November 2012

Tech less generous to Hill newbies than telecoms

Google, Facebook and Microsoft regularly take business risks to boost their bottom lines. But those companies were much less interested in taking political risks this election season and supporting congressional newcomers.

The three tech firms, combined, gave to only a few members of the incoming House and Senate freshman classes, even as telecom behemoths like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast together showered more than half of all newly elected lawmakers with big bucks in the 2012 cycle, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign-finance data. The decision to avoid new congressional candidates is understandable for an industry that’s relatively new to the Washington influence game: Google only this year hit the gas on its election giving, and Facebook’s political action committee is not very old. Still, those three tech industry leaders are lagging behind other companies and sectors that long have used campaign dollars to develop policy champions on Capitol Hill.

UK press awaits findings of Leveson report

The UK’s self-regulated press waited on Nov 29 to discover what threats of further restrictions might be placed upon it following the behavior of some news organizations.

The 2,000-page report of a year-long judge-led inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press was due to be published at 1330 GMT, crystallizing 16 months of evidence-gathering from more than 400 witnesses and sparked by phone hacking, the biggest scandal to hit the media since the second world war. Lord Justice Leveson is expected to deal not only with recommendations for future regulation of the press, but also to opine on how the earlier behavior of powerful titles, and their editors and proprietors, affected the conduct of politicians and the UK’s major police forces.
The report is likely to focus attention again on the illegal methods used by some newspapers in the decade leading up to the phone hacking scandal.

Vodafone chief fears monopolies revival

Vodafone has warned that national telecoms groups are looking to re-establish their traditional monopolies across Europe, just two decades after regulators opened markets across the region to competition.

Vittorio Colao, chief executive, will go to Brussels this week for a meeting with Europe’s top digital commissioner. He will warn that large telecoms groups could restrict fair access to the crucial next generation of high-speed fiber networks being rolled out across Europe. In a move likely to split the telecoms industry, he will tell Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission, that Vodafone would take legal action against any so-called “remonopolization” of the sector.

House GOP approves committee chairmen

House Republicans approved their slate of committee chairmen. GOP members backed the chair selection of 19 males at a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill. According to lawmakers in the room, very little was said concerning the lack of females chosen by a select group of House Republicans to preside over the powerful panels in the next Congress.

The full slate of House committee chairmen for the 113th Congress is as follows:

Agriculture – Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK)
Appropriations – Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY)
Armed Services – Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA)
Budget – Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Education and the Workforce – Rep. John Kline (R-MN)
Energy and Commerce – Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)
Financial Services – Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Foreign Affairs – Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA)
Homeland Security – Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX)
Intelligence – Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI)
Judiciary – Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
Natural Resources – Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)
Oversight and Government Reform – Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)
Rules – Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
Science, Space, and Technology – Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Small Business – Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO)
Transportation and Infrastructure – Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA)
Veterans’ Affairs – Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL)
Ways and Means – Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI)

Chairman Upton Announces Subcommittee Chairs and Vice Chairs for the 113th Congress

After once again being selected by his colleagues to serve as Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI) announced the committee leadership he intends to appoint for the 113th Congress and commented on key priorities for the future.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) will succeed Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) leading the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee and Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) will take the helm of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee from outgoing Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL). Chairman Upton also announced that Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) will serve as the full committee Vice Chair, a position previously held by Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC).

The committee's leadership team is expected to be rounded out by returning members including Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Environment and the Economy Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-IL), Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA), Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), and Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton (R-TX). Upton also intends to name five new subcommittee Vice Chairs, including tapping Rep. Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), for the key slot on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, in addition to his current role as Vice Chair of the Health Subcommittee. Burgess is a physician with extensive oversight experience who will play a significant role in the continued oversight of the Affordable Care Act.

Full Committee

Chair: Fred Upton (R-MI)
Vice Chair: Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Chairman Emeritus: Joe Barton (R-TX)

Communications and Technology

Chair: Greg Walden (R-OR)
Vice Chair: Bob Latta (R-OH)

Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade

Chair: Lee Terry (R-NE)
Vice Chair: Leonard Lance (R-NJ)

Oversight and Investigations

Chair: Tim Murphy (R-PA)
Vice Chair: Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX)

Lamar Smith, Global Warming Skeptic, Set To Chair House Science Committee

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a skeptic of man-made global warming, is set to take over the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the 113th Congress.

Rep Smith, like many of his Republican colleagues, has expressed doubt that global warming is caused by human behavior. In 2009, he criticized the media for not airing enough "dissenting opinions" about climate change. "The [ABC, NBC and CBS television] networks have shown a steady pattern of bias on climate change," Smith said in a statement at the time. "During a six-month period, four out of five network news reports failed to acknowledge any dissenting opinions about global warming, according to a Business and Media Institute study. The networks should tell Americans the truth, rather than hide the facts." He also referred to environmentalists and others who warn about the seriousness of the issue as "global warming alarmists." Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones magazine notes that Smith's congressional website acknowledges that the climate is changing, but does not admit that human activity is a major factor.

As chairman of the House science panel, Smith will be replacing Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), who is also a skeptic. In 2011, Hall accused climate scientists of conspiring to concoct evidence of a warming planet.

Free Press Threatens Suit If FCC Proceeds With Ownership Vote

Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, said that his group will sue the Federal Communications Commission once again if the commissioners vote to approve a media ownership rule order without completing court-ordered diversity studies.

"If they don't follow the court instructions and do the studies they were supposed to do before moving forward, and if they move forward without public input, then I believe we will have no choice but to take them to court again.” Free Press was among those suing the Kevin Martin-led FCC when it attempted similar changes in 2007. Aaron’s comments came in a press conference held by a number of groups opposed to a draft order circulated by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski that would loosen the newspaper/TV cross-ownership rules, lift limits on newspaper/radio cross-ownership and allow radio/TV cross-ownership, while counting some joint sales agreements toward local ownership caps that are being left in place. Those groups did not go as far as to commit to a suit as well, but said they had "grave" concerns.

On the conference call with reporters, Wade Henderson, president and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, led some harsh criticisms of the commission, suggesting that it was allowing conglomerates to gobble up outlets and homogenize programming. He argued the FCC proposal would continue to keep licenses out of the hands of diverse owners.

Problems With a Reporter’s Facebook Posts, and a Possible Solution

[Commentary] Start with a reporter who likes to be responsive to readers, is spontaneous and impressionistic in her personal writing style, and not especially attuned to how casual comments may be received in a highly politicized setting. Put that reporter in one of the most scrutinized and sensitive jobs in journalism – the Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times. Now add Facebook and Twitter, which allow reporters unfiltered, unedited publishing channels. Words go from nascent, half-formed thoughts to permanent pronouncements to the world at the touch of a key. The result is very likely to be problematic. And for that bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, who moved to Israel from New York earlier this year, and her editors at The Times, it has been.

A Primer on Facebook Privacy Changes: In Which Your Vote Probably Won’t Change Anything

Facebook proposes three big things: Some vaguely worded unknown changes to the Messages product, tweaks to how the site presents notifications and, most visibly, that the site can amend the current process of making privacy policy changes.

The last point is the one getting the attention. Currently, any proposed privacy changes are put out to the users at large on Facebook’s “site governance” page. From there, a post needs to surpass a certain number of user comments before being put to a vote on whether changes will be made. But here’s where the process breaks down. As the bylaw stands, Facebook requires 30 percent of its user base to vote to block any proposed site changes. A little perspective here: That’s 300 million people, or just under the total population of the United States. Getting that many people to do anything just doesn’t happen. It’s hard enough to get a fraction of that number to vote in a presidential election, much less a lightly publicized Facebook vote.

Broadcasters look to participate in FCC hearings on storm damage

The National Association of Broadcasters is hoping to use a series of hearings on communications outages to tout the importance of local television and radio during emergencies. Gordon Smith, president of NAB, wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Wednesday to tell him that broadcasting executives are "eager to participate" in the FCC's planned field hearings.

Benton

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