Lauren Frayer

AT&T was among the largest contributors to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, accounting for more than $2 million of the record-breaking $106.7 million haul. The telecommunication behemoth gave $2 million in cash contributions as well as an $82,483 in-kind donation for “mobile equipment/software.” Though the contribution exceeds those of AT&T’s rivals, it still falls short of the $3 million it gave for President Obama’s 2013 inauguration.

Verizon, Charter Communications and Comcast contributed a combined $600,000 to the Trump inaugural committee. And tech companies that showed little support for Trump during the campaign also gave hundreds of thousands to the committee. Google gave $285,000, and Microsoft made a $250,000 cash donation along with a $250,000 in-kind contribution in the form of equipment.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence April 19 published a document advocating for the protection of what newly minted spy chief Dan Coats has described as the “crown jewels” of the intelligence community. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act, in particular Section 702, authorizes the bulk of the intelligence community’s overseas digital collection powers. A new informational questionnaire published by the ODNI, says maintaining those surveillance powers is “the intelligence community’s top legislative priority for 2017.” If Congress didn’t reauthorize those authorities, it would “greatly impair the ability of the United States to respond to national security threats,” the document notes.

Former Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission Robert McDowell has joined Mobile Future as chief public policy advisor. McDowell, who left the commission in 2013, continues as partner and co-leader of the global communications practice at Cooley LLP. [NOTE: Original Multichannel News article indicated that McDowell was leaving Cooley.]

McDowell, a Republican, served as a commissioner from 2006 to 2013. Originally nominated by President George W. Bush, He was re-nominated in 2009 by President Barack Obama. He joined Wiley Rein in 2014 as a partner and Cooley in 2016.

“The organization has consistently encouraged investment and innovation in the ever-evolving wireless world," said McDowell. "I look forward to working hard to spur more competition, consumer choice and economic growth as we look to the 5G future.”

Sen Marco’s Rubio’s (R-FL) longest-serving paid adviser, Alex Burgos, is leaving the Republican’s Capitol Hill office to lobby and plot strategy for the technology industry. Burgos will officially begin work at TechNet — which bills itself as the “national, bipartisan network of innovation economy CEOs and senior executives” — on April 25 as its vice president of federal policy, government relations, and communications.

A coalition of advocacy organizations including the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Index on Censorship have settled on a name for their forthcoming press freedom website, and a journalist to lead it. Peter Sterne, who has covered digital and print media for Politico since 2014, will spearhead US Press Freedom Tracker, a site dedicated to compiling and maintaining a database of press freedom incidents in the United States. Sterne, who will begin as a reporter for the Freedom of the Press Foundation on May 1, will collect information on journalist arrests, border stops, searches and seizures, leak prosecutions and subpoenas demanding that reporters testify on their confidential sources. It is hoped this data will then be cited in official reports, news stories, legal briefs and even congressional testimony, Sterne said.

With so many consumers and businesses voluntarily transitioning to the newer IP-based and wireless services, the Federal Communications Commission, under the prior Administration, began a series of proceedings to examine what, if any, changes needed to be made to its regulations to facilitate the transition and allow incumbent providers the ability to quickly modernize their legacy networks and services. As these proceedings concluded in 2015 and 2016, the results in many ways did not facilitate, much less accelerate, the transition to these newer, more capable services. Indeed, in many ways the orders made the transition more cumbersome. With the item set for a vote April 20, the FCC moves in a different direction.

This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) demonstrates that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai not only recognizes the importance of the technology transition that is already underway, but that he is willing to tackle the issue head on early in his leadership. Not only will the proposed rules foster and accelerate broadband investment in unserved areas, they should make telecommunication companies more formidable competitors to cable broadband companies. AT&T looks forward to participating in the forthcoming proceeding and supports its goal of providing access to broadband services for all Americans.

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s latest target is the network neutrality rules the commission adopted in 2015 after a federal appeals court threw out the commission’s previous neutrality regulations. The 2015 rules try to preserve the openness that has been crucial to the Internet’s success by barring broadband providers from blocking or impeding legal sites and services, favoring some sites’ traffic in exchange for pay, or unreasonably interfering with the flow of data on their networks. These are all vitally important principles, as even opponents of the rules recognize.

The fight has largely been over how strictly they should be interpreted and enforced. In particular, the dispute has been over the FCC’s move to reclassify broadband providers as utilities, which a federal appeals court ruled the commission had to do before it could impose blanket prohibitions on blocking, throttling or prioritizing data. The reclassification also subjected providers to some of the same, decades-old rules as local phone monopolies. The process of undoing a rule usually requires another public notice and months of public comment on the proposed change. But Chairman Pai may take a procedural shortcut next month that undoes the utility classification right away. And instead of having neutrality rules that the FCC would enforce, Chairman Pai may call on broadband providers to pledge not to block, impede or prioritize traffic unreasonably — with the Federal Trade Commission available to slap the hands of any provider that goes back on its pledge. That’s a laughable idea.

Protecting net neutrality shouldn’t be a partisan issue, considering how widely shared that goal is. If Chairman Pai manages to kill the current rules, Congress shouldn’t wait for the courts to settle the matter. Instead, lawmakers should make clear once and for all that broadband providers mustn’t pick winners and losers online, and that the FCC has the power to make sure they don’t.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would tighten rules that award visas to skilled foreign workers and directs the federal government to enforce rules that bar foreign contractors from bidding on federal projects. The order is a first effort to promote a “Buy American, Hire American” agenda, a key promise President Trump made during the campaign.

The executive order directs federal agencies to crack down on fraud and abuse in the H-1B visa program, which is heavily used by technology companies. And it directs the federal government to fully enforce federal guidelines prioritizing the use of American firms and goods in federal projects. Both changes are aimed at discouraging the use of foreign labor, which the administration says displaces American workers and reduces wages. It also aims to give a boost to US steel mills and steelworkers.

I wanted to better understand President Trump’s America, a place where truth is being ripped from its moorings as he brands those tasked with lashing it back into place — journalists — as dishonest enemies of the people. So I went to Russia.

[In one instance, w]hen Trump administration officials tried to counter Russia’s “false narratives” by releasing to reporters a declassified report detailing Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles — and suggesting to The Associated Press without proof that Russia knew of President Bashar al-Assad’s plans to use chemical weapons in advance — the Russians had a ready answer borrowed from Trump himself. As the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia put it, “Apparently it was for good reason Donald Trump called unverified information in the mass media one of the main problems in the US.” It was the best evidence I’ve seen of the folly of President Trump’s anti-press approach. You can’t spend more than a year attacking the credibility of the “dishonest media” and then expect to use its journalism as support for your position during an international crisis — at least not with any success. While President Trump and his supporters may think that undermining the news media serves their larger interests, in this great information war it serves Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests more. It means playing on his turf, where he excels. Integral to President Putin’s governing style has been a pliant press that makes his government the main arbiter of truth.

Add to the list of those calling for a delay in the Federal Communications Commission's April 20 vote on deregulating broadband business data services (BDS) Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) and House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Doyle (D-PA).

In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, they urged him to postpone the vote saying the market was not competitive, citing the FCC data collection that informed the conclusion of Chairman Pai's predecessor, Tom Wheeler, that the marketplace lacked sufficient competition to justify such deregulation. They said that competition has driven up costs for schools, libraries businesses and anyone who relies on the BDS market. "We are concerned that the proposed BDS Report and Order does not adequately promote competition or apply appropriate pricing protections where competition does not exist," they wrote.