Hill, The

President Donald Trump's latest attempt to stop the damaging leaks coming from the White House has been leaked to the press. Current and former officials told said that in an effort reduce leaks to the media, the White House has limited access to its classified computer systems.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also dedicated his first senior staff meeting in Feb to underscoring that he will not tolerate leaks to the media. Trump's administration is increasingly committed to reducing the amount of leaks coming from the White House in recent months. The flurry of leaked documents and reports has undermined Trump's key policy positions, including his ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Some officials also told the news agency that they fear a witch hunt is on for a Department of Homeland Security official who leaked the draft intelligence report to the press.

The House Science Committee approved a bill designed to encourage federal agencies to adopt cybersecurity framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The committee approved the bill largely along party lines, despite opposition from Democratic Reps to provisions in the bill requiring NIST to evaluate and audit federal agencies’ adoption of the cybersecurity and technology guidelines.

Rep Ralph Abraham (R-LA) introduced the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, Assessment, and Auditing Act of 2017 recently, couching it as a response to recent high-profile cyber breaches like those at the Office of Personnel Management and IRS. The legislation would direct NIST to develop metrics for evaluating federal agencies’ cybersecurity and submit an initial assessment and regular audits to Congress on cybersecurity measures put in place by federal agencies. It would also set up guidance for federal agencies to incorporate the NIST cyber framework and establish working groups in the federal and private sectors to help public and private entities use the framework.

[Commentary] The Trump administration has rightly recognized the importance of advanced communications networks, having included telecommunications in an initial list of critical infrastructure priorities. More than 100 members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, also recently joined in urging President Trump to include broadband within any broader infrastructure initiatives. As our policymakers gear up for action, here’s a simple roadmap for ensuring a brighter broadband future for all Americans:

Build on What Has Worked: Leveraging of the existing Universal Service Fund programs could, if done right, provide the most effective path to ensuring greater broadband access at lower costs and also avoid problems of delay and duplication.

Remove Regulatory Barriers: While the challenging business case for ongoing operations may be the greatest barriers to greater rural broadband deployment, regulatory burdens involving permits, pole attachments, franchising requirements, and rights-of-way can increase costs and cause lengthy delays that in some cases postpone promising projects for more than a year. Streamlining or eliminating regulations and addressing other deployment obstacles could help alleviate these burdens.

[Shirley Bloomfield is chief executive officer of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association. Jonathan Spalter is president and chief executive officer of USTelecom.]

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) asked the Federal Communications Commission for a waiver to unscramble anonymous phone numbers that had been used to call in bomb threats to a New York Jewish Community Center. A wave of anti-Semitic acts, including bomb threats to JCCs and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, has drawn concern in Washington and around the nation. Since the start of 2017, there have been roughly 100 threats to 81 JCCs across the US.

Sen Schumer's letter specifically referred to a series of bomb threats that were made on Feb 27 to 11 JCCs, several of them in or near New York. Sen Schumer called on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to issue a waiver that would allow law enforcement to trace the anonymous calls. Sen Schumer recalled former Chairman Tom Wheeler granting a waiver to handle a bomb threat problem at a school in Long Island (NY). “The access enabled critical school personnel and law enforcement officials to coordinate with one another in their attempts to quickly respond to swatting calls made to the School District,” Sen Schumer said.

Sen Dick Durbin (DIL) railed against President Donald Trump, blasting the president for his attacks on the news media. “The integrity of the news industry is under an unprecedented attack,” Sen Durbin said at an event put on by National Association of Broadcasters. “These attacks aren’t just coming from outside our border or the Russian government. The attacks are coming from our own government.”

In his speech, the Democratic senator outlined several protections for journalists that he wants Congress to pursue, including preserving federal libel standards and spending more on public media. He also implored President Trump and his Vice President Mike Pence to consider working with Congress to pass a shield law that would protect journalists from revealing their sources. The Illinois senator noted that he was particularly concerned by the president’s remarks in the context of Trump’s tone on Russia. “His near-constant stream of invective towards the media is even more troubling when you consider that President Trump has had only praise for a dictator and former KGB official who ordered a cyber act of war against our nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Durbin told the crowd.

President Donald Trump reportedly said "sometimes it's the reverse" when asked about the wave of recent anti-Semitic incidents across the country. Trump made the comments to a group of state attorneys general on Feb 28. "He just said, 'Sometimes it's the reverse, to make people — or to make others — look bad,' and he used the word 'reverse,' I would say two to three times in his comments," Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. "He did correctly say at the top that it was reprehensible." Shapiro said Trump would be speaking about the issue during his address to Congress on Feb 28. "I really don't know what he means, or why he said that,” Shapiro said, adding that he hopes the president will clarify the remark.

President Donald Trump blamed former President Barack Obama for protests against him and Republican lawmakers at recent town halls, as well as for leaks from the White House. “I think President Obama’s behind it, because his people are certainly behind it,” Trump said. “And some of the leaks possibly come from that group. You know, some of the leaks, which are really very serious leaks, because they’re very bad in terms of national security, but I also understand that’s politics. And in terms of him being behind things, that’s politics, and it will probably continue.”

Mignon Clyburn, the lone Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, joined with activists on Capitol Hill to commemorate the anniversary of the agency's landmark network neutrality rules and vowed to fight to defend them. “Now it is time for us to once again roll up our sleeves and fight for the protections embodied in the Open Internet Order, that are designed to ensure that the internet remains an open platform, that enables free speech, freedom of expression and the ability for innovation to flourish,” said Commissioner Clyburn, speaking alongside representatives from civil rights groups and advocates of net neutrality. “For me it can be summed up in this way: How do we ensure that one of most inclusive, enabling, empowering platforms of our time continues to be one where our applications, products, ideas and diverse points of view have the exact same chance of being seen and heard by everyone, regardless of our class, race, economic status or where we live?” Clyburn added.

President Donald Trump lashed out at The New York Times in an interview with Breitbart News, saying that he can handle rough treatment from the media but that the nation’s largest newspaper is out to sink him at any cost. “It’s intent. It’s also intent. If you read The New York Times, if you read The New York Times, it’s — the intent is so evil and so bad,” Trump told Breitbart’s Washington political editor, Matthew Boyle, in a sit-down interview in the Oval Office. “The stories are wrong in many cases, but it’s the overall intent.”

Democratic governors and some Republican governors who attended a meeting with President Donald Trump on Nov 27 were excluded from the traditional bipartisan press conference outside the West Wing. The nation's governors, in town for an annual conference that by tradition includes an audience with the president, visited the White House the morning of Nov 27. President Trump told governors his administration would streamline regulations, repeal the Affordable Care Act and increase spending on defense and infrastructure. After the event, Republican governors, including Gov Matt Bevin (R-KY) and Mary Fallin (R-OK), met reporters outside the White House. No Democrats were present.

Jared Leopold, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association, said that Democratic governors who tried to meet reporters at the "Pebble Beach" media area outside the White House were sent elsewhere. "Some of our gov's planned to go to Pebble Beach to talk to reporters and were not able to," Leopold said.