FCC
TelecomAM:
FCC: Nominees Approved: Additional Info
Regulation
NYT: Is a Better CDA Preferable To Opaque Censorship?
NYT: FCC Suggests V-Chips for PCs
TelecomAM: Computer Industry Should Be Driven By Competition, Not
Regulation
Spectrum
TelecomAM: FCC Fines Wireless Carrier For Cheating In Auction
** FCC **
Title: It's Official: Senate Clears FCC Nominations
Source: Telecom AM---Oct. 30, 1997 http://capitol.cappubs.com/am/
Issue: FCC
Description: The Senate confirmed William Kennard as FCC chairman in an
overwhelming vote, 99-1, with Sen. Conrad Burns casting the sole dissenting
vote. They also OK'd the three other nominees and all will be sworn into
office as early as Nov. 7, according to an FCC official. Kennards's
confirmation wasn't without some concern from the Senate as to how he will
deal with the many issues that outgoing Chairman Hundt left behind. Sen.
Burns said that Kennard should be deemed guilty by association. Another big
point of concern, expressed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is Kennard's
involvement with an FCC that hasn't been in the Congress' favor for some time.
Title: Nominees Approved: Additional Info
Source: FCC
http://www.fcc.gov
Issue: FCC
Description: Additional information on the new FCC Commissioners
http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/nominees/welcome.html; statement by new
FCC Chairman Bill Kennard
http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/Statements/stwek702.html; statement of
outgoing Chairman Reed Hundt http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Hundt/st971029.html.
** Regulation **
Title: Is a Better CDA Preferable To Opaque Censorship?
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/law/103097law.html
Author: Carl Kaplan kaplan( at )nytimes.com
Issue: Communications Decency Act
Description: Professor Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law School believes that
the filtering software touted by civil libertarians in Reno vs. ACLU may be
far more restrictive than the Communications Decency Act. "Promoting a
CDA-like solution to the 'problem' of indecency is very much to step out of
line," he writes. "I am not advocating a CDA-like solution because I believe
there is any real problem. In my view, it would be best just to let things
alone. But if Congress is not likely to let things alone, or at least if the
President is more likely to bully a private solution then we need to think
through the consequences of these different solutions...We may well prefer
that nothing be done. But if something is to be done, then whether through
public or private regulation, we need to think about its consequences for
free speech." [For additional information see the CyberTimes CDA HomePage
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/cda-index.html or Benton's
Telecom Act of 1996 Homepage (http://www.benton.org/Policy/96act/#restrictions)]
Title: FCC Suggests V-Chips for PCs
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/103097vchip.html
Author: Jeri Clausing
Issue: V-Chip/Internet
Description: The Federal Communications Commission is considering requiring
V-chips to be installed in all new computers. The proposal reflects the
converging of PC and TV technology. "I think that the risk of this kind of
approach is that instead of capitalizing on the user empowerment potential
that the Internet has, the FCC risks dragging the Internet as an interactive
and empowering medium back to the state of television, which offers users
very little control," said Daniel Weizner, deputy director of the Center for
Democracy and Technology http://www.cdt.org. The FCC's proposed rules are
available at
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Notices/1997/fcc97340.txt.
Title: Computer Industry Should Be Driven By Competition, Not Regulation
Source: Telecom A.M.---Oct. 30, 1997
http://capitol.cappubs.com/am/
Issue: Regulation/Competition
Description: Ira Magaziner, senior advisor to Pres. Clinton for policy
development, said that the estimates of Internet users that will come to 1
billion by 2005 and the technology used to access it will generate a
"tremendous boom in the economy," and that gov't. involvement should be
minimum. Magaziner was speaking at the 3rd annual D.C. Bar Computer and
Telecommunications Law Section conference in Technology for the Information
Age. The computer industry moves too quickly for the gov't. to regulate it,
and according to Magaziner, "It needs to be a market-driven arena."
Magaziner addressed issues of legislation that would only offer a "false
sense of security", opposition to tariffs and taxes, codes of privacy
protection, and forms of encryption.
** Television **
Title: Public Eye: TV Chases the Internet
Source: CyberTimes (Oct. 30, 1997)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/103097bloomberg.html
Author: Phil Patton
Issue: Television
Description: TV screens are becoming filled with logos and clocks,
thermometers and stock tickers. For more than a year, CNN's Headline News
has been fringed with a sports ticker, depending on the hour. Boxes and
boxes of print are infiltrating news channels: they represent TV's envy of
the Internet. Today, we are as likely to read television as to watch it.
George Lois, an adman who helped pioneer the conjunction of character and
image in his "I want my MTV" ads, said that today's lettered screens show "a
disjunction between word and image."
** Spectrum **
Title: FCC Fines Wireless Carrier For Cheating In Auction
Source: Telecom A.M.---Oct. 30, 1997
http://captiol.cappubs.com/am/
Issue: Spectrum
Description: The FCC fined Mercury PCS II LLC $650,000 for illegal bid
signaling in the PCS D, E, and F block auctions earlier this week. Mercury
was nailed because they placed trailing numbers at the end of 13 of its bids
which disclosed its business strategy in a reflexive manner that
specifically invited collusive behavior. The FCC's order, 97-288, said,
"Mercury's decision to use trailing bids was clearly purposeful...it
admitted that it intentionally inserted the market numbers into its bids
which in turn had the effect of conveying information to other bidders."
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