Government & Communications

Attempts by governmental bodies to improve or impede communications with or between the citizenry.

Chairwoman Rosenworcel at Center for Strategic & International Studies

So often when we think about 5G in the United States we talk about our phones. But if we do this right, our phones will be the least interesting thing about our 5G future. This is not about the small icon that appears—and sometimes disappears—in the upper right-hand corner of a mobile device. It is a whole lot bigger than that. We are talking about using 5G technology to lay the foundation for digital transformation around the globe. Because we are fast heading to a world where next-generation wireless networks connect everyone and everything around us.

Republicans Comer, McMorris Rodgers, Jordan Introduce Bill to Stop Biden Administration from Pressuring Social Media Companies to Censor Americans

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) introduced the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act (H.R. 140).

McCarthy's fast start: Big Tech is a top target

House Republicans plan to launch a new investigative panel that will demand copies of White House emails, memos, and other communications with Big Tech companies. The new panel, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, is partly a response to revelations from Elon Musk in the internal documents he branded the "Twitter Files." The subcommittee will be chaired by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) — a close ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and a favorite of the hard right. The probe into communications between tech giants and

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for January Open Meeting

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the agenda for the January 26, 2023 Open Commission Meeting. The FCC will consider:

An FCC on Hold

For the first time in my memory, the Senate does not have the votes to approve the nominated FCC Commissioner, Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society]. This has meant that the FCC has been on hold and we’ve had a two-year deadlock between the two Democratic and Republican Commissioners on any controversial issues. There are a number of FCC initiatives that are on hold until there is a fifth Commissioner:

More Assistance for Rural America

The Biden Administration launched an initiative, the Department of Agriculture's Rural Partners Network,  that has some interesting benefits for rural communities. The goal is to help rural areas maximize the benefits available from the federal government. The new program is putting federal employees directly in rural communities and making them available to help rural communities navigate the confusing federal bureaucracy. As an example, one of the primary roles of the Rural Partners Network is to help local communities find and apply for grants.

Twitter Aided the Pentagon in its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign

Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform. Behind the scenes, however, the company provided direct approval and internal protection to the US military’s network of social media accounts and online personas, whitelisting a batch of accounts at the request of the government. The Pentagon has used this network, which includes US government-generated news portals and memes, in an effort to shape opinion in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and beyond.

Iran’s Online Crackdown Prompts Smuggling of Starlink Kits

Iran’s government has throttled down bandwidths, stepped up filtering of social-media sites and taken down virtual private networks, according to analysts and reports by nongovernment organizations. It has also sought to intercept Starlink and other satellite internet devices, which are illegal in Iran. The number of Iranians with access to Starlink is a tiny fraction of the millions who use virtual private networks and other platforms to evade government restrictions, users say.

How big tech defeated the biggest antitrust push in decades on Capitol Hill

A passionate and bipartisan legislative effort to rein in the country’s largest technology companies collapsed this week, the victim of an epic lobbying campaign by Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta. The internet titans spent hundreds of millions of dollars, sent their chief executives to Washington, and deployed trade groups and sympathetic scholars to quash two antitrust bills co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

Omnibus Bill Expands TikTok Ban on Government Smartphones

The omnibus spending bill unveiled by lawmakers expands a ban on Chinese-owned TikTok on federal smartphones, but tough new measures targeting the tech industry didn’t make the cut. The inclusion of the proposal to ban TikTok comes after the Senate, led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), passed the governmentwide ban measure separately.