Lauren Frayer

We’re thrilled to announce that City Bureau has received a $100,000 grant from the Voqal Foundation to continue its work creating equitable, community-centered coverage on Chicago’s South and West Sides. This comes on the heels of a generous $75,000 grant from the McCormick Foundation, an early supporter of City Bureau. With these grants, Voqal and McCormick renew their commitment to supporting media that is from and for the public. We feel lucky to spend our days building an innovative model for participatory journalism by supporting the work of emerging, diverse and civically engaged journalists in Chicago—and we’re grateful for the financial support needed to continue that work.

Sen Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) took the floor of the Senate to call for a filibuster and voice concerns over how Judge Neil Gorsuch might handle First Amendment cases in light of President Trump’s calls to “open up” libel laws.

“Voting rights, workers’ rights, reproductive rights, even our First Amendment speech rights, which President Trump has threatened by saying he wants to ‘open up libel laws against the press’–if any of these cases make it to the Supreme Court, they will all be decided in part by the next Supreme Court justice,” Sen Gillibrand said. She added that the judge’s record “does not give me confidence that he will be a justice whose rulings would bolster those individual rights.”

[Commentary] For all of President Trump’s boasts that he is a man of action, he is likely to close out his first 100 days with no major legislation to his credit. That may actually be for the best, since his most significant effort so far would have destroyed the Affordable Care Act. And yet, even without a big win, President Trump has done significant damage with smaller-bore measures, whose cumulative impact will be felt for a very long time. Specifically, he has signed into law 11 regulatory rollback measures, passed by Republican majorities using the Congressional Review Act — a law that lets lawmakers use fast-track procedures to repeal rules completed in the last six months or so of a previous administration. Two more repeal measures await Trump’s signature, and 20 that have been introduced in Congress could be passed before fast-track procedures expire. At least there will be no more ugly surprises, since the deadline for introducing new rollback measures under the Congressional Review Act passed on March 30. The wreckage has been extensive. Nor is the damage easily undone. When a regulation is repealed using the Congressional Review Act, agencies are blocked from issuing “substantially similar” rules without express authorization from Congress.

Apparently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai laid out preliminary plans to roll back the agency’s network neutrality rules in a meeting with trade associations. The conversation shows that the FCC chairman is inching closer to making his plans public, possibly as soon as April.

The plans appear aimed at preserving the basic principles of net neutrality but shifting enforcement to the Federal Trade Commission, while undoing what Republican critics regard as the regulatory overreach of the FCC’s rules. Pai’s plans likely would reverse the reclassification of broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service, so the FTC again would have jurisdiction over the telecommunications carriers. To preserve the basic tenets of net neutrality, the plans would require broadband providers to pledge to abide by net neutrality principles such as no blocking or paid prioritization of internet traffic. That would allow the FTC to go after violators for deceptive or unfair trade practices. Chairman Pai also is believed to be considering provisions to restore FTC oversight of broadband providers’ consumer privacy protections. GOP lawmakers, with the backing of Chairman Pai, recently passed a measure repealing an Obama-era FCC privacy rule that broadband providers criticized as unfairly restrictive. Pai’s plans could begin to be adopted as soon as the FCC’s monthly meeting in May, although the June meeting remains possibility.

The Trump Administration sought to unmask the identity of an anonymous Twitter account criticizing its policies, according to a lawsuit filed by the social media platform April 6. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a division of homeland security, issued a summons to Twitter on March 14 seeking records including the phone number, mailing addresses, and IP addresses associated with @ALT_USCIS, an account that purports to convey the views of dissenters within the government.

The account @ALT_USCIS, whose handle refers to the US citizenship and immigration services, is one of dozens of “alternative” Twitter accounts established following the inauguration of Donald Trump. These alternative accounts claim to provide the uncensored view of civil servants dissenting from Trump’s policies, but they are generally anonymous and unverifiable. The government’s attempt to break that anonymity was revealed when Twitter filed suit in federal court seeking to block the summons, citing the first amendment.

Democratic Sens introduced legislation April 6 that would reinstate internet privacy rules repealed earlier this week. The new legislation, introduced by Sen Ed Markey (D-MA), would undo the repeal and reinstate the regulations, which were set to go into effect later in 2017. “Thanks to Congressional Republicans, corporations, not consumers, are in control of sensitive information about Americans’ health, finances, and children,” Sen Markey said. “The Republican roll-back of strong broadband privacy rules means ISP no longer stands for Internet Service Provider, it stands for ‘Information Sold for Profit.’” The bill is being co-sponsored by Sens Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Tom Udall (D-NM), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Al Franken (D-MN).

The Campaign Legal Center has asked the Federal Communications Commission to review ads from the Judicial Crisis Network pushing for the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as Supreme Court justice. CLC says that JCN incorrectly labeled the ads nonpolitical and that instead they should have been subject to FCC disclosure rules that apply to “a message relating to any political matter of national importance.”

"The JCN ads indisputably meet this standard," said CLC. CLC points out that the Communications Act requires the disclosure of specific information when such a standard is met, information the JCN ads were lacking, it said. Broadcasters are required to place ads related to political matters of public importance in their public files, and they must include who bought the add and the highest officers of that group. CLC argues that should apply not only to the groups like JCN but the often big money, unidentified funders of those groups. But the FCC has yet to tighten its rules under either Democratic or Republican chairs. It has joined in various FCC complaints, both against stations they say weren't complying with the rules as they are, as well as asking the FCC to tighten them.

Democratic Sens successfully blocked Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the US Supreme Court from advancing in the US Senate on April 6, sparking a bitter clash with Republicans over how the chamber confirms high court nominees. By a vote of 55 to 45, Gorsuch failed to earn the 60 votes needed to end debate on his nomination. In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has vowed he will change Senate rules in order to confirm Gorsuch and all future Supreme Court nominees with a simple majority vote.

A final confirmation vote on Gorsuch is not scheduled until April 7, when 52 Republicans and at least three Democrats — from states won by Trump in 2016’s election — are expected to vote for him to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the high court. But the next 24 hours could be among the most contentious in recent Senate history. “This will be the first and last partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nomination,” McConnell vowed April 6.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) temporarily recused himself April 6 from all matters related to the committee’s ongoing probe into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, as House investigators look into ethics allegations against him. Chairman Nunes said that he decided to recuse himself after “several leftwing activist groups” filed complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics about his leadership. Chairman Nunes called the charges “entirely false and politically motivated,” but said his recusal would be in effect while the House Ethics Committee looks into the matter.

The House Ethics Committee released a statement saying it had “determined to investigate” allegations that “Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.” Chairman Nunes said in his statement that he has requested to speak to the House Ethics Committee “at the earliest possible opportunity in order to expedite the dismissal of these false claims.” In the meantime, Chairman Nunes said Rep Michael Conaway (R-TX) will take the lead on the Russia investigation, with assistance from Reps Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Thomas Rooney (R-FL).

Open internet advocates are developing political strategies and street-level tactics designed to hold Republicans accountable in the 2018 midterm elections for what privacy watchdogs are calling one of the most brazen corporate giveaways in recent US history. "The [Federal Communications Commission] privacy rollback bill is going to be a big 2018 campaign issue," said Gigi Sohn, a Fellow at the Open Society Foundations who previously served as a top counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. "You can't put lipstick on this pig. It's profoundly anti-consumer."

"Broadband privacy won't simply be a big issue in 2018, it will be one of the biggest," said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice. "Those members of Congress who recently took a big bite out of the protections that allow internet users to browse the web safely can expect that we will expose their positions, protest at their headquarters, and pressure all those that support them."