1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2017

January 2017

The First Casualty is the Truth: Trump's Running War With the Media

[Commentary] In a democracy, the key role for citizens is to participate in public life. Voting, of course, is a key aspect of this participation, but, in a vital democracy, citizens’ participation is not limited to occasional trips to the voting booth: they are well-informed about public issues, watch carefully how their political leaders and representatives use their powers, and express their own opinions and interests. To be well-informed, many citizens must rely on journalists who can attend public events, question public officials, and report back to the general public. So important is this function in our democracy, citizens demanded protections for a free press and mass communication in the Bill of Rights. Since President Donald Trump’s Inauguration on January 20, 2017, many people are anxiously looking for clues as to how the Administration will interact with the press. Trump’s first week in office demonstrates that the relationship will be combative. Will the people be the losers in this fight?

‘Up Is Down’: Trump’s Unreality Show Echoes His Business Past

As a businessman, Donald J. Trump was a serial fabulist whose biggest-best boasts about everything he touched routinely crumbled under the slightest scrutiny. As a candidate, Trump was a magical realist who made fantastical claims punctuated by his favorite verbal tic: “Believe me.” Yet even jaded connoisseurs of Oval Office dissembling were astonished by the torrent of bogus claims that gushed from President Trump during his first days in office.

“We’ve never seen anything this bizarre in our lifetimes, where up is down and down is up and everything is in question and nothing is real,” said Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity. It was not just Trump’s debunked claim about how many people attended his inauguration, or his insistence (contradicted by his own Twitter posts) that he had not feuded with the intelligence community, or his audacious and evidence-free claim that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote only because millions of people voted for her illegally. But for students of Trump’s long business career, there was much about President Trump’s truth-mangling ways that was familiar: the mystifying false statements about seemingly trivial details, the rewriting of history to airbrush unwanted facts, the branding as liars those who point out his untruths, the deft conversion of demonstrably false claims into a semantic mush of unverifiable “beliefs.” Trump’s falsehoods have long been viewed as a reflexive extension of his vanity, or as his method of compensating for deep-seated insecurities. But throughout his business career, Trump’s most noteworthy deceptions often did double duty, serving not just his ego but also important strategic goals.

Internet Companies Reaffirm Consumer Privacy Principles As FCC Reviews Flawed Wheeler Era Broadband Rules

Trade associations representing virtually all of the leading US internet service providers (ISPs) filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to stay broadband privacy rules recently adopted by the FCC, while at the same time releasing detailed and comprehensive principles reiterating ISPs’ commitment to protecting their customers’ privacy online. The stay filed by CTIA, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, USTelecom, ACA, CTA, CCA, ITTA, NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association, WISPA, and WTA asks the FCC to halt privacy rules while it resolves multiple pending motions for their reconsideration. If granted, the combination of the ISPs’ privacy principles and applicable laws would protect consumers’ privacy without subjecting them to flawed and confusing regulations that would undermine the safe and consistent treatment of their data online.

The ISP privacy principles are:

  • Transparency. ISPs will continue to provide their broadband customers with a clear, comprehensible, accurate, and continuously-available privacy notice that describes the customer information we collect, how we will use that information, and when we will share that information with third parties.
  • Consumer Choice. ISPs will continue to give broadband customers easy-to-understand privacy choices based on the sensitivity of their personal data and how it will be used or disclosed, consistent with the FTC’s privacy framework. In particular, ISPs will continue to: (i) follow the FTC’s guidance regarding opt-in consent for the use and sharing of sensitive information as defined by the FTC; (ii) offer an opt-out choice to use non-sensitive customer information for personalized third-party marketing; and (iii) rely on implied consent to use customer information in activities like service fulfillment and support, fraud prevention, market research, product development, network management and security, compliance with law, and first-party marketing. This is the same flexible choice approach used across the Internet ecosystem and is very familiar to consumers.
  • Data Security. ISPs will continue to take reasonable measures to protect customer information we collect from unauthorized use, disclosure, or access. Consistent with the FTC’s framework, precedent, and guidance, these measures will take into account the nature and scope of the ISP’s activities, the sensitivity of the data, the size of the ISP, and technical feasibility.
  • Data Breach Notifications. ISPs will continue to notify consumers of data breaches as appropriate, including complying with all applicable state data breach laws, which contain robust requirements to notify affected customers, regulators, law enforcement, and others, without unreasonable delay, when an unauthorized person acquires the customers’ sensitive personal information as defined in these laws.

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