October 2013

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

STOP WATCHING US
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Jim Newell]
Thousands gathered by the Capitol reflection pool in Washington on Oct 26 to march, chant, and listen to speakers and performers as part of Stop Watching Us, a gathering to protest "mass surveillance" under National Security Agency programs first disclosed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. Billed by organizers as "the largest rally yet to protest mass surveillance", Stop Watching Us was sponsored by an unusually broad coalition of left- and right-wing groups, including everything from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Green Party, Color of Change and Daily Kos to the Libertarian Party, FreedomWorks and Young Americans for Liberty.
benton.org/node/164800 | Guardian, The
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DON’T LET THE NSA KILL THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
Thirty, 20 or even 10 years from now, will historians write that the unbridled zeal of the National Security Agency fatally undermined US leadership in the Information Age and the creation of a truly global Internet? The way out of this diplomatic dead-end street is less Bad America and more Good America: robust public debate and strong checks and balances. Better than President Obama’s appointment of a commission to review surveillance programs would be a law that lets U.S. companies disclose information about government requests for customer data, which would help shore up their credibility overseas. Better judgment about when and how to snoop on which foreign leaders wouldn’t hurt, either. Otherwise, the next time the U.S. picks up the phone, it might hear a friend saying, “Auf Wiedersehen.”
benton.org/node/164796 | Bloomberg
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OBAMA UNAWARE OF SPYING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Siobhan Gorman, Adam Entous]
The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of other world leaders after an internal Obama Administration review started this summer revealed to the White House the existence of the operation, US officials said. Officials said the internal review turned up NSA monitoring of some 35 world leaders, in the US government's first public acknowledgment that it tapped the phones of world leaders. European leaders have joined international outrage over revelations of U.S. surveillance of Merkel's phone and of NSA's monitoring of telephone call data in France. The White House cut off some monitoring programs after learning of them, including the one tracking Merkel and some other world leaders, a senior US official said. Other programs have been slated for termination but haven't been phased out completely yet, officials said. The account suggests President Barack Obama went nearly five years without knowing his own spies were bugging the phones of world leaders. Officials said the NSA has so many eavesdropping operations under way that it wouldn't have been practical to brief him on all of them. They added that the President was briefed on and approved of broader intelligence-collection "priorities," but that those below him make decisions about specific intelligence targets.
benton.org/node/164817 | Wall Street Journal | Spiegel – Berlin as spying hub | NYTimes | FT -- Merkel | FT – Spain | Politico
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KEEPING SURVEILLANCE SECRET
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: James Bell]
The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a "damaging public debate" on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programs, classified internal documents reveal. Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency's long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials -- a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK's intelligence community. Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimize the potential for challenges against the agency's large-scale interception programs, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show. The papers also reveal that:
GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone "well beyond" what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies' mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.
GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court.
GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with "press handling", including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticized the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and America's National Security Agency.
benton.org/node/164795 | Guardian, The
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EU NEEDS PRIVACY REGULATION AFTER NSA ‘WAKE-UP CALL,’ PARLIAMENT PRESIDENT SAYS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Kate Tummarello]
Fueled by recent revelations about US surveillance, Europe is determined to move forward with its privacy-enhancing regulation, European Union Parliament President Martin Schulz said. Europe must “press on determinedly” with the update to its data protection legislation after the “wake-up call” about US surveillance, Schulz said in a speech to the European Council. Schulz cited recent reports about US surveillance of European officials and citizens. “We must ensure that our citizens’ fundamental rights are protected on the Internet … by ensuring that companies from the USA and other countries which offer services in the EU are subject to our rules,” he said. The legislation would require American companies that process European users’ data to get permission before the companies share data with third parties, including government entities. Companies that share user data without getting authorization from the relevant country’s data protection authority – including sharing user data with a US intelligence agency – would face penalties of at least 100 million euros.
benton.org/node/164793 | Hill, The
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USA FREEDOM ACT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Rep Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the original author of the USA Patriot Act in 2001, plans to introduce legislation to curb the National Security Agency's surveillance powers. Ben Miller, a spokesman for Rep Sensenbrenner, said there will be about 60 House co-sponsors for the bill, titled the USA Freedom Act. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) plans to introduce companion legislation in the upper chamber simultaneously, Miller said. The legislation would tighten Section 215 of the Patriot Act to end the NSA's bulk collection of records on all U.S. phone calls. The fact that the NSA is collecting records such as phone numbers, call times and call durations on all U.S. phone calls was revealed earlier this year by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
benton.org/node/164789 | Hill, The
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NSA CHIEF: STOP REPORTERS 'SELLING' SPY DOCUMENTS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Josh Gerstein]
The head of the embattled National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, is accusing journalists of "selling" his agency's documents and is calling for an end to the steady stream of public disclosures of secrets snatched by former contractor Edward Snowden. "I think it’s wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 -- whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these -- you know it just doesn’t make sense," Gen. Alexander said. "We ought to come up with a way of stopping it," the NSA director declared. Gen. Alexander did not elaborate on what he meant by reporters "selling" documents or what options he might consider for halting the disclosures. An NSA spokeswoman declined to expand on the general's comments.
benton.org/node/164788 | Politico
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FINALLY WE’RE PROMISED REAL ACTION OVER NSA SURVEILLANCE — BUT NOT FOR THE BEST REASONS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: David Meyer]
[Commentary] Germany and Brazil are pushing forward with proposals for a global right to online privacy. It would have been nice if this action had begun in earnest when it was citizens being spied upon, and not only after Germany’s Angela Merkel and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff were revealed as targets. Merkel’s tapping seems to have been the tipping point, probably because she’s the second most powerful person in the world. But the French spy on the Americans, too. What’s more – hang onto your seat here – lots of countries spy on each other, all over the world. True, you’re not supposed to do this to allies, but it’s been happening forever. This is what spies do. But getting caught will get you burned. So Merkel and Roussef had to take action, and that’s what is happening now: as Foreign Policy reported, they are joining forces to push the United Nations for a new global right to online privacy. The key proposal is to update the privacy bit of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to take online activities into account. This is a great idea, but it isn’t that simple. Not only will the existing wording of that section (Article 17) have to be finessed into something that can tackle the sort of deliberate yet untargeted data collection that we now face, but there’s an enforcement issue too. Forget the out-and-out authoritarian regimes out there — will the US change its own policies to abide by new supranational norms? That’s a pretty big question, particularly when there’s nothing to make it do so.
benton.org/node/164787 | GigaOm
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

DID WE CRASH YOUR PHONE SYSTEM TODAY?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] On Wednesday, October 23, the House Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a hearing on The Evolution of Wired Communications Networks, in essence a discussion on how the communications networks of the United States are evolving from twisted pairs of copper telephone wires to coaxial cable and fiber -- and whether the laws that were enacted to govern traditional telephone services are appropriate in an Internet Protocol (IP)-enabled world. The evolution of wired communications networks is taking place in two different, but related ways: the transition to Internet Protocol and the replacement of older copper lines with fiber optics. Much of the hearing focused on how and whether regulation of traditional networks should be applied to IP delivery. Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton reported general consensus at the hearing that the switch from traditional circuit-switched networks to IP delivery was well underway, that the goal was consumer-friendly competitive networks, and even that there should be some IP transition trials. But there were also the traditional divides between those arguing that incumbent network operators were trying to get out of interconnection and other mandates in the IP switch, and that regulations continued to be necessary to require interconnection to the last mile controlled by those incumbents.
http://benton.org/node/164597
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

END OF VOICE MINUTES?
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Thomas Gryta]
The days of worrying about minutes ticking away on your cell phone plan are nearly gone. AT&T is dropping the availability of its old plans for new smartphone subscribers, and all of the remaining plans include unlimited calling and texting with the exception of one. The three other major U.S. carriers -- Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile -- now only offer unlimited voice and messaging to new customers. Now, new customers with smartphones have no option to get limited minutes other than a plan from AT&T that offers 450 monthly minutes for about $40, with texts and data costing extra. (Verizon Wireless does offer a plan with 200 voice minutes for people over 65 years old.) The carriers aren’t making this change because they think customers should just have unlimited calls for free. It is because voice traffic is falling and data use is skyrocketing. Focusing on data and giving everything else away seemingly as a freebie actually centers the companies on their main source of revenue growth.
benton.org/node/164776 | Wall Street Journal
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INNOCAPTION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
It has been nearly two years since Miracom sought Federal Communications Commission approval for an app designed to help the deaf use mobile phones. The app, known as InnoCaption, allows deaf users to “hear” a person talking on the end of a call with the help of a stenographer who transcribes the conversation. But Miracom needs FCC approval to gain access to a government fund that would allow deaf customers to use the app for free. The FCC, troubled that the $700 million fund has become riddled with fraud, is refusing to grant any new companies access to the fund. The fund stands to become heavily burdened as aging baby boomers join the 48 million Americans who have some form of hearing loss. Fraud, therefore, is something agency officials say that they can’t afford.
benton.org/node/164774 | Washington Post
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DISH SPECTRUM PLANS
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Todd Shields]
Dish Network is on its way to creating $5 billion or more in added value from a series of airwaves gambits that position the satellite-TV provider as a force in mobile broadband. It just needs a little help from US regulators. Dish paid $2.78 billion in 2012 for two satellite companies’ airwaves that it’s readying for use by ground-based smartphone networks, and pledged to bid $2.2 billion at an auction for bankrupt LightSquared Inc.’s mobile frequencies. Now Dish is offering the Federal Communication Commission a deal: It will ensure the success of a U.S. airwaves auction in January, by setting a price floor of $1.56 billion, if it’s allowed to alter uses for airwaves it already has, which would make them more valuable. “It’s elegant,” said Paul Gallant, Washington-based managing director for Guggenheim Securities. “It aligns most of the politics needed to push through the proposal, and improves the company’s spectrum position.”
benton.org/node/164772 | Bloomberg
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CHILDREN AND MEDIA

NEW COMMON SENSE MEDIA REPORT
[SOURCE: Common Sense Media, AUTHOR: ]
Even a casual observer of children and families today knows big changes are afoot when it comes to children and new media technologies. This report, based on the results of a large-scale, nationally representative survey, documents for the first time exactly how big those changes are. Key findings:
Children’s access to mobile media devices is dramatically higher than it was two years ago.
Almost twice as many children have used mobile media compared to two years ago, and the average amount of time children spend using mobile devices has tripled.
Time spent with “traditional” screen media such as television, DVDs, video games, and computers is down substantially, by more than half an hour a day (:31).
Television still dominates children’s media time, but new ways of watching now make up a large portion of viewing.
Access to mobile media devices and applications among poor and minority children is much higher than it was two years ago, but a large gap between rich and poor still persists.
Television continues to be the most widely-used platform for children’s educational content.
benton.org/node/164810 | Common Sense Media
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

FIRSTNET CONTRACTS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
FirstNet board Chairman Sam Ginn has asked the Commerce Department's Office of the Inspector General to help with the investigation into concerns about how FirstNet's board was operating and how it was dealing with contractors. The board established a review committee to look into allegations by Board Member Sherriff Paul Fitzgerald, which reported back that the board's decisionmaking was open and transparent. But as to ethics and procurement issues, which FirstNet said would be the subject of a second report, Ginn told the board this week he had asked the Commerce IG to take over given that the issues are "complicated."
benton.org/node/164769 | Broadcasting&Cable
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FIRSTNET HEADQUARTERS
[SOURCE: FirstNet, AUTHOR: Press release]
The First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) voted to establish Northern Virginia as its corporate headquarters and the Boulder, Colorado area as its technical, engineering and network design headquarters. Northern Virginia was selected for a number of factors including its close proximity to a high concentration of wireless, technical and public safety expertise. The Northern Virginia location is also close to the U.S. Commerce Department and public safety stakeholders and associations located in the Washington metropolitan area. Boulder is home of the Commerce Department’s laboratories, including the Public Safety Communications Research program (PSCR). The PSCR has been a primary technical advisor to public safety on communications issues for 20 years and operates a unique, multi-vendor Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in the Boulder area. The Board also said it would establish one regional office in each of the ten Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regions. FirstNet office locations will be established on competitive terms and specific locations will be determined as we move forward.
Separately, the FirstNet Board voted to extend spectrum lease negotiations with the Executive Office of the State of Mississippi and Motorola Solutions, Inc. (With the Bay Area Regional Interoperable Communications Systems Authority (Bay-RICS) ) until Nov. 15, 2013. The Board also agreed to reopen discussions with Adams County Communications Center (ADCOM), in Adams County, Colo. and the state of New Jersey. Those negotiations will also conclude by Nov. 15, 2013.
benton.org/node/164767 | FirstNet
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TELEVISION/RADIO

OPPOSITION TO SINCLAIR DEAL
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The American Cable Association told the Federal Communications Commission that allowing coordinated retranmission negotiations are a transition specific harm and the FCC should grant its petition to deny Sinclair's purchase of Allbritton stations in Harrisburg (PA) and Charleston (SC) or condition their sale and subsequent spin-off by disallowing coordinated negotiation. Also filing responses to Sinclair's opposition to their petitions to deny were Rainbow PUSH Coalition (RPC) and Free Press. As part of its deal to buy all the Allbritton stations, Sinclair is spinning stations off in those markets to a third party but will provide support services to them including acting as the station's agent in retrans, according to ACA. ACA said the result will be a transition-specific harm: "This practice reduces competition between broadcast stations with regard to the sale of retransmission consent, and consumers are harmed when cable operators pass through the higher fees derived from the coordinated negotiations." Free Press said it has provided clear evidence that Sinclair is trying to control two stations in Charleston and Harrisburg "in violation of local ownership rules."
benton.org/node/164765 | Multichannel News
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EDUCATION

CURRICULUM PROMPTS NEW CONCERNS IN L.A. IPAD PLAN
[SOURCE: Education Week, AUTHOR: Benjamin Herold]
Education officials in Los Angeles tout the new digital curriculum embedded on iPads being distributed to tens of thousands of students as a key piece of their half-billion-dollar effort to transform teaching and learning in the nation’s second-largest district. But the new software from the publishing giant Pearson that has been rolled out in dozens of schools is nowhere near complete, the Los Angeles Unified School District is unable to say how much it costs, and the district will lose access to content updates, software upgrades, and technical support from Pearson after just three years. The situation is prompting a new round of questions about an initiative already under withering scrutiny following a series of logistical and security snags. The Common Core Technology Project, as Los Angeles Unified’s iPad initiative is formally known, is among the first attempts in the country to marry digital devices with a comprehensive digital curriculum from a single vendor. The ambitious effort makes the 651,000-student school system a bellwether for districts seeking a soup-to-nuts solution that implements the new Common Core State Standards, increases students’ access to technology, and moves away from paper textbooks.
benton.org/node/164745 | Education Week
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GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE

RISKS OF HEALTH SITE WOES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Annie Lowrey]
The economists and policy wonks behind the Affordable Care Act worry that the technical problems bedeviling the federal portal could become much more than an inconvenience. If applicants decide to put off or give up on buying coverage, rising prices and even a destabilized insurance market could result. The enrollment of young people is vital for the health care law -- and, for that matter, the entire health care system -- to work. Younger people, who tend to have very low anticipated medical costs, are supposed to help pay for the medical costs of older or sicker enrollees. Without them, so-called risk pools in Ohio and other states might become too risky, forcing insurers to raise premiums. Those higher premiums could dissuade more of the young and healthy from signing up, forcing insurers to raise prices again. Economists call the process “adverse selection” and warn that in its worst iteration it could lead to a “death spiral” of falling enrollment and climbing prices.
benton.org/node/164812 | New York Times
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OBAMACARE DATA HUB APPARENTLY WORKS WELL, MITIGATING SECURITY FEARS
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Sam Baker]
For all the problems with HealthCare.gov, one very big, very important piece of Obamacare technology seems to be working well. It's called the "data services hub" -- and it's not nearly as boring as it sounds. When the law's critics raise fears of security breaches, they're talking about the data hub. The hub transmits massive amounts of information about people seeking health insurance, drawing from several federal agencies and communicating with every state's insurance marketplace. It was initially seen as one of the most likely places for problems to arise in the enrollment process. So far, though, the reviews are positive. "It's working well for us," said Chris Clark, the technology program manager for Kentucky's insurance exchange.
benton.org/node/164785 | nextgov
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FRONT-END HEALTHCARE.GOV PROBLEMS MAY BE MASKING BIGGER BACK-END PROBLEMS
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Sam Baker]
Quickly fixing Obamacare's most visible problems could be a disaster for the health care law. By now, pretty much everyone knows that HealthCare.gov, the main portal to access the law's new insurance exchanges, doesn't work. When the site first launched, hardly anyone could create an account to begin shopping for coverage. And though the registration problems have gotten better, enrollment is still an uphill climb. The site's disastrous front end has overshadowed another set of serious problems on the back end. Insurance companies say they're seeing widespread errors in the trickle of applications they do receive through the exchanges. And until those errors can be fixed, it might be best to leave enrollment at a trickle. "Is CMS stupid enough to fix the front end of this thing before they fix the back end?" asked Bob Laszewski, a health care consultant who works closely with insurers.
benton.org/node/164783 | National Journal
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FIXING OBAMACARE SITE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso, Jennifer Martinez]
Tech experts say the Obama administration faces a daunting challenge in trying to fix the troubled ObamaCare enrollment website by the end of November. Trying to fix a complex website once it’s already online is like liking trying to repair a car while it's driving 50 miles per hour, one observer said. “You can probably make corrections in the code, but if they needed months to test the process before, I don't see how you can say that you're going to be able to have it up and running in a couple weeks,” said Jon Wu, an analyst and co-founder of consumer finance site Value Penguin. The Administration said it would have the site fixed by Nov. 30.
benton.org/node/164781 | Hill, The | Politico
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

EU DATA LAW DELAY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: James Fontanella-Khan]
Google, Facebook and other US tech giants have won an important victory against European Union efforts to restrict the sharing of customer data after UK Prime Minister David Cameron persuaded the bloc to postpone the introduction of tougher privacy rules by at least a year. The delay will give US companies – as well as the Obama administration, which has been frantically lobbying for the reforms to be watered down – the opportunity to make their case more forcefully once the attention shifts away from the US spy scandal, said some EU officials and privacy advocates. “It looks like we won,” said an executive at a large US tech company. “When we saw the story about Merkel’s phone being tapped and that 35 leaders’ phones were also compromised, we thought we were going to lose . . . Britain’s common sense prevailed.”
benton.org/node/164815 | Financial Times
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NEW MAP SHOWS EU IS NO BROADBAND UTOPIA
[SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute, AUTHOR: Roslyn Layton]
A recently published map of Europe highlights some of the challenges of broadband in Europe. It reviews the main broadband technologies (DSL, VDSL, FTTP, Cable, LTE) and their coverage for over 3,000 urban, semi-rural and rural areas across 31 European countries. The data shows that that the continent varies widely in broadband availability. While basic DSL is available to over 90 percent of Europeans, much of Ireland, France, Italy, Greece, former Eastern bloc countries, and even parts of Germany don’t have access to high speed Internet of at least 24 Mbps or an LTE service. It is interesting to compare the EU map to the US. Some 95 percent of Americans have access to high speed broadband from multiple networks, and for the mountainous areas of the Sierras, Rockies, and Appalachia, satellite broadband is available (not shown), as it is to 99 percent of Americans. For a comprehensive list, see the report on providers by speed tiers. Furthermore four American carriers are in progress with nationwide LTE networks. This is the envy of Europe.
benton.org/node/164748 | American Enterprise Institute | Verizon
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Analysis

October 2013

October 28, 2013 (Obama Unaware as US Spied on World Leaders)

President Obama Unaware as US Spied on World Leaders: Officials

Victory for tech giants on EU data laws

Health Site’s Woes Could Dissuade Vital Enrollee: the Young and Healthy

Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America 2013

Media Outlets Embrace Conferences as Profits Rise

Univision to Launch English-Language Channel