June 2013

[Commentary] Even as he condemned Edward Snowden's leaks about two government surveillance programs, President Obama said he welcomed the debate about whether post-9/11 efforts to detect terrorist plots have undermined Americans' privacy. That debate has raged since the Guardian and the Washington Post published material provided by Snowden, and two things are clear:

• The American public and many members of Congress were unaware of the scope of the government's electronic surveillance programs, which include a continuous and indiscriminate collection of the phone records of virtually every American, and extensive monitoring of foreigners' emails and social media accounts.
• Congress, the courts and the executive branch need to recalibrate the balance between liberty and security. The broad outlines of that new terrorism surveillance policy should be a matter of public record.

Partisan divides and procedural delays in the Senate could leave the Federal Communications Commission stranded with only three members and delay the confirmation of its new chairman for months — a threat to the agency’s work on spectrum policy and other high-profile initiatives.

President Barack Obama’s pick to lead the agency, Tom Wheeler, appears to enjoy early, broad support, but his political fate rests in the hands of a still-unnamed Republican nominee for the FCC’s final, open slot. Senate Republicans, by custom, can recommend a candidate to the White House for the job — yet they’ve been mum about it for weeks. A number of names have surfaced as top contenders, but industry sources believe the latest front-runner is Mike O’Rielly, a top telecom staffer for Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Even once President Obama makes a final decision, however, that person won’t immediately see a Senate hearing. And Republicans maintain that Wheeler, in the meantime, can’t advance without a GOP commissioner in tow. That may deprive the FCC of a permanent leader for an extended period as it prepares to tackle a litany of big-ticket policy items The FCC isn’t barred from conducting business while down to three members, and nothing restricts Mignon Clyburn as acting chairwoman. But there’s certainly fear among some Senate Democrats that a commission without a confirmed leader may experience new delays on a number of its high-profile initiatives.

Disabled people are increasingly able to find and keep jobs, as well as engage more broadly in their communities, because of new technologies specifically aimed at helping them better communicate or complete tasks.

The past few years have seen a number of technological breakthroughs targeting disabled consumers. The unemployment rate last year was 13.4 percent for the 28 million Americans who are deaf, blind or have serious physical, mental or emotional conditions, compared with a 7.9 percent rate for people without disabilities. But a Labor Department survey released earlier this month showed that the number of employed disabled adults jumped close to 4 percent over the past two years, more than the 3 percent gains among nondisabled people. Meanwhile, unemployment rates among the disabled dropped 1.6 points in a year, a bigger decrease than what was seen among able-bodied workers.

Another factor in the increasing job rates is that baby boomers are retiring later, and today half of the people working over age 65 have a disability, said John D. Kemp, president of the disability advocate nonprofit The Viscardi Center.

Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, this summer Fire Island (NY) will become one of the first places in the United States to turn off the pesky, old public switched telephone network.

Early this month, residents got a letter from Verizon, which is the sole landline provider on the island, letting them know it would be replacing the storm-ravaged, copper-based network on the western part of the island with a wireless service called Voice Link. In places where the network was not damaged, customers could continue receiving wireline service as long as the copper worked. If the copper stopped working, however, it would not be repaired. Verizon says it is making the best of a disastrous situation. Long-time consumer advocates warn that the downgrading of communications on Fire Island and other beach communities is a harbinger of what could be in store for consumers as carriers like Verizon and AT&T abandon traditional copper networks and lobby for relief from the regulations that governed them. Advocates caution that quality of service standards and requirements to provide phone service to everyone in a particular territory are falling by the wayside.