Hill, The

[Commentary] In 2014, Rep Mike Doyle (D-PA) and three other Members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to the Federal Communications Commission, urging the Commission to take a closer look at billing practices of telecommunications companies. In the letter, the Members stated that an inquiry sent to some of the nation’s largest communications providers led them to conclude that below the line fees can add substantially to a consumer’s monthly bill and should be made known to consumers before they sign up for service. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn shares this view.

In April, the FCC released its consumer broadband label, a new tool that will give consumers more information about the fees and terms of service associated with their fixed and mobile broadband service. Such disclosure and transparency inspires confidence, increases the public’s trust, and demonstrates good faith. The American people not only want these things, they demand them. We are calling for the nation’s communications providers to lead the way and voluntarily improve transparency and disclosure of these “below the line” fees so that when consumers sign up for service, either online or in-store, they won’t have to wait for their first bill to learn what their total monthly costs will be. We hope the nation’s communications providers will heed our call to action and take this simple step to improve the customer experience. Not only would this be a huge win for consumers; it would be an opportunity for the nation’s phone, Internet, and Pay-TV providers to show they are committed to putting their customers first.

[Commentary] Since Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler took over, we have seen one assault after another on American's procedural due process rights. In addition to the well-documented improprieties with the White House during the Open Internet debate, Chairman Wheeler, among other transgressions, has attempted to force nonprofits to reveal their donors in strict violation of Supreme Court precedent, hired advocates who had filed in significant FCC dockets as an interested party to come into the commission to supervise those very dockets, and attempted to hold a FCC "town hall" in which he had invited an outside party to participate and comment on a yet-to-be-released item during the "sunshine" period. Chairman Wheeler is now at it again, this time in the context of the FCC's attempt to impose stringent price regulation for "business data services" (BDS). Let's look at this shameful timeline.

[Spiwak is the president of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies.]

[Commentary] As Freedom House has documented, Internet freedom is in decline, as censorship and online surveillance expands around the world. Authoritarian governments seek United Nations regulation or agreements among states to justify their Internet restrictions and wall off parts of their country's Internet from outside influence. To defend Internet freedom, the US government has wisely focused on keeping global Internet governance out of their control and instead leaving the internet's key technical functions to engineers, business and civil society, whose mission is to preserve the internet as an open, globally interconnected platform. The US government would do well to continue this policy by completing the transition to a fully privatized internet Domain Name System.

[Lagon is president of Freedom House and served as U.S. ambassador to Combat Human Trafficking under former President George W. Bush. Donahoe is an officer of the Freedom House Board and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council under President Obama.]

The House passed two bills aimed at improving conditions for startup investing. The Fix Crowdfunding Act (HR 4855) raises the amount that a company can crowdfund, from $1 million to $5 million. A 2012 law opened up the rules for crowdfunded investments, but Republicans say the rules still need to be tweaked. The bill was approved by a vote of 394-4. “These bills today are targeted fixes to restore the original spirit of the JOBS Act: To harness innovation and bring together millions of Americans with potential new businesses through crowdfunding,” Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said. The new crowdfunding rules went into effect earlier in 2016, after being formally approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2015.

The second bill, Supporting America’s Innovators Act (HR 4854), would expand the legal limit on investors in venture funds doing early-stage funding that can help a company get off the ground — called angel investing — to 250 from 100. The legislation passed 388-9. Both bills are part of a House GOP initiative focused on passing bills related to the tech industry and innovation in the months before November’s elections. Democrats have backed a similar initiative.

Federal officials may not use private e-mail accounts to get around public records laws, a federal judge ruled June 5. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit overturned a lower court decision in which judges dismissed claims from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative think tank that attempted to obtain correspondence from a top White House official through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) said it did not need to search for or turn over records held by the head of the OSTP on a private e-mail account as part of the open records request. Throughout the case, the government argued that “[d]ocuments on a nongovernmental e-mail server are outside the possession or control of federal agencies, and thus beyond the scope of FOIA.” Judge David Sentelle, the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, disagreed with that reasoning and ordered the lower court to reconsider the case. “If a department head can deprive the citizens of their right to know what his department is up to by the simple expedient of maintaining his departmental e-mails on an account in another domain, that purpose is hardly served,” Judge Sentelle wrote. “It would make as much sense to say that the department head could deprive requestors of hard-copy documents by leaving them in a file at his daughter’s house and then claiming that they are under her control,” he said.

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson stumped for a proposed reorganization of the division of his agency responsible for protecting critical infrastructure from digital threats. “We've asked for a reorganization from Congress,” Johnson told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a June 30 on oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I know the House Homeland Committee is considering it and possibly drafting language. And if this is something the Senate would consider, I think it would go a long way to addressing both cyber and the protection of critical infrastructure.”

Specifically, Sec Johnson wants to replace the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) within the DHS with a new operational agency tasked with protecting the computer networks that run the nation’s power grid, water utilities and more. The agency, along with many lawmakers, see the move as way to smooth bureaucratic barriers within the DHS. But the proposed reorganization, in the works for over a year, has been a point of tension between the agency and Congress.

The tech industry is pressing Donald Trump to “get into the game” after Hillary Clinton released a wide-ranging platform that touched on internet connectivity, cybersecurity and computer science education. Industry officials generally applauded Clinton’s agenda as hitting many of their top priorities. Now they want to hear from Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Republicans on Capitol Hill said it is important for candidates to detail their platforms early, but said the decision is Trump’s to make. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) said he expects Trump to release something on tech policy before the general election debates begin, noting the presumptive nominee's business background and social media savvy. “I think both candidates are going to be vying on some of these issues for the so-called tech vote, and whether it happens now or some point in the future, I’m sure that Donald Trump will also have an agenda that will compete for the support of the tech community,” said Chairman Thune, a major voice on tech issues. A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign did not respond to a question about the campaign’s plans.

Trump appears to be lacking support in the tech industry heading into the general election, after the candidate clashed with several major companies during the Republican primaries.

Parents would have a new way of protecting their children's privacy when they are surfing the Internet under new rules proposed by the Federal Trade Commission.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, last updated in July 2013, requires websites to obtain consent from the parents of children who are under the age of 13 before sharing their personal information.

The agency announced that it is considering a new way in which parents can verify their identity. Comments on the proposed rules are due by September 30.

Broadcasters are warning that a Senate plan to change the way people pay for TV channels could have dire consequences for viewers.

The 50 state broadcaster associations have prepared a letter to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen John Thune (R-SD), warning that their Local Choice plan will “destroy” the idea of giving consumers local content. That would make it harder for people to find out information about emergencies, get weather reports and watch local news, and would hurt diversity, the state organizations wrote.

In their letter, the organizations wrote that they "oppose this proposal because of its likely devastating impacts on broadcast localism and the nation’s viewers."

A coalition that includes major cable and satellite television companies is launching a national campaign in support of a Senate proposal to transform the way people watch TV.

The American Television Alliance -- which includes companies including Verizon, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable, as well as consumer interest groups like Public Knowledge and the Parents Television Council -- has launched a radio and print ad campaign in more than a dozen states to back the plan from Sens Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and John Thune (R-SD).

The proposal from the two leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee would dramatically change the way people get broadcast networks like NBC and ABC through their cable or satellite company. For the TV lobbying group, the senators’ “Local Choice” proposal, which would have consumers choose whether to purchase individual broadcast channels as part of their subscriptions, lays the groundwork for “the biggest viewer celebration ever.”