Hill, The

Democratic Reps asked the the company that makes hit game "Pokemon Go" what they were doing to make sure players don’t run up high mobile data charges using the application. The letter to Niantic CEO John Hanke was signed by the House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), as well as Reps Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Diana DeGette (D-CO).

"In addition to issues related to the game being played inappropriate locations, safety, and privacy, recent reports suggest that playing Pokemon Go could exhaust a consumer’s available monthly mobile data,” they wrote. The lawmakers specifically asked the company what practices it had in place “to minimize the amount of data consumers use when playing" the game and whether the company was working with wireless providers to make sure that customers aren’t running up huge data bills. The letter comes despite the fact that some have argued the program does not use up particularly large amounts of wireless data.

[Commentary] Two different Republican National Conventions are simultaneously occurring in Cleveland (OH), depending upon the news organization covering it. To hear it from the leftist media, the party stands divided and is not ready to nominate its candidate, features no Hollywood celebrities, the floor reels in chaos and protesters are rioting in the streets outside of Quicken Loans Arena. I feel as though I am in a completely different city and at a completely different venue.

From my perspective as a delegate from Michigan, the convention hall appears well-organized and on message, aside from a minor last gasp from the Never Trumpers. Nobody tore up the streets of Cleveland. Protesters outside the event are by and large demonstrating peacefully. Security is necessarily strong in the context of police murders in the country and jihadist activity in Europe. Members of the Fourth Estate will sensationalize stories to draw ratings and enhance their public profiles. That is how they approach their jobs. Their commentaries for the week were written long before they arrived in Cleveland, and they will spend the week amplifying the most inconsequential events regardless of facts.

[Hoekstra represented Michigan's 2nd Congressional District from 1993 to 2011 and is the former chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee]

Multimillionaire Republican donor John Jordan says he sometimes feels dirty when politicians beg him for money. "It's kind of like somebody hitting on you," said Jordan. "Sometimes some of them are better than others and some of them just make you feel dirty," he added. "You know the ask is coming when this happens, when they become excessively familiar. When they talk about how they've known you and how they follow your business, and how's it going out there in California. Message: I care."

Jordan has rubbed many political consultants the wrong way by taking a similarly controlling approach in the world of political advertising. Instead of sending checks to super-PACs controlled by consultants, Jordan likes to set up his own super-PACs to keep control over his money and direct his own advertising. He's spent more than $2.7 million on super-PACs over the past three years, according to the Federal Election Commission, but he now believes most super-PAC spending is worthless. "I don't write checks anymore to super-PACs where they let other people spend the money," Jordan said. "One of the dirty little secrets of politics is exactly how dirty the super-PAC world really is. ... The ad makers, the media buyers are just making a killing."

Google said that global government requests for its user data had risen in the second half of 2015 to an all-time high. Authorities made 40,677 requests in the second half of 2015, according to an update made to the company’s transparency report, up from 35,365 in the first half of the year. The number of users and accounts affected rose from 68,908 to 81,311. More than 12,000 requests were made in the United States, affecting 27,157 users or accounts.
Requests have risen every year since at least 2010, the first year when Google released 12 months worth of data. The proportion of instances in which Google handed over some data remained relatively constant, rising from 63 percent to 64 percent. That figure was 79 percent in the United States.

The team behind the Republican National Convention has spent more than a year building their technology infrastructure for the big event. Now that work is being put to the test, as the convention kicks off in Cleveland (OH). “We’re launching a startup every four years,” said Max Everett, the chief information officer for the Republican National Convention, of the massive effort to keep attendees informed, connected and secure. It takes more than a year for Everett to set up a convention — he’s worked on four — with networks built from the ground up each time. “We’ve had staff, including myself, who’ve been in and out of Cleveland for over a year now,” Everett said. The party is also working with tech and communications giants, including Google, Microsoft and AT&T, to deliver services. Here are some of the notable ways the GOP is using technology to cater to the estimated 50,000 people — not counting protesters — who will attend and cover the convention.

• Expanded Wi-Fi: A great amount of work has gone into getting the convention venue, Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena, ready to handle the thousands of devices expected to connect to its public Wi-Fi network.
• Strong connections for video: Those not in Cleveland will have options to stream the convention’s many speeches and events.
• Cybersecurity: Everett said his convention networks have been breached "like any organization."
• A beefed-up app: Not all of the convention’s technology is behind-the-scenes. When convention planners released their mobile app for the event, it was downloaded more times in its first week online than the total for the 2012 convention app.

Many of the most intuitive Internet addresses that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton might use to help unveil their vice presidential picks were snatched up months or even years ago. The most obvious dot-com addresses with the last name of the presumptive nominees alongside their most likely running mates redirect to a mishmash of blank pages, domain auction sites, high offers to sell, and, in one case, Clinton-"Harry Potter" fan fiction. Donald Trump is slated to unveil his vice president choice on July 15, and the Republican's most likely picks in betting markets include Gov Mike Pence (R-IN), former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Gov Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Sen Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

Owners, both named and anonymous, have been squatting on addresses associated with those names for a while now. As of July 14, the website TrumpPence.com redirects to a page that is under construction, TrumpChristie.com directs to a blank page, TrumpGingrich.com is a scaled down site with a host of related political search terms, and TrumpSessions.com has a months-old announcement that the site is "coming soon." Each of the domain names was claimed in the last year, going back to June 2015. The registry information for both the Gingrich and the Gov Pence sites has been updated as recently as July. The stories make for amusing headlines, but it remains unclear just how valuable those addresses are when many people primarily use search engines or social media to find candidate websites.

[Commentary] No administration in memory has more thoroughly undermined freedom of speech and of the press than that of President Barack Obama. From the White House itself, as well as the independent and executive branch agencies, have come a steady stream of policies, initiatives, and pronunciamentos that have threatened or compromised both of these constitutional rights. Indeed, the Administration’s example has inspired like-minded actions outside of the White House. For example, those Democratic members of Congress who actively encouraged IRS action against conservative nonprofit organizations before Lois Lerner turned to the task. And the 16 state attorneys general, Democrats all, who have recently embarked on a campaign designed to silence people who are skeptical of the evidence of anthropogenic global warming and/or its effects and remediation. But it’s the example of the Administration itself that is most notable. Who could forget the performance of then-UN ambassador Susan Rice who, five days after the Benghazi attack that took the life of the American ambassador, went on national TV and blamed the attacks on an anti-Islam video shown on YouTube?

In 2016, the United States is a country riven by deep political and cultural divides, which is perhaps why we are seeing things today that even a short time ago would have seemed preposterously illiberal and outside the country’s revered traditions. Things like the growth and nurturing of identity politics and a grievance culture, and the imposition, especially on campuses, of a virulent form of political correctness, are both a symbol and a cause of our national angst. It is in this state of affairs that the most precious thing we have in our national heritage is the Bill of Rights, and the First Amendment especially. If, as some people fear, things in the USA go from bad to worse, history will not treat kindly those people who have not honored that plain truth.

[Maines is president of The Media Institute.]

The escalating fight between Spotify and Apple is turning heads in Washington. Spotify, a Swedish service, blasted Apple for rejecting an updated version of its popular streaming app in the online store used by iPhone users. At issue, according to Apple, is Spotify’s decision to take out a feature that let its users buy premium subscriptions through Apple’s in-app purchase feature or take steps to sign up online. In the most recent version, users are simply told that premium service is available. When users buy through the in-application purchase tool, Apple gets a cut; when they buy online, Apple gets nothing. Apple says that Spotify is violating rules designed to prevent an end-run around the commissions system. Spotify says Apple is trying to stifle competition.

Lawmakers, including Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are paying attention to the debate. The Federal Trade Commission reportedly began looking into the issue in 2015, though not through a formal investigation, as streaming services ramped up their criticism of Apple. Sen Al Franken (D-MN) also asked for a federal probe into the issue. Spotify has been making its case on Capitol Hill. The company reached out to over a dozen offices over its most recent criticisms of Apple, according to a person familiar with the effort. Their pleas have not gone unnoticed.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarty (R-CA) is pushing a bill to protect one of President Barack Obama’s tech priorities after he leaves office. The GOP leader’s bill would put the force of law behind President Obama’s 2012 Presidential Innovation Fellows Program, which brings on a small number of tech-savvy employees from the private sector every year and places them around the government for short stints of service.

President Obama already signed an executive order in 2015 making the program permanent. At the time, President Obama said he hoped the program would help build “a government that’s as modern, as innovative, and as engaging as our incredible tech sector is.” While unlikely in the case of the fellows program, executive orders can always be undone by the next administration. That is not the case with legislation signed into law. The program was part of a 2008 campaign promise from President Obama and was created with the help of former White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) took to the floor to amplify his questions about whether Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler authorized a March leak about the commission’s activities. In March, a source told Politico that a deal had been reached between two Republican commissioners of the agency and Democratic Commissioner Mignon Clyburn on reforms to the Lifeline subsidy program. The report prompted supporters of Wheeler's proposed reforms to lobby Commissioner Clyburn to forsake the deal. Chairman Thune used a portion of a floor speech to hit Chairman Wheeler for not directly answering whether he had personally authorized that leak.

“Now since Mr. Wheeler could have just said no if he did not actually authorize the leak of non-public information, that leaves only two possible conclusions,” Chairman Thune said. “One, that Chairman Wheeler did authorize the leak but is not confident in his roundabout interpretation of the rules and fears admitting to violating them. Or, second, Chairman Wheeler simply does not respect the legitimate role of Congressional oversight and believes and he is unaccountable to the American people.”