Lauren Frayer

Roger Wilkins, who championed civil rights for black Americans for five decades as an official in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, a foundation executive, a journalist, an author and a university professor, died in Kensington (MD). He was 85.

A black lawyer in the corridors of power, Mr. Wilkins was an assistant United States attorney general, ran domestic programs for the Ford Foundation, wrote editorials for The Washington Post and The New York Times, taught history at George Mason University for nearly 20 years and was close to leading lights of literature, music, politics, journalism and civil rights. Roy Wilkins, who led the NAACP from 1955 to 1977, was his uncle. Roger Wilkins’s early mentor was Thurgood Marshall, the renowned civil rights lawyer who became the Supreme Court’s first black associate justice. And he organized Nelson Mandela’s triumphant eight-city visit to the United States in 1990 as millions turned out to see that living symbol of resistance to apartheid after his release from 27 years in prison in South Africa.

[Commentary] On a party-line vote, the Senate voted to repeal the Federal Communications Commission’s 2016 broadband privacy rules giving consumers the power to choose how their Internet service providers use and share their personal data. Now the House of Representatives will vote, and if the House also votes to repeal the rules, the bill will go to President Trump, who is expected to sign it.

The consequences of repeal are simple: ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, and Charter will be free to sell your personal information to the highest bidder without your permission — and no one will be able to protect you. The Federal Trade Commission has no legal authority to oversee ISP practices, and the bill under consideration ensures that the FCC cannot adopt “substantially similar” rules. So unless the bill fails in the House, the nation’s strongest privacy protections will not only be eliminated, they cannot be revived by the FCC. Color of Change, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Free Press have simple ways for you to tell your Representative what you think of the FCC’s rules and Congress’ efforts to eliminate them.

[Sohn served as counselor to former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013 to December 2016]

President Donald Trump named Makan Delrahim, a former government antitrust enforcer and corporate lobbyist, to lead the Justice Department’s review of mergers and acquisitions.

The appointment is being closely watched because companies across industries have been hoping that the new Republican administration will be more permissive with mergers. Delrahim, who serves as legal counsel to the president, will be quickly tested in his new position by AT&T’s $85 billion bid for Time Warner. The review of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner has drawn speculation because of promises President Trump made on the campaign trail to block the deal. Trump’s disdain for news coverage by CNN, which is owned by Time Warner, has raised questions over whether the president may try to influence the deal. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, has promised to block any political influence on Justice Department decisions. Delrahim, whose nomination will go before the Senate for confirmation, is expected to take a more free-market approach to his job of antitrust enforcement, according to analysts. His style is expected to be in line with mainstream Republicans.

Facebook wants to get us more politically active in the real world. Facebook has rolled out a nonpartisan civic engagement service in the US called Town Hall. It identifies your elected officials—even local ones—sends reminders to vote and goads you to pick up the phone. It is one of the first glimpses of how Facebook will execute on Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of using the social network’s influence—built on keeping up with friends—to address humanity’s biggest problems.

A free speech advocacy organization sued the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seeking "statistical, policy, and assessment records regarding the government’s searches" of digital devices at the United States border. The group, the Knight First Amendment Institute based at Columbia University, said on that the lawsuit came about as a result of recent journalism on the issue. There has been a rapid uptick in the number of such incidents: February 2017 alone had more border searches of phones, tablets, and computers than all of 2015. Gillian M. Christensen, the acting DHS press secretary, declined to comment further, saying, "As a matter of policy, DHS does not comment on pending litigation."

Fight for the Future is promising to put up billboards attacking lawmakers who vote in favor of a bill that would dismantle privacy protections for internet users. If the bill is signed into law, as is widely expected, the Fight for the Future campaign will put up billboards in Washington (DC) and select districts that list the lawmakers who voted for the measure.

A draft of the billboard shows a list of the 50 Republicans who voted for the bill on March 23, along with the text, “They betrayed you.” “Congress should know by now that when you come for the Internet, the Internet comes for you, these billboards are just the beginning,” said Evan Greer, the group’s campaign director. “People from across the political spectrum are outraged, and every lawmaker who votes to take away our privacy will regret it come election day.”

[Commentary] Donald Trump was four years old when the word “McCarthyism” first appeared in print as shorthand to describe Senator Joe McCarthy’s penchant for lying, bullying, and trying to stifle dissent. A review of McCarthy, McCarthyism, and the ways in which the senator battled important media of his day shows how closely Trump has hewed to the McCarthy playbook in matters of style and substance, using similar tactics to polarize the country, pitting Americans against each other. That may help explain but not excuse the irony of President Trump accusing his predecessor, Barack Obama, of “McCarthyism” when he tweeted, without evidence, that Obama had wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower just before the 2016 election.
[Norman Pearlstine is vice chairman of Time Inc.]

An uncommon model for municipal broadband network deployment comes from Eugene (OR) where the local utility company is partnering with the city and other entities to build the network, dubbed EUGNet. The entities involved in the partnership to create EUGNet include the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB); the city of Eugene; the Lane Council of Government, an association of local governments in Lane County; and the Technology Association of Oregon.

In an effort to encourage local businesses to connect to the network, a substantial portion of connection costs will be subsidized for those who sign up during the initial construction period, explained Matt Sayre, director of EUGNet partner Technology Association of Oregon. “During the downtown construction project, the one-time connection fee for each building is $2,000,” says the EUGNet website. “After that time, property owners will have to pay the full cost of their connection, which we estimate will be about $10,000 per building.”\ EUGNet hopes to connect about 120 buildings in downtown Eugene. Funding for the project comes primarily from Eugene’s Downtown Urban Renewal District.

Our office is pleased to release a final version of the #Solutions2020 Call to Action Plan. We believe these recommendations, if acted upon in a timely manner, can deliver robust, affordable, and reliable connectivity within the next four years. Taken together, these recommendations would narrow the opportunities divide, support the growth of our economy and greatly improve the quality of life for all Americans. Implementation will require bipartisan action, support from leaders at the federal, state and local levels as well as buy-in from representatives of the technology and telecommunications industries. I look forward to working with my fellow Commissioners, Members of Congress, state and local government partners, the public interest community and industry to bring about real and lasting change by the end of this decade.

Overall Recommendations:
1) Ensuring Affordable Communications
2) Empowering Communities
3) 5G and Beyond for All Americans
4) Enhancing Consumer Protections
4) Broadband as a Driver of Imporved Health Services
6) Promoting a More Diverse Media Landscape

At a time when news organizations find themselves under attack, the Democracy Fund along with our partners at First Look Media are announcing the largest grants either organization has made to date in support of journalism.The Democracy Fund is joining with First Look Media to make major commitments of more than $12 million to support an independent, free press. Included in this commitment are grants of $3 million each to three national nonprofit newsrooms, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, and ProPublica.

The Democracy Fund will complement its support for these national newsrooms with a $1 million contribution towards the creation of a State and Local Investigative Fund to support the crucial investigative work of local reporters, as well as a $200,000 contribution to the recently announced Knight Prototype Fund on misinformation and trust in journalism. The Democracy Fund and First Look Media are also announcing grants to the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University and a new program led by NYU Professor Jay Rosen to establish a laboratory for community-supported investigative reporting.