May 2011

“The finest communications system in the world relies on both free, over-the-air broadcast television and high speed broadband services,” wrote Rep Joseph Pitts (R-PA) in a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.

“Accordingly, I write today to state my view that spectrum policies will best serve the public if they allow for a continued and robust local broadcast television service along with broadband services.” “Americans should not lose reliable access to quality broadcast programming as a result of spectrum policies that could reduce viewer reception of local stations,” wrote rep Pitts. “Similarly, they should not lose potential services because of new spectrum taxes on local stations. Such measures would impede the public’s access not only to entertainment and local news programming, but also to vital emergency information. Television viewers should also be allowed to continue to benefit from broadcast video innovation, including mobile DTV.” He asked that all FCC policy keep the all are considered when spectrum policy is being made including “…rural and urban, young and old, wealthy and poor.”

[Commentary] The problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is that it myopically views privacy as a form of secrecy. In contrast, understanding privacy as a plurality of related issues demonstrates that the disclosure of bad things is just one among many difficulties caused by government security measures. Government information-gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered.

One such harm, for example, which I call aggregation, emerges from the fusion of small bits of seemingly innocuous data. When combined, the information becomes much more telling. By joining pieces of information we might not take pains to guard, the government can glean information about us that we might indeed wish to conceal. For example, suppose you bought a book about cancer. This purchase isn't very revealing on its own, for it indicates just an interest in the disease. Suppose you bought a wig. The purchase of a wig, by itself, could be for a number of reasons. But combine those two pieces of information, and now the inference can be made that you have cancer and are undergoing chemotherapy. That might be a fact you wouldn't mind sharing, but you'd certainly want to have the choice.

Another potential problem with the government's harvest of personal data is one I call exclusion. Exclusion occurs when people are prevented from having knowledge about how information about them is being used, and when they are barred from accessing and correcting errors in that data. Many government national-security measures involve maintaining a huge database of information that individuals cannot access. Indeed, because they involve national security, the very existence of these programs is often kept secret. This kind of information processing, which blocks subjects' knowledge and involvement, is a kind of due-process problem. It is a structural problem, involving the way people are treated by government institutions and creating a power imbalance between people and the government. To what extent should government officials have such a significant power over citizens? This issue isn't about what information people want to hide but about the power and the structure of government.

A related problem involves secondary use. Secondary use is the exploitation of data obtained for one purpose for an unrelated purpose without the subject's consent. How long will personal data be stored? How will the information be used? What could it be used for in the future? The potential uses of any piece of personal information are vast. Without limits on or accountability for how that information is used, it is hard for people to assess the dangers of the data's being in the government's control.

Leap Wireless said that it opposes AT&T’s $39 billion bid for T-Mobile, saying the merger would harm consumers because it would reduce competition and put too much power into the hands of just two wireless carriers.

Specifically, the company points out that about 90 percent of pre-tax earnings for the wireless industry would go to AT&T and Verizon Wireless. That would leave smaller regional carriers such as Leap with a harder time competing against those giants in buying more spectrum for future broadband networks. It would also give them a harder shot at attracting the best partnerships with companies such as Apple for the iPhone. The remarks come before a second congressional hearing on the merger.

Comcast Corp. was masterful when it pushed its acquisition of NBCUniversal through regulators and lawmakers. The cable giant successfully argued that a combination of the nation’s largest cable and broadband provider with a content behemoth whose holdings include a movie studio, a broadcast network and numerous cable channels was no real threat to competition to other programmers and distributors despite lots of opposition from consumer advocacy groups, the creative community and even a few members of Congress. While there were lots of conditions put on Comcast by the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department in return for approval, most were ones that Comcast itself advocated. Like the kid who tells his parent how he should be disciplined, Comcast came to Washington with a list of what it would agree to do if the deal was approved and the FCC and Congress basically said that sounded good to them and signed off on the merger.

That’s why Comcast’s recent stumble in the hiring of FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker as a lobbyist is so surprising. Did Comcast not think there would be any blowback to hiring a regulator who just four months earlier voted to approve its purchase of control of NBCUniversal? Ideally, there is a little bit of a waiting period before one goes from lawmaker to lobbyist. By jumping to Comcast so soon after voting to approve its merger with NBCUniversal, Baker raised eyebrows and gave those already wary about the intersection of government and business more to be cynical about.