May 2015

White House backs bill that would end NSA bulk collection of phone records

The Obama Administration is urging lawmakers to pass a bipartisan bill that would end the National Security Agency’s mass collection of Americans’ phone records.

The White House’s support for the USA Freedom Act, which preserves the government’s ability to obtain more limited amounts of records, comes as the House is expected to pass it on May 13. That sets up a showdown in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is backing another bill that would maintain the NSA program of mass collection and renew it through 2020. The attorney general and the director of national intelligence are expected to issue soon a letter of support for the USA Freedom Act, saying that they do not think it will undermine national security while its proposed reforms will enhance Americans’ privacy.

Verizon to Acquire AOL

Verizon Communications agreed to purchase AOL (America Online) for $50 per share -- an estimated total value of approximately $4.4 billion.

The combination of Verizon and AOL creates a scaled, mobile-first platform offering directly targeted at what eMarketer estimates is a nearly $600 billion global advertising industry. AOL’s key assets include its subscription business; its premium portfolio of global content brands, including The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, MAKERS and AOL.com, as well as its millennial-focused OTT, Emmy-nominated original video content; and its programmatic advertising platforms. Lowell McAdam, Verizon chairman and CEO, said: “Verizon’s vision is to provide customers with a premium digital experience based on a global multiscreen network platform. This acquisition supports our strategy to provide a cross-screen connection for consumers, creators and advertisers to deliver that premium customer experience.” The transaction will take the form of a tender offer followed by a merger, with AOL becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon upon completion. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions and is expected to close this summer.

AT&T-DirecTV deal poses threat to consumers

[Commentary] AT&T's bid to buy DirecTV has been floating under the radar, drawing neither the scrutiny nor the scorn of Comcast's recently abandoned proposal to buy Time Warner Cable. But that doesn't make the deal any better for consumers.

If the reports and rumors coming out of Washington are true, federal regulators are likely to wrap up their review of the AT&T-DirecTV merger soon, and are likely to approve it. That would be a grave mistake. Having allowed way too much consolidation in the past, regulators should be pushing for more competition in the telecommunications market, not acquiescing to less. Less competition is exactly what you'd get if AT&T and DirecTV are allowed to merge. The regulators ought to just flat-out reject the merger. Any potential benefits it may offer to consumers are questionable at best, and the potential harms are all too certain.

Pay-TV Decline Strikes a Cord

Cord-cutting has taken another step from threat toward reality.

US pay-TV providers lost video subscribers in the first quarter, marking the first time the industry has contracted during a traditionally strong period of the year. That brought the rate of subscriber decline to 0.5% over the past 12 months-the fastest on record, according to MoffettNathanson. While the US Census Bureau reported a net decline in occupied households in the quarter, there were 1.3 million household net additions in 2014’s fourth quarter. That suggests some new households may be opting for services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime over traditional TV, MoffettNathanson says. For pay TV, the future may finally be now.

Publishers Warily Embed With Facebook

Online publishers have come to rely on Facebook as a source of traffic, and are vulnerable to changes that affect what appears in users’ news feeds. Anxiety over Facebook’s intentions in news publishing has risen in recent weeks ahead of the expected announcement of an initiative called Instant Articles, through which Facebook will publish content from major outlets like the New York Times, National Geographic and BuzzFeed rather than linking back to their sites. Many publishers are cautiously awaiting details of the plan, hoping that Facebook can help them better tap into the fast-growing mobile advertising market. While many news sites are struggling to make money off a growing mobile audience, Facebook is proving an ace at selling mobile ads.

House Communications Subcommittee closing in on FCC reform vote

The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee is readying the first votes on process reform at the Federal Communications Commission since the FCC approved controversial network neutrality rules earlier in 2015. The subcommittee will take up a host of reform bills proposed by both Democrats and Republicans. Republican commissioners on the FCC have taken an active role in FCC oversight since the FCC approved net neutrality rules that would reclassify broadband Internet access under rules governing traditional telephones. Democrats have said many of the Republican reforms seem to be “political retribution” for the net neutrality vote, which is strongly opposed by Republicans and Internet service providers. Many of the GOP proposals harken back to the net neutrality debate. Republicans criticized FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for not releasing the text of the regulations ahead of the vote and for taking weeks after the vote to finally make it public.

One of the GOP bills would require the FCC to publicly release draft rules ahead of a vote, at the same time commissioners get to see them. Another would force the FCC to publish the finalized rules the day they are approved. The third proposal would require the FCC to publicly list the actions the FCC takes at the staff level. The subcommittee is slated to hold a hearing on the Democratic proposals on May 15, which subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) said make “a lot of sense.” The Committee will also debate the draft FCC Process Reform Act, which has won support from Chairman Walden, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and the subcommittee’s Ranking Member Anna Eshoo (D-CA).

Tech Groups, Progressives Write In On USA Freedom Act

Saying the US Court of Appeals ruling invalidating the National Security Agency's bulk data collection of communications records "fundamentally changed the landscape for surveillance reform," CREDO, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Democracy for America, MoveOn.org Civic Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee have urged progressive House members not to support the USA Freedom Act if it comes to the House floor. Speaking to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the progressive groups said that a bill that would reauthorize the Patriot Act data collection with the compromise adjustments was no longer attractive given the court ruling.

Alternatively, tech industry types including TechNet, the Information Technology Industry Council, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are calling on the House to pass the USA Freedom Act, which passed the House Judiciary Committee 25 to 2. The bill would at least limit, and some say eliminate, NSA bulk metadata collection of communications records. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the tech groups said the bill "offers an effective balance that both protects privacy and provides the necessary tools for national security," and urged its passage without "harmful amendments." They said the bill "ends the indiscriminate collection of bulk data, avoids data retention mandates, and creates a strong transparency framework for both government and private companies to report national security requests."

Sen Paul: NSA court ruling should spur President Obama to stop bulk collection of phone records

Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) said that a court ruling that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records is illegal validates his calls for privacy. Sen Paul said the ruling underscores that President Barack Obama can stop the collection at any point. "The ruling justifies what I've said all along. It also sends a message to the President," said Sen Paul, who sued the Obama Administration over the program. "The court has now said it's illegal. He should stop it. HE started it by executive order. He can stop it tomorrow if he wanted to." "The Fourth Amendment says your name has to be on the warrant and you can't put something like 'Mr. Verizon' on the warrant and get ... millions and millions of phone records," he said.

Presidential hopeful Sen Paul is planning to wage war on the Patriot Act as controversial parts of it come up for reauthorization in the coming weeks. "I'm going to lead the charge in the next couple of weeks as the Patriot Act comes forward," he said. "We will be filibustering. We will be trying to stop it. We are not going to let them run over us. And we are going to demand amendments and we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches."

For most countries, a nationwide Internet outage is a big deal. For North Korea, it’s routine.

Even the idea of a nationwide Internet outage can be panic-inducing for those of us who are addicted to our smartphones. But in North Korea, such outages are routine -- and ultimately affect almost no one. The secretive North Korea's connection to the global Internet went dark for more than an hour on the morning of May 11, according to Internet monitoring firm Dyn. But this was roughly the 15th time North Korea had suffered a disruption in connectivity in 2015 alone, according to the company's director of Internet analysis, Doug Madory. North Korea's main digital artery is managed by the state-run Internet provider and connects through China. But only an estimated few thousand North Koreans have access to the global Internet -- and those people are members of the privileged elite, the military, or part of the hermit kingdom's propaganda machine. The rest of the population has access to heavily monitored national intranet of approved sites called the Kwangmyung -- if they have access to anything at all. If the Internet is the information superhighway, you can think of a national intranet as a sort of information cul de sac. This lack of reliance on the Internet puts North Korea in a weird position where it doesn't really matter if its access goes down. "It's not even clear that it's a priority to have the Internet up," said Madory. "It's not really part of their economy, whereas in other places it's a core utility of life."

The White House Names Dr. Ed Felten as Deputy US Chief Technology Officer

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is announcing that Dr. Ed Felten is joining the team as Deputy US Chief Technology Officer. Dr Felten joins a growing number of techies at the White House working to further President Barack Obama’s vision to ensure policy decisions are informed by our best understanding of state-of-the-art technology and innovation, to quickly and efficiently deliver great services for the American people, and to broaden and deepen the American people’s engagement with their government. Dr Felten's expertise in the intersection of public affairs and computer science has led him to experiences in government, academia, and advising.

Currently, he serves as the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he is also the founding Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. Before rejoining the Princeton faculty, Dr Felten served as the first Chief Technologist at the US Federal Trade Commission, and worked with the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division. He has published more than 100 papers and two books on technology law and policy. Dr Felten is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Fellow at the Association for Computing Machinery. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Physics with Honors from the California Institute of Technology and his master’s and doctoral degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington.

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