use it.” That is a sign of the times. In the second half of the 20th century, word that the president would address the nation made Americans stop and listen. For many baby boomers in particular, the speeches define the historical timeline of their lives. But in this century, the Internet revolution and advances in television technology have changed presidents, citizens and the broadcasters who traditionally connected the two. Instead of just three TV networks, Americans have myriad choices for entertainment and information, and viewership numbers for prime-time presidential addresses have fallen, to about 25 million. Faced with new competition, broadcasters resist giving airtime to presidents, so presidents give fewer addresses (and evening news conferences). When they do want to speak, they increasingly choose arrangements more comfortable to them than sitting at a desk staring at a lens — a setup that President Obama, known for his oratorical skills, likes no more than President Bush did.

US-China cybersecurity talks inching along

An impatient Washington grappled with the reality that it is unable to combat Chinese cyberhackers and digital spies as quickly as many in the United States would like.

The Obama Administration commenced new, direct talks with its Chinese counterparts on the matter this week — but even top White House officials acknowledged it will be a slow diplomatic process. And the pace of progress isn’t any faster in Congress, even though lawmakers and cybersecurity experts alike pined for a more aggressive legislative response to Chinese hacking. Top Obama Administration officials met with Chinese leaders for a special cybersecurity working group that preceded the official Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Senior administration sources told reporters that U.S. participants had “raised issues concerning cyberenabled economic theft,” much as President Barack Obama did last month when he met with new Chinese President Xi Jinping in California. But the message from the Administration: It’s just the beginning of a long series of talks, not an overnight process that might address the growing Chinese cybersecurity challenge.

Fork in the Road for a Bookseller

Barnes & Noble’s digital plans are crumbling.

Last month, a disastrous earnings report coincided with the company’s announcement that it would no longer manufacture color tablets. And on July 8, Barnes & Noble announced that CEO William Lynch, the young, tech-savvy architect of the company’s digital strategy, had abruptly resigned. A new chief executive was not named. That leaves the nation’s only major bookstore chain without a clear path forward, reviving fears among publishers, authors and agents — who are deeply dependent on a viable Barnes & Noble — about its future. Barnes & Noble executives have acknowledged one fact: the digital business that was to be the centerpiece of its growth strategy must be retooled.

Book Publishing’s Big Gamble

[Commentary] The largest book-publishing merger in history, combining Penguin and Random House, was announced last October and completed on July 1 after regulatory approval. It shrinks the Big Six, which publish about two-thirds of books in the United States, down to the Big Five. HarperCollins has reportedly been flirting with Simon & Schuster, which would take it down to four. (The others are Hachette and Macmillan.)

The creation of Penguin Random House (“the world’s first truly global trade book publishing company”) is partly a response to unprecedented pressures on these “legacy” publishers — especially from Amazon, which came out on the winning end of an antitrust lawsuit over the setting of e-book prices. It is also a way to gain leverage and capital in an industry that has been turned upside down. This endgame may be inevitable, but its consequences can’t be ignored. Consolidation carries costs you won’t find on a price sticker. Dozens of formerly independent firms have been folded into this conglomerate: not just Anchor, Doubleday, Dutton, Knopf, Pantheon, G. P. Putnam’s Sons and Viking, which still wield significant resources, but also storied names like Jonathan Cape, Fawcett, Grosset & Dunlap, and Jeremy P. Tarcher. Many of these have been reduced to mere imprints, brands stamped on a book’s title page, though every good imprint bears the faint mark of a bygone firm with its own mission and sensibility. Decades of consolidation have cost writers and consumers alike.

Tribune to spin off LA Times, other papers into separate company

Tribune Company announced plans to spin off its beleaguered newspaper unit into a separate company, freeing the media conglomerate to focus on its more promising television and Internet properties.

The new entity, to be called Tribune Publishing Co., would include the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and six other daily papers. All other assets, including the company’s real estate holdings and stakes in several Internet sites, would remain part of Tribune Co. The spinoff would be tax-free to Tribune shareholders and could take as long as a year to complete. Symbolically, the split would mark a historic break with the newspaper business that has always been at the heart of Tribune. The company was founded in 1847 as the parent of the Chicago Tribune. It acquired Times Mirror Co., the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, in 2000. Despite the woes facing newspapers, the publishing division still accounted for 64% of Tribune’s operating revenue last year. The announcement reflects the forces buffeting the print media industry and the comparatively brighter prospects of the TV business. A key issue for Tribune Publishing would be its financial structure. The newspaper unit is profitable, but advertising has been eroding at a precipitous pace. Ad revenue skidded 9% in the first quarter, after declining 14.5% from 2010 to 2012. The company has slashed 2,200 jobs in the last three years. Among the key questions to be answered: How much debt would the new company carry? And how much capital would it get as a financial underpinning?

No more landlines on Fire Island? Verizon seeks to go wireless.

Last October, Hurricane Sandy struck the shores of New York and New Jersey, upending houses and their inhabitants. Wireless providers scrambled to get service back to the storm-torn areas. On outlying islands along the New York and New Jersey coast, underground phone lines had been washed away. Nearly eight months later, nearly all of the storm-affected areas are well on their way to rebuilding, and cell phone reception has long since been restored. But, residents of Fire Island– a barrier island off the New York coast– still do not have their landlines restored, and they might ever get them back.

Verizon Communications filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to discontinue landline service in “certain parts of New Jersey and New York affected by Hurricane Sandy,” most notably on Fire Island. Instead of restoring the old copper wire networks in the tiny community, the telecom provider has proposed offering its wireless communication service: Voice Link.

If Publishers Fail to Self-Regulate Native Ads, FTC May Step In

Native advertising may be all the rage, but if brands and publishers aren’t careful, it could trigger some regulatory repercussions, analysts say. While ads masquerading as editorial content may be more effective than banners, they have the potential to confuse consumers.

In cases where the line between editorial and advertising was blurred, the Federal Trade Commission has pushed TV infomercials and food marketers to adopt guidelines or risk enforcement under its authority to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive ads. “Conventions need to be developed, like they have for newspapers and infomercials on TV,” said C. Lee Peeler, CEO of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council, a group that establishes guidelines for advertisers so they don’t run afoul of regulators.

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