Agenda

The Federal Communications Commission will vote in Nov to eliminate a decades-old rule designed to preserve media diversity in local markets, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Oct 25. The move is aimed at supporting economically struggling media outlets in an age of digital consumption. But critics say it will lead to greater media consolidation and the loss of independent voices.

The regulations, passed in 1975, prevent any single company from owning both a full-power TV station in a given market and a daily newspaper at the same time. “The marketplace is nothing like it was in 1975,” Chairman Pai told House Communications Subcommittee members at a hearing, arguing that the restriction on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership was outdated. “The FCC's rules still presume the market is defined by pulp and rabbit ears.” The FCC vote, expected Nov 16, could also eliminate a rule that prevents TV stations in the same market from merging if the outcome leads to fewer than eight independent stations operating in that market. “If the federal government has no business intervening in news, then we must stop the government from intervening in the news business,” he said.

Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he is talking with Google, Facebook, and Twitter about testifying before the Judiciary Committee about Russia's social media manipulation on Oct 31, a day before the tech giants arrive for long-anticipated intelligence committee hearings on both sides of the Capitol. "Google's all good [to appear, and] we're working with the others" to testify before the Judiciary subpanel on crime and terrorism next week, Sen Graham said. "It's really important. We need to do this."

A group of 11 Sens unveiled a proposal to substantially reform the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, potentially complicating renewal efforts underway in both chambers. The proposal, led by Sens Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), would require investigators to obtain a warrant to query data belonging to Americans collected under the program. It would reauthorize the program for four years, but would add a compendium of other privacy and oversight protections to the existing framework.

Libertarian-leaning Sen Paul is the only Republican to sign onto the proposal. It’s unclear how many changes the group will be able to force to the controversial program, seen by federal investigators as one of the most vital tools the U.S. has to identify and disrupt terror plots. The law authorizing the program, known as Section 702, is due to sunset at the end of 2017.

[Commentary] It might seem that the prospects for a return to strong bi-partisan Internet policy, which began during the Clinton Administration, are no better now. There’s been no visible movement, for example, on a simple but effective compromise bill offered by senior Republicans in 2015. According to its sponsors, it remains on the table. But the stakes are about to get higher. The Federal Communications Commission is likely to vote before year-end to undo much of the Commission’s 2015 order reclassifying broadband Internet service providers as public utilities, an order which, almost as an after-thought, included the agency’s third attempt at network neutrality rules that could pass legal muster. Added urgency may help the stars align for serious negotiations in Congress.

For one thing, an inevitable legal challenge to the upcoming order will go nowhere. Though it may take a year or more to work its way through the courts, the FCC’s undo of its earlier order will almost certainly be upheld.

The time for a straightforward, uncontroversial legislative solution is now—not after the pro-utility advocates lose in court in another year or more, and not after another few turns of FCC Chairmen flipping the switch again and again. The net neutrality bill introduced in 2015--before the FCC needlessly reversed twenty years of bi-partisan policy--remains the best starting point we have. Assuming, that is, that Congress really wants to solve this problem once and for all.

[Larry Downes is the Project Director at Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.]

I think it is important to address the elephant in the room. There is currently a merger pending before the Commission that some argue will benefit from, and is the reason for, any changes to our media ownership rules. While I make no comments regarding this, or any, merger application, let me be clear: this transaction is in no way the catalyst for FCC action on these issues.

First, the statute requires the FCC review its media rules. Having failed that, we now have pending petitions before us to reconsider the past shoddy effort. Second, I have been calling for media ownership reform since joining the Commission and as a staffer in the U.S. Senate before that. It’s not a new position or reaction to a pending application. Instead, for the first time, we finally have a Chairman receptive to these ideas.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is planning on Oct 24 to debate in secret a bill that would reauthorize a powerful surveillance authority without imposing any new restraints on the FBI’s ability to search and use the communications of Americans gathered under that law in national security and criminal prosecutions.

The bill, drafted by Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), would enshrine the FBI’s right to use emails and other data collected from US tech companies without individualized warrants in cases­ related to terrorism, espionage and serious crimes such as murder and kidnapping. The legislation is aimed at revising a law often referred to as Section 702, a portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amended in 2008. It authorizes the government to gather the communications of foreign targets located overseas, a process that may incidentally sweep up the emails, phone calls and texts of Americans. The law is due to expire at the end of 2017.

If, like an ever-growing majority of people in the U.S., you own a smartphone, you might have the sense that apps in the age of the pocket-sized computer are designed to keep your attention as long as possible. You might not have the sense that they’re manipulating you one tap, swipe, or notification at a time. But Tristan Harris thinks that’s just what’s happening to the billions of us who use social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, and he’s on a mission to steer us toward potential solutions—or at least to get us to acknowledge that this manipulation is, in fact, going on.

Harris, formerly a product manager turned design ethicist at Google, runs a nonprofit called Time Well Spent, which focuses on the addictive nature of technology and how apps could be better designed; it pursues public advocacy and supports design standards that take into account what’s good for people’s lives, rather than just seeking to maximize screen time. He says he’s moving away from Time Well Spent these days (his new effort is as yet unnamed), trying to hold the tech industry accountable for the way it persuades us to spend as much time as possible online, with tactics ranging from Snapchat’s snapstreaks to auto-playing videos on sites like YouTube and Facebook.

AT&T has secured the blessing of Brazilian regulators for its $85-billion takeover of Time Warner, moving the blockbuster deal closer to the finish line.

The company said Brazil’s antitrust authority, the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, had signed off on AT&T’s application to acquire the media company which owns CNN, HBO, TBS, Cartoon Network and Hollywood’s biggest film and television studio, Warner Bros. Now, AT&T must win approval from the US Department of Justice before it can finalize the merger. The government’s review slowed over the summer because the Senate’s approval of President Trump’s appointment of Makan Delrahim as chief of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division was made in late September. The Justice Department and AT&T continue to negotiate conditions for the merger, according to knowledgeable people who do not want to be identified discussing the sensitive process. AT&T earlier had received approval from regulators in Chile and Mexico. Brazilian regulators concluded that AT&T would not be required to divest any assets.

[Commentary] Anchor institutions like schools, libraries and health care providers play an important role in bringing connectivity to their local communities. But advances in telemedicine and education will not be fully realized if rural consumers do not have adequate broadband service at home. School aged children will struggle if they cannot do their homework. Individuals with medical conditions that require active monitoring – diabetes, congestive heart failure and more – need broadband at home to transmit critical medical data in real time to medical professionals.

That is why local government officials and anchor institutions should be paying attention to the implementation of the Connect America Fund, now and in the years ahead. The FCC is working to hold an auction in 2018 to award nearly $2 billion in funding over the next decade from Phase II of the Connect America Fund to service providers to extend fixed broadband to unserved residential and small business locations, and a separate auction to award $4.53 billion in funding over a decade from Phase II of the Mobility Fund to mobile wireless providers to extend LTE service to rural America. Any entity willing to provide the requisite level of service set by the FCC and meet other requirements can bid in those auctions for the subsidy.

Local leaders should ask: is it possible to utilize funding in a more coordinated way from E-rate, the Rural Healthcare program, and the Connect America Fund to build a business case to serve the entire community? What efficiencies might be gained from building an integrated broadband network for the entire community? Are the service providers that currently participate in any of these FCC’s universal service programs planning to bid in these upcoming Connect America Fund auctions? Who else might bid?

[Carol Mattey is the principal of Mattey Consulting LLC, which provides strategic and public policy advisory services to broadband providers, governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and other entities active in the telecommunications arena]

Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee are calling for an oversight hearing for the Federal Communications Commission following President Donald Trump’s threats against media outlets' broadcast licenses recently. The Sens sent a letter to the committee’s top members, calling out FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for waiting so long to address the president’s statements.

“The FCC Chairman’s failure to quickly respond and denounce these threats is shocking and raises questions about the ability of the FCC to truly act independently under Chairman Pai’s leadership,” the letter reads. The group was led by Sens Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tom Udall (D-NM) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH). “It is imperative that FCC Chairman Pai and his fellow Commissioners address this Committee and respond to the President’s stated desire for regulatory abuse of his perceived critics through the FCC."