Upcoming policy issue

After months of wrangling between national security hawks and privacy advocates, the House will vote this week on a long-term extension of a surveillance program that allows the government to gather foreign intelligence on US soil. Should the bill pass unchanged, Senate leaders say they expect their chamber to approve it before it expires on Jan. 19. But privacy advocates in the House are backing an amendment that would impose a set of restraints.

This is the year, friends.  The year when the battle for an Open Internet pits the three self-proclaimed wise men of the Federal Communications Commission against an overwhelming majority of the American people.  Every index I have seen—be it popular poll, volume of pleas to Congress, or expressions of anger toward the FCC—makes it crystal clear that we the people want an open internet and an end to ever-increasing monopoly control of our telecom and media markets.  Most Americans would agree with the great Justice Louis Brandeis: “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated i

On December 21, 2017, the National League of Cities sent a letter to the chair of the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee concerning filings made by a number of local government associations on broadband deployment. The NLC highlighted four points from the filings:

The Federal Communications Commission's decision toi repeal net neutrality was a major blow to internet freedom, but it’s only the first in a long line of actions that the FCC will take to tell itself that America’s broadband situation is better than it actually is. Up next: redefining high speed wired internet to include cell phone service.

Earlier this year, the Commission reinstated the UHF discount, finding that the prior FCC’s decision last year to eliminate it absent a simultaneous review of the 39 percent national cap effectively tightened the cap without determining whether that was in the public interest. Because the national cap and the UHF discount are inextricably linked, any review of one component of the rule must include a review of the other. Under the proposal that I shared with my colleagues today, we would go about determining the future of the national cap, including the UHF discount, the right way.

Sens Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) released their bipartisan proposal to renew a powerful surveillance authority for collecting foreign intelligence on US soil, but with a new brake on the government’s ability to access the data. The bill would require government agencies to obtain a warrant before reviewing communications to or from Americans harvested by the National Security Agency under the surveillance authority known informally as Section 702. The measure stands little chance of passage.

If the Justice Department sues to block AT&T's planned acquisition of Time Warner, the challenge will likely raise novel legal issues, making one of the most ambitious antitrust cases in decades hard to handicap. In the typical merger case, the government challenges a proposed combination of two companies that directly compete.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has launched an investigation into whether Google has mishandled private customer data and manipulated its search results to favor its own products and stifle competitors.

Through its deliberations, the Streamlining Federal Siting Working Group Working Group found that the fundamental concerns regarding the streamlining of federal siting are 1) predictability and complexity of the application process and accompanying requirements and 2) the application review time. The Working Group offers ten recommentations:

1. Challenge: Varying and unpredictable fees and rates.

Solution: Standardize and publish fee schedules and utilize revenue in a way that promotes expediting federal siting processes.