February 2016

[Commentary] What if the FBI could force Samsung to covertly turn on the video camera in your smart TV? Or force Google to deliver a malicious security update to your web browser which actually spied on you and transmitted your passwords and other sensitive information back to the FBI? Sound like something from a dystopian sci-fi movie? If Apple loses its high-profile legal fight with the US government, these scenarios could become a reality. This will also threaten the security of all Internet users.

Earlier in Feb, the American public learned that the Department of Justice had sought and obtained a court order forcing Apple to help it hack into the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernardino (CA) shooters. The court ordered Apple to create a new, special version of Apple’s iOS operating system that bypasses several security features built into the company’s operating system. The court also ordered Apple to sign the custom version of the software. Without this digital signature certifying the software’s authenticity, the iPhone would refuse to run it. Experts fear that the precedent that the government is seeking in this case - to be able to force Apple to sign code for the government - could allow the government to force other technology companies to sign surveillance software and then push it to individual users’ devices, using the automatic update mechanisms that regularly look for and download new software.

[Christopher Soghoian is the Principal Technologist with the Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.]

[Commentary] In a speech on Feb 26, Commissioner Ajit Pai of the Federal Communications Commission claimed that investment by larger Internet service providers had “flatlined” since the agency passed its Open Internet Order protecting Network Neutrality in February 2015. Commissioner Pai cited an industry-funded economist’s tweet to support his claim. The tweet draws on selective data that excludes certain investments from the actual total reported by the companies in their regulatory filings. To show actual investment numbers, Free Press released analysis demonstrating that broadband-industry capital expenditures increased in 2015. Free Press’ analysis is based on a thorough review of these companies’ public statements as well as their quarterly and annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner made the following statement: “The broadband industry’s apocalyptic predictions about how the adoption of enforceable Net Neutrality rules would destroy the market have failed to materialize in the year since the FCC’s historic vote. Network investment is up. Revenues and profits are higher. And subscriber growth continues at a high level even as prices rise and the market nears saturation...Despite these facts, certain dead-enders like FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai are still peddling the false claim that broadband investment has flatlined and are still blaming the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules for this imaginary result."

[Commentary] Robert Reich's new book "Saving Capitalism" reads like the last message in a game of telephone on the topic of broadband policy. He starts with distorted perceptions of the US broadband market — the endnotes confirm the role of Harvard professor Susan Crawford, who stridently opposes for-profit broadband, in Reich's thinking — and then twists them even more to promote his campaign for a Bernie Sanders-esque "democratic socialism."

Let's start with broadband speed and prices. Crawford argued in "Captive Audience" — a tract advocating government-owned broadband networks — that US speeds ranked only the 22nd-fastest in the world, and that our prices were among the highest. We were actually in the top 10 for speed, and in fact our lower-end services were among the world's most affordable. But when Reich takes his turn in the game of telephone, he goes even further, lamenting that "the United States ha[s] some of the highest broadband prices among advanced nations, and the slowest speeds." This simply isn't true.

[Doug Brake is a telecommunications policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation]

[Commentary] A founding principle of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is protecting the public interest in communications - in television, radio, internet and new emerging mediums. In a country of increasing diversity, the public interest is not a "one size fits all" proposition. In the United States of 2016, the public interest must serve a Spanish-speaking mother in Los Angeles as well as it serves a rural rancher in South Dakota or a millennial urbanite in Brooklyn. As an industry, broadcast television has long served the largest number of Americans with its mass, free, over-the-air broadcasts. For this reason, Media Alliance finds it troubling that the FCC's current re-examination of the rules for exclusivity may jeopardize local broadcast television as it exists today.

The Commission is in the process of reexamining rules which allow broadcasters to negotiate the terms of use for broadcast content to be disseminated to cable providers. The current exclusivity rules preserve diversity in broadcast programming. And while there is nowhere near enough diversity, taking actions to further reduce it in order to increase profit levels for cable providers is not in the public interest. We believe that the current exclusivity rules should be preserved by the FCC. Any change to these regulations is a win for Big Cable and a terrible loss for small broadcasters across the country and the local communities in which they serve. The "public interest" that the FCC must protect includes Americans who have affordability challenges with pay TV and high-speed broadband access and the FCC must recognize this when considering how it should act on this important issue.

[Tracy Rosenberg is the Executive Director of Media Alliance, based in Northern California]