April 2014

Groups tell Congress to go big on NSA overhaul

Dozens of privacy, technology and political organizations are calling on Congress to radically overhaul surveillance programs at the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government offices.

As lawmakers spar over President Obama’s proposal to end the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records, the groups called for them to take up broader changes to the country’s spy agencies.

“Overbroad national security surveillance raises a host of Constitutional, human rights, and practical concerns, and we urge Congress and the Administration to address systemic reform,” the organizations wrote in a letter to top lawmakers, along with President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. “The trust of the American people and the global public cannot be regained with legislation that achieves only modest changes to discrete programs.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, online forum reddit and conservative outfit FreedomWorks were among the 42 organizations signing the letter, which went to House and Senate leaders and top lawmakers on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

Massachusetts Telecom Department Seeks Spectrum Aggregation Limits

The Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable told the Federal Communications Commission it should limit how much low-band spectrum a bidder can get in the upcoming broadcast incentive auctions.

That could principally affect Verizon and AT&T's participation -- they already have the majority of low band, which most put at about 70%, but Massachusetts' telecom department says is more like 85% on a 1-MHz-per-person population basis.

In a filing at the commission in the incentive auction docket, the department said it allied itself with the comments of the Department of Justice, which has already said the FCC should come up with some "competition-focused" rules on spectrum acquisitions, particularly auctions, including taking into account the differing propagation qualities of different spectrum bands that make one more valuable than another.

Separate from the auctions, the FCC has asked for input on how and whether it should adjust its local market spectrum concentration screens, which are not hard caps, but trigger further review of whether such concentration is in the public interest.

FCC shoots down Netflix's call to expand the scope of net neutrality

The Federal Communications Commission made clear that it won't heed Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' call to expand the scope of network neutrality to regulate the way companies connect across the physical infrastructure of the Internet.

This system, which includes Internet companies like Netflix, middlemen like Cogent, and Internet service providers like Comcast, is the backbone that moves data across the country from Netflix servers into consumers' homes.

"Peering and interconnection are not under consideration in the Open Internet proceeding, but we are monitoring the issues involved to see if any action is needed in any other context," an FCC spokesperson said. Confusingly, at the same time, the agency also said that it was considering new rules to regulate the paid arrangements between companies like Comcast and Netflix.

Alliance for Community Media Hires Mike Wassenaar as New Public Policy Advocate

Mike Wassenaar has been chosen as the Public Policy Advocate for the Alliance for Community Media (ACM).

Wassenaar has a long history of industry experience including work as the Senior Development Director at Free Press in Washington DC, as the Executive Director at St. Paul Neighborhood Network in St. Paul, Minnesota, and as the Program and News Director at KFAI Fresh Air Community Radio, in Minneapolis, Minnesota as well as being the MN News and Public Affairs Director at WORT Radio in Madison, Wisconsin. Wassenaar has been actively involved in the Alliance for Community Media.

From 2004-2012 Wassenaar served as the Midwest Region Chair and also served on the National Board of Directors from 2004-2010. He was a National Chair from 2005-2007, served as Treasurer from 2007-2009, and as the Development Chair from 2010-2012. In 2012 Wassenaar received the Buske National Leadership Award.

The Public Policy Advocate will be working with ACM to lead public policy efforts in Washington DC to change federal law to remove the restriction on the use of public, educational and government (PEG) funds (capital vs. operating issue) and will represent ACM’s interests in broader legislative initiatives. He will also represent and lead ACM’s efforts at the FCC and meet with legislators to secure bi-partisan lead and co-sponsors of a bill.

Board of Directors

Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
2:00 -- 4:00 pm ET
http://www.cpb.org/pressroom/release.php?prn=1093

The will meet telephonically on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 from 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET.

On the draft agenda:

Approval of Minutes
Chair's and Directors' Remarks
President's Report to the Board
Committee Chair Reports
Amendments to the By-Laws
Discuss Preliminary FY 2015 Operating Budget
Discuss the Board Retreat
Update on Spectrum Issues
Future Agenda Items
Discuss Renewal of External Audit Firm for FY 2014 (executive session)

With the exception of the executive session, the public may attend and listen to these meetings in the Blair-Killian Board Room

Read more about CPB Board of Directors

Commendation to FCC for Captioning Quality from Consumer Advisory Committee

The Federal Communications Commission Consumer Advisory Committee commends the Federal Communication Commission for its formal action on TV caption quality.

On February 20, 2014, the FCC unanimously approved new, more comprehensive rules for television closed captioning to ensure that viewers who are deaf and hard of hearing have full access to video programming. Effective January 15, 2015, all television programming with captions will be held to the Commission’s quality standards for accuracy, synchronicity (timing), program completeness, and placement of closed captions. The Commission’s Report & Order:

distinguishes between pre-recorded, live, and near-live programming and explains how the new standards apply to each type of programming.
includes best practices for video programmers and captioning vendors, which promise to improve captioning quality for viewers.
adopts measures to ensure that people who are deaf and hard of hearing will have greater access to news programming in their local communities.
addresses several other issues related to closed captioning quality, including multicast channels, technical equipment monitoring, and recordkeeping.

[Berlyn is Chairperson FCC Consumer Advisory Committee]

Rural Broadband Buys Muni System

Rural Broadband Investments, the small-market cable operator formed by private equity firm GTCR in 2013, has closed on the acquisition of a municipal cable system in Poplar Bluff (MO), for an undisclosed sum.

The deal is the fifth for RBI and puts the company on the path toward building a platform of 300,000-to-400,000 cable subscribers in small-to-mid-sized rural markets. RBI now served more than 150,000 customers and passes more than 430,000 homes in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Nevada.

RBI’s first acquisition was its purchase of NewWave Communications in February 2013, followed by Cable Management Associates and McDonald Cable/Cablevison systems.

NSA performed warrantless searches on Americans' calls and emails -- Clapper

US intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the National Security Agency has used a "backdoor" in surveillance law to perform warrantless searches on Americans’ communications.

The NSA's collection programs are ostensibly targeted at foreigners, but in August the Guardian revealed a secret rule change allowing NSA analysts to search for Americans' details within the databases. Now, in a letter to Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has confirmed for the first time this backdoor had been used in practice to search for data related to “US persons.”

“There have been queries, using US person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence targeting non-US persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States,” Clapper wrote in the letter. “These queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment.”

The legal authority to perform the searches, revealed in top-secret NSA documents provided to the Guardian by Edward Snowden, was denounced by Sen Wyden as a “backdoor search loophole.” Clapper did not disclose how many such searches had been performed by the NSA.

Modernizing US Spectrum Policy

The House Commerce Committee is issuing a series of white papers as the first step toward modernizing the laws governing the communications and technology sector.

The committee initiated an examination of the regulation of the communications industry, and seeks comments from all interested parties on the future of the law. The most recent white paper focuses on spectrum policy. The Committee poses 10 questions and is asking for public input by April 25, 2014.

What structural changes, if any, should be made to the FCC to promote efficiency and predictability in spectrum licensing?
What role should unlicensed spectrum play in the wireless ecosystem? How should unlicensed spectrum be allocated and managed for long-term sustainability and flexibility?
What should be done to encourage efficient use of spectrum by government users?
What steps can be taken to increase the amount of commercially available spectrum?
Should the Act permit the FCC to use expected auction revenue as the basis for a public interest finding? What criteria should the FCC consider as part of its analysis?
Should all FCC licenses be flexible use? In what instances should the Commission exercise control over the service offered? How can the Act enable better use of spectrum, either flexible or specified?
What principles should Congress and the FCC consider when addressing spectrum aggregation limits? How has the converging marketplace and growing demand for services changed the discussion of spectrum aggregation?
How effectively has the FCC used the tools at its disposal to encourage competition?
What is the best balance between mitigating interference concerns and avoiding limiting flexibility in the future? Can engineering and forward-looking spectrum strategies account for the possibility of unanticipated technologies and uses in adjacent spectrum bands? How do we promote flexibility without unreasonably increasing the cost of services and devices? Does the Act provide the FCC tools to address this problem?
What role should NTIA play in the licensing and management of spectrum? Is their current role appropriate and necessary, given the potentially duplicative functions of the FCC and NTIA in spectrum allocation and assignment?

The fastest free Wi-Fi in the nation?

One of the United States’ most successful muni Wi-Fi examples is located in a small city in northern Oklahoma Home to 25,000 residents, Ponca City is 90 miles equidistant from Wichita, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

It has a world-class wireless network providing free Wi-Fi across its 25 square miles. The free wireless mesh service -- which is so fast and forward-looking that Kansas City, Apple and Google came calling to check it out -- has been so successful that Ponca City again is hosting delegations from Oklahoma, throughout the US and places as far away as Australia and Italy.

So what makes Ponca City’s wireless network a long-term success, and what suggestions do city officials have for other areas that want to replicate it? It all starts with fiber, said Technology Services Director Craige Baird and City Manager Craig Stephenson. But fiber’s price tag stops many local governments in their tracks, especially when they want to do it in a year instead of building a network out slowly over a number of years. Ponca City began 15 years ago, steadily adding fiber for city communications and disaster recovery. Today it has 350 miles of fiber that have opened vast opportunities to the city and its residents.

Benton

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