Lauren Frayer

The White House was not taking issue with a Washington Post story saying the President planned to slash the funding for public broadcasting in his budget, expected to be released March 16. In fact, the White House press office was trumpeting the story in an e-mail March 14 issued by White House press secretary Sean Spicer. In the story—the White House included a link to the online version—the Post says: "Aides say that the president sees a new Washington emerging from the budget process, one that prioritizes the military and homeland security while slashing many other areas, including housing, foreign assistance, environmental programs, public broadcasting and research."

A federal judge is agreeing with the FBI's contention that publicly disclosing its methods on how it spies on journalists could hamper national security. A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Freedom of the Press Foundation sought FBI procedures surrounding the agency's protocol when issuing National Security Letters (NSLs) against members of the media. Without a court warrant, an NSL allows the bureau to obtain "subscriber information and toll billing records information, or electronic communication transactional records" from third-party wire or electronic communication providers if such information is "relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." The items withheld from the organization, according to US District Judge Haywood Gilliam, included "instructions for managing and conducting cyber investigations," the "instructions for investigating and charging members of the news media," an NSL "PowerPoint training presentation," and other materials in draft form.

Judge Gilliam, in deciding March 13 that the FBI does not have to disclose the information sought, ruled that the FBI "described with particularity that the withheld documents all contained non-public information about the FBI's investigative techniques and procedures. These pages not only identified NSLs as an investigative technique but also described information such as the circumstances under which the techniques should be used, how to analyze the information gathered through these techniques, and the current focus of the FBI's investigations."

The American Cable Association has filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of 38 small and mid-sized Internet service providers asking the FCC to remove the overbuild condition in the Charter-Time Warner Cable merger.

"[W]e all have plans to invest in improved network technologies to offer greater performance or to expand our networks into unserved areas. Unfortunately, the merger condition requiring Charter to overbuild other providers has undermined those plans to provide improved services and reach new customers," the ISPs told the FCC. "We write to encourage the Commission to act in the best interests of millions of unserved and underserved customers by eliminating the overbuild condition." The letter went to all three commissioners, but ACA is definitely preaching to the choir when it comes to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and likely Commissioner Michael O'Rielly.

For many TV industry analysts, it seems an easy projection: The new Trump Administration will mean less regulation for the TV businesses -- particularly for TV station groups, which could mean high merger activity. But Barclays Capital says don't be too sure.

One of the main points of contention is lifting the cap on the number of TV stations one company can own -- now at 39% of US TV homes. “Lifting broadcast caps [are] not easy,” writes media analyst Kannan Venkateshwar. “Broadcast ownership rules have been reviewed many times at the Supreme Court, circuit courts and Congress. Even the Republican-led FCC, while raising the limits in early 2000s, recognized the need to maintain a limit on ownership.” Secondly, it may not be the Federal Communications Commission deciding on whether to lift that cap. “Because the 39% cap was put in place by Congress, there is a school of thought that argues that only Congress can modify this cap.”

Here's a look at some of the possible the contenders for the third Republican seat for Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission:

Roslyn Layton: an American Enterprise Institute scholar. She served on President Donald Trump's FCC transition team, and was opposed to many of the signature rules adopted under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, including network neutrality, broadband privacy and opening up the set-top box market.

Ben Moncrief: a lobbyist for C Spire, a wireless company based in MS. Moncrief would potentially be good news for smaller companies like C Spire and could be a tough break for the big dogs like AT&T and Verizon. That makes him a tough sell for some Republicans who are close to the large telecommunication companies.

Michelle Connolly: served as the FCC's top economist under its last Republican chairman, Kevin Martin. Her tenure overlapped with Ajit Pai's time as a staffer in the general counsel's office. It's pretty clear why big telcos would approve of Connolly: She referred to the FCC's net neutrality rules as "net neutering," per a Breitbart report at the time, and is listed as a policy fellow for the American Conservative Union's foundation. She would also be the first economist to be on the dais since Harold Furchtgott-Roth during the Clinton administration.

Indiana State Sen Brandt Hershman: He's seen as an ally of Vice President Mike Pence and has been considered a leading candidate for some time, though some sources say he may not longer be the frontrunner. Hershman's biggest resume line when it comes to tech policy is that he was instrumental in the passage of a bill deregulating the telecom sector in Indiana. He also supported AT&T while the FCC was reviewing its purchase of DirecTV.

The bottom line: No matter who President Trump picks, it won't change the commission's deregulatory trajectory that puts it on a collision course with Silicon Valley — particularly when it comes to net neutrality rules.

Just two years after adopting its network neutrality rules, the Federal Communications Commission could be on the cusp of tearing them down. Recent comments by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) tease out the underlying argument that the FCC and Republicans will use to dismantle the rules governing internet traffic: that the stricter regulations are just bad for business. It's a recurring theme in many of the actions that the Trump Administration has taken, from slashing funds that would support President Barack Obama's climate and water regulations to the revival of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.

While it's not certain how they'll dismantle the 2015 rules -- whether it's a new rule-making process from the FCC or through legislation by Congress -- what's clear is they'll likely dangle the promise of a faster move to innovative services like 5G technology for consumers.

The White House press briefing is usually a forum for reporters and the public to learn new information about the president and his administration. On March 13, after two months of baseless accusations and contradictory statements from the White House, the briefing instead turned into a debate about whether claims made by the president and his administration can even be trusted. "When can we trust the president?" NBC's Peter Alexander asked press secretary Sean Spicer. "When he says something, can we trust that it's real?" Alexander highlighted two claims by President Trump that raised questions about his trustworthiness. The first was Trump's accusation, made without presenting any evidence, that President Obama had wiretapped his phones. The second was his claim, also made without presenting any evidence, that previous jobs reports were "phony," while current ones were real.

President Donald Trump seems to have no tolerance for boring television. His press secretary, Sean Spicer, now a recurring character on “Saturday Night Live,” is often tongue-tied, enraged, or both. About once a week, the walls behind the lectern are turned inside-out, revealing built-in screens from which reporters around the country can ask questions by video link. This is another Spicer innovation—the “Skype seats.”

During one of these sessions, Jared Rizzi, a White House correspondent for Sirius XM, tweeted, “Skypeophant (n.) – super-friendly questioner used to burn up briefing time through the magic of early-aughts technology.” “I certainly appreciate the purpose of bringing geographic diversity into the room,” Rizzi said. “I also appreciate ideological diversity. I don’t appreciate diversity of journalistic practice.” A longtime Washington reporter from a mainstream network echoed that sentiment. “I don’t mind them bringing in conservative voices that they feel have been underrepresented,” he said. “...But at what point does it start to delegitimize the whole idea of what happens in that room? When does it cross the line into pure trolling?”

Mozilla (Firefox) is adding two cities to its Gigabit Community Fund. The fund is awarding $300,000 in grants to leverage gigabit fiber networks in Eugene (OR) and Lafayette (LA) the company said. The money will go to things like ultra-high definition in the classroom and VR field trips, taking a page or two from existing Mozilla gigabit cities Austin (TX), Chattanooga (TN), and Kansas City (MO). The fund is a collaboration with the National Science Foundation and US Ignite. The two cities were added based on various criteria, including widely deployed high-speed broadband and a "critical mass" of anchor institutions.

Telecommunication companies are likely to use a mixture of technologies — including fixed wireless, copper bonding and vectoring – to meet deployment requirements of phase two of the Connect America Fund (CAF), said Kurt Raaflaub, head of strategic solutions marketing for broadband equipment supplier Adtran.

While fiber-to-the-home would be the most future-proof broadband upgrade, Raaflaub doesn’t see it as being cost-effective for CAF II deployments, at least not on a widespread basis. He noted that carriers will be able to meet CAF II broadband speed requirements with these other technologies. CAF II requirements range between 10 Mbps downstream/ 1 Mbps upstream and 25/3 Mbps, depending on deployment costs. “You have to leverage what you have,” Raaflaub commented. While CAF II applies specifically to the nation’s largest price cap carriers, requirements are similar for smaller rate of return carriers who get funding through the high-cost Universal Service Fund to serve many of the nation’s most rural areas.