June 2013

Some Obama top political appointees using secret US government e-mail accounts

Some of President Barack Obama’s political appointees, including the secretary for Health and Human Services, are using secret government e-mail accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages.

The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees’ email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses. The AP asked for the addresses following last year’s disclosures that the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency had used separate email accounts at work. The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged — but often happens anyway — due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved. The secret email accounts complicate an agency’s legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the accounts to search them. Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions.

MMTC Says SoftBank Needs to Weigh In on Diversity

The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council has asked the Federal Communications Commission to collect additional information from SoftBank on its commitment to diversity before it decides whether to let it acquire Sprint.

MMTC points out that the deal would create the largest broadband spectrum holding in US history. "It has the potential to have a significant impact on minority communities, who constitute almost 40% of the users of mobile services and are often more highly dependent on mobile communications services than other groups in this country." It also says SoftBank's public interest statement was essentially mute on the diversity issue, and suggested it was giving SoftBank a chance to quickly -- MMTC said it would take only a day or two -- to flesh out its record on diversity issues. MMTC offered up a series of questions that the FCC should want answers to.

Court Dismisses Sky Angel Suit Against C-SPAN

A District Court dismissed over-the-top video provider Sky Angel's antitrust suit against C-SPAN, the cable industry funded public affairs network, but it did so without prejudice and signaled that Sky Angel could re-file its complaint.

"We are delighted with the District Court's dismissal of Sky Angel's antitrust lawsuit against C-SPAN," said Bruce Collins, C-SPAN VP and general counsel. "As we said from the beginning, and the judge has obviously agreed, Sky Angel did not have any facts to back up its fanciful claims. C-SPAN now looks forward to continuing its public service mission without this distraction." Sky Angel filed an antitrust suit against C-SPAN in November 2012, saying the public affairs net improperly withdrew its programming from the program distributor in 2009 at the direction of a board made up of cable operators who dominated the video distribution market and colluded to competitively disadvantage competitor Sky Angel. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed that charge, saying Sky Angel had provided no factual context for the alleged board member agreement.

Most Doctors Don’t Meet U.S. Push for Electronic Records

Fewer than 1 in 10 doctors used electronic records last year to US standards, according to a survey that shows the challenge facing a multibillion-dollar effort to digitize the health system for improved patient care.

Only 9.8 percent of 1,820 primary-care and specialty doctors said they had electronic systems that met US rules for “meaningful use,” a list of tasks such as tracking referrals or filling prescriptions online. Less than half all those surveyed, or 44 percent, had any system in place, according to the report published by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The Obama Administration has spent about $15 billion since 2009 to help doctors and hospitals adopt electronic health records, fueling growth for vendors such as McKesson Corp. (MCK) and Cerner Corp. (CERN) In March, the administration said it was considering new regulations, amid complaints that the systems are hard to use and don’t share information easily.

FCC Acting Chairwoman Mignon L. Clyburn Names Robert H. Ratcliffe Acting Enforcement Bureau Chief

Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairwoman Mignon L. Clyburn announced that Robert H. Ratcliffe will serve as Acting Chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau.

Ratcliffe currently serves as Deputy Chief of the Media Bureau. P. Michele Ellison, previously Chief of the Enforcement Bureau, was recently named Chief of Staff. Ratcliffe has worked at the FCC for more than 35 years, including tenures as the Acting Chief of the Media Bureau during the final phases of the digital television transition in 2009 and as Deputy Chief of the Enforcement Bureau from 2006 until 2009. He also served as interim media advisor to former FCC Chairman Alfred C. Sikes and held various policy positions in the former Mass Media Bureau, including Deputy Chief of the Bureau and Assistant Chief of the Policy and Rules and Video Services Divisions. He began his career at the FCC in the original Cable Television Bureau, holding a variety of positions, including Chief of the Policy Review & Development Division. Ratcliffe holds a J.D. from the Boston University School of Law, an A.M. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He is a member of the Maryland and Supreme Court bars and served in the U.S. Army in Germany and Vietnam.

OSTP Issues Final Rule to Implementation of the Freedom of Information Act

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issues this final rule to implement the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), as amended. This final rule implements the requirement of the FOIA by setting forth procedures for requesting access to, and making disclosures of, information contained by OSTP. This final rule contains provisions to comply with the President’s January 21, 2009, Executive Memoranda on ‘‘The Freedom of Information Act’’ and ‘‘Transparency and Open Government,’’ and Attorney General Holder’s March 19, 2009, Memorandum on ‘‘The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).’’ In addition, this rule reflects OSTP’s policy and practices and reaffirms its commitment to provide the fullest possible disclosure of records to the public.

This rule is effective July 5, 2013.

E-Rate 2.0: Commissioner Rosenworcel’s Plan to Reboot National Education

Last month, during an address at the Washington Education Technology Policy Summit, Federal Communications Commission member Jessica Rosenworcel announced that she will champion the schools and library program of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund, commonly known as the E-Rate program.

Commissioner Rosenworcel is no stranger to the program. She has worked on E-Rate for years while serving as counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee under Chairman Jay Rockefeller, in addition to serving on the agency staff and in private practice. Now, as an agency head, the commissioner stressed a need for continuous reassessment and support for E-Rate. Although the program is largely considered highly successful, it is outdated and unable to meet demand. Commissioner Rosenworcel has set out a step-by-step mission plan that will revolutionize the program and achieve what she calls “E-Rate 2.0.”

In order to “protect what we have already done, build on it, and put this program on a course to provide higher speed and greater opportunities,” Commissioner Rosenworcel outlined four steps to achieve E-Rate 2.0:

Increase E-Rate funding so that it can handle the increasing demand.
By the 2015 school year, every school should have access to 100 Megabits per 1000 students; by 2020, every school should have access to 1 Gigabit per 1000 students.
Encourage and institute new and creative public-private partnerships.
Simplify the process for applicants.

Could Bookless Libraries Revolutionize Access for the Poor?

For a long time, you could divide the library patrons of San Antonio, Texas, into two categories -- the haves and the have nots. Inside the city limits, there was a robust library system with 26 locations and a bookmobile. Outside, in the unincorporated suburbs of Bexar County, there was no public library. For many years, there wasn't even a book store. Blame this on a fluke of funding.

The city's library budget could only be spent on projects inside the city. This was fine, until the population of Bexar County exploded. Between 2000 and 2012, the county's population jumped from 1.4 million to 1.8 million people; and a third of those new arrivals ended up in the suburbs. “Patrons were getting farther and farther away from facilities," says Laura Cole, Bexar County's special projects coordinator. In response, the county pulled together funds for a sleek $1.5 million facility in the unincorporated part of the county. The 4,989-squre-foot library dubbed BiblioTech, slated to open this fall, will feature 150 e-readers (some of which patrons can check out for two weeks), 50 computer stations, 25 laptops, and 25 tablets. The project will run digital literacy courses, partner with local schools, and stay open late to ensure maximum access. Bexar's leaders have compared the project, in look and function, to an Apple store. It will have everything -- except printed books.

Big Open Pipes

[Commentary] In 1992, consumers were giving Congress an earful about their cable bills. A decade of deregulation meant cable subscribers had to fend for themselves in a monopoly market where cable TV companies abused their pricing power. Congress took up the cause and enacted the 1992 Cable Act, which noted in its findings that the “average monthly cable rate has increased almost three times as much as the Consumer Price Index since rate deregulation.”

The law resulted in lower cable bills, saving consumers $3 billion in just over a year’s time. But this was only a brief respite. Less than three years after a super-majority of Congress voted to rein in monopoly cable prices, an even larger super-majority voted to let the cable industry return to its price-gouging ways. And return to them it did. Since 1996, cable bills have continued to increase at — yes, you guessed right —nearly three times the rate of inflation.

So why did so many in Congress flip positions in such a short period of time? The driving force behind this shift was the dawn of the broadband era.

President Obama calls for new efforts targeting patent trolls

Congress should allow new challenges to patents on processes that are enabled by computers, and lawmakers should make it more difficult for patent-holding firms to gain import injunctions at the U.S. International Trade Commission, the White House has recommended.

President Barack Obama called on Congress to take several steps to make it more difficult for so-called patent assertion entities (PAEs) to collect money from alleged infringers of their patents. PAEs, often called patent trolls, are patent-owning companies whose main business model is demanding license fees instead of making products based on their patents. Congress and the White House need to take steps to curb patent abuse by companies that "essentially leverage and hijack somebody else's idea and see if they can extort some money out of them," President Obama said. Lawmakers in both the Senate and the House of Representatives are also pushing for bills targeting patent trolls.

Benton

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