Washington Post

Police and federal agents around the country have for years been quietly using cell site simulators in which a portable device intercepts signals from cellphones attempting to connect with cell towers and then captures their identifying numbers and precise locations. Defense lawyers and civil libertarians claim that the devices are the equivalent of a police search and therefore require a search warrant.

In 2016, a federal appeals court in Maryland agreed and ruled that Baltimore police could not use evidence collected by a StingRay in a murder case. On April 18, the District’s highest appeals court heard oral arguments and is now ready to be the second court in the nation to weigh in on whether capturing an individual’s cell signal is covered by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of governmental search and seizure.

Let's be honest here — most of us don’t read the privacy policies for smart televisions. And even if we try to, it’s often difficult to read them, particularly on a television screen. So we asked a few legal experts who specialize in privacy — Christopher Dore of the Chicago-based law firm Edelson, Danielle Citron of the University of Maryland, William McGeveran of the University of Minnesota and Bradley Shear of Maryland-based Shear Law — to explain what we're really getting into when we hit the “I agree” button.

[Commentary] In only 15 years, American newspaper companies slashed their workforces by more than half — from 412,000 employees in 2001 to 174,000 in 2015. But that troubling trend wasn’t on the minds of journalists at the Charleston Gazette-Mail last year as they dug deep into the prescription-drug epidemic that was inflicting mortal wounds on their community. No, what motivated them was the West Virginia paper’s unofficial motto: “Sustained outrage.” That phrase, coined by former publisher Ned Chilton, “means a lot to people here,” executive editor Robert Byers told me last week, shortly after the 37,000-circulation paper won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. The family-owned paper (Chilton’s daughter is the publisher now) has a newsroom staff of about 50. “Sustained outrage” is vitally important. So is keeping it alive.

[Commentary] In the wake of a growing conflict between President Trump and the news media, many have expressed concern about what this spells for the future of democracy in America. Although the president has not proposed formal legislation restricting the media, he has, for example, called media organizations “the enemy of the American people” and has excluded prominent organizations from news briefings. Although Trump’s conflict with the media has alarmed many in the United States, such a confrontation is not unusual when we look outside our borders. There have been many such conflicts in other countries.

Our study of dozens of these cases leads to a disturbing conclusion: Media restrictions abroad are a bellwether for declines in democracy and for periods of increased human rights abuse. Trump’s current and past behavior suggests that he would like to increase the social, economic and perhaps legal costs to the media for criticizing the government. Our analysis suggests that democratic institutions are more likely to weaken when the government restricts the media than when it does not. Democracy can often survive regardless, but there is still good reason to monitor the attacks on the institutions that sustain it.

[Daniel W. Hill Jr. is an assistant professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. Yonatan Lupu is an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.]

Rep James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) told a town hall attendee who was concerned about the elimination of online privacy protections that using the Internet is a choice — a statement that has since drawn criticism on social media. During the meeting in Wisconsin, the attendee asked about the recent decision by Congress to wipe away an Obama-era policy that sought to limit what Internet service providers, such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast, can do with customers’ Internet browsing history. The concern is similar to one raised by consumer activists: Not all Internet users have options to switch to a different company if they don’t agree with their current provider’s privacy practices. “Facebook is not comparable to an ISP. I do not have to go to Facebook,” the town hall attendee told Rep Sensenbrenner Jr. “I do have one provider. … I have one choice. I don’t have to go on Google. My ISP provider is different than those providers.”

In response, Sensenbrenner, who voted to scrap the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy rules that were set to take effect at the end of this year, said: “Nobody’s got to use the Internet. … And the thing is that if you start regulating the Internet like a utility, if we did that right at the beginning, we would have no Internet. … Internet companies have invested an awful lot of money in having almost universal service now. The fact is is that, you know, I don’t think it’s my job to tell you that you cannot get advertising for your information being sold. My job, I think, is to tell you that you have the opportunity to do it, and then you take it upon yourself to make that choice. … That’s what the law has been, and I think we ought to have more choices rather than fewer choices with the government controlling our everyday lives.” The congressman then moved on to the next question.

[Commentary] Google and Facebook are facing new competition to their online business models after President Trump signed a bill putting Internet service providers on a path to being able to monetize online users the same way these technology giants do. Next up is the threatened unwinding of the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” rules, which could put these companies in a double bind, because they could soon have to pay Internet service providers a metered rate to move their content to customers’ screens. Google and Facebook will argue — as they did during our fight on net neutrality in 2015 — that ISPs should not be able to prioritize and price the flow of online content. The problem is that they make the exact opposite argument in their role as distributors of news content crucial to our democracy. The two digital giants increase or reduce users’ exposure to news content based on whether publishers — such as the Wall Street Journal or the Indianapolis Star — agree to play by their rules. Those rules are crafted to maximize the flow of advertising revenue, not quality content.

[Chavern is president and chief executive of the News Media Alliance, a trade association representing about 2,000 newspapers in the United States and Canada]

A recent tweet from the Associated Press indicates it learned of a meeting between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian President Vladimir Putin not from Tillerson's team but from Putin's. What's more, after allowing US journalists to accompany him to the Osobnyak Guest House in Moscow for a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Tillerson ditched reporters before meeting Putin at the Kremlin. Throughout the day, Russia drove US media coverage by pushing out a steady stream of information (or disinformation) that the State Department was slow to match.

Using Skype, the video-call app, the White House has extended the daily question-and-answer sessions for the first time to people in far-flung locales. The innovation, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, “has been very successful bringing in additional reporters beyond the Beltway.” Except that many of the people who have occupied the “Skype seat” aren’t reporters at all.

Many have been conservative talk-show hosts who are receptive to, or openly cheering for, Trump’s agenda. Since Spicer initiated the calls, he has taken questions from the likes of nationally syndicated radio personalities and regional hosts. The newbies have made little attempt to conceal their points of view, their enthusiasm for President Donald Trump or simply their contempt for the news media.

The FBI obtained a secret court order in 2016 to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other US officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials. This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

The legal battle between Twitter and the US government ended April 7, after the Department of Homeland Security withdrew its demand that the tech company release information to identify an account holder whose tweets are critical of President Donald Trump on Twitter. The lawsuit threatened to become a major battle over free speech between Silicon Valley and Washington. But it was over almost before it began. The tech company had filed a lawsuit April 6 to protest the order, saying that it violated the user's First Amendment right to free expression. But Twitter dropped its suit the next day, saying in a court filing that "[because] the summons has now been withdrawn, Twitter voluntary dismisses without prejudice all claims."