October 2016

[Commentary] Over the last eight years, my Administration has worked hand-in-hand with rural communities to build more opportunity – investing in rural schools, supporting rural small business owners, deploying high speed Internet and wireless, and building partnerships between businesses and colleges to help train folks not just for a job, but for a career. And for those struggling with opioid use, we've expanded access to treatment to help them get the care they need. So we're making progress – progress that's possible only because of the strength and resilience of the people in our rural communities.

In Pikeville (KY) former coal miners are trading coal for code. They're retraining to learn HTML, JavaScript, and PHP, transforming an old bottling factory into a digital hub. It's a transition that not only supports good jobs, but also offers a glimpse of what the future could look like in other communities like Pikeville. In Piedmont (AL) school leaders have invested in high-speed connectivity and laptops for every student, so that teachers can tailor lessons to individual students and assess each student's progress in real time. Already, test scores and graduation rates are up, and tiny Piedmont City School District has emerged as a national model for digital learning. That's what rural America can look like in the 21st Century. Smart investments that lead to real, tangible progress. Today, rural unemployment has dropped from a high of about ten percent during the Great Recession to six percent. The rural child poverty rate is dropping, and rural median household incomes are rising again. In so many ways, from its resilience and ingenuity in the face of a challenge to the defining values that power it every day, rural America represents that beating heart. That's why these communities are so important – because when America's rural communities are strong, America is strong.

[Commentary] When multiple federal agencies regulate the same industry, it’s critically important that their rules and standards complement, rather than conflict, with one another. This principle is all the more important when consumer privacy in the ever-expanding world of broadband use is at stake. Unfortunately, the Federal Communications Commission’s pending privacy rulemaking threatens to sacrifice the virtues of consistent protection and put it out of sync with the Federal Trade Commission.

The challenge arises following the FCC’s action to adopt network neutrality rules. As a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees these policy areas, I strongly supported net neutrality. However, one unfortunate consequence of the FCC’s decision to classify Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as common carriers was that it eliminated the FTC’s longstanding authority to police the privacy practices of ISPs. While I agree it’s necessary to fix this problem, it’s not a reason to go overboard. There is no need for the FCC to reinvent the wheel here. By synchronizing its final regulations with the FTC’s successful privacy framework – including vital details like what information the FTC counts as sensitive and what
kinds of data uses will still require opt-in consent – the FCC can protect consumers’ privacy online in a lasting, durable and consistent way.

[Henry Waxman is a former House Commerce Commitee Chairman from California. He currently serves as Chairman of Waxman Strategies where he represents both technology companies and broadband providers.]

It has been six months since the Justice Department backed off on demands that Apple help the FBI break the security of a locked iPhone. But the government has not given up the fight with the tech industry. Open Whisper Systems, a maker of a widely used encryption app called Signal, received a subpoena in the first half of 2016 for subscriber information and other details associated with two phone numbers that came up in a federal grand jury investigation in Virginia. The subpoena arrived with a court order that said Open Whisper Systems was not allowed to tell anyone about the information request for one year.

Technology companies contend that court-imposed gag orders are being used too often by law enforcement and that they violate the Bill of Rights. The companies also complain that law enforcement officials are casting a wide net over online communications — often too wide — in their investigations. Justice Department officials, for their part, argue that these gag orders are necessary to protect developing cases and to avoid tipping off potential targets. The officials say that they are simply following leads where they take them.