Hill, The

Fight for the Future says the Federal Communications Commission is hiding something in regard to the cyberattacks that brought the agency's website down. “The public wants to know what the FCC is hiding,” said Fight for the Future’s Evan Greer. “They’ve been lying to us for weeks about net neutrality. It’s very difficult to accept their claims about [distributed denial of service] attacks when they have provided zero evidence to support them.” Groups like Fight For the Future and Color of Change, as well as Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), called on the FCC to release proof of the attacks.

The White House circulated negative press clippings on FBI Director James Comey minutes after announcing his firing May 9. The one-page sheet circulated by the White House contained four stories, most of them about Democrats criticizing Comey's decision to disclose developments in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server. One of the clips was a Wall Street Journal editorial calling for Comey’s resignation because “he has lost the trust of nearly everyone in Washington, along with every American who believes the FBI must maintain its reputation as a politically impartial federal agency.”

Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) are asking the Federal Communications Commission for information about the agency’s claim that it had been the target of cyberattacks after being criticized by late night comedian John Oliver on May 7. The two Sens sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai with a list of questions about the FCC’s claim that its comment filing system had been hit with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

“DDoS attacks against federal agencies are serious — and doubly so if the attack may have prevented Americans from being able to weigh in on your proposal to roll back net neutrality protections,” they wrote. “Any potentially hostile cyber activities that prevent Americans from being able to participate in a fair and transparent process must be treated as a serious issue.”

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai exudes charm even as he operates an aggressive deregulatory weed wacker that favors arcane administrative safeguards for phone companies over other matters, such as the long past due reduction in extortionate calling rates paid by prison inmates. Paradoxically, the chairman has more compassion for procedural due process rights of telephone companies than for families seeking a fair price for telephone calls priced in an unquestionably noncompetitive marketplace. The chairman instructed his legal staff not to show up at a court hearing on the matter and has announced no plans for finding ways to solve the rip-off in a legally proper manner.

Chairman Pai has undertaken an effective charm offensive promising greater transparency, reliance on facts and application of sound economic principles. Who could quibble with that? But anyone looking at the output of the Pai offensive can see a remarkable paradox. The chairman has clear deregulatory goals and will shape the evidence, statistics and economics to achieve the desired result.

[Rob Frieden holds the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and Law at Penn State University.]

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) says he thinks the unmasking of associates of President Donald Trump by officials appears to have been politicized. Unmasking refers to restoring a US citizen’s name in intelligence surveillance reports. American citizens' names are redacted from such reports when incidentally collected during foreign surveillance. Speaker Ryan said unmasking information and then leaking it to the media is a crime. “That is a crime. And so that is taking classified information, unclassifying it, and leaking it out. That is something somebody in the Obama administration decided to do,” Speaker Ryan said.

[Commentary] Title II regulations have come at the expense of consumer benefits. Until earlier in 2017, under the guise of network neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission was investigating wireless companies for providing service plans that allowed unlimited streaming using certain platforms. The practice is sometimes called “zero rating” and it allows consumers to get some data, such as music and videos, without it counting toward their data caps. Most consumers would call that a benefit. Chairman Ajit Pai ended the investigation, and predictably major carriers began announcing new unlimited data plans.

When the government stops meddling, freedom and competition abound and the consumer benefits. To top it all off, the disruption caused by Title II was completely unnecessary. The rules were premised not on actual harms or market failures, but on potential harms that might materialize. This mindset of preemption plays on fear. It is the opposite of permissionless innovation and highlights federal bureaucrats’ tendency to overreach. In this case, they believe regulations developed for 1930s monopolies are appropriate to rule the technology of the future. Those who truly care about an open internet and increasing broadband deployment, innovative technologies and services, competition and consumer choice, will be happy to see the end of Title II.

[Paige Agostin is a senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity.]

House Oversight Subcommittee on Information Technology Ranking Member Robin Kelly (D-IL) is introducing a new bill aimed at bridging the digital divide by requiring all future government websites to be mobile friendly. The bill is aimed at making government policy more accessible to lower-income individuals, particularly in inner cities that can’t afford broadband access on their computers and often access the web through their mobile phones.

“In 2017, it’s unreasonable that one in ten Americans cannot effectively connect with their government because they only use mobile devices,” Rep Kelly said. “Deep urban and remote rural communities are the most affected by our government’s failure to provide mobile-accessible websites. Without broadband coverage, these Americans are tied to the mobile-only Internet.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied the validity of a memo circulating on social media that claims that Fox News will be the only news channel allowed on televisions for one of the agency's units. “There was no directive or memorandum from the Administration that went out to employees about broadcast news channels displaying on monitors in common areas throughout the FDA’s White Oak campus,” an FDA spokeswoman said. The memo, which was apparently sent to employees at the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, says that administration officials have "requested that all monitors, under our control, on the White Oak Campus, display FOX news."

Democratic lawmakers say they’re not interested in cutting a network neutrality deal with Republicans, arguing that their counterparts across the aisle aren’t offering enough concessions. Even as the net neutrality battle focuses on Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to curb the rules, observers say bipartisan legislation is necessary to establish a firm set of rules that can’t simply be overturned the next time FCC leadership changes parties.

Democratic Reps and Sens say Republicans need to yield more ground, particularly regarding FCC jurisdiction over broadband providers. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) has a draft of net neutrality legislation in the works, but said that it would be “impractical” to move forward with it unless Democrats get on board. A net neutrality bill would need 60 votes in the Senate, meaning that at least some Democrats would have to sign onto a Republican bill. None have indicated interest in doing so thus far.

[Commentary] If you are an advertiser, Web publisher, or developer, there is no real competitive choice. You have to use Google for search advertising and Facebook for social advertising if you want to reach the global Internet audience. And if you're a global seller of goods and services, you have to sell wholesale through Amazon, because it offers access to several times more online buyers than any other online retailer. Some will object and say these cloud network providers (CNPs) are not Internet network providers, in part because they are network neutrality allies.

But like Internet service providers, these CNPs lease or own vast networks of fiber and undersea cable connections between their data centers, encryption proxy networks, and video distribution nodes in most every country in the world. In sum, the big four ISPs are not uniquely powerful Internet networks. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Internet giants are vastly more powerful in nearly every dimension.

[Scott Cleland is president of Precursor LLC and chairman of NetCompetition]