BENTON’S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2016
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Senate Hearing Aims Spotlight on FCC Process
Republican Reps on the offensive over timing of FCC fine
Digital tools enable citizen budgeting – Brookings op-ed [links to Benton summary]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Public advocate: FBI’s use of PRISM surveillance data is unconstitutional
Sources: Data from San Bernardino phone has helped in probe
EFF sues to uncover government demands to decrypt communications [links to Benton summary]
FBI warned agents not to share tech secrets with prosecutors [links to USAToday]
Internet Infrastructure Coalition and Others Write Letter to Sens Feinstein and Burr Re: Encryption Legislation – press release [links to Benton summary]
The FBI Wants Backdoors Because Hacking Is Hard [links to Benton summary]
App Store Censorship and FBI Hacking Proposed at Congressional Crypto Hearing [links to Benton summary]
Privacy Is The New Money, Thanks To Big Data – Forbes analysis [links to Benton summary]
Op-Ed: Apple’s Penchant for Consumer Security [links to Revere Digital]
FCC to take look at mobile network’s security
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Broadband Economic Impact Report: Rural Broadband Supports 70K Jobs, $100B in E-Commerce
Evolving Technologies Change the Nature of Internet Use – NTIA blog [links to Benton summary]
Fiber-to-the-Home Market Penetration on the Rise, Overtakes Cable Broadband Globally [links to Benton summary]
TELEVISION
Former FCC Chief Economist Pans Set-Top Proposal [links to Benton summary]
Center for Digital Democracy: FCC Must Protect Box Data, Whoever Has It [links to Benton summary]
Comcast to allow some TV customers to ditch set-top box [links to Benton summary]
George Ford op-ed: The Obama Administration is misleading consumers on set-top box prices[links to Hill, The]
FCC Chairman Wheeler tips hand at siding with NAB on retransmission reform [links to Fierce]
NAB 2016: Wheeler: ATSC Petition Out for Comment By End of April [links to Benton summary]
Diversity Could Take A Hit Following Auction [links to Benton summary]
Google President Touts Totally Changed TV At NAB [links to TVNewsCheck]
Op-Ed: Why the TV Industry Fears a Spread of Millennials’ Viewing Habits (Guest Blog) [links to Wrap, The]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Broadcast Networks Ignored Democracy Awakening, Democracy Spring Protests
In an Age of Terror, an Early Start on the Presidential Transition [links to Benton summary]
Tech-company workers are among Bernie Sanders’s biggest fans [links to Washington Post]
Sen Sanders spent $9 per vote in New York. Trump? About 13 cents. [links to Benton summary]
Here’s how the media should portray Donald Trump’s sudden civility [links to Washington Post]
$1 billion spent in 2016 presidential race — and other numbers to know [links to Center for Public Integrity]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Chairman Wheeler’s Response to Members of Congress Regarding Mobile Broadband Coverage
Movement Grows to Bar Cell Phone Location Tracking [links to Morning Consult]
Older cell towers may buckle under weight of new 600 MHz equipment [links to Fierce]
CONTENT
Facebook Messenger now lets you make group calls with up to 50 people [links to Verge, The]
Facebook considers letting users add a tip jar to make money from posts [links to Verge, The]
comScore to Deliver Data From Facebook [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
How Information Graphics Reveal Your Brain’s Blind Spots [links to Pro Publica]
Who’s going to the movies in America and around the world [links to Washington Post]
Op-Ed: Piracy is the biggest threat facing the film industry as we know it — but not in the way you think [links to Vox]
TELECOM
Verizon Says Facilities Sabotaged [links to Benton summary]
No Phones for You! Chic Businesses Are Abandoning Landlines [links to New York Times]
OWNERSHIP
Chairman Wheeler’s Response to Members of Congress Re: Charter-TWC Merger – [links to Benton summary]
ADVERTISING
Premium Video Drives Engagement With Ads [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
LABOR
Data shows tech makes up 20 of the 25 highest-paying companies in US [links to Wall Street Journal]
Opinion: It’s long past time for radio to start paying artists what they deserve [links to Washington Post]
DIVERSITY
Diversity Could Take A Hit Following Auction [links to Benton summary]
POLICYMAKERS
Sens seek to avoid confirmation fight for President Obama’s library nominee [links to Benton summary]
State Department Welcomes ‘Digital Economy Officers’ to US Embassies – op-ed [links to Benton summary]
COMPANY NEWS
How Much Will Siri Lawsuit Cost Apple? [links to Benton summary]
Mobile and Cloud Shifts Slam Tech’s Old Guard [links to Wall Street Journal]
Amazon Wins $30 Million Contract to Sell E-Books to New York City Schools [links to Wall Street Journal]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Is press freedom declining globally? Reporters Without Borders says yes. [links to Christian Science Monitor]
Europe v Google: how Android became a battleground
Nils Pratley: There’s nothing anti-American about the EU investigating Google [links to Guardian, The]
Australia puts $230m towards fighting cybercrime, including 50 extra police [links to Guardian, The]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
SENATE HEARING AIMS SPOTLIGHT ON FCC PROCESS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee took aim April 20 at the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality Open Internet order and ex parte contacts in a hearing on "The Administrative State: An Examination of Federal Rulemaking." Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) called it an incredibly important hearing and said that while some regulation was needed, there was a point of "overregulation." The hearing dealt with the broader issue of regulating through administrative action—which is the charge Republicans have leveled at the Obama Administration for pushing Title II reclassification of Internet service providers and more recently calling for new set-top box rules. But it used the FCC as an example of the federal regulatory overreach the committee’s Republican leadership asserts. Four of the five witnesses were of like mind that there was currently federal regulatory overreach, with the scope of agency regulations far broader than Congress had intended. Witness Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, said he did not want to weigh in on merits of net neutrality, but what he saw as an opaque process. He said that he agreed with many things President Obama was trying to do but not the way he was doing it. Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation and former associate general counsel at the FCC, said the rulemaking process is faulty and has given rise to the administrative state. He focused on the FCC’s net neutrality rulemaking as a solution in search of a problem.
benton.org/headlines/senate-hearing-aims-spotlight-fcc-process | Broadcasting&Cable | Chairman Johnson’s Opening Statement
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REPUBLICAN REPS ON THE OFFENSIVE OVER TIMING OF FCC FINE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: David McCabe]
Republican Reps are on the offensive over the timing of the announcement of a planned $51 million fine the Federal Communications Commission issued earlier in April. They question why the fine, which the agency plans to issue against a wireless provider for alleged violations committed as part of the Lifeline program of phone service subsidies for the poor, came shortly after a vote to expand the program to cover Internet service. “The timeline of the FCC’s actions and inaction suggest the possibility that something was going on down there at the FCC,” said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) at an April 19 markup. “That they didn’t want this released but, interestingly enough, it was released the day after the commissioners had to vote on this expansion of the program." Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai appeared on Fox Business Network April 20 to raise his own alarms about the way the fine was handled. “We were also told we learned about this fraud back in October of 2014, that that investigation had wrapped up pretty much in the middle of 2015, but that we were not going to be able to say anything about it until April 1 at the very earliest, conveniently one day after we voted on that party line vote to expand to program,” he said. “That was wrong." Commissioner Pai has also said that the company, Total Call Mobile, avoided paying higher fines because the FCC didn’t issue its Notice of Apparent Liability before the statute of limitations on some of the alleged violations expired. He said in his statement that he is “disappointed that we do not—and to some extent cannot—sanction Total Call Mobile for all of its wrongful conduct.”
benton.org/headlines/republican-reps-offensive-over-timing-fcc-fine | Hill, The
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
PUBLIC ADVOCATE: FBI’S USE OF PRISM SURVEILLANCE DATA IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
A public advocate appointed by the nation’s secretive surveillance court in 2015 argued that a little-known provision of the PRISM program, which enables the FBI to query foreign intelligence information for evidence of domestic crime, violated the Constitution. But the court disagreed with her. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court asked Amy Jeffress, the advocate, in August to assess the provision, according to a court opinion filed in November but released by the intelligence community only on April 19. The court, which weighs government applications for surveillance, traditionally hears arguments only from the government in closed sessions. Its opinions generally are classified. Jeffress, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official now in private practice, was the first public advocate or “amicus curiae” appointed under the USA Freedom Act, a law enacted in June to impose new limits and greater transparency on government surveillance. Jeffress raised concerns about the way the program’s rules allowed the FBI to query that data using email addresses and other “selectors” of US people for “purposes of any criminal investigation” — that is, for purposes not related to foreign intelligence. “There is no requirement that the matter be a serious one, nor that it have any relation to national security,” she said in a brief, according to the opinion by Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. “These practices do not comply with…the Fourth Amendment,” she wrote, according to Judge Hogan’s redacted opinion. They go “far beyond the purpose” for which the data is gathered, she said.
benton.org/headlines/public-advocate-fbis-use-prism-surveillance-data-unconstitutional |Washington Post
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SOURCES: DATA FROM SAN BERNARDINO PHONE HAS HELPED IN PROBE
[SOURCE: CNN, AUTHOR: Evan Perez, Pamela Brown, Shimon Prokupecz]
Hacking the San Bernardino (CA) terrorist’s iPhone has produced data the FBI didn’t have before and has helped the investigators answer some remaining questions in the ongoing probe, US law enforcement officials say. Apple and the FBI are squaring off again April 19 in testimony at a House hearing on encryption, with the recent battle over unlocking a terrorist’s phone looming in the background. Investigators are now more confident that terrorist Syed Farook didn’t make contact with another plotter during an 18-minute gap that the FBI said was missing from their time line of the attackers’ whereabouts after the mass shooting, the officials said. The phone has helped investigators address lingering concern that the two may have help, perhaps from friends and family, the officials said. The phone didn’t contain evidence of contacts with other ISIS supporters or the use of encrypted communications during the period the FBI was concerned about. The FBI views that information as valuable to the probe, possibilities it couldn’t discount without getting into the phone, the officials said. Private sector hackers hired by the FBI helped investigators gain access to the phone, which was at the center of a legal dispute between the government and Apple.
benton.org/headlines/sources-data-san-bernardino-phone-has-helped-probe | CNN
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MOBILE SECURITY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: David McCabe]
The Federal Communications Commission will examine a mobile network with a reported security flaw that is said to allow hackers to listen to customers’ phone calls. Admiral David Simpson, the chief of the FCC’s public safety bureau, said that the agency’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council would be asked to examine the challenges posed by a flay in the network, called SS7. The network helps connect calls, among other functions.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-take-look-mobile-networks-security | Hill, The
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
BROADBAND ECONOMIC IMPACT REPORT
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
Investment in rural broadband boosts the economy – not just locally, but beyond – according to a new broadband economic impact report from The Hudson Institute sponsored by the Foundation for Rural Service. Rural broadband service providers contributed $24.2 billion to the economies of the states in which they operate in 2015, report author Hanns Kuttner said. And two thirds of this impact was felt in urban, rather than rural areas, according to the report titled “The Economic Imp
