May 2017

Michael Dubke, the White House communications director, announced that he was resigning, as President Donald Trump weighs a broader shake-up of his staff in the face of multiple investigations.

Dubke, a veteran Republican strategist who served three months in the role, said that he offered his resignation on May 18 and agreed to stay on until President Trump completed his first overseas trip, which ended over the weekend. Other staff changes could come by the end of the week, White House officials said.

The resignation came as President Trump and his team pushed back against reports that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, explored the possibility of setting up a secret communications channel to Moscow during the transition between the election and inauguration. President Trump posted a link on Twitter to a “Fox & Friends” article reporting that the Russians, not Kushner, suggested the secret channel and that it was meant as a one-time vehicle to talk about the civil war in Syria. Trump’s tweet came shortly after his counselor, Kellyanne Conway, went on the same program to call the talk of collusion with Russia “just a rush to judgment” and to repeat the president’s support for his son-in-law.

As his city mourns two men who were killed after confronting a man screaming anti-Muslim slurs, Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) is calling on federal officials to block what he called “alt-right demonstrations” from happening in downtown Portland (OR). His concern is that the two rallies, both scheduled in June, will escalate an already volatile situation in Portland by peddling “a message of hatred and of bigotry.” Although the organizers of the rallies have a constitutional right to speak, “hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment,” said Mayor Wheeler. But history and precedent are not on Wheeler's side. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that hate speech, no matter how bigoted or offensive, is free speech.

[Commentary] The BROWSER Act would establish affirmative consent (“opt in”) requirements for the collection and use of certain data, such as location and web browsing histories. In addition, the bill would restrict companies from conditioning access to their services on whether users choose to share their data. If adopted, these policies would be a disaster for Internet users and companies. First, obtaining consent is expensive. Second, requiring companies to obtain affirmative consent would make digital services less user-friendly without increasing privacy. Third, the bill requires providers to allow users to remove their data whenever they wish. Finally, the bill prohibits service providers from refusing to provide service as a “direct or indirect consequence of the refusal of a user to waive any such privacy rights.” Congress should reject this legislation, or any similar proposal that attempts to impose opt-in requirements on the digital economy.

Several advocacy groups have asked the United States Court of Appeals in Washington to stay the Federal Communications Commission’s April 20 decision to relax the national TV ownership cap by restoring the UHF discount in calculating station group coverage.

The effect of the FCC action is to lift the allowable coverage from 39% of TV homes to 78% assuming that all groups in a market are served by UHF stations. The immediate effect of the stay would be to derail Sinclair's proposed $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media that would balloon Sinclair's coverage from just below 39% to 72%. The motion for emergency stay pending a full review of the FCC action was filed by the Institute for Public Representations at Georgetown University Law Center on behalf of Free Press, Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Prometheus Radio Project, Media Mobilizing Project, Media Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, and Common Cause. The court has given the FCC until June 1 to respond to the motion.