July 10, 2017 (Government Surveillance)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, JULY 10, 2017
This week’s agenda https://www.benton.org/calendar/2017-07-09--P1W
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
President Trump’s leaks crackdown sends chills through national security world
Putin denies election hacking after President Trump pressed him, Sec Tillerson says
President Trump says G20 leaders are obsessed with the DNC hack [links to Vox]
Podesta calls Trump ‘our whack job’ president in response to error-filled tweet [links to Washington Post]
Video: Is Freedom of Expression in Danger in Trump Era? First Amendment Experts Weigh In [links to Wrap, The]
President Trump shrugs off 'haters' and media in early morning tweets [links to Benton summary]
Rachel Maddow’s urgent warning to the rest of the media [links to Benton summary]
Other presidents boosted free press abroad; President Trump bashes it [links to Benton summary]
Become a #CitizenSleuth and uncover Trump administration mysteries [links to Center for Public Integrity]
A First Amendment right to record the police [links to Washington Post]
Op-ed: If President Trump cares about Western civilization, he needs to fund the arts [links to Washington Post]
PRIVACY/SECURITY
Facebook among tech firms battling gag orders over government surveillance
US officials say Russian government hackers have penetrated energy and nuclear company business networks [links to Washington Post]
President Trump, Putin discuss working together on cyber issues [links to Hill, The]
Ambassador Haley: ‘We need to get together with Russia’ on cybersecurity [links to Hill, The]
Sen Rubio slams Trump’s talk of forming ‘Cyber Security Unit’ with Russia [links to Hill, The]
President Trump suggested a cybersecurity pact with Russia. Lawmakers say they were ‘dumbfounded.’ [links to Washington Post]
The ethics issue: Should we abandon privacy online? - New Scientist [links to Benton summary]
Why Your Phone Will Be the Key to ATMs of the Future [links to Wall Street Journal]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
New E-Rate Policy Helps school Bridge the 'Homework Gap' - Craig Settles op-ed
NHMC asks FCC to delay net neutrality repeal proceeding [links to Benton summary]
As Full FCC Roster Looms, Net Neutrality Changes Moving Forward [links to Benton summary]
Net Neutrality Battle [links to Inside Higher Ed]
Facebook, Google to join net neutrality demonstration [links to Benton summary]
Extraterritorial mischief: Internet regulation by trial court [links to American Enterprise Institute]
The World May Be Headed for a Fragmented 'Splinternet' [links to Wired]
OWNERSHIP
AT&T’s Blockbuster Deal for Time Warner Hangs in Limbo
Sen Klobuchar Warns Against Politicizing AT&T-Time Warner
FCC opens docket on Sinclair merger with Tribune [links to Benton summary]
Huge payday awaits Tribune Media execs after Sinclair merger [links to Robert Feder]
Univision Buys WMGM Philadelphia For $6M [links to TVNewsCheck]
Why Amazon might want a deal with Dish [links to Washington Post]
You should be outraged at Google’s anti-competitive behavior - WaPo op-ed [links to Benton summary]
TELEVISION
DC Court Upholds FCC Rebuttable Presumption Decision for Cable Rate Regulations
Charter, Fox News End Carriage Fee Suit [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
RTDNA calls on FCC to end 'telephone broadcast rule' [links to Radio Television Digital News Association]
CONTENT
News Outlets to Seek Bargaining Rights Against Google and Facebook
A Hidden Threat to Free Expression: DRM - Free Press op-ed
danah boyd Discusses the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Internet [links to Technology Academics Policy]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
AT&T and Verizon want free rein to put new wireless transmitters in your neighborhood. Here's why that's a bad idea [links to Los Angeles Times]
Chairman Pai's Response to Vermont Congressman Regarding Incentive Auction [links to Federal Communications Commission]
TELECOM
FCC Streamlines Reporting Rules for Universal Service Recipients - public notice [links to Benton summary]
Chairman Pai's Response to PA Congressman Regarding CAF II Competitive Bidding Process Rules [links to Federal Communications Commission]
JOURNALISM
Local News Is The Front Line Of The Fake-News Fight - MediaPost op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Alt-weeklies look for lifeline from nonprofits [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
AT&T Rips CBS News for DirecTV Story [links to Benton summary]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Public Safety And Homeland Security Bureau Announces Deadline For Comment On FirstNet Ex Parte Submissions Proposing Interoperability Criteria For State Opt-Out Requests From The FirstNet Radio Access Network [links to Federal Communications Commission]
LABOR
In Hollywood, Asian American actors see few lead roles, and pay discrepancies when they land one [links to Los Angeles Times]
POLICYMAKERS
Neomi Rao, the Scholar Who Will Help Lead Trump’s Regulatory Assault [links to New York Times]
COMPANY NEWS
Frontier borrowed $17 billion to buy networks from Verizon and AT&T. Now, it’s struggling with debt as customers cut the cord. [links to Wall Street Journal]
Facebook is building a new campus that includes 1,500 apartments and a grocery store [links to Vox]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Spyware Sold to Mexican Government Targeted International Officials [links to Benton summary]
Crackdown Chills Hong Kong’s Indie Music Scene [links to New York Times]
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
TRUMP LEAKS CRACKDOWN SENDS CHILLS THROUGH NATIONAL SECURITY WORLD
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Ali Watkins, Josh Dawsey]
National security officials across the federal government say they are seeing new restrictions on who can access sensitive information, fueling fears in the intelligence and security community that the Trump administration has stepped up a stealthy operation to smoke out leakers. Officials at various national security agencies also say they are becoming more concerned that the administration is carefully tracking what they’re doing and who they’re talking to — then plotting to use them as a scapegoat or accuse them of leaks. One US official voiced concern over even talking to their superiors about a benign call from a reporter. The agency this official works for had started limiting staff’s access to information, they said, and it would make it far easier to figure out who was talking to people in the media. There was suspicion, the official said, that the agency was even tracking what they printed, to keep tabs on what information they were accessing. A half dozen officials across the national security community described to Politico a series of subtle and no-so-subtle changes that have led to an increasingly tense and paranoid working environment rooted in the White House’s obsession with leaks. President Donald Trump has regularly vented about his intense frustration with anonymously sourced stories, and has specifically targeted federal government entities, including intelligence agencies like the CIA and FBI and the State Department.
benton.org/headlines/president-trumps-leaks-crackdown-sends-chills-through-national-security-world | Politico | Broadcasting&Cable
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
PUTIN DENIES ELECTION HACKING
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Damian Paletta, David Filipov, Abby Phillip]
Eight months after an unprecedented US election — one that US intelligence agencies say the Russian government tried to sway — President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sat for their first meeting on July 7, a friendly encounter that ended in confusion over whether President Trump accepted assurances that the Kremlin was innocent of any wrongdoing during the campaign. President Trump, believed to be the intended beneficiary of the Russian meddling, emerged from the extraordinary meeting — which dragged so long that President Trump’s wife tried once to break it up — with a deal including Russia and Jordan on a partial Syrian ceasefire. The agreement would mark the first time Washington and Moscow had operated together in Syria to try to reduce the violence. But there were no grand bargains on US sanctions on Russia, the Ukraine crisis or the other issues that have divided the nations for years. The meeting, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, opened with Trump telling Putin it was an “honor to be with you.” In the closed-door discussion, Trump pressed Putin “on more than one occasion” on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who attended the two-hour-and-16-minute meeting, told reporters. Sec Tillerson said “President Putin denied such involvement” but agreed to organize talks “regarding commitments of noninterference in the affairs of the United States and our democratic process.”
benton.org/headlines/putin-denies-election-hacking-after-president-trump-pressed-him-tillerson-says | Washington Post | The Hill
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
PRIVACY/SECURITY
GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Olivia Solon]
Tech companies -- including Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft -- are fighting gag orders from US courts preventing them from talking about government surveillance of their users, arguing it has a chilling effect on free speech. Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft all have policies to notify users of government requests for account information unless they are prohibited by law from doing so in exceptional circumstances such as life-threatening emergencies, child sexual exploitation and terrorism. However, it seems that the US government is attaching gag orders – many with no time limit – to their data requests in about half of all cases. This means that people are having their digital lives ransacked without their knowledge and with no chance for public scrutiny or appeal. Tech companies and civil liberties campaigners argue that the gag orders are unconstitutional, violating the fourth amendment, which gives people the right to know if the government searches or seizes their property, and the first amendment, which protects the companies’ right to talk to their customers and discuss how the government conducts its investigations.
benton.org/headlines/facebook-among-tech-firms-battling-gag-orders-over-government-surveillance | Guardian, The
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
INTERNET/BROADBAND
E-RATE AND HOMEWORK GAP
[SOURCE: Daily Yonder, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] Thanks to a 2016 change in Federal Communications Commission policy, a small school district in central Virginia may have found a way to the bridge the “homework gap.” The homework gap is the lack of digital access at home that can hurt students’ academic performance and interfere with their ability to complete assignments. Brette Arbogast, director of technology for the Appomattox County School District in Virginia, saw problems with E-Rate in 2015, in part because of a lack of competition among technology companies bidding on school business. Arbogast figured out his school district could save a lot of money if it built a network itself rather than hiring a private internet-service provider. Though the savings potentially amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, without internet access in students’ homes, the program would do nothing to address the homework gap. A recent amendment in FCC policy was a game changer. Until last year, E-Rate-funded networks could only serve the grounds of schools or libraries. In 2016 the FCC reformed the rules so that networks funded with E-Rate could reach off-campus to serve students during non-school hours. The district quickly capitalized on the change. The school district became a certified ISP and an E-Rate provider – a process that takes about a year. Once they had built the network to serve the school, they cooperated with a municipality that helped finance Wi-Fi radios, which the school connected to the network. Those Wi-Fi devices provide internet access to students in their homes after 4 p.m., thus getting them online to complete their homework.
[Craig Settles is a broadband industry analyst and consultant to local governments]
benton.org/headlines/new-e-rate-policy-helps-school-bridge-homework-gap | Daily Yonder
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
OWNERSHIP
AT&T-TIME WARNER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang, Michael de la Merced]
The small army of career antitrust officials is marching toward a great unknown. For one thing, the Justice Department officials still don’t have a boss who will have the final say on whether to approve or block AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner. President Trump’s pick for assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust matters, Makan Delrahim, has been held up in a logjam of nominees in the Senate. And President Donald Trump himself, who said during the 2016 campaign that he opposed the deal, is another wild card. A senior administration official said that members of the White House were discussing how they might use their perch over the merger review as leverage over Time Warner’s news network, CNN. All of that has effectively put into limbo the most significant business deal before the Trump administration, a benchmark for business transactions going forward. In turn, that has cast a cloud over the business world, which is watching the lengthy regulatory process with intense interest.
benton.org/headlines/atts-blockbuster-deal-time-warner-hangs-limbo | New York Times
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
SEN KLOBUCHAR WARNS AGAINST POLITICIZING ATT-TIME WARNER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has warned attorney general Jeff Sessions that any political interference in the Justice Department's review of the AT&T-Time Warner merger would be "unacceptable." Sen Klobuchar was responding to a report in the New York Times that White House advisors have discussed leveraging the deal against Time Warner-owned CNN, which President Donald Trump has hammered as fake news—most recently in a tweet featuring him pummeling a figure with a CNN logo for a head. President Trump said as a candidate his White House would oppose the deal. In a letter to AG Sessions, sen Klobuchar said that while she has "serious questions" about the deal's impact, "the transaction should be judged solely on its impact on competition, innovation, and consumers, not as 'leverage' for political gain." She added: “Any political interference in antitrust enforcement is unacceptable. Even more concerning, in this instance, is that it appears that some advisers to the President may believe that it is appropriate for the government to use its law enforcement authority to alter or censor the press. Such an action would violate the First Amendment.”
benton.org/headlines/sen-klobuchar-warns-against-politicizing-att-time-warner | Broadcasting&Cable | Huffington Post
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
TELEVISION
DC COURT UPHOLDS FCC REBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION DECISION FOR CABLE RATE REGS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In a big victory for cable operators large and small, a federal court has said the Federal Communications Commission was within its authority to make it easier for cable video services to shed basic rate regulations. The US Court of Appeals has upheld the FCC's decision—under former chairman Tom Wheeler—reversing the rebuttable presumption that cable operators are not subject to local competition, thereby making regulators prove there is a lack of competition or rate regulations go away. The onus had been on cable operators to prove their was competition, but the FCC concluded that the near-nationwide availability of DBS essentially represented that competition. The commission, with the strong backing of cable operators—NCTA–The Internet & Television Association and American Cable Association both intervened in the court challenge on the FCC's side—in 2016 voted to reverse the rebuttable presumption and assume cable systems faced local market competition (primarily given the ubiquity of satellite TV) unless telecom regulators or other challengers could prove they did not. A finding of effective competition lifts basic cable price regulations. Writing for the three-judge panel that rejected the challenge to that decision by the National Association of Broadcasters, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, and the Northern Dakota County Cable Communications Commission, judge Douglas Ginsburg said the FCC decision was within its authority.
benton.org/headlines/dc-court-upholds-fcc-rebuttable-presumption-decision-cable-rate-regulations | Broadcasting&Cable | ars technica
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
CONTENT
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg]
A group of news organizations will begin an effort to win the right to negotiate collectively with the big online platforms – Facebook and Google -- and will ask for a limited antitrust exemption from Congress in order to do so. It’s an extreme measure with long odds. But the industry considers it worth a shot, given its view that Google and Facebook, regardless of their intentions, are posing a bigger threat economically than President Trump is (so far) with his rhetoric. That’s how David Chavern, the chief executive of the News Media Alliance, put it. The Alliance, the main newspaper industry trade group, is leading the effort to bargain as a group. But it has buy-in across the spectrum of its membership, bringing together competitors like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, as well as scores of regional papers like The Star Tribune of Minneapolis, which face the gravest threats.
benton.org/headlines/news-outlets-seek-bargaining-rights-against-google-and-facebook | New York Times | David Chavern of the News Media Alliance | LA Times
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
A HIDDEN THREAT TO FREE EXPRESSION: DRM
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Zak Rogoff]
Thanks in part to organizations like Free Press Action Fund, the movement to protect free expression online is strong — for proof look at the millions of people fighting to save Network Neutrality. But there’s an important problem that many free-expression advocates aren’t aware of because it usually lurks just beneath the sleek interfaces of our devices and software: DRM, or digital restrictions management. DRM is a broad class of technologies that give the manufacturer of a digital good special control over the ways people use it. DRM has been around since the 1990s and has colonized personal computers, smartphones, game consoles, cars, tractors and more. DRM harms free expression most when it interferes with our use of media like videos, books and music. This DRM is the underlying technology that prevents you from copying Amazon Kindle e-books on to a Barnes and Noble Nook, from downloading a clip of a movie on Netflix for use in a documentary or from sampling a song from Spotify in a new piece of music. DRM exists primarily so that Hollywood studios, big music labels and streaming services like Netflix and Spotify can use it to artificially corral us into spending more money than we would if we were able to make full use of media.
[Zak Rogoff is the campaigns manager at the Free Software Foundation.]
benton.org/headlines/hidden-threat-free-expression-drm | Free Press
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top