Alex Byers

The GOP's technology offensive, which has included rolling back the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy rules and will likely take aim at network neutrality next, has handed a potential political weapon to Democrats and consumer groups, who are eager to use it. "Voters across party lines understand the importance of personal privacy and are not going to be happy as they find out that Republican senators and Senate candidates used a party-line vote to put data including health and financial information for sale to the highest bidder," said Ben Ray, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The White House has already said President Donald Trump plans to sign the resolution using the Congressional Review Act to rescind the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy rules. That leaves an open question of how the agency and Congress will choose to address the issue in the future. In his reaction to the House vote, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai seemed to suggest his next step would be to undo Title II, rather than create new rules that align with existing ones at the Federal Trade Commission.

Title II classified broadband internet access service providers as common carriers and put them under the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction. It's the same policy that bolsters the network neutrality rules, meaning revoking Title II could be tied to rolling back net neutrality. House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) is in step with Chairman Pai on leaving privacy to the FTC. "I hope the FCC will take up and review what was done under the Wheeler regime on Title II," he said, referencing the previous FCC chairman. "Repealing Title II solves the whole problem. I think we gotta get this back to where we can legislate in this space, and take the bill we drafted a few years ago that would put into statute prohibitions on bad behavior, on throttling, and paid prioritization and blocking, there's bipartisan agreement on that. But when the Obama administration forced the FCC to go straight to Title II, that created all these problems."

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai met with the House Commerce Committee's Rural Telecommunications Working Group to discuss expanding broadband access in rural communities. Some of the topics the group touched on included the Universal Service Fund, call completion and the FCC's 477 Form, according to a committee aide. "The meeting with Chairman Pai was an opportunity for a robust, bipartisan discussion about bridging the digital divide that too often exists between rural and urban areas," said Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH). "Reducing regulatory barriers and investing in deployment of broadband infrastructure will help more of our communities - especially rural communities - compete and stay connected in the 21st century economy."

The White House has called for eliminating two regulations for every new one imposed, and though the policy doesn't apply to independent agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is sticking with the spirit of it. He told reporters that during his short tenure so far, the FCC has repealed, revised or tweaked what he described as outdated regulations. "I think the prism within which the FCC views any regulations that are on the books is: Do they continue to be necessary in the public interest and to promote competition in 2017," Chairman Pai said. "And if they don't, then we obviously want to modernize them to make sure that we're not standing in the way of investment or innovation or otherwise imposing more costs."

House Commerce Committee Chair Greg Walden (R-OR) was spotted dining with telecommunications lobbyists, among others, at the Trump International Hotel ahead of the President's address to Congress. The companies/organizations represented included AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, CTIA, and USTelecom.

The Senate Commerce Committee is adding Crystal Tully and Cort Bush to its staff ranks, a personnel influx that follows the departure of two of the panel's tech aides in the last couple of months. Tully, formerly an aide to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), will join the committee as a counsel, while Bush, who comes from Sen. Jerry Moran's (R-KS) office, will serve as a professional staff member.

Leading Republicans want to get rid of the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules — and substitute them with less-stringent legislation. And they’re hoping the threat of an FCC repeal of the Obama-era regulations will coax congressional Democrats to the negotiating table.

It’s a scenario reminiscent of many Republicans’ approach to Obamacare, which they want to tear down without being accused of stripping health care coverage from millions of Americans. So far, Democrats aren’t taking the bait. Rather than cozy up to the majority to strike a deal, liberal lawmakers previewed a scorched-earth strategy to stop the FCC from repealing the rules in the first place. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said repeal would bring a “political firestorm” upon Republicans. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) likened the coming fight to the tech industry's 2012 uprising against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Paul de Sa, Ruth Milkman and Jon Wilkins, who left the Federal Communications Commission at the end of Chairman Tom Wheeler’s era, are launching Quadra Partners, an advisory firm aimed at executives and investors in the wireless and broadband sectors. De Sa most recently led the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning, Milkman was Wheeler’s chief of staff and Wilkins headed up the agency’s wireless bureau. They plan to focus on strategy development, new business creation, mergers and acquisition, and public/private investment.

Mexico isn’t the only close ally and trading partner peeved by President Trump’s flurry of executive actions. Trump also has caused alarm in the European Union with a line in his executive order on immigration instructing agencies to exclude foreigners from privacy protections, threatening to undermine years of intense negotiations over the sharing of commercial data and law enforcement information.

Trump’s aides didn’t consult agency officials who hashed out those agreements before he signed the order, apparently — another example of the White House taking action without the usual vetting that past presidents used to avoid a problem exactly like this one. Now those same officials and lawmakers who were blindsided are scrambling to reassure companies and European allies that the executive order doesn’t have the power to undo the agreements. It's not clear if the White House was aware of the agreements, but it didn’t seem to intend to unsettle them. A White House spokesman emphasized that the executive order says it will be “consistent with applicable law” and referred to the European Commission’s statement that the agreements aren’t affected. The two agreements in question are Privacy Shield, negotiated by the Commerce Department and the European Commission to let companies meet data protection requirements when transferring personal data across the Atlantic, and the U.S.-EU Umbrella Agreement, which covers personal data exchanged for preventing and investigating crime and terrorism.

Apparently, President Donald Trump will tap Ajit Pai as his pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission in the new administration, elevating the sitting GOP commissioner to the top spot overseeing the nation's communications industry. The announcement could come as soon as the afternoon of Jan 20, apparently.

Pai, a Barack Obama nominee who has served as the senior FCC Republican for more than three years, could take the new role immediately and wouldn't require approval by the Senate because he was already confirmed to serve at the agency. Pai was widely assumed to be taking the agency’s gavel at least temporarily as an acting chairman at the beginning of Trump’s tenure. But President Trump’s decision to make him a more permanent chairman affords the Kansas-bred Republican a bigger mandate to make his mark on the agency and its rules.