Lauren Frayer

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune said he’s open to funneling a potential tranche of broadband infrastructure funding through the Federal Communications Commission’s Universal Service Fund. “I think the USF could be a way to figure out how we channel and move money in the right direction — get the most lead on the targets, so to speak, to get results,” Thune said following a hearing on how to best allocate funds under a possible infrastructure bill.

On Feb 28, President Donald Trump said he would ask Congress for a $1 trillion infrastructure package, but he did not mention broadband investment. Chairman Thune said that while he believes broadband will ultimately be included in the White House package, “it’s hard to say exactly what their plan might entail.”

The House Judiciary Committee began the process of examining potential changes to a foreign intelligence-gathering program, with the panel’s top Democrat saying a key concern is how many American citizens are targeted by the law. Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) gave varying levels of support to reforming Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that allows for the surveillance of foreigners reasonably believed to be outside of the United States, while forbidding intelligence officials from surveilling Americans. Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Goodlatte said that while the intelligence community has labeled Section 702 as the “most important tool in battling terrorism,” it has been criticized as an “overly broad” program that collects U.S. citizens’ communications “without sufficient legal process.” “We must ensure that our protection doesn’t come at the expense of cherished liberty,” Goodlatte said, adding that strong national security tools and civil liberties “can and must coexist.”

The issue of how many U.S. citizens get their communications collected under the law, known as “incidental” collection, is central to the debate as the intelligence agencies seek a reauthorization of the statute in Congress. Conyers said committee members “require that estimate” and they won’t “simply take the government’s word on the size of so-called ‘incidental’ collection.”

The Federal Communications Commission issued a temporary stay of a data security regulation that would have subjected Internet service providers (ISPs) to a different standard than that applied to other companies in the Internet ecosystem by the Federal Trade Commission. The regulation would have gone into effect on March 2.

The March 1 decision will maintain a status quo that has been in place for nearly two years with respect to ISPs and nearly a decade with respect to other telecommunications carriers. The stay will remain in place until the FCC is able to act on pending petitions for reconsideration. The stay will provide time for the FCC to work with the FTC to create a comprehensive and consistent framework for protecting Americans’ online privacy. The FTC had proven to be an effective cop on the beat for safeguarding digital privacy. But in 2015, the FCC stripped the FTC of its authority over ISPs’ privacy and data security practices when it adopted the Title II Order. The stay will also ensure that ISPs and other telecommunications carriers do not incur substantial and unnecessary compliance costs while the FCC considers modifications to the rule.

ISPs have been – and will continue to be – obligated to comply with Section 222 of the Communications Act and other applicable federal and state privacy, data security, and breach notification laws. In addition, broadband providers have released a voluntary set of “ISP Privacy Principles” that are consistent with the Federal Trade Commission’s long-standing privacy framework. For other telecommunications carriers, the Commission’s preexisting rules governing data security will remain in place.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission are committed to protecting the online privacy of American consumers.

We believe that the best way to do that is through a comprehensive and consistent framework. After all, Americans care about the overall privacy of their information when they use the Internet, and they shouldn’t have to be lawyers or engineers to figure out if their information is protected differently depending on which part of the Internet holds it. That’s why we disagreed with the FCC’s unilateral decision in 2015 to strip the FTC of its authority over broadband providers’ privacy and data security practices, removing an effective cop from the beat. The FTC has a long track record of protecting consumers’ privacy and security throughout the Internet ecosystem. It did not serve consumers’ interests to abandon this longstanding, bipartisan, successful approach. We still believe that jurisdiction over broadband providers’ privacy and data security practices should be returned to the FTC, the nation’s expert agency with respect to these important subjects. All actors in the online space should be subject to the same rules, enforced by the same agency. Until that happens, however, we will work together on harmonizing the FCC’s privacy rules for broadband providers with the FTC’s standards for other companies in the digital economy.

Accordingly, the FCC today stayed one of its rules before it could take effect on March 2. This rule is not consistent with the FTC’s privacy framework. The stay will remain in place only until the FCC is able to rule on a petition for reconsideration of its privacy rules. Two years after the FCC stripped broadband consumers of FTC privacy protections, some now express concern that the temporary delay of a rule not yet in effect will leave consumers unprotected. We agree that it is vital to fill the consumer protection gap created by the FCC in 2015, and today’s action is a step toward properly filling that gap. How that gap is filled matters. It does not serve consumers’ interests to create two distinct frameworks—one for Internet service providers and one for all other online companies. The federal government shouldn’t favor one set of companies over another—and certainly not when it comes to a marketplace as dynamic as the Internet.

So going forward, we will work together to establish a technology-neutral privacy framework for the online world. Such a uniform approach is in the best interests of consumers and has a long track record of success.

Commissioner Clyburn: On the very same day a major content distribution network revealed that the private data of millions of users from thousands of websites had been exposed for several months, the FCC announced its intention to indefinitely suspend rules requiring broadband providers to protect users’ private data. The irony here is inescapable. With a stroke of the proverbial pen, the Federal Communications Commission—the same agency that should be the “cop on the beat” when it comes to ensuring appropriate consumer protections—is leaving broadband customers without assurances that their providers will keep their data secure.

It is for this reason, that I must issue this unequivocal dissent.

This Order is but a proxy for gutting the Commission’s duly adopted privacy rules—and it does so with very little finesse. First, the Order alleges deleterious divergence from FTC standards, when in actuality there is little daylight between the approaches taken by the two agencies. Second, the Order alleges significant harm to service providers, but cites absolutely nothing to prove it. In fact, the stay request does not even begin to estimate the costs associated with compliance. The outcome of this Order is not relief of regulatory burdens, as is evidenced by providers seeking a stay using the text of the FCC’s rule as the basis for their voluntary code of conduct. What it actually does is permit providers to shift the costs for corporate negligence onto private citizens.

Finally, I must express my disappointment that the Chairman even entertained this item being adopted on delegated authority. This would have marked the first time in which the Wireline Competition Bureau actually granted a petition for stay. Thankfully, my request to have this considered by the Commission preserved some degree of procedural integrity at the FCC.

Commissioner O’Rielly: I support this decision to stay the broadband data security rules while the Commission and Congress consider an appropriate resolution of the broader Net Neutrality proceeding.

To be clear, I think the law and Commission precedent are quite straightforward: the FCC lacks authority to adopt data security rules for any type of provider. Data security is not mentioned anywhere in the Communications Act, and other statutes and legislative efforts that have addressed the topic do not afford the FCC any role.

I consistently objected to the prior Commission’s unlawful attempts to freelance in this area long before the Net Neutrality Order and Privacy Order were adopted. I also pointed out that the Commission’s attempts to saddle the communications sector with experimental regulations could conflict with well-established FTC precedents that have served as a predictable road map for businesses and consumers alike.

Finally, I appreciate the opportunity to vote on this order at the Commission level. While I welcome greater participation by the full Commission in general, I think that Commission-level action on significant decisions like this one are particularly helpful to provide a clear and final statement of the agency’s position, which promotes transparency and certainty for all interested parties.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is very concerned about the bomb threats being made to Jewish Community Centers across our country. These threats have instilled fear and disrupted lives throughout the United States, and Chairman Pai condemns such anti-Semitic acts in the strongest possible terms. The FCC is actively exploring what steps the FCC can take quickly to help Jewish Community Centers and law enforcement combat these threats.

Does the recent “Gaggle Order” — the decision to ban the New York Times, CNN, Politico, Buzz Feed, and the Los Angeles Times reporters from Sean Spicer’s press “gaggle” — violate the First Amendment? Turns out that’s a close question.

It certainly looks, at first glance, like a prohibited content-based (or possibly even viewpoint-based) discrimination limiting the affected outlets’ ability to receive information, which would subject it to the highest form of First Amendment scrutiny and require some “compelling” justification to be constitutional. On the other hand, surely the First Amendment doesn’t prevent a president (or his press secretary) from, say, granting an exclusive interview (or providing a “leak”) to one (favored) reporter or paper or TV network and not another.

For one night, in his address to a joint session of Congress, President Donald Trump laid down arms in his war against the media. Vice President Pence made clear the next day on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” that President Trump's tonal shift is not permanent. This was his exchange with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough:

Brzezinski: Is the war on the media over? Are we going to hear the words “fake news” anymore or is that page turned?
Pence: Well, I think what you have in this president — and frankly all of us in the administration — is a willingness to call out the media when they play fast and loose with the facts.
Brzezinski: He called us the enemy of the people. It's pretty strong terminology.
Pence: Yeah, well, Mika, when you see some of the baseless and fabricated stories that have come out and been treated with great attention, you know, it's frustrating.
Scarborough: But, you know, “enemy of the people”? That's a Stalinist term.
Pence: Well, look —
Brzezinski: And blocking media. Are we going to see that again?
Scarborough: Was that a turning point? He's moving away from that sort of rhetoric?
Pence: I think one of the reasons why President Donald Trump was elected is because he's a fighter. The American people want a president who will fight for their future, who will fight for American jobs, fight to make America strong in the world again but also, you know, he's willing to make his case and challenge his detractors when unfair criticisms come his way.

Later in 2017, a coalition of organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, the Knight First Amendment Center and the Index on Censorship will launch an as-yet unnamed news site to track press freedom violations in the United States. The site will not only track incidents spurred by the Trump administration, but his election and anti-press rhetoric was a major catalyst in its founding.

The site, which is slated to launch sometime in the next two to three months, will have one full-time reporter and feature research and analysis from the partner organizations. CPJ is funding the reporting position (they're fresh from a fundraising bump), and the Freedom of the Press Foundation is contributing the site's development work. The project was conceived at a meeting of those organizations about a month ago, said Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. They discussed the lack of a comprehensive database for "press freedom incidents" in the United States — arrests of journalists, border security shakedowns and equipment confiscation.

At an industry conference in Barcelona, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said he plans to use key policy decisions made in the 1990s and early 2000s as a guide for his own agenda. Those early decisions include, he said, a bipartisan consensus to not require Internet providers to obey “outdated rules crafted in the 1930s for a telephone monopoly.” He also cited a Bush-era commitment to give Internet providers sole control over broadband networks that they built, rather than adopt a European-style system permitting other companies to use those same cables to sell competing Internet service.

But some consumer advocates say that Pai's historical references are misleading. Although the World Wide Web's own early history was marked by a free-for-all in which online businesses competed on mostly equal footing, it is not the case that the government played no role, said Gene Kimmelman, president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge. Policymakers at the time “were setting up an entire regulatory framework for opening [a] telephone monopoly to a broader competitive environment,” said Kimmelman, referring to a time when telephone lines — and thus Internet connections — were controlled by just a few large players. “And it required substantial government intervention.”