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February 2017

Sen Markey Criticizes Efforts to Undo Broadband Privacy Rules

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) released the following statement about efforts to undo the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband privacy rules by utilizing the Congressional Review Act: "Big broadband companies want to mine and sell consumers’ most sensitive personal information without any consent. Overturning broadband privacy protections is nothing more than Big Broadband’s way of pumping up its profits and undermining consumer rights. Without the FCC’s broadband privacy rule, broadband providers will be able to sell dossiers of the personal and professional lives of their subscribers to the highest bidder without their consent. I will oppose any efforts to roll back important broadband privacy rules either by Congress or at the FCC.”

Jared Kushner Delivers Critique of CNN to Time Warner Executive

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, met with a senior Time Warner executive in recent weeks and expressed the administration’s deep concerns about CNN’s news coverage, apparently. In a meeting at the White House, Kushner complained to Gary Ginsberg, executive vice president of corporate marketing and communications at CNN’s parent Time Warner, about what Kushner feels is unfair coverage slanted against the president.

The Trump administration’s hostile posture toward the news media, especially CNN, has been evident in the president’s own statements and those of his press secretary and top aides. While the administration is battling a large swath of the media, the fight with CNN has special intrigue because its parent company has a massive piece of business awaiting government approval: a proposed $85.4 billion sale to AT&T. Kushner and Ginsberg, who have been friends for a decade and whose discussion covered a variety of issues including Israel and the economy, didn’t discuss the merger in their recent meeting, apparently.

Encrypted apps spark new questions for Trump-era workers

The reported use of encrypted messaging apps by government workers is raising questions about whether the services evade scrutiny from their superiors and the public — or are even legal. Trump administration staffers are reportedly communicating via an encrypted messaging app called Confide, the main feature of which is self-destructing messages. Top GOP operatives and aides in the administration have been using the app to communicate out of fear that they might be hacked and have their correspondence made public.

Amid the fallout of national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation, White House staffers are using Confide out of fear that President Trump is planning to crack down on leaks to the media. Government accountability watchdog groups are raising concerns about the use of Confide in the White House, saying it violates the Presidential Records Act. The 39-year-old law requires the president, vice president and their immediate staff members to preserve all correspondence so that official records can be archived. “The reason we have to have an archived record is so there's accountability for the actions and decisions that get made and historically we can review the activities of an administration,” said Sean Moulton, who oversees the open government program at the Project on Government Oversight.

GOP Rep Jones joins House Democrats’ push to establish a bipartisan Russian hacking commission

A House bill to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate allegations of Russian interference in 2016’s presidential election has garnered its first Republican supporter. Rep Walter B. Jones (R-NC) co-sponsored the Protecting Our Democracy Act. He joins every member of the House Democratic Caucus in co-sponsoring the bill, which would set up a 12-member panel evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. The bill, introduced by Reps Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), gives the commission powers to investigate “any attempts or activities by the Russian government, persons or entities associated with the Russian government, or persons or entities within Russia to use electronic means to influence, interfere with, or sow distrust in elections for public office held in the United States in 2016.”

FCC's Open Internet Docket Heats Up

The Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet docket is starting to fill up with new comments, according to the FCC's online list of the most active proceedings. It remains number three on the top 10 list with 402 comments in the past 30 days. That is still way below the 992 Lifeline subsidy program compliance filings in that last 30 days and the 1,246 filings on the high-cost fund, both of those related to the Universal Service Fund for broadband subsidies. But it is the busiest docket since last week, when some Democratic members of Congress called on the public to begin flooding the FCC again with support for retaining the Title II-based Open Internet order. There have been over 200 comments logged since last week (there were 178 as of Feb. 9). By contrast, the two USF dockets only logged 68 new comments combined.

Dispelling misconceptions in the Open Internet debate

[Commenatary] Several misconceptions about the Open Internet rules are in circulation...this blog post is a first stab at dispelling the most problematic issues:
The Open Internet Order is not a First Amendment issue: Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman all suggested that the Open Internet Order is a First Amendment issue. It is not. The First Amendment prevents the government from infringing upon freedom of speech. The Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Rules are not designed to curb government limits on speech, so the First Amendment rights of speakers are simply not implicated.
Repealing Title II reclassification is not the same as eliminating the Open Internet.
The Open Internet Order does not protect against higher prices.
The ultimate answer lies with Congress.

[Daniel Lyons is an associate professor at Boston College Law School]

For election news, young people turned to some national papers more than their elders

Younger Americans have long been less likely to read newspapers than their elders. But a Pew Research Center survey has revealed a significant twist, at least for certain newspapers with a more national focus: When we asked people if they regularly got news about the 2016 presidential election through either the print or online version of four specific US newspapers, three of these papers – The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal – attracted more adults younger than 50 than 50 and older as regular readers. As for the fourth – USA Today – younger and older Americans regularly got election news there at about the same rate.

This reinforces earlier findings that when asked about reading, watching or listening to news, younger Americans are more likely than their elders to prefer reading it – though they overwhelmingly prefer to do this reading online. And the new data suggest that the digital outreach efforts for these national newspaper brands may have attracted enough younger online readers to overcome a long-standing age gap for newspapers.

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