1. Monthly archive
  2. September 2020

September 2020

FCC Releases Results of Supply Chain Information Collection

The Federal Communications Commission released the results of its efforts to identify use of Huawei and ZTE equipment and services in US telecommunications networks that receive support from the federal Universal Service Fund. The FCC’s Nov 2019 order barring the use of USF support for the purchase of equipment and services from companies that pose a national security threat initially designated Huawei and ZTE as covered entities and directed FCC staff to conduct this information collection.

HHS Releases Plan to Improve Rural Health Focuses on Better Broadband, Telehealth Services

The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) released the Rural Action Plan, the first HHS-wide assessment of rural healthcare efforts in more than 18 years and the product of HHS’s Rural Task Force, a group of experts and leaders across the department first put together by Secretary Alex Azar in 2019. The plan lays out a four-point strategy to transform rural health and human services, with a number of actions that can be launched within weeks or months. Leveraging tech and innovation was one of the strategies, which includes:

NSA surveillance exposed by Snowden was illegal, court rules seven years on

Seven years after the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful – and that the US intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth. In a ruling handed down Sept 3, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans’ telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and may well have been unconstitutional.

Sponsor: 

 Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment

Federal Communications Commission

Date: 
Fri, 09/18/2020 - 15:00 to 21:00

The agenda for the meeting will include a report from each of the ACDDE working groups. The Access to Capital Working Group will report on its ongoing examination of ways to improve access to capital to encourage management and ownership of broadcast properties by a diverse range of voices, including minorities and women. The Digital Empowerment and Inclusion Working Group will discuss its work assessing access, adoption, and use of broadband and new technologies by under-resourced communities.


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