December 2013

NSA could improve transparency without harming security

[Commentary] Congress and the administration that widened and acquiesced in the National Security Agency (NSA)’s powers without adequate debate and disclosure. A presidential task force gets this distinction right and has come up with mostly valuable recommendations.

The panel says the collection of bulk metadata may be useful to national security, but recommends that private firms or a new entity separate from the NSA store the information, with the NSA allowed to search the database for information about specific people only with judicial approval. The report urges the appointment of a public interest advocate “to represent the interests of privacy and civil liberties before the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court],” which meets in secret and is the court that gave the NSA go-ahead for the metadata collection. It recommends more consideration of the potential costs of spying on foreign leaders, especially allies. It urges the strengthening of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which was designed to ensure that trade-offs between national security and liberty receive due consideration but is relatively toothless. Among other things, the board, which would be renamed the Civil Liberties and Privacy Protection Board, would become “an authorized recipient for whistle-blower complaints.” Presumably, that would provide a legal route for people such as Mr. Snowden who believe the surveillance state is out of control. We don’t share his alarmist assessment or his disparaging view of the United States’ purposes, but his revelations exposed a weakness of oversight and transparency. The presidential panel’s recommendations offer a road map to a more accountable operation.

President Obama: US needs checks on NSA data gathering but can't disarm

President Barack Obama tried to strike a middle ground on questions about broad surveillance practices conducted by the US National Security Agency, saying some checks are needed on the system but "we can't unilaterally disarm."

At a White House news conference, President Obama said he would spend the next few weeks sorting through the recommendations of a presidential advisory panel on how to rein in the NSA in the wake of disclosures from former US spy contractor Edward Snowden. President Obama said it is possible that some bulk phone data collected by intelligence agencies could be kept by private companies instead of the US government as a way of restoring Americans' trust in the program. "We can't unilaterally disarm," said President Obama. But he said data collection could be "refined" to give the public more confidence that privacy is not being violated. Questions about US government spying on civilians and foreign officials burst into the open in June when Snowden, now in Russia, leaked documents documenting widespread collection of phone and email. Snowden has been charged with divulging classified information and the United States has unsuccessfully sought his return to stand trial. President Obama conceded that the revelations have led to "an important conversation that we needed to have" about balancing security needs and privacy, but he said Snowden's actions have hurt US interests. "As important and as necessary as this debate has been, it is also important to keep in mind that this has done unnecessary damage to US intelligence capabilities and US diplomacy," he said. The President said the leaked information had given some countries which have worse records on human rights, privacy protection and freedom of dissent than the United States the leeway to disparage US policies. "That's a pretty distorted view of what's going on out there," he said.

Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer

As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry. Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products. Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in throughout 2012, securities filings show.

Intelligence panel leaders slam NSA review

The leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees came out against a recently released report suggesting reforms to the National Security Agency. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Reps. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) took issue with the report’s “misleading conclusion” that the NSA’s phone call data program hasn’t prevented terrorists attacks. “Intelligence programs do not operate in isolation and terrorist attacks are not disrupted by the work of any one person or program,” the group said in a joint statement.

AT&T is hopping on the transparency report train. When will T-Mobile and Sprint follow suit?

A day after Verizon became the first telecom company to start issuing transparency reports, AT&T has announced that it's doing the same. This is huge news for an industry that has shown itself very willing to cooperate with the government without telling the rest of us how they're doing it. The report will look much like those provided by Silicon Valley companies.

Here's what AT&T plans to offer, beginning in "early 2014":

The total number of law enforcement requests it receives from federal, state and local authorities
A breakdown of that figure by request type: subpoenas, court orders and warrants
The number of customers affected
"Details about the legal demands AT&T receives, as well as information about requests for information in emergencies."

A Sorry Moment in the History of American Media

We just experienced a shameful milestone in the history of U.S. media -- and barely anyone noticed. There are now zero black-owned and operated full-power TV stations in our country.

This sorry state of affairs is the culmination of a trend that started in the late 1990s when Congress and the Federal Communications Commission allowed massive consolidation in the broadcasting industry. This policy shift crowded out existing owners of color and ensured that it would be nearly impossible for new owners to access the public airwaves. Recent FCC actions (and in some cases, inaction) have only hastened this decline in opportunities for diverse broadcasters. Roberts Broadcasting, a black-owned media company, just announced a deal to sell its three remaining full-power TV stations to ION Media Networks for nearly $8 million. Once considered a phenomenal success story in an industry known for its stunning lack of diversity, Roberts Broadcasting was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2011.

Tribune Gets FCC Approval for Local TV Holdings Purchase

The Federal Communications Commission approved Tribune’s purchase of Local TV Holdings’ 19 television stations. The $2.73 billion acquisition would almost double the number of Tribune’s stations to 42. Local TV is principally owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners.

Gannett Deal for Belo Gets Regulatory Clearance from FCC

The Federal Communications Commission approved Gannett’s purchase of Belo, giving final US regulatory clearance for the $1.5 billion media deal. Gannett, which owns 23 TV stations, agreed in June to purchase Dallas-based Belo including its 20 stations. The deal would make Gannett the fourth-largest owner of major network affiliates, reaching about one-third of US households, according to the company.

Dems attack football blackout

Lawmakers are pushing back against the NFL’s plans to black out a football game on Dec 22. Local fans in Buffalo (NY), won’t be able to watch the game against the Miami Dolphins on television.

Rep Brian Higgins (D-NY) and Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) say that shows the need to put an end to current Federal Communications Commission rules. “The game will be played here in Buffalo on Sunday, but hundreds of thousands of people will be denied access to the game because of this rule that the FCC has determined to be outdated and obsolete,” said Rep Higgins, who represents the Buffalo area. The NFL requires local broadcast TV stations to black out football games if the local team can’t sell out the stadium. Current FCC rules then prevent other TV companies, like cable and satellite providers, from showing the game. The policy has been a sore spot for fans and has had a disproportionate impact on smaller teams with large stadiums, advocates of reform say.

This Georgia telephone law would’ve hurt the poor. Now a judge has blocked it.

A federal judge has blocked a controversial proposal that would've disproportionately hurt low-income Georgia residents if it had gone through. In a preliminary injunction, Judge Richard Story of the Northern District of Georgia agreed with wireless carriers that forcing poor people to pay $5 a month for phone service that residents of other states get for free would cause irreparable injury. The charge was supposed to go into effect in January 2014, but the ruling will prevent it until a final decision has been made in the case. The idea, proposed by Georgia's public service commission, was approved by a 3 to 2 vote. It affects the 28-year-old federal program known as Lifeline, which grants phone service to the poor at a special subsidy. But a back-of-the-envelope analysis of Georgia's demographics revealed that the state has many more poor people than Doug Everett, the Georgia public service commissioner who's led the charge against Lifeline, seems to think. Instead of a Lifeline penetration rate of 125 percent -- as the commissioner suggests -- it may in fact be more like a penetration rate of about 30 percent. Moreover, when pressed to describe the impact of the rate hike, Commissioner Everett admitted he had "no idea" how effective the proposal would be and admitted that people would be hurt by the rule.

Benton

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