May 2015

A sweeping appeals court ruling against government surveillance powers could recast Congress’s fight over expiring provisions of the Patriot Act. The federal court decision could strengthen the hand of Capitol Hill’s civil libertarians who are facing an uphill battle to make significant reforms to the National Security Agency before June 1st. The ruling ”should help propel Congress to end the program as it is currently structured, and only allow the government to request data from the telephone companies after individualized court approval,” said House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA). “It also shows that a straight reauthorization is not only politically untenable but on shaky legal ground as well.” In a concurring opinion Judge Robert Sack -- one of the three judges on the appeals court panel -- seemed to offer support for just that.

“It may be worth considering that the participation of an adversary to the government at some point in the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]ʹs proceedings could similarly provide a significant benefit to that court,” he wrote. "The FISC otherwise may be subject to the understandable suspicion that, hearing only from the government, it is likely to be strongly inclined to rule for the government. And at least in some cases it may be that its decision‐making would be improved by the presence of counsel opposing the governmentʹs assertions before the court," he wrote. At the same time, however, the ruling may only cause the NSA’s defenders to dig in even harder. Sen John McCain (R-AZ), who has defended the intelligence regime, said he was “very worried” about the decision. “We have to have the ability to monitor these communications,” he said. “It’s pretty clear that 9/11 could have been prevented if we had known about some of the communications that were linked to those who committed the terrible atrocity of 9/11."

It's pretty clear what Google thinks of the National Association of Broadcasters' "emergency" petition asking the Federal Communications Commissino to fix serious design flaws in its TV white space (TVWS) database system. In a word, "preposterous" might sum it up. The TVWS database system is supposed to keep track of channels in use by TV stations and others so that unlicensed devices using the white spaces do not cause interference. But after flaws were found, the FCC said it was working to correct the issues. The NAB had asked the commission to consider suspending database operations until flaws could be worked out. But Google wants the FCC to dismiss NAB's rulemaking petition "without further proceedings."

"Despite its theatrical title and overheated rhetoric, the National Association of Broadcasters' (NAB) 'emergency' petition for rulemaking identifies no actual interference or other harm to its member broadcasters, no failure of any FCC-certified television white space database, and no violation of any Commission rule," Google said in its FCC filing. To hear Google tell it, there aren't any real serious problems -- and certainly none that warrant significant changes or suspension of the system. Google explains that the individual database entries that NAB brands as "false" are likely test entries used by device manufacturers and database administrators to ensure that the broadcaster-protection system is working properly.

Sens Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Rand Paul (R-KY) are on opposite sides in the battle over government surveillance, putting the alliance between the two Kentucky Republicans to the test. While Senate Majority Leader McConnell made clear this week that he wants to move forward with his own “clean” legislation to reauthorize three expiring portions of the Patriot Act, Sen Paul, who is running for President, has been one of the law’s most vocal critics. With a handful of legislative days left until the surveillance measures expire, Sen Paul has been surprisingly mum on whether he opposes Majority Leader McConnell’s plan, though few expect him to stay silent for long. “I think both [Sens] McConnell and Paul realized all along in this deal that there were going to be issues where they just had to agree to disagree,” said Josh Withrow, legislative affairs manager at FreedomWorks, which opposes Majority Leader McConnell’s Patriot Act bill. “This will probably be one of those.”

The cable TV industry is setting its sights on consumers who are shunning their business. Viewers who get their favorite shows for free by using over-the-air antennas have made "OTA" the buzzy acronym at the Internet & Television Expo being held in Chicago, where cable companies are gathered to mull over their fast-changing future. There are now more than 12.3 million homes that depend solely on over-the-air broadcasting for their live TV viewing, a net gain of 1 million over the last year, according to audience measurement service Nielsen.That's about 11 percent of all US households with TV -- hardly a mass migration to the old-school technology.

But as the cable and satellite industries see a downward trend in the overall number of customers signing up for their video offerings while broadband Internet service continues to grow, it's getting more attention. Some homes are turning to over-the-air signals because they can't afford cable. But a growing number of them are millennials who use over-the-air TV for live sports and broadcast network shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox while getting a wide array of programs from streaming video services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. They are happy to pay for broadband Internet, but not TV. At the end of 2014, Nielsen put the number of broadband homes using over-the-air signals for TV at 6.1 million -- up from 5.6 million the previous year.