February 2009

Journalists Create PAC to Recruit Liberal Candidates

A group of online journalists say they are teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn.org to form a political action committee that will seek to push the Democratic Party further to the left. Soliciting donations from their readers, the bloggers say they are planning to recruit candidates to challenge the more centrist Democrats now in Congress, known as "blue dogs." The formation of the group is another step in the evolution of the blogosphere, which has proven effective at motivating party activists to give money and time to political campaigns, especially in local races. The new organization is in many ways the liberal equivalent of the Club for Growth, a conservative group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it deems insufficiently dedicated to tax cuts and small government. Organizers of the new group, called Accountability Now, bristle at the comparison, saying they will not provide an issues-based litmus test for candidates. They say they will mainly support primary challenges when there is clear evidence that a lawmaker is out of step with his constituents.

South Koreans want their sub-TV

Reeling from declining ad revenue and mounting debt from providing the expensive service at no additional cost to subscribers, South Korean cellular operators may soon cancel subway TV coverage that has yet to turn a profit. Losing underground TV reception may not seem like much to consumers in the U.S., where many are still struggling with cellular dead zones and where a switch to full above-ground digital TV service may leave millions staring at useless analog sets. But for many South Koreans, subway TV has become a familiar part of their daily routines. Phone companies in this digitally crazed nation in 2005 were the first to launch mobile TV that could be tuned in on phones just about anywhere -- even in the subway tunnels deep beneath Seoul and other cities. Today, nearly 10 million cellular users are watching soap operas, sports and sitcoms on a special frequency dedicated to portable viewing -- enjoying it all on larger digital-quality screens and high-tech handsets to improve reception.

Expanding broadband to bail out economies

As policy makers the world over haggle over how to revive ailing economies, one strategy has found widespread support everywhere from Washington and Berlin to Sydney and Seoul: Investing in high-speed Internet access. In recent weeks, the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Finland have all included measures to expand broadband access and to bolster connection speeds in their planned economic stimulus packages. Australia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Japan and South Korea have announced separate broadband plans, according to a compilation by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While some of the plans have been in the works for months or years, analysts say it is no coincidence that so many of them are being rushed out now: The perceived popularity of building broadband networks provides political cover for bank bailouts. And, as economies shrink, attracting foreign investment is ever more important. "The crisis is making countries push forward with their digital agendas much more aggressively," said Charlie Davies, a senior analyst at Ovum, a telecommunications consultancy. "There's this competition internationally to want to be there at the top and say, 'We're the most digitally advanced country, a great place to do business and all that."'

Levin Says Broadband Grant Program Will Be 'Balancing Act'

Blair Levin, an Obama transition team tech advisor who worked on the broadband grant portion of the stimulus package, says that handing out the billions in grant money will be balancing act between "stimulating jobs and at the same time build useful infrastructure." But, he said he didn't think anybody knew yet just how it would be administered. Levin said that those proposals should definitely be looked at in terms of job creation, "but if one proposal costs $100 million and creates 10,000 jobs, but only connects three people, and the other one costs $200 million, a few less jobs, but connects a million people, you probably want the latter." But he said he didn't think there would be "an algorithm" that will tell you ahead of time as to which proposals will be adopted. He said that the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, which is administering most of the grant money (the USDA gets a little over a third) will need to a "transparent and flexible process" for making those judgment calls, which he conceded was not an easy task. Levin did give some general parameters: Faster speeds are better than slower speeds, and more private money was better than less, but said there is "no single metric."

Blackburn believes broadband deployment to rural and other underserved areas should be left to the market

Even though she has constituents in her congressional district who want broadband but can't get it, Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) suggested Thursday that government should have little to no role in stimulating broadband deployment. If more people in rural areas demand broadband, a provider will bring it to them, Rep Blackburn said. "That is where I think we do let the market handle the job," she said. "I fully believe that the market can work this out." She criticized the broadband money in the stimulus law, saying it came with too many strings attached. More than half of the money includes net-neutrality regulations prohibiting companies receiving broadband grants from discriminating against some Internet traffic and from refusing to connect with other providers. New Network Neutrality regulations, supported by President Barack Obama, could slow deployment and inhibit broadband competition in the long run, she said. She called the policy "short-sighted."

US Internet firms defend tighter Web management

US Internet service providers are making greater efforts to manage traffic on their networks as they seek ways to avoid congestion caused by bandwidth-hogging services like video. Network management of Internet traffic has become a flash point between companies and public interest groups which worry that companies will become the arbiter of what is important or discriminate against certain applications or content. Internet providers say they must engage in reasonable network management due to increasing bandwidth of applications used by consumers and that they are not policing content. "In the future we are going to get into applications like real time video that are going to require some sort of management," Bob Quinn, senior vice president for regulatory policy at AT&T, told a panel at an event held by the Free State Foundation, a Washington think tank opposed to heavy regulation. "Management is going to absolutely be required."

Facebook lets users comment on new terms of service

Facebook is asking its members to help shape its governance policies after drawing their ire for a policy change that many perceived as being overbearing and potentially compromising privacy. From now on, the social networking site will be guided by a set of principles that reflect its dedication to transparency and openness in communication. Two draft documents are being put to test under what Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called a "new model of governance." The "Facebook Principles" lay out the startup company's philosophy on privacy and control of information, while the "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities" are operating guidelines based on its big-picture stance. Any Facebook member can access these proposals on the site and opine on them over the next few days. The networking site will incorporate people's reviews when firming up governance policies. Future policy changes will follow the same democratic model.

Obama proposes to boost public airwaves fees

The Obama administration's proposed 2010 budget seeks to significantly boost the user fees the US government charges holders of public airwaves held by many telephone and wireless companies. Yearly fees for spectrum licenses are proposed to rise to $200 million in 2010, from $50 million in 2009. After that, the fees eventually increase to $550 million per user per year, totalling $4.8 billion over the next decade. The administration also wants Congress to give the FCC the green light to authorize the auction of domestic satellite spectrum, hoping to generate $200 million from such bidding by 2019.

Interestingly, Obama's spectrum fee plan will play out in political and economic circumstances that are strikingly similar to those of the early 1990s, when the Federal Communications Commission was first given authority to utilize auctions to award wireless licenses. Democrats — which controlled Congress in the early 1990s when former President Clinton was attempting to erase a less oppressive budget deficit — authorized spectrum auctions for the first time. Democrats had consistently opposed spectrum auctions proposed by Republican administrations. It was only when Clinton proposed spectrum auctions in his first budget that Democrats had a change of heart over a revenue-raising licensing mechanism they had regarded as radical in prior years.

Obama Budget Stresses Transparency

President Barack Obama's FY2010 budget includes a few basic lines on e-government, transparency and public participation as part of the policy-making process: 1) Maintain Recovery.gov, a site that allows individuals to see where recovery funds are going, for what purpose, and to what result, 2) Give the public five days to review all non-emergency bills before they are signed, 3) Disclose each earmark and the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, and make this information available on a searchable public Web site, and 4) Clean up military contracting by establishing the reporting requirements, accounting, and accountability.

Obama budget eyes boost to cybersecurity funds

The budget proposed by President Barack Obama includes funding aimed at improving the security of private and public computer networks. "The threat to federal information technology networks is real, serious and growing," said an outline of the budget proposal for fiscal 2010 that begins October 1 and released by the Obama administration on Thursday. The document called for $355 million in funding for the Department of Homeland Security to make private and public sector cyber infrastructure more resilient and secure. The money would help support the operations of the National Cyber Security Division, as well as initiatives under the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, according to the document. In addition, the administration said it would put "substantial" funding for cybersecurity efforts into the national intelligence program, but gave no details since that funding is kept secret.

Benton

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