Government & Communications

Does It Matter if Millions of People Send Comments to the FCC?

[Commentary] The 2015 Open Internet Order received 3.7 million comments total, and the current rulemaking has received almost 5 million to date. Counting is easy. Knowing what that count means is not...

Despite the rhetoric, few in DC have much incentive to want the issue to go away. Millions of comments to the Federal Communications Commission also represent millions of fundraising opportunities. Groups arguing all sides of the issue financially benefit from the ongoing argument. Congress, meanwhile, probably will not weigh in before the 2018 election regardless of what the Federal Communications Commission does because that would mean giving up a campaign issue likely to be lucrative to members on both sides of the aisle. Thus, in the end, I suspect that millions of comments mostly mean that even after the current rulemaking is resolved, we will be stuck with this issue at least until sometime after the 2018 election and probably longer. Setting aside politics, it still remains the case that if the issue is to take into account broader public opinion then Congress is the only institution that can resolve it and, regardless of broad interest, only legislation has a chance of leading to a stable solution. Then, we can all finally move on to something else.

[Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute]

Using Texts as Lures, Government Spyware Targets Mexican Journalists and Their Families

Mexico’s most prominent human rights lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists have been targeted by advanced spyware sold to the Mexican government on the condition that it be used only to investigate criminals and terrorists. The targets include lawyers looking into the mass disappearance of 43 students, a highly respected academic who helped write anti-corruption legislation, two of Mexico’s most influential journalists and an American representing victims of sexual abuse by the police. The spying even swept up family members, including a teenage boy.

Since 2011, at least three Mexican federal agencies have purchased about $80 million worth of spyware created by an Israeli cyberarms manufacturer. The software, known as Pegasus, infiltrates smartphones to monitor every detail of a person’s cellular life — calls, texts, e-mail, contacts and calendars. It can even use the microphone and camera on phones for surveillance, turning a target’s smartphone into a personal bug. The company that makes the software, the NSO Group, says it sells the tool exclusively to governments, with an explicit agreement that it be used only to battle terrorists or the drug cartels and criminal groups that have long kidnapped and killed Mexicans. But according to dozens of messages examined by The New York Times and independent forensic analysts, the software has been used against some of the government’s most outspoken critics and their families, in what many view as an unprecedented effort to thwart the fight against the corruption infecting every limb of Mexican society.

A Republican contractor’s database of nearly every voter was left exposed on the Internet for 12 days, researcher says

A Republican analytics firm's database of nearly every registered American voter was left vulnerable to theft on a public server for 12 days in June, according to a cybersecurity researcher who found and downloaded the trove of data. The lapse in security was striking for putting at risk the identities, voting histories and views of voters across the political spectrum, with data drawn from a wide range of sources including social media, public government records and proprietary polling by political groups.

Chris Vickery, a risk analyst at cybersecurity firm UpGuard, said he found a spreadsheet of nearly 200 million Americans on a server run by Amazon's cloud hosting business that was left without a password or any other protection. Anyone with Internet access who found the server could also have downloaded the entire file. The server contained data from Deep Root Analytics, which created a database of information from a variety of sources including the Republican National Committee, one of the company's clients. Deep Root Analytics used Amazon Web Services for server storage, and Vickery said he came up on the server's address as he scanned the Internet for unsecured databases.

Using Texts as Lures, Government Spyware Targets Mexican Activists and Their Families

Mexico’s most prominent human rights lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists have been targeted by advanced spyware sold to the Mexican government on the condition that it be used only to investigate criminals and terrorists. The targets include lawyers looking into the mass disappearance of 43 students, a highly respected academic who helped write anti-corruption legislation, two of Mexico’s most influential journalists and an American representing victims of sexual abuse by the police. The spying even swept up family members, including a teenage boy.

President Trump appears to confirm obstruction investigation, attack Rosenstein in morning tweet rant

President Donald Trump fired off tweets June 16 attacking the special counsel's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and apparently, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,” the president said on Twitter. The somewhat vague tweet seems to refer to Rosenstein, who wrote a memo outlining an argument against then-FBI director James B. Comey. The White House initially claimed that Rosenstein's memo contributed to Trump's decision to fire Comey. But later, President Trump said in an interview that he would have fired Comey “regardless” of Rosenstein's recommendation.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the special investigation is currently being led by another former FBI director. Robert Mueller reports to Rosenstein, but is authorized to pursue the investigation independently. And there is no evidence that Mueller recommended to President Trump that he fire Comey. President Trump also seemed to confirm reports in The Washington Post and other publications that Mueller's investigation has expanded to include allegations that he attempted to obstruct the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the election and his campaign associates' possible collusion with Russians.

Deputy AG Rosenstein sends out an odd warning about “anonymous” press leaks

A day after press reports of new revelations in the Russia investigation, the Justice Department warned Americans in an official statement to be skeptical of reports that rely on information from anonymous sources. The warning came seemingly out of nowhere, and did not gesture toward any report in particular. But it did come in the midst of a two-day running twitter rant from President Donald Trump about the Russia investigation.

On the night of June 15, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein released the following statement: "Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous 'officials,' particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch or agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long-standing policy to neither confirm or deny such allegations." Although Rosenstein didn’t mention any specific media reports, it appears it could be in response to a Washington Post story published June 14, alleging that the special counsel in the Russia probe is investigating President Trump for potential obstruction of justice, related to his firing of then-FBI Director James Comey. The story relies on information from five anonymous officials, without mentioning what agencies they work for or what level of seniority they have. But, given the succession and nature of recent leaks, the statement could also be in anticipation of a story that will break soon, one that the Department of Justice was notified of, and decided to preempt this way.

Wikileaks Reveals How the CIA Could Hack Your Router

Your Wi-Fi router, sitting in the corner of your home accumulating dust and unpatched security flaws, provides an attractive target for hackers. Including, according to a new WikiLeaks release, the CIA.

On June 15, WikiLeaks published a detailed a set of descriptions and documentation for the CIA's router-hacking toolkit. It's the latest drip in the months-long trickle of secret CIA files it's called Vault7, and it hints at how the agency leverages vulnerabilities in common routers sold by companies including D-Link and Linksys. The techniques range from hacking network passwords to rewriting device firmware to remotely monitor the traffic that flows across a target's network. After reading up on them, you may find yourself itching to update your own long-neglected access point.

Kellyanne Conway is pointing a finger at the media after shooting

Kellyanne Conway on June 16 seemed to accuse the media of fomenting the kind of anger that led James T. Hodgkinson to embark on a shooting rampage at a baseball practice for congressional Republicans two days earlier. Appearing on “Fox & Friends,” the counselor to the president stopped short of directly blaming the press for the attack. But Conway came close, as she identified various factors that she said could have contributed to the violence.

“Look, this is also the natural byproduct if you have images of the president being shot in rapper's videos, being assassinated in a production there in New York City, the picture of a severed head,” Conway said. This was her commentary on the media: "I did a really clever thing: I went back and looked at exactly what was being discussed on all the TV shows, except yours, at 7:09 a.m. on Wednesday, when this happened, and it's a really curious exercise. Because as Steve Scalise was fighting for his life and crawling into right field in a trail of blood, you should go back and see what people were saying about the president and Republicans at that very moment." Others, like former Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, have pointed fingers at the media, but Conway's remarks represent a first from a White House official.

Scott Pelley: ‘Violence Almost Always Begins With Words’

[Commentary] At the close of June 15’s broadcast of CBS Evening News, anchor Scott Pelley took aim at both sides of the political spectrum — and the leaders and talking heads who inhabit them — regarding overheated rhetoric that is now in the spotlight in the wake of the Congressional baseball shooting. “Too many leaders and political commentators who set an example for us to follow have led us into an abyss of violent rhetoric that has, it should be no surprise, has led us to violence,” Pelley noted. “As children, we’re taught words will never hurt me,” the anchor stated. “But when you think about it, violence almost always begins with words. In Twitter world, we’ve come to believe that our first thought, is our best thought. It’s past time for all of us — presidents, politicians, reporters, citizens, all of us — to pause, to think again.”

President Trump: 'Fake News Media hates when I use' Twitter

President Donald Trump boasted about his "very powerful" use of Twitter, saying that it allowed him to sidestep the news media and deliver his message directly to supporters. "The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media — over 100 million people! I can go around them," he tweeted. President Trump has long used Twitter to comment on the news and announce policy decisions. He has argued that the social media site allows him to skirt traditional news sources that he claims treat him unfairly.

4 steps to writing an impactful net neutrality comment (which you should do)

[Commentary] What makes for a persuasive comment that can help build a record to preserve network neutrality rules? Here are four suggestions:
1. Write about yourself and how the net neutrality rules have affected you
2. Write about what you understand you are buying when you purchase broadband Internet access
3. Write about the choices you have (or don’t) for broadband Internet access
4. Write about what role you think the Federal Communications Commission should have in overseeing the market for broadband Internet access

Don’t worry if you’ve already filed a comment that doesn’t address these issues – you can file new comments addressing these and/or other issues. Over the course of a proceeding like this, companies and organizations on both sides of the debate will file many comments, including after they visit FCC Commissioners and staff to make their cases. So don’t hesitate - we need to build the strongest possible record if the net neutrality rules, and an open Internet, are to be preserved.

[Gigi Sohn is a Fellow with Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy, the Open Society Foundations and Mozilla. She served as Counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013-December 2016.]

President Trump: Why is Clinton not investigated but I am?

President Donald Trump questioned why Hillary Clinton isn’t the subject of Russia-related investigations but he is. “Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?” President Trump tweeted. “Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, 'bleached' emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?” he added, in reference to the investigation into Clinton’s private e-mail server.

Company Lost Secret 2014 Fight Over ‘Expansion’ of NSA Surveillance

An American communications company in 2014 balked at an “expansion” of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, but was ordered to comply by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a newly declassified document shows. The previously secret fight, which played out quietly amid a public debate over surveillance that was prompted by the 2013 leaks by the intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, was described in a 37-page ruling issued in 2014 by Judge Rosemary Collyer.

The ruling was heavily redacted when it was made public this week. Its uncensored portions did not say whether the challenge was brought by a telecommunications provider like AT&T that is part of the program’s “upstream” system or by a Silicon Valley internet company like Google that is part of the program’s “Prism” system. It also did not say what the “expansion” was or what legal arguments the company had made about it.

House Science Committee Chairman Smith blames media after lawmaker shooting

In a speech on the House floor, House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) argued that the mainstream media’s critical coverage of President Donald Trump has fed what he described as “an environment of hatred and violence.” “We must speak truth to the powerful liberal media,” Rep Smith said. “The media’s constant barrage of personal attacks can incite someone to take irrational actions.” He pointed to a Facebook post from the shooter that said, “It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co." “That’s not much different from the tone of many media articles,” Smith said. “The American people deserve better than a biased media. For the sake of our country, let’s hope they will drop their abusive language.”

Rep Smith is also the chairman of the Media Fairness Caucus, an effort to “examine the causes of one-sided reporting, develop strategies to combat media bias, promote an open dialogue between members of the media and elected officials, and remind the media of their profound obligation to provide the American people with the facts.” Rep Smith delivers House floor speeches on a near-weekly basis to criticize the mainstream media.

FCC makes net neutrality commenters’ e-mail addresses public through API

If you’re one of the many people filing comments on the Federal Communications Commission plan to gut network neutrality rules, be aware that your e-mail address and any other information you submit could be made public. There’s nothing nefarious going on, but the FCC’s privacy policy could lead people to believe that e-mail addresses will be kept secret if they file comments on FCC proceedings.

The commission’s privacy policy has a section titled “Comments,” which says the following: "Prior to commenting, you will be prompted to login, either by providing your e-mail address, or by linking your comment to an existing account on a popular website such as Google, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram or Twitter. While your e-mail address will not be made public, if you login with a social media service, your picture, as well as a link to your profile will be posted alongside your comment." However, this privacy policy applies not to comments on FCC proceedings but to comments on blog posts, such as those posted by Chairman Ajit Pai. When you go to submit comments on the net neutrality plan—or any other FCC proceeding—you are told the following: “You are filing a document into an official FCC proceeding. All information submitted, including names and addresses, will be publicly available via the web.”

How Policy Could Advance Open Data in Government

Citizens could soon get access to more federal data if new legislation is passed, a General Services Administration official said. The Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary Government Data Act, or the OPEN Government Data Act, directs federal agencies to share their nonsensitive data sets in a machine-readable format, and it could prompt more to submit their information to Data.gov, the catalog of data sets maintained by GSA Program Manager Hyon Kim. The bill, recently introduced in both the House and the Senate, would codify Barack Obama's 2013 executive order mandating agencies make their data machine readable. It's "basically saying there has to be a Data.gov, and that agencies have to maintain it," Kim said.

Remarks of Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, Voices for Internet Freedom Forum

Just as we need the First Amendment to protect basic speech, we need those very same ideals, to ensure free speech and free flow of content on the internet. That First Amendment for the internet, is network neutrality, because people who control the wires and the airwaves over which we communicate, have a unique ability to shape what we see, say, and hear.

So why I am here tonight? I can sum it up in two ways. First, I want to hear your stories, take them back to the Federal Communications Commission, and make sure they are part of the conversation. For there are those who are attempting to minimize the value of the over four million comments we have received on line and by post, so give me your permission to mention your names and let them see your faces tonight. And I am here tonight, to tell you that these rules do not have a snowball’s chance in that perpetual furnace, if you fail to make your voices heard. So my ask is that you not only submit comments to the FCC, but call your Member of Congress, reach out to your US Senators, and let them know why an open internet is so important to you. Then you’ve got to talk about it with others, share why this thing we call net neutrality is important and valuable to them as well as every person in America. The only chance of keeping vital protections in place and not being trampled is to speak up and speak out. Silence and inaction, when it comes past movements and in this proceeding, are not your allies.

Words Still Matter

[Commentary] On June 12, the 9th Circuit became the latest court to block President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, his second attempt to limit travel from six majority Muslim nations. The decision was not a surprise, as the Trump administration has not had much luck in the courtroom. But its timing – just after former FBI director James Comey testified before Congress and just before Attorney General Jeff Sessions does – reveals that even in the Trump era, there are places where words still matter.

Since Trump launched his presidential bid two years ago, the power of words and facts has been in doubt. As candidate and now president, Trump has lavished Americans with promises that he immediately broke. He has spread lies and conspiracies that are breathtaking in their obvious falseness. He has hurled accusations, threats and slurs that would have been unimaginable for any presidential candidate in the last several decades. And despite – or maybe because – of it all, he won the presidency. So Americans could be forgiven for thinking we now live in a world where facts, promises and words no longer matter, where the president can say whatever he likes without consequences. Only it turns out, there are still some situations where words matter a great deal.

[She is an assistant professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs and a research associate at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.]

Anxiety of the Capitol Hill Press Mob

[Commentary] On June 12 I was speaking to a veteran Senate reporter about the increasing number of journalists flooding the halls of the Capitol. This reporter felt that the crowd size would “inevitably” lead to the end of the open press access the media has long enjoyed. This reporter was not the first that I’d heard that from. It was not the first time that I’d thought about it, either.

There’s a vague sense among many members of the Capitol Hill press corps that some sort of crackdown is coming and that the incredible access to national lawmakers that reporters enjoy could be curtailed. If senators truly are concerned about the size of reporter mobs and their safety, they could be more forthcoming with information about, say, their health care bill, perhaps with regular press conferences. Reporters wouldn’t have to be quite so creative in their methods, then.

Jeff Sessions testifies: Refuses to say whether he spoke to President Trump about Comey’s handling of Russia investigation

Attorney General Jeff Sessions refused to answer repeated questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee June 13 about his private conversations with President Donald Trump, including whether he spoke to Trump about former FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of the investigation into coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race.

In a number of testy exchanges with members of the panel, AG Sessions said he would not discuss his conversations with President Trump because of long-standing Justice Department policy that protected private conversations between cabinet secretaries and the president. “I am not able to discuss with you or confirm or deny the nature of private conversations that I may have had with the president on this subject or others,” Sessions said. Sessions opened his testimony to the panel with a fiery assertion that he never had any conversations with Russians about “any type of interference” in the 2016 presidential election. “The suggestion that I participated in any collusion … is an appalling and detestable lie,” he said.

President Trump's Innovation office in Close Touch with US Digital Service

President Donald Trump’s key advisers appear to be deeply involved in government technology teams founded under Barack Obama. When Trump dedicated a new White House team to modernizing government IT in March, it wasn’t immediately clear how the Office of American Innovation's mission differed from the US Digital Service, a troubleshooting task force for high-profile technology projects. But senior Trump advisers are regularly attending USDS meetings, signaling their interest in large-scale government technology projects, USDS Acting Administrator Matt Cutts said. Cutts joined the federal government in 2016 from Google, where he ran the Webspam team and created a safety filter for the search engine.

Democratic Sens Seek Answers About Trump Officials and Encrypted Apps

Top Democratic Sens on the Homeland Security Committee are asking inspectors general at 24 federal agencies to investigate whether Trump Administration officials are skirting federal records laws by using encrypted and vanishing messaging apps. The committee’s current and former ranking members, Sens Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Tom Carper (D-DE) also want the IGs to investigate whether top agency officials are barring staffers from responding to information requests from congressional Democrats.

That request follows a report that Trump Administration lawyers advised agencies to ignore Democratic requests. The senators collected the requests into a single, alphabetically arranged document that runs to 120 pages, beginning with the Agriculture Department IG and ending with Veterans Affairs.

Senate Republicans crack down on press access

Senate Republicans shocked the Capitol with an apparent crackdown on media access that immediately drew criticism from reporters and lawmakers.

Reporters were told they would no longer be allowed to film or record audio of interviews in the Senate side hallways of the Capitol without special permission. And would need permission from senators, the Senate Rules Committee, the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms or the Senate Radio and TV Gallery, depending on location, before conducting an on-camera interview with a senator anywhere in the Capitol or in the Senate office buildings, according to a Senate official familiar with the matter. The new restrictions would break years of precedent, which previously set that “videotaping and audio recording are permitted in the public areas of the House and Senate office buildings,” according to the Radio and TV Gallery website.

A Senate Democratic aide said the decision to substantially curtail the access of television reporters was made unilaterally by Senate Rules Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Chairman Shelby said "no additional restrictions have been put in place by the Rules Committee," adding that the committee "has been working with the various galleries to ensure compliance with existing rules."

US congressional hearings have been turned from a vital part of democracy into a partisan weapon

Once upon a time, public congressional hearings were a means of helping Americans better understand the workings of their government. But the Trump administration and its alt-right allies, aided by the power of the internet, is distorting their role, turning them into fodder for misinformation instead.

The Trump administration and some of the right-wing media are creating a “Putinesque alternate reality,” said John Schindler, a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst, said after former FBI Director James Comey testified. Their commentary didn’t “look like they saw the same Comey testimony that I did,” he said. Instead, their point of view so far has seemed to be: “Nothing happened to cause the president’s arrest today so we’re winning, we’re vindicated, and it’s a Democratic plot.”

This polarization goes much deeper than just the issue of Russian interference.