Policymakers

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced the new members of the FCC’s Intergovernmental Advisory Committee and named Paul J. TenHaken, Mayor of Sioux Falls (SD) Chair of the IAC and Peter J. Larkin, Chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, as Vice-Chair.

Adam Candeub, current acting deputy of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, is being elevated to the role of Acting Assistant Secretary. His elevation to a top position at NTIA is sure to be controversial because of ties to white nationalists.

With due respect to Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, conservatives interested in reform understand full well the purpose of the First Amendment (“Mike O’Rielly’s Free Speech Fall,” Review & Outlook, Aug. 5). We simply don’t believe that gigantic and massively powerful social-media platforms deserve special statutory protection, as is laid out in Section 230.

Joseph Biden has been critical of Big Tech, admonishing Facebook for mishandling misinformation and saying internet companies should lose a central legal protection.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced two new additions to his office, three departures, and an expanded role for one of his current advisors.

President Donald Trump has sent a message to the Federal Communications Commission: Cross me for misusing my powers in this way, and you’ll be punished, too. The president wants Mike O’Rielly, his fellow FCC commissioners, and appointees across agencies to know what happens when they dare to put the rule of law first, just as the president wants Twitter, and Facebook, and all influential companies on the Internet or off to know how carefully they must tread with him in charge.

Michael O’Rielly has done yeoman work as a member of the Federal Communications Commission, but the White House abruptly pulled his renomination for another five-year term. The decision speaks better of Commissioner O’Rielly than of the President. Commissioner O’Rielly was scuttled for remarks about regulating speech.

Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) says President Donald Trump’s recent handling of Federal Communications Commission nominations is a “disaster.” The Trump administration withdrew the nomination of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, shortly after O’Rielly criticized an executive order demanding that the agency unilaterally revise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Sen Wyden, one of the coauthors of Section 230, said the move called the agency’s independence into question.

The White House withdrew the nomination of Federal Communications Commissioner Mike O'Rielly to serve another term, a surprising development that came after his nomination was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in July. The announcement came less than a week after Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said he would block O'Rielly's nomination over the five-member FCC's unanimous decision to allow Ligado Networks to deploy a low-power nationwide mobile broadband network.

The Federal Communications Commission announces the opening of the nomination period for the Ninth Chairman’s Awards for Advancement in Accessibility (“Chairman’s AAA”). The nomination period opens on Aug 3, 2020 and continues through 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sept 4, 2020.