December 2013

Anonymous sources are increasing in news stories, along with rather curious explanations

It used to be that anonymous sources -- Watergate’s “Deep Throat” was the most famous -- spoke on the condition of anonymity because . . . well, because they wouldn’t speak to reporters any other way. Back then, anonymous sources were just “sources” and you, dear reader, had to take our word for whoever they were and whatever we said they said. Readers noticed, and apparently didn’t like guessing about who was saying what.

In 2004, the New York Times surveyed its subscribers on their concerns about the paper. In the wake of flawed (and often anonymously sourced) reporting before the start of the Iraq war, readers said their biggest gripe was the use of anonymous sources, and that it trumped political bias or even delivery problems, according to Margaret Sullivan, the paper’s current public editor. So, in an attempt at greater transparency, news organizations began explaining why their sources weren’t being identified by name. The idea was to offer readers a little peek under the veil of anonymity. “Frankly, this kind of sourcing is ridiculous,” says Alicia Shepard, a journalist and NPR’s former ombudsman. She adds: “I get it that [news organizations] are trying to be transparent, but it doesn’t enhance the believability of the anonymous quote. The only thing worthwhile about the convoluted sourcing explainers is how funny they are.”

State Of Deception

Even without a full picture of the programs, two senators who were not on the Intelligence Committee became intense critics of National Security Agency domestic surveillance: Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

In May, 2006, after the USA Today article appeared, then-Sen Biden said it was frightening to learn that the government was collecting telephone records. Obama’s objections to domestic surveillance stretched back even further. In 2003, as a Senate candidate, he called the Patriot Act “shoddy and dangerous.” And at the 2004 Democratic Convention, in the speech that effectively launched his eventual campaign for President, he took aim at the “library records” provision of the law. “We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states,” he declared. In 2005, when he arrived in Washington, Sen Obama became one of Sen Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) new allies in his attempts to reform the law. The Patriot Act was up for reauthorization, and, at Wyden’s urging, the Senate was trying to scale back the “library records” section. One of the first bills that Obama co-sponsored, the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act, would have required that the government present “specific and articulable facts” if it wanted a court order for records, a much higher standard than the existing one. Sen Obama and several other senators, including John Kerry, now the Secretary of State, and Chuck Hagel, the current Secretary of Defense, laid out their legal case against the provision in a letter to colleagues on December 14, 2005. The Bush White House fought Obama’s changes, but offered a few minor concessions. Sen Wyden later learned that, while he and Obama were fighting to curtail Section 215, the NSA’s lawyers were secretly arguing before a court that the provision should allow the NSA to legally collect the phone records of all Americans.

The NSA must disclose more to make its case

[Commentary] The bulk collection of phone “metadata” by the National Security Agency (NSA) -- records of who’s calling whom, when and for how long -- is a potentially powerful tool that could, if abused, reveal sensitive facts about nearly every American’s life. The practice, disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, demands extensive checks to guard against misuse. The government has said its oversight process is already strong. To varying degrees, a federal judge and a task force appointed by President Obama now have disagreed. The NSA’s activities will continue to be litigated in court and in the court of public opinion. If the government is to emerge from Snowden’s revelations with the authorities that officials insist are crucial, it will have to do more to demonstrate why they are essential and how Americans’ privacy is being protected.

The FCC may need to approve a Sprint/T-Mobile merger. But not yet.

One of the major hurdles facing Sprint right now is whether federal regulators would even approve a T-Mobile merger.

Back in 2011, the Federal Communications Commission rejected AT&T's own bid to buy out T-Mobile over concerns that it would put too much power in the hands of the country's strongest phone companies. A deal involving Sprint would be a little different, and it's been cited as one reason why the FCC might change its tune this time. But observers say that even with a new chairman at the agency's helm, the government still isn't likely to smile on a deal right away.

"No one's in a distressed situation right now," says telecom analyst Jeffrey Silva. "They may want to see how T-Mobile and Sprint fare, having improved themselves on a number of levels recently." But that could change in the future, Silva adds, particularly if either company winds up faltering. If T-Mobile fails to win subscribers, regulators could see it as evidence that the market can only reasonably support three major carriers. There are barely more wireless subscriptions than people in the United States, meaning that all the companies are competing for essentially the same customers now.

Even if the FCC shoots down a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile today, it's not hard to see something like it passing muster down the road when both companies have had a little more time to (dis)prove themselves.

Democrats Seek Classified Briefing on Healthcare.Gov Docs, Citing Security

Lawmakers continued to wrangle over how and whether to publicly release a collection of e-mails and reports that document the troubled building and disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov. The ranking Democrats of seven House committees sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seeking a classified briefing on documents House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA) subpoenaed from contractors that worked on the Obama Administration’s online health insurance marketplace.

Rep Issa has said the e-mails and progress reports show officials launched HealthCare.gov despite warnings about security vulnerabilities that may still exist in the site and that could endanger insurance seekers’ personal data. Democrats argue that publicly releasing the documents could increase security vulnerabilities by giving hackers a roadmap to that information. Their letter to Speaker Boehner and Rep Pelosi quoted a letter from White House Counsel Kathryn Reummler stating: “It is the view of cybersecurity experts from across the administration that these documents, if further disclosed, would provide information to potential hackers that increases the risk they could penetrate HealthCare.gov, the Federal Data Services Hub and other federal [information technology] systems.”

Voices for Internet Freedom, Free Press and the Center for Media Justice, Color of Change, National Hispanic Media Coalition
Thursday, January 9, 2014 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM (PST)
Oakland, CA
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/oakland-voices-a-town-hall-on-our-right-to-c...

Tom Wheeler, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is heading out to Oakland on Jan. 9 — to hear from you.

Will you be there? You may RSVP by clicking the button above. This event is free and open to the public but space is limited, so you must RSVP to reserve your seat.

As Chairman Wheeler sets the agency’s agenda, he needs to hear how policies on media ownership, the Internet and journalism affect our nation’s most vulnerable communities. This is our chance to tell him face to face about the kind of media system that best meets our needs — and to advocate for the health and well-being of our families and our communities.

Free Press, the Center for Media Justice and the National Hispanic Media Coalition, along with our allies in the Voices for Internet Freedom Coalition, hope you can join us for this special event. We know that real change in Washington is possible when policymakers meet with the people they represent. Let’s seize this opportunity to share our stories — and to tell Chairman Wheeler about the impacts of an increasingly corporate media environment on our communities.

This event will feature a lively and wide-ranging panel discussion, commentary from community members, and remarks from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Center for Media Justice Executive Director Malkia Cyril, California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine J.K. Sandoval and other special guests. Free Press Associate Policy Director Chancellar Williams will emcee the event.

This town hall is presented by Voices for Internet Freedom, Free Press and the Center for Media Justice with our partners Color of Change and the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

Read more about #OaklandVoices: A Townhall On Our Right To Communicate

Federal Judge Rules Against NSA Phone Data Program

Judge Richard Leon of the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, and he ordered the government to stop collecting data on two plaintiffs’ personal calls and destroy the records of their calling history.

Judge Leon called the program’s technology “almost Orwellian” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way. “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.” Judge Leon stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” allowing the government time to appeal it, a matter that he said could take some six months.

Carriers Keeping US Spy Records Seen as Costly, Risky

Requiring AT&T, T-Mobile US and other telecommunications companies to retain bulk phone records for US spy programs is costly and risks exposing customer data to hackers, industry and privacy groups said.

A White House advisory committee on National Security Agency spy programs recommends that US carriers, instead of the NSA, hold phone records of millions of citizens, said an Administration official familiar with the panel’s report. The report says the NSA should be able to have access to the phone data, which includes numbers dialed and call durations. It attempts to address criticism of the program, in which the NSA collects metadata under court orders, by requiring companies to collect and retain the records. “I expect our members would oppose the imposition of data retention obligations that would require them to maintain customer data for longer than necessary,” said Jot Carpenter, vice president of government affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association.

Justice Department Requires Divestiture from Gannett Co. Inc. in Order to Proceed with Its Acquisition of Belo Corp.

The Department of Justice will require Gannett Company, Belo and Sander Media LLC to divest their interests in KMOV TV, a CBS affiliate in St. Louis, in order to proceed with Gannett’s acquisition of Belo, and Sander’s related acquisition of six Belo television stations that Gannett cannot hold under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules.

The Department said that, without the required divestiture, Gannett would have gained a dominant position in broadcast television spot advertising in the St. Louis area, resulting in higher prices advertisers. In addition to acquiring the six stations from Belo, Sander will enter into several agreements with Gannett in order to both finance purchasing the stations and facilitate operating the stations. KMOV-TV is one of the six stations Sander would acquire from Belo and would be subject to agreements between Sander and Gannett. These agreements, however, do not include any joint negotiation of retransmission rights in St. Louis. The Gannett-Belo acquisition is valued at approximately $2.2 billion.

The Department’s Antitrust Division filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to block the proposed acquisition and related agreements between Gannett and Sander, including an option for Gannett to assign or acquire the Belo stations sold to Sander, a financing guarantee and a long-term shared services agreement. At the same time, the department filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the competitive concerns alleged in the lawsuit. “Gannett’s KSDK TV and Belo’s KMOV TV compete head-to-head in the sale of broadcast television spot advertising in the St. Louis area, and this rivalry constrains advertising rates,” said Bill Baer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “The full divestiture required by the department will ensure that KMOV-TV will remain a vigorous competitor in St. Louis.”

FCC is enabler when Comcast slaps on high-def box fees

At every stage in Comcast’s switch to a digital cable system over the past few years, all sorts of people ask what’s happening to their TV and what can be done.

The latest round of questions came in November 2013 when the company cut off access for basic subscribers in Washington who hadn’t yet added some sort of cable box to every one of their TVs. After looking into the issue a bit further, I have some bad news. First, there’s not much that can be done about the hated “DTA” converter boxes that were forced upon basic-cable subscribers. The first few boxes are free, but they interfere with video recorders, require an extra remote and outlet, and downgrade picture quality on modern TVs. This mostly affects people looking for bare-bones cable who don’t want to pay for hundreds of channels and rent a full-blown Comcast cable box. It’s particularly galling because most of them upgraded not too long ago to digital-ready TVs with “QAM” tuners that shouldn’t require extra hardware, especially not a gadget that reduces their TV’s capability. I asked the FCC if it might reconsider, especially since it’s now reviewing changes to cable TV service standards. A spokeswoman told me the agency won’t comment “because it’s an open proceeding that is still under consideration.”

Benton

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