June 2015

In Debate Over Patriot Act, Lawmakers Weigh Risks vs. Liberty

Just one senator voted against the Patriot Act, calling it a violation of civil liberties when it passed in the frightening, angry days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Nearly 14 years later, 77 senators voted to advance a bill ratcheting back its expansive scope. To libertarians and civil liberties advocates, the shift underscores an evolution in thinking about the risks and trade-offs of terrorism, a recognition that perhaps the country went too far out of fear and anxiety. To national security conservatives, it represents a dangerous national amnesia about the altogether real dangers still confronting the country.

Beyond Washington, though, the debate that has consumed Capitol Hill in recent days reflects a country still deeply conflicted over the right approach to the threats of the 21st century. Even if Congress ultimately restricts domestic surveillance, it will leave intact the vast majority of the post-Sept. 11 programs authorized by two presidents. And the counterterrorism infrastructure built in recent years has become firmly embedded in American society. Americans want the government to go to great lengths to hunt down terrorists even at the expense of their own liberty, according to surveys, yet also want limits on government spying because of privacy concerns.

Surveillance Bill Awaits Verdicts on Amendments From Hawks in Senate

The fractious debate over restarting the government’s sweeping surveillance program is expected to reach its final Senate showdown on June 2, when defense hawks make an urgent appeal to preserve more power for security agencies to gain access to Americans’ phone records. But if the hawks prevail and push too far, many members of the House said they would reject the Senate approach, meaning that the surveillance program would remain largely blacked out until a compromise was reached.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and an ally, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-KY) plan one last attempt to amend the USA Freedom Act, which the House passed and which the two senators once denounced as an impediment to national security. Both men have declared the bill a dangerous retrenchment from national security programs put in place after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even though the House overwhelmingly passed the legislation, with the backing of both Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama. The White House pressed for the Senate to refrain from making substantive changes to the legislation, arguing that with the authorizations lapsed, this was no time to add provisions that could lead to a lengthy parliamentary back-and-forth on Capitol Hill.

Bluff Called, Mitch McConnell Misplays His Hand in Phone Data Fight

For Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican entering his sixth month in his dream job of majority leader, the congressional struggle over National Security Agency surveillance powers produced a lose-lose-lose result.

He failed to win even a brief extension of NSA programs that lapsed June 1, interrupting an antiterror effort that he said he believed in strongly. Stymied on the extension front, he was then forced to put Congress on course to enact a House-passed NSA overhaul that he opposes, saying he fears it will weaken national security. Topping it off, he provided the growing ranks of Senate Republican presidential candidates with evidence that the best way to get maximum attention is to break with the leadership and inject themselves into a big Senate fight at a crucial moment — just as Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) did May 31 with a series of objections, causing the NSA programs to expire.

“Everyone has always assumed Senator McConnell has an ace up his sleeve, but Senator Paul called his bluff,” said Sen Charles Schumer (D-NY), the No. 3 Senate Democrat. “You don’t leave yourself in that position.”

The Surveillance Fiasco

[Commentary] The Senate holdouts trying to preserve US antiterror surveillance programs in their current form have conceded defeat amid an intelligence blackout that will last at least into June 3, and thus Congress will soon congratulate itself on “reform.” Don’t buy this self-celebration. The more honest resolution of the metadata political panic would be to abolish the program outright. Senate passage of the House bill may be the only realistic path to prevent even greater harm to US security. But please spare us the civil-libertarian triumphalism. The real story this week is that Congress is harming and maybe ending an important defense against terrorism, while pretending not to.

The Court and Online Threats

[Commentary] If you post violent thoughts about someone on Facebook, does it matter what you intended to convey when you wrote the words? In a 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court said yes. If the government wants to criminally prosecute someone for his or her words, the court ruled, it must do more than show that a reasonable person would have interpreted those words as threats. “Wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for a seven-member majority. In the age of the Internet, when anyone can post anything for the world to see, it was an important affirmation of the need to protect speech, and to require the government to meet a stricter legal standard when trying to punish people for their words alone.

Intel Agrees to Buy Altera for $16.7 Billion

Intel, the world’s largest maker of chips, said it would pay $16.7 billion for a chip company called Altera.

Intel hopes to pick up customers, flexibility and a way to keep its manufacturing going at full speed. Altera was losing profitability, in part from higher development and sales costs. It was the latest in a series of big mergers in the business, pointing to a consolidation, particularly among American manufacturers that came up making chips for things like personal computers and basic networks.

Computers stuffed with superfast chips are going everywhere: home appliances, cars, smartphones and giant data centers. This creates rich opportunities for makers of semiconductors, vastly increasing the number of places they can sell ever-smaller chips. But even as the demand for chips expands, the business has become ruinously expensive for all but the biggest players, and that is causing a multibillion-dollar frenzy.

European Telecom Companies Race to Merge

Europe’s telecommunications companies are on a mission: Build scale before it is too late.

Telecom operators in the region have been on a deals blitz over the past 18 months, with companies in the UK, France, Spain and elsewhere looking to share the burden of rising costs as revenues slide. Some executives fear that if rivals in one country don’t team up, they risk being swallowed up by bigger peers from abroad. “Consolidation isn’t about a monopoly,” said Patrick Drahi, executive chairman of Altice SA, who added that European companies need to bulk up to stave off foreign takeovers. “It’s not the end of competition.”

Public Knowledge Applauds Introduction of Broadband Adoption Act

[The Broadband Adoption Act] acknowledges the critical role broadband plays in providing access to jobs, education, news, services, healthcare, and essential communication to low-income individuals. When the Lifeline program was created in the 1980s, voice calls were the critical connection people needed, and now that connection should include broadband. Low-income Americans face multiple challenges to accessing broadband service. Without confronting these challenges, the digital divide persists -- separating Americans from their own jobs, schools, libraries and healthcare facilities. Lifeline helps address the cost obstacle that too many Americans face in connecting to opportunity.

It is a critical part of the Federal Communications Commission’s commitment to making broadband service available for everyone. We commend Rep Doris Matsui (D-CA) for her long history of leadership in this issue. We’re also pleased to see Sens Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) supporting Lifeline modernization in the Senate. Americans need broadband Internet to connect with and provide for their families, and we believe this bill is a great step forward for struggling communities.

FCC Chairman Wheeler Honors Innovators in Accessibility Communications Technology With Annual Awards

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler announced winners of the fourth annual Awards for Advancement in Accessibility (Chairman's AAA). These awards recognize and honor innovative achievements in communications technology that benefits people with disabilities. The Chairman's AAA, a project of the FCC's Accessibility and Innovation Initiative, recognizes outstanding private and public sector ventures in communications technology accessibility and innovation. Winners include:

Augmented Reality: Blind Square, an iOS app that helps blind travelers navigate routes, discover points of interest in the environment and network with friends around venues of mutual interest.

CAPTCHA Alternatives: Google's no CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA, which provides a technological advance to CAPTCHA security protocols by eliminating the need for users to type the characters or audio clips into a login box.

Internet of Things: Convo Lights, a VRS application that leverages recent advancements in off-the-shelf lighting technology to enable users to customize visual incoming call notifications to trigger multiple colors, locations and types of lighting in users' homes and workspaces.

Real-Time Text: Beam Messenger, an app that allows people to communicate seamless via text messages on mobile devices.

Teleconferencing: AT&T Video Meetings with BlueJeans: Mobile optimized and cross-platform interoperable video conferencing solution extends video collaboration to smartphone, tablet and laptop users.

Video Description: Comcast's Talking Guide: voice guidance on the X1 Entertainment Operating System "speaks" what's on the television screen to allow viewers who are blind or visually impaired to navigate user interfaces and video program information from cable set top boxes' on-screen menus.

Miscellaneous: OpenAIR, by Knowbility, Accessibile Internet Rally (AIR) is a competition, organized by Knowbility, that encourages developers to learn about web accessibility and apply that knowledge by building a prototype website for a nonprofit organization.

What the Early Days of the Cable Industry Reveal About Silicon Valley

In the second season of the HBO comedy Silicon Valley (minor spoiler alert), a tech company debuts its highly anticipated data compression algorithm by livestreaming a pivotal mixed martial arts match in ultra high definition over the Internet. The plot point feels perfectly 2015, right down to the sly joke embedded in the notion of a “highly anticipated data compression algorithm.” But it was also a subtle reference to when, 40 years earlier, HBO and the young cable industry demonstrated their capabilities by bringing the heavyweight boxing match of the century -- the legendary “Thrilla in Manila,” Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier -- into people’s homes in real time. It’s a moment that cable historians point to as the true beginning of the industry’s massive rise. And it’s one of many parallels between the early days of the cable industry and the current era dominated by Internet and media behemoths.

With the announcement of Charter Communications’ long-anticipated plans to merge with Time Warner Cable, much attention has focused on the merger’s implications for customers and for the media and telecommunications industries. But the announcement is interesting for another reason: In it, history is reasserting itself, and that history is most notably encapsulated in one of the primary players in this deal -- a longtime industry leader named John Malone.

Benton

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