John Eggerton

Gigi Sohn, former top counselor to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, took aim at new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's reversal of a handful of Lifeline subsidy authorizations.

Chairman Pai took to the Internet himself to defend the move after critics said he was undercutting the program for subsidizing essential communications services, in part blaming news stories he said had gotten the story wrong. But Sohn said the criticism was justified. In a post labeled "Defending the Indefensible," on the Benton Foundation Web site, Sohn said that the bottom lines was that Pai and his fellow Republican Commissioner Michael O'Rielly "fundamentally disagree with the structure and goals of the Lifeline program and will seek to undermine it in word and deed." Sohn argues there were no procedural flaws that should have resulted in withdrawing the authorizations approved by the FCC under Wheeler.

Veteran cable critic Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO)—ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations—wants Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to limit "overly restrictive" alternative delivery method (ADM) and unconditional most-favored-nation clauses in programming contracts. The FCC, over Pai's objection, proposed to do just that in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) last September stemming from an inquiry in 2016 into program diversity.

In a letter, Sen McCaskill said in the committee's investigation into programming practices—based on documents from "many of the largest cable and satellite providers" and interviews with distributors and networks—she concluded that the clauses may be limiting consumer choice and said based on that investigation, limiting them "will succeed in removing these obstacles and facilitate competition in an industry increasingly dominated by a few large companies.

To establish a baseline for a promised flood of network neutrality comments to the Federal Communications Commission, as of Feb 9, the proceeding was listed as the third most active proceeding in terms of comments with 178 comments in the past 30 days. Universal Service Fund comments and Lifeline subsidy compliance forms are the busiest dockets with over a thousand in each. At a press conference this week, Senate Democrats urged fans of the FCC's Title II-based Open Internet order to flood the FCC with new comments in support given that Republican chairman Ajit Pai is a strong opponent of that reclassification. The FCC received more than four million comments when the FCC was coming up with the last Open Internet order, a stat Democrats often cite in arguing that the rules have broad support and should not be rolled back.

CenturyLink has secured a contract to handle even more online security for the Federal Communications Commission. In 2012, CenturyLink won a contract to provide MTIPS (Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Service) to the commission through 2017 at an estimated $2.64 million. The ISP said it has also won the contract to provide similar services to the FCC's Gettysburg (PA) IT facility, the primary nexus for FCC inquiries and complaints. That is valued at $875,000 over five years. “CenturyLink looks forward to providing its market-leading MTIPS infrastructure to the FCC’s Gettysburg IT center and helping protect both the center and the commission from network attacks,” said Erich Sanchack, CenturyLink senior VP and general manager, federal government. In December, CenturyLink secured an $11.4 million contract (three years at $3.8 million per year) to provide VoIP service to the state offices of U.S. senators. That contract could actually total $26 million if the government picks up four one-year options.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) says she will give the Federal Communications Commission first crack at the Open Internet order before taking legislative steps. That comes amidst some Democratic Sens' and others declaring to fight for the Title II-based net neutrality rules, including any weakening by Congress, while other legislators and industry groups are pushing for a legislative solution.

Chairman Blackburn—joined by Full Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), was asked what she thought the timetable would be for a network neutrality bill. She said "let's let the FCC go in and do what they are able to do, make the first move on that. I think we allow them to take those first steps." Asked how the FCC's and Congress' role in addressing the rules would dovetail, she said that after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai takes whatever actions he takes, "the opportunity that we will have as a legislative body will be to take action that will move forward on some principles and definitions and make sure we don't end up in the situation again where we had agency overreach and an agency that decides they want to go off script."

While Democratic Sens were suggesting that the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet order is fine as is and nothing is needed to be done to alter those protections—either legislatively and certainly not a rollback by the FCC—a legislative solution to resolve the issue was getting a lot of votes from outside groups Tuesday. That came after Sens Ed Markey (D-MA), Al Franken (D-MN) and others held a press conference to say they would fight any attempts by the FCC to reverse the Open Internet order or legislative attempts in a Republican-controlled Congress to weaken it.

In a joint press statement, The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, the National Urban League and others called for "a permanent statutory solution that enshrines the basic open internet principles into law. These core principles are not controversial and should not be subject to endless litigation, regulation, and reconsideration. A statute locking in net neutrality would protect net neutrality no matter how the political winds blow."

The House unanimously passed the E-mail Privacy Act.

A version of the bill, which boosts protections of information stored in the cloud, passed the House unanimously in the last session of Congress in April and supporters were hoping for clean passage in the Senate as well, but it was held over by the Senate Judiciary Committee after amendments were offered that could have undone a compromise approach. The baseline bill updates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to require the government to get a probable cause criminal warrant to access emails, social media posts and other online content stored in the cloud by internet service providers and other email service providers, like Google. In a nod to the longevity of cloud storage, it eliminates the 180-day sunset on stored communications. Previously a warrant was not required for communications stored beyond 180 days.

New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai revoked Lifeline service provision eligibility and accompanying streamlined treatment, citing a National Tribal Telecommunications Association petition to reverse the eligibility on some of the companies, and because it would "promote program integrity by providing the Bureau with additional time to consider measures that might be necessary to prevent further waste, fraud, and abuse in the Lifeline program."

Chairman Pai complained that the FCC under his predecessor, Tom Wheeler, had failed to sufficiently root out such abuse. Citing what it said were "shortcomings in the Bureau’s prior orders" and "procedural failings" including allegedly not informing tribal governments that they were seeking eligibility from the FCC, Acting Bureau Chief Kris Montieth said the bureau "cannot conclude at this time that LBP designations are in the public interest for any of the entities."

The message seemed to be that Pai administration would review such applications more thoroughly for potential abuses, but others saw it as a way to target a program Chairman Pai has criticized.

“Since 2010, the FCC has been consistently working to improve and modernize the Lifeline program. Vulnerable communities, such as our nation's veterans -- who make up 13 percent of Lifeline users -- and low-income students -- who need broadband to succeed at school -- were poised to benefit from the low-cost broadband services the Lifeline program can bring," said Amina Fazlullah, director of policy at the Benton Foundation. "These unexpected revocations will not only limit choices for Lifeline consumers, but also have a chilling effect on participation of other potential broadband providers of Lifeline service."

The Federal Communications Commission has rescinded its March 2014 guidance on the processing of applications for various broadcast TV sharing arrangements like joint sales agreements (JSAs). That came from the Media Bureau's acting chief Michelle Carey, whose bureau was busy undoing actions of the former Democratic majority. "This Public Notice rescinds, in its entirety and effective immediately, earlier guidance provided in a March 12, 2014, public notice, DA 14-330, 'Processing of Broadcast Television Applications Proposing Sharing Arrangements and Contingent Interests,'" the bureau said. In March 2014, the Media Bureau issued guidance to broadcasters that it would be scrutinizing sharing arrangements with financial components closely to make sure they were arms-length transactions and not de facto control.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau set aside its actions on political file complaints involving a host of TV stations, saying they were more appropriately handled at the bureau level.

"The complaints will be returned to pending status and considered by the Commission," said acting bureau chief Michelle Carey. On Jan. 6, the bureau on its own authority — rather than by a commission vote — admonished Scripps’ WCPO-TV Cincinnati for "failing to include in WCPO-TV’s political file certain information about two requests to purchase broadcast time for non-candidate issue advertisements." Separately, in resolving complaints against a number of stations, the FCC took no enforcement action, but provided clarification going forward about how political ads need to be disclosed, clarification that has been mooted for the moment.