Public Knowledge

Rarely does Congress speak as definitively and clearly as it did with Section 1754: ordering the Federal Communications Commission, within 2 years to enact regulations to “eliminate” existing digital discrimination on the basis of “income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin” and to prevent it from recurring in the future. The FCC should interpret this instruction for what it is: a rebuke of the last 25 years of failed policies and “light touch” regulation under the apparent delusion that for the first time in 90 years “the market” would bring universal service to all

Public Knowledge has released its newest white paper, “Back to the Spectrum Future: The 20th Anniversary of the Spectrum Policy Task Force,” by Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Kathleen Burke. The paper proposes adopting a backcasting model rooted in core public interest principles to help guide our spectrum policymakers toward a wireless future that serves and includes all Americans.

Congress enacted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to permit interactive computer services to exercise editorial discretion when publishing third-party content, without facing liability. This case seeks to hold YouTube liable for publishing objectionable third-party content. Section 230 does not allow this. Petitioners try to work around this clear statutory prohibition by characterizing their theory of liability in different terms.

Public Knowledge wrote to the Federal Communications Commission urging them to reconsider calls by the aviation community for rule changes related to C-band deployments. The November 22 letter states that as a consequence of systemic discrimination and historic patterns of red-lining, many of the neighborhoods closest to airports (and therefore within the “buffer zones” around the airports subject to potential mitigation measures) are low-income and/or majority non-white communities.

Public Knowledge joined the Yale Law School Technology Accountability and Competition Project, a division of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, in filing comments in the Federal Trade Commission’s proceeding on the prevalence of commercial surveillance and data security practices that harm consumers. Public Knowledge urges the agency to go beyond codifying the current failed notice and choice framework and build a data protection regime predicated on data minimization, data access rights for consumers, and protection of civil rights.

Public Knowledge joined the Association for Progressive Communications, Creative Commons, Derechos Digitales, Internet Archive, Niskanen Center, and Wikimedia Foundation to launch the Movement for a Better Internet, a diverse community of advocates and activists working together to promote policies that create a better internet for people everywhere. The movement is a collaborative effort seeking to drive policy change based on a public interest vision for internet that benefits us all.

Common Sense and Public Knowledge recommend that the Universal Service Administrative Company make additional types of data available through the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) Enrollment Claims Tracker. The tracker is the main source of publicly-available data on the ACP. However, the tracker currently lacks key types of data to precisely measure the effect of these campaigns or understand the quality of the services and devices purchased.

While policymakers continue to make substantial investments toward universal broadband, these investments still leave gaps in Tribal connectivity. The three primary general-purpose broadband deployment grants accessible to Tribes include the Federal Communication Commission's High-Cost program, the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA's) Reconnect program, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA's) Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.