New America Foundation

[Commentary] It’s easy to get caught up in the simplistic debate that often dominates the surveillance conversation: that this is about balancing national security and individual privacy. But the binary argument over security vs. privacy ignores the other negative impacts of National Security Agency surveillance on our national interests.

The US cloud computing industry -- a fast-growing and American-dominated market -- could lose anywhere from $22 billion to $180 billion in the next few years as companies lose customers abroad and here at home. US tech companies are facing declines in overseas sales due to the backlash, while foreign governments are blaming the NSA for decisions to drop American companies from huge contracts.

Plus, there’s growing evidence that certain NSA surveillance techniques are actually bad for cybersecurity.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission announced the team that will be reviewing the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, signifying the agency’s readiness to begin the formal review process of the merger.

There is a lot going on at the FCC these days, and this merger is but one point in an array of important policy decisions before the Commission. Communications policy is at a moment of transition in the United States. A successful merger between Comcast and TWC would give one company nearly half the national market of truly high-speed broadband connections, threatening to move us away from the broadband ecosystem we need. As part of the merger review process, the companies must demonstrate that the transaction will not produce competitive harms and will affirmatively be in the public interest.

The first question with which the FCC must contend is the potential for competitive harms evident in the transaction. Competition in the broadband marketplace is notably limited. The merger may also have effects on the issue of network neutrality, the idea that ISPs should not be able to block or discriminate based on the content or type of traffic online. These potential harms to competition and the open Internet lead us in the wrong direction for the communications policy we need.

In front of the FCC right now are two momentous decisions that will have a significant effect on the future of the Internet. The FCC should do the right thing for the public’s interest and reject the merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The FCC must also enact strong net neutrality rules to encourage innovation in the broadband market and ensure a robust, free, and open Internet.

[Commentary] In the future, who -- or what -- will govern the Internet? The answer to that question could also shed light on one of the biggest foreign policy questions of the decade: As power is shifting among states and diffusing, what is the future of the world order?

That first question was in the spotlight in 2012, right around the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai. It was the first time in nearly a decade that the topic of Internet governance attracted major international media attention.

The conference became the latest showdown of the ongoing struggle over the future of the Internet with some countries led by Russia and China seeking greater governmental control and others supporting an Internet governance model driven by civil society, the private sector, and governments. Caught in the middle are the “swing states”-- countries that have not decided which vision for the future of the Internet they will support. Yet, the outcome of this debate ultimately depends on these states -- the ones that have not yet firmly staked out a position and who represent a significant share of the world’s population and economy. While it is not surprising to find India, Brazil, and South Africa among the key 30 swing states, some of our findings raise interesting questions.

Ultimately, this Internet governance debate is embedded in the larger systemic shift -- the reshuffling of the world order. Take Brazil and India, two of the countries that have attracted greater attention during this debate not only with regard to the future of the Internet but the future of the international order. Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Ghana, and Malaysia also are on our list and deserve more attention. Their behavior shapes what norms and institutions will govern our lives in the future, including finance, post-2015 development goals, international security -- and the future of the Internet.

If comedian John Oliver can get the importance of network neutrality, then our US Department of Education should too.

New America’s Learning Technologies Project sent a letter to Secretary Arne Duncan urging him to recognize the risks posed to students’ educational opportunities under the new proposal from the Federal Communication Commission.

The proposal would essentially authorize “fast lanes” for online transmission of information, a move away from the approach known as net neutrality. The letter accompanied a series of comments submitted to the FCC on behalf of four education start-up companies: Codecademy, CodeCombat, GeneralAssembly, and OpenCurriculum.

[Commentary] It works with diabetes patients, smokers trying to quit, and others: a text message reminding you to take your medication or resist the urge to light up. There’s even a Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University devoted to the idea. So what if we could put that same idea to work boosting literacy in very young children in low-income families?

That’s the premise of Parent University, a six-week program originally designed by Chris Drew, now Director of Educator Initiatives at Digital Promise. The program gives parents a digital tap on the shoulder via text messages reminding them to interact with their kids to boost literacy -- and close that ever-widening word gap. And it’s working, according to a recent, not-yet-published study that compared parents who received the program to those who didn’t.

Ample research shows that low-income kids enter school already behind their more affluent peers. As the now famous “word gap” study by Hart and Risley in the mid-1990s showed, by the age of 3, children born into low-income families have heard roughly 30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers.

Parent University aims to help parents create that rich literacy environment. The program, which is being studied by researchers at Northwestern University, is designed to help families promote literacy at home with ideas and prompts.

[Ray is a writer and editor living in Chicago, and owner of Hiredpen]

New America is pleased to announce the appointment of the following 2015 Fellows who will join us on September 1, under the new leadership of Peter Bergen:

Virginia Eubanks will research and write about the impact of public service information technologies on poor and working people in the United States. She is currently an associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. She also writes for The American Prospect and Equal Future and runs two social justice organizations, the Popular Technology Workshops and Our Knowledge, Our Power.

Yascha Mounk will write about technological solutions to the political and environmental challenges of the 21st century, and how confused attitudes about nature are making us overly hesitant to embrace them.

Ari Ratner will write a book on reforming bureaucracy for a new generation based on the experiences of young people in government during the Obama presidency. Ratner is currently a strategic communications consultant and has been collaborating with Alec Ross on a book on the next wave of globalized innovation in science and technology, to be published by Simon & Schuster. Previously, Ratner was appointed to serve at the State Department as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment and as Congressional Liaison for Near Eastern Affairs.

Daniel Rothenberg will write a book on the role of narrative in explaining why people defend politically significant ideas where clear evidence undermines their position. Rothenberg is currently Professor of Practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies and the Lincoln Fellow for Ethics and International Human Rights Law at Arizona State University.

[Commentary] In the months leading up to President Barack Obama’s announcement of the ConnectED Initiative (which happened a little over a year ago now), Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel spoke about reforming the E-rate program at the Washington Education Technology Policy Summit and said we needed bandwidth capacity goals for schools and libraries. She declared that “before the end of the decade, every school should have access to 1 Gigabit per 1000 students.”

While closing the Wi-Fi gap is a laudable goal given many schools lack sufficient wireless capacity, it’s important to note that the question of capacity and the language around speed goals and targets has taken a backseat. What Commissioner Rosenworcel identified as critical to program reform, Chairman Wheeler has now put aside for Wi-Fi, which generally refers to the delivery of Internet service through the airwaves, as opposed to a cable plugged into your device.

What you have to understand about Wi-Fi, however, is that while your device may be wireless, in order to access the Internet your router still has to be plugged into a high-speed wired connection. Thus, a school replete with Wi-Fi connectivity but only 50 Mbps connectivity per 1,000 students will not be leveraging up-to-date educational technology any time soon.

This is why Commissioner Rosenworcel, President Obama, and countless other organizations have pointed toward more ambitious reforms to meaningfully modernize the E-rate program. The three objectives laid out by Chairman Wheeler are necessary, but hardly sufficient for program modernization.

If integrated into a broader set of necessary reforms, E-rate will enable students to connect to the future of learning. As is, the draft order may just be providing students with wireless access to the same substandard Internet service.

More and more local governments across the US are building broadband infrastructure to provide high speed Internet access to better enable their schools, businesses and citizens to compete in today's digital economy.

This report, from New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) and CTC Technology & Energy, is intended to serve as a primer for local government and community leaders on different approaches to public broadband networks.

The report addresses broadband technologies, network business models, and the considerable benefits beyond the balance sheet that public networks can provide to communities.

“For nearly two decades, hundreds of innovative local governments have built and operated fiber optic networks to meet internal government needs and the needs of the public,” said Joanne Hovis, President of CTC Technology & Energy [and member Benton Foundation Board of Directors]. “This report offers a survey of some of the strategies they have developed, with background about technology, business planning, risks, and benefits. This report's goal is to provide sufficient guidance that communities can begin to develop their own approaches to meeting local needs.”

Community Internet pioneer and entrepreneurial visionary Sascha Meinrath announced the launch of X-Lab, an innovative platform to anticipate, develop, and respond to what’s next in tech policy.

Meinrath created X-Lab as an incubator to rethink how technological advances support and curtail our civil rights and fundamental freedoms over time. “No one should have to make a trade-off between using technology and their human rights and privacy,” said Sascha Meinrath. “X-Lab will convene technological experts from around the globe and the brightest minds from a diverse array of different sectors to imagine, innovate, and set the agenda for tech policy interventions in the years to come.”

X-Lab’s first set of innovative programs will include:

• Commotion Tech Lab
• Circumvention Tech Lab
• PrivWare Lab
• Distributed Production Lab
• “Smart” Infrastructure Policy Lab

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to examine the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The hearing came just a day after Comcast submitted its public interest filing to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an important next step in the federal agency review process of the deal.

The following statement can be attributed to Sarah Morris, Senior Policy Counsel for the Open Technology Institute at New America: “The public interest pronouncements made in the hearing simply do not address the myriad harms that would result from this merger. Comcast's statements and public interest filing include many of the same promises that were made in 2010 during the review of its merger with NBC Universal, but consumers are not in a better place now than they were then.

"It’s especially concerning that Comcast has not adequately answered the threshold question as to how its merger with Time Warner Cable would actually benefit consumers. Indeed, the company has not indicated that any cost-savings from so-called ‘efficiencies’ gained from the merger would ultimately result in lower costs for its subscribers, nor has it explained how it would otherwise mitigate the effects of an already uncompetitive broadband market. […]

"What consumers need now is not merger approval, but rather strong regulatory oversight of this industry and a careful, critical review of what would be a tremendous consolidation effort in an already uncompetitive industry. Conditions and rhetorical promises of public interest benefits alone cannot fix these harms. We urge regulators to block this merger.”