Censorship

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said he has not talked to the White House about his response to the President's tweets about challenging broadcast licenses. President Donald Trump, unhappy with an NBC News story be branded fake and fiction, had tweeted that someone ought to challenge the licenses and they should be revoked, "if necessary."

Chairman Pai was asked repeatedly about the issue in a press conference following the FCC meeting Oct 24. Asked if the President or White House had reached out to him on the license challenge issue, Pai said no. The chairman was asked about why it took him so long to respond to the President's tweets. Chairman Pai countered that he responded the first time he was asked, which response had been to reiterate that he supports the First Amendment, that the FCC is an independent agency, and to say that the FCC can't pull a license over the content of a newscast, no matter who asked it to. Chairman Pai said that his independence as a regulator was clear and suggested that the focus on his response was politically motivated. "I understand that those who oppose my agenda would like me to be distracted by the controversy of the day," he said.

The chairman would not say whether he thought the President's threats had had a chilling effect on the First Amendment, sticking with a regulator's answer that he was going to apply the facts and the law and make the appropriate decision. The FCC can actually pull a license over content in specific circumstances, but those don't include what news stories are covered or how they are covered.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Oct 18 said he could not make a “blanket commitment” to not putting journalists in jail. During testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asked AG Sessions if he could pledge to not place “reporters in jail for doing their jobs.” “Well, I don’t know that I can make a blanket commitment to that effect. But I will say this, we have not taken any aggressive action against the media at this point,” Sessions replied. “But we have matters that involve the most serious national security issues that put our country at risk and we will utilize the authorities that we have legally and constitutionally if we have to.” “We always try to find an alternative way, as you probably know, Sen. Klobuchar, to directly confronting media persons, but that’s not a total blanket protection,” Sessions said.

According to a new Morning Consult/Politico Poll, 46 percent of respondents said they thought the news media fabricated stories about President Donald Trump or his administration, compared with 37 percent who said they did not. A majority (51%) said the government should not have the power to revoke broadcast licenses of major news organizations, versus 28% who said yes (the rest had no opinion). But more Republicans think it should (46%) than should not (33%). The online poll was conducted Oct. 12-16 among 1,991 registered voters.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is facing increasing pressure to distance himself from President Donald Trump’s threats against NBC — a course of action that would risk provoking the president’s Twitter-fueled wrath. Democrats have refused to let the issue die in recent days, with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel warning that “history won't be kind to silence" on Trump's threats to the First Amendment. Chairman Pai could confront public questions about the issue as soon as Oct 17 at a telecom law event in Washington, forcing him to choose between his longstanding defense of freedom of speech and the man who made him chairman. If Chairman Pai weighs in, he risks repeating the pattern of other Trump appointees whose words and actions have drawn the president's ire and imperiled their positions in the government.

“Ajit is in a really very awkward situation, but I assure you he is on our side — we being the people who generally believe in free speech,” said Berin Szóka, president of libertarian group TechFreedom, which supports Pai's FCC agenda. “I think it’s unfair to jump up and down and insist that if he doesn’t pick a fight with the president, he doesn’t really care about the First Amendment.” Szóka outlined several scenarios in which President Trump could act to retaliate if he doesn't like what the FCC chairman has to say. President Trump could demote Chairman Pai to commissioner and elevate another FCC Republican, Mike O’Rielly or Brendan Carr, to chairman, although Szóka noted that both are probably similar to Chairman Pai when it comes to their positions on the First Amendment. President Trump could also replace Commissioner O'Rielly with a "loyalist" and name that person chairman when the term is up in 2019.

For years, the United States and others saw China’s heavy-handed censorship as a sign of political vulnerability and a barrier to China’s economic development. But as countries in the West discuss potential internet restrictions and wring their hands over fake news, hacking and foreign meddling, some in China see a powerful affirmation of the country’s vision for the internet.

Few would argue that China’s internet control serves as a model for democratic societies. China squelches online dissent and imprisons many of those who practice it. It blocks foreign news and information, including the website of The New York Times, and promotes homegrown technology companies while banning global services like Facebook and Twitter. At the same time, China anticipated many of the questions now flummoxing governments from the United States to Germany to Indonesia. Where the Russians have turned the internet into a political weapon, China has used it as a shield. In fact, when it comes to technology, China has prospered. It has a booming technology culture. Its internet companies rival Facebook and Amazon in heft. To other countries, China may offer an enticing top-down model that suggests that technology can thrive even under the government’s thumb.

On Oct 13, 20 press freedom, media justice, labor and civil liberties groups submitted a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to publicly condemn President Donald Trump's threats to challenge the broadcast licenses of news media outlets he dislikes. Signers of the letter also include former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and former FCC commissioners Michael J. Copps and Gloria Tristani.

"As an independent agency charged with protecting the public interest and overseeing the public airwaves, the FCC must resist any attempts to co-opt the broadcast-licensing process to suit the president’s whims,” reads the letter, which was signed by Color of Change, Committee to Protect Journalists, the Communications Workers of America, Free Press, Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, PEN America and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, among others.

[Commentary] By their silence, the Republicans at the Federal Communications Commission have joined in the president’s strategy to get into the head of every television station news editor and station manager in the country. If, because the FCC failed to make clear that the government can’t bully them, even one broadcaster thinks twice about a story and its effect on their license, then the Constitution has been abridged and the FCC is complicit.

By their inaction, the Republican FCC commissioners have already violated their oath to uphold the Constitution. That sacred document is clear: The government is not to suppress ideas and opinion. There is no ambiguity in the First Amendment. The commissioners owe it to the American public and the Constitution they swore to uphold to issue an immediate and clear statement that speech is a protected right, and that it has no role in the matter of broadcast licenses. While they’re at it, they should also issue an apology to the citizens of the United States that they took over two days to get around to telling America the truth.

[Tom Wheeler is the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission 2013-2017].

As President Donald Trump exploits his office to chill his critics’ speech at a nearly unprecedented level, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has a chance to be on the right side of history. He has a chance to stand up for the free-speech rights of people without power — in particular the rights of people of color, who are President Trump’s favorite punching bags. The question is whether he’ll seize that chance. It’s Pai’s job to protect the public interest in the realm of media, technology and communications. He has a duty, and a moral obligation, to stand up and publicly decry Trump’s behavior.

The president is not letting up on NBC, retweeting former Fox host Bill O'Rielly's take on the Federal Communications Commission license issue and taking new shots at the network for its reporting, including suggesting it could be President's new 'fake news' whipping outlet--replacing CNN.

In a week when NBC News's report about President Trump's alleged contemplation of massively ramping up the nuclear arsenal prompted a flood of tweets and comments excoriating the network, the president showed no signs of slowing down despite some bipartisan pushback. Oct 12 President Trump tweeted: "People are just now starting to find out how dishonest and disgusting (FakeNews) @NBCNews is. Viewers beware. May be worse than even @CNN!" He also retweeted a Bill O'Rielly tweet without added comment: "A free press is vital to protecting all Americans. A corrupt press damages the Republic."

President Donald Trump's war of words with the press escalated again when he suggested challenging, or revoking, the broadcasting licenses of stations that air network news programming. The response from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission: silence.

Chairman Ajit Pai could probably calm the industry and people across the political spectrum by assuring them that the agency won't violate democratic norms by targeting stations for political reasons. But thus far he hasn't issued an official statement or even a tweet about the president's tweets. "I think Chairman Pai is precariously balancing his desire not to anger the president with his desire not to anger the broadcast industry, which he has assiduously courted," says former FCC special counsel Gigi Sohn. "He certainly doesn’t want to attract the president’s ire."