August 2017

COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY

TRUMP: MEDIA, HOLLYWOOD GOAL IS TO TAKE US DOWN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
President Donald Trump continues to try to raise money by framing his presidency as a fight for the people against the corrupt establishment abetted by the news and entertainment media. In a fundraising e-mail over his signature, the President said: "Look, Hollywood and the media are going to hate us no matter what we say or do. Their goal is to take us down." He said the problem was not with his policies, which he suggested had resulted in a booming economy, a wall at the southern border that was going to get built, a "BIG LEAGUE" reduction in illegal immigration, energy on the rise and more. The problem, he said was self-serving politicians trying to obstruct and who wanted him to be a "puppet" for the political class. A week after the President talked about bringing the country together after Charlottesville (VA), he indicated who might be excluded from that inclusiveness: "They say I’m isolated by lobbyists, corporations, grandstanding politicians, and Hollywood. GOOD! I don’t want them," he wrote, asking for a dollar donation.
benton.org/headlines/president-trump-media-hollywood-goal-take-us-down | Broadcasting&Cable
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ELECTION 2016

TOP TRUMP ORGANIZATION EXEC ASKED PUTIN AIDE FOR HELP ON BUSINESS DEAL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Rosalind Helderman, Carol Leonnig, Tom Hamburger]
A top executive from Donald Trump’s real estate company e-mailed Vladi¬mir Putin’s personal spokesman during the US presidential campaign in 2016 to ask for help advancing a stalled Trump Tower development project in Moscow, according to documents submitted to Congress Aug 28. Michael Cohen, a Trump attorney and executive vice president for the Trump Organization, sent the e-mail in January 2016 to Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s top press aide. “Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of a Trump Tower - Moscow project in Moscow City,” Cohen wrote Peskov, according to a person familiar with the e-mail. “Without getting into lengthy specifics the communication between our two sides has stalled.” “As this project is too important, I am hereby requesting your assistance. I respectfully request someone, preferably you, contact me so that I might discuss the specifics as well as arranging meetings with the appropriate individuals. I thank you in advance for your assistance and look forward to hearing from you soon,” Cohen wrote. Cohen’s e-mail marks the most direct interaction yet documented of a top Trump aide and a similarly senior member of Putin’s government.
benton.org/headlines/top-trump-organization-executive-asked-putin-aide-help-business-deal | Washington Post
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

CELL NETWORKS SUFFER OUTAGES IN HARVEY'S WAKE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ryan Knutson]
Wireless networks along the Texas coast suffered outages as a result of Hurricane Harvey, federal regulators said, leaving customers in some counties with limited or no cellphone service. Rockport (TX) near where the hurricane made landfall, was the hardest hit, according to the Federal Communications Commission. About 95% of cell sites there aren’t working, the agency said Aug 27, meaning cellphone users relying on the sites can’t send or receive phone calls or data. Of the 7,804 cell sites across the region, 320 are out of service, or about 4%. At least 148,565 people in the path of the hurricane were without cable or wireline service on Aug 27, the FCC said.
benton.org/headlines/cell-networks-suffer-outages-harveys-wake | Wall Street Journal | ars technica
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NET NEUTRALITY

A CRITIQUE OF TITLE II COMMENTS
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Lawrence Spiwak]
[Commentary] Amid the avalanche of Title II comments were comments filed by eleven Democratic members of Congress—several of whom sit on the House Commerce Committee—who claim their background working on telecommunication issues over the years gives them the “unique ability to provide input on the actual meaning and intent” of both the Communications Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A simple review of the plain text of these statutes and the substantial case law interpreting them, however, appear to raise doubts about that claim. Let’s start with the Congressmen’s central argument that the FCC “fundamentally and profoundly misstates the law” because the FCC’s notice of proposed rulemmaking (NPRM) “takes an impermissibly narrow view” of the Communications Act’s “public interest” standard. “Any action the FCC takes based on the analysis contained in the proposal,” they claim, “will be legally flawed and contrary to the law.” The problem with this argument is that regardless of how one views the “public interest” standard, application of this standard is irrelevant to the fundamental legal question raised in the NPRM. The Congressmen next argue that by reversing reclassification, the FCC “would remove the statutory privacy rules that can protect broadband users before they are harmed.” Again, this argument is legally inaccurate. The Democrat lawmakers’ third major legal argument is that the FCC is improperly focusing on whether the 2015 Open Internet Order depressed investment in broadband infrastructure. Every serious attempt to analyze the data indicates that the prospect of Title II regulation has reduced investment in broadband infrastructure, and by a significant amount. At some point, we all hope that Congress will step up and pass some sort of Open Internet legislation to put this debate to bed. If that effort is to be successful, then it is incumbent on Members of Congress to bring greater focus, insight and analytical rigor than they demonstrated in this particular filing.
[Lawrence Spiwak is the President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]
benton.org/headlines/law-public-interest-and-fcc-critique-title-ii-comments-eleven-democratic-congressmen | Bloomberg
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

NAB, TECH INDUSTRY THROW DOWN OVER TV WHITE SPACES
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Tara Seals]
The TV white spaces (TVWS) debate is cranking back up again thanks to a proposal that recommends that the Federal Communications Commision set aside three 6 MHz-wide TVWS channels for unlicensed use in every market across the country. The economic argument for broadband connectivity is undisputed and obvious: Without broadband connectivity, businesses can’t compete, and it’s more difficult for consumers to access critical educational, healthcare and governmental services. Today, approximately 34 million Americans currently lack basic broadband access, according to the FCC—and the majority of them, about 24 million, live in rural areas that simply do not have infrastructure in place to enable it. To address the gap, strategies for making inexpensive unlicensed spectrum available to ISPs have been a cornerstone of the FCC’s plan to bridge the digital divide. The FCC previously ruled that the 600 MHz duplex gap between 652-663 MHz and Channel 37 would be not be sold to wireless carriers and would be available on an unlicensed basis, once the recent TV spectrum incentive auction was over—given that that broadcasters would be vacating that real estate. The FCC also has an unfinalized notice of proposed rulemaking that would reserve an additional 6 MHz channel in each broadcast market for unlicensed use, at 54-608 MHz. It’s the future of this last band that’s at stake. A bipartisan coalition of 43 Congressional representatives asked the FCC earlier this summer to reserve at least three TV white space channels in the 600 MHz band to support rural broadband deployments—a plan first proposed by Microsoft.
benton.org/headlines/nab-tech-industry-throw-down-over-tv-white-spaces | Fierce
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POLICYMAKERS

IP LAWYER WHO REPRESENTED TIVO IS TRUMPS PICK AS USPTO CHIEF
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Joe Mullin]
President Donald Trump has selected Andrei Iancu, the managing partner of a major Los Angeles law firm, to be the next head of the US Patent and Trademark Office. Iancu has been a partner at Irell & Manella since 2004 and was an associate at the firm for five years earlier. His most notable work in the tech sector is likely his representation of TiVo Corp. in its long-running patent battles with companies like EchoStar, Motorola, Microsoft, Verizon, and Cisco. TiVo ultimately succeeded in compelling those defendants to pay up for its pioneering DVR patents, and payments to TiVo ultimately totaled more than $1.6 billion, according to Iancu's biography page. Iancu also had a hand in Immersion Corp.'s $82 million jury verdict against Sony Computer Entertainment, in which a jury found that Immersion's patent claims on tactile feedback technology were valid and infringed. Those big wins aside, most of Iancu's work has been on the defense side. He's represented eBay in a case against Acacia Research Corp., a large, publicly traded non-practicing entity, and he worked for Hewlett-Packard when it defended against Xerox patent claims. He's also worked in the medical device area, enforcing patents for St. Jude Medical on vascular closure devices.
benton.org/headlines/ip-lawyer-who-represented-tivo-trumps-pick-uspto-chief | Ars Technica
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August 2017

Final Rule: Scope of NTIA’s Authority Regarding FirstNet Fees

The rise of the $1,000 smartphone

Sky stops broadcasting rightwing US channel Fox News in UK

August 29, 2017 (Harvey; Russia; Net Neutrality)

Hurricane Harvey Leaves 190,000 Without Phone, Internet, or TV Service

Stormfront: 'murder capital of internet' pulled offline after civil rights action

David Lazarus: Spokeo lawsuit highlights challenge of protecting privacy in digital age

Riot Games and Annenberg Foundation bring classes on making video games to L.A. schools

Tara VanDerveer: TV exposure for women’s sports is a game changer

Privacy is now a right in India. Here's what that means for the tech industry