What's on the agenda for policymakers.
Agenda
The inaugural Mercatus Center Antitrust Conference will bring together leaders from the antitrust community to discuss the state of antitrust enforcement policy, here and abroad, during the first year of the Biden Administration. The Conference will feature presentations by former and current leaders of the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department Antitrust Division, who will put into perspective the legal and economic policy ramifications of major enforcement, legislative, and policy initiatives in the antitrust space during 2021.
Middle Eastern regimes are aggressive users of social media. They exploit these platforms against their enemies and rivals targeting dissidents, spreading disinformation, and otherwise trying to embarrass and weaken one another. They are aggressive in their efforts to undermine and punish critics at home as well. What are the implications of these tactics? How might U.S. technology companies counter, or at least reduce, these dangers?
What's Next for the Affordable Connectivity Program?
As Congress found in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, access to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is essential to full participation in modern life in the United States. The aim of the Affordable Connectivity Program is to ensure broadband is affordable for any household no matter its income. Although the Federal Communications Commission has met an incredibly tight timeline to adopt rules and launch the new Affordable Connectivity Program, there is still a great deal of work to be done. Here's a quick look at what remains on the FCC's agenda.
How a delay in Gigi Sohn’s FCC confirmations allowed Republicans to build a new case against her
It remains an open question as to when the Senate Commerce Committee will schedule a vote on Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society], the long-time public interest advocate and net neutrality supporter picked by President Joe Biden to fill out the Federal Communications Commission.
Hill oversight tightens amid coming broadband surge
With billions of dollars set to flow to internet connectivity, lawmakers are questioning how the Biden administration plans to coordinate spending them. In January 20 hearing before the House Agriculture Committee, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack fielded several questions from lawmakers of both parties about how the department has set up its latest round of $1.15 billion in broadband loan and grant funding through its ReConnect program, which will accept applications through February 22.
A number of states, including California, Virginia, and Colorado, have recently passed data-protection laws that will impact businesses across the United States. In the absence of congressional action, many more states are likely to follow suit in the coming years, creating a patchwork of competing and potentially contradictory data-protection regulations that will confuse consumers, inflict high compliance costs on organizations, and impose unnecessary constraints on the digital economy.
Security challenges are commonly cited as an area of concern when discussing the shift of mobile networks to disaggregated or “open” architectures. While generic security risks exist regardless of the underlying network architecture, 5G and Open RAN will enable new capabilities that can improve security by allowing operators the ability to monitor, detect, prevent, and respond to threats quickly.
A virtual discussion about the role of Open RAN Security in 5G, presented by the AT&T Policy Forum. We will address questions including:
There is no lack of appetite for a U.S. federal data privacy law—whether from consumers, businesses, regulators or national security experts. Uncertainty over its details and enforcement, however, has stalled the legislation for years. But this delay has also produced critical research and progress, which has moved the United States closer to the necessary solutions for a federal privacy law.
A timely and important discussion with Sindy Benavides, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) on some of the best ideas for closing the digital divide that LULAC has surfaced among its members, including lessons learned from prior attempts to increase broadband adoption with investments from the federal government.
The Technological Advisory Council will hold its first meeting via video conference and will be available to the public via the Internet at http://www.fcc.gov/live