May 2014

NETWORK NEUTRALITY

REMARKS OF FCC CHAIRMAN TOM WHEELER TO NATIONAL CABLE & TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler]
We have circulated a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to my fellow commissioners on the topic of the Open Internet. There are two things that are important to understand. First, this is a Notice, which asks a number of questions and seeks input on the best way to protect and promote the Open Internet. Second, all options are on the table. Our goal is to put into place real protections for consumers, innovators and entrepreneurs that until now have been only a matter of debate and litigation. I believe this process will put us on track to quickly get to legally enforceable Open Internet rules. There has been a great deal of talk about how our following the court’s instruction to use a “commercially reasonable” test could result in a so-called “fast lane” and Internet “haves” and “have nots.” This misses the point that any new rule will assure an open pathway that is sufficiently robust to enable consumers to access the content, services and applications they demand and innovators and edge providers the ability to offer new products and services. The focus of this proposal -- on which we are seeking comment -- is on maintaining a broadly available, fast and robust Internet as a platform for economic growth, innovation, competition, free expression, and broadband investment and deployment. We will follow the court’s blueprint for achieving this, and, I must warn you, will look skeptically on special exceptions. If someone acts to divide the Internet between “haves” and “have-nots,” we will use every power at our disposal to stop it. I consider that to include Title II. Just because it is my strong belief that following the court’s roadmap will produce similar protections more quickly, does not mean I will hesitate to use Title II if warranted. And, in our Notice, we are asking for input as to whether this approach should be used.
benton.org/node/182511 | Federal Communications Commission | The Hill | B&C | GigaOm | The Wrap | C-Net|News | ars technica
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FCC CHAIRMAN REITERATES NET NEUTRALITY PROPOSAL AT CABLE SHOW
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Michael Weinberg]
We're pleased to see the Chairman recognize Title II as a legitimate option for going forward with strong net neutrality rules. We are also encouraged to hear him reiterate his opposition to fast lanes on the internet, and his recognition that all Americans deserve access to a 'broadly available, fast and robust' web experiences. We welcome the debate that appears to be taking form in the proposal that the FCC will reveal on May 15. We look forward to commenting on the record to prove that Title II is needed for strong net neutrality rules. It's hard to understand how the FCC's proposal, as reported, can allow avenues for paid prioritization and yet still serve as a pillar for net neutrality. Standards that allow the web to have two lanes, with one for preferred traffic, seem to go against the principles that the FCC and the Chairman himself have said they stand for. We look forward to working with the Commission in the coming months to demonstrate why fast lanes are incompatible with net neutrality.
benton.org/node/182509 | Public Knowledge
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NET NEUTRALITY ADVOCATES MOBILIZE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Technology companies opposed to the idea of broadband providers charging extra to reach customers at the fastest speeds are quietly plotting their strategy to fight it. One option is to mobilize their millions of users to do the talking. A proposal floated by Federal Communications Chairman Tom Wheeler would forbid broadband providers from blocking or slowing down individual websites, but allow them to strike deals with content companies for preferential treatment to reach consumers at premium speeds. The idea has prompted a fierce backlash from advocates of "net neutrality," the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Among the largest Internet companies, most are staying quiet until the FCC briefs them on the proposal Friday and are referring questions to the Internet Association, a two-year-old trade group representing Google, Yahoo, Netflix and others. But officials inside the companies who follow government policy say they are considering mobilizing a grass-roots campaign to rally public opinion around the idea that the Internet's pipes should be equally open for all. Such an approach was used to great effect in late 2011 to scuttle the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which would have significantly enhanced online copyright protections.
benton.org/node/182555 | Wall Street Journal
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SENATOR FRANKEN, COMCAST’S FIERCEST CRITIC, TRIES TO LURE ALLIES FROM SILICON VALLEY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Sen Al Franken (D-MN) has become Capitol Hill's loudest opponent of Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable. Now, he's trying to root out like-minded critics from Silicon Valley. In a letter to the trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association, Sen Franken asked for the group's opinion on the $45 billion merger. If approved by federal regulators, Comcast would wind up with 40 percent of the broadband Internet market. Sen Franken said that's too much power in the hands of a single company, which could act as a powerful gatekeeper for Internet content and services into US homes. "Your organization includes companies from many sectors of our communications and Internet economy, including industry leaders in search, social networking, e-commerce and music and video content delivery. All of these organizations depend on broadband networks to operate," Sen Franken wrote in his letter to CCIA President Ed Black. CCIA's members include Google, Facebook, eBay, Aereo and Yahoo.
benton.org/node/182527 | Washington Post
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FCC CHAIRMAN: I’D RATHER GIVE IN TO VERIZON’S DEFINITION OF NET NEUTRALITY THAN FIGHT
[SOURCE: Consumerist, AUTHOR: Chris Morran]
[Commentary] With every word he writes, recently installed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler shows he has little interest or belief in network neutrality as most consumers understand it. In another flimsy attempt at defending his position on “fast lanes” -- i.e., allowing Internet service providers to charge more to content companies seeking priority access to end-users – Chairman Wheeler contends that consumers should do what Verizon and other telecoms want because well, it could take a while to do it correctly. Once again, Chairman Wheeler completely glosses over the fact that the only reason a federal appeals court gutted the previous neutrality rules was because a shortsighted FCC never thought to categorize Internet service providers as vital communications infrastructure. As numerous supporters of a true net neutrality have repeatedly pointed out, reclassifying ISPs would likely mean the FCC could reinstate the old rules (and possibly more stringent ones) and survive a legal challenge. He once again points to this so-called “blueprint” that the appeals court laid out in its opinion as a way to “create Open Internet rules that would stick,” without regard to whether or not those rules result in an Internet that is open.
benton.org/node/182504 | Consumerist
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DEAR CHAIRMAN WHEELER: YOU DON’T PROTECT NET NEUTRALITY BY ALLOWING ONLINE DISCRIMINATION
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Craig Aaron]
Tom Wheeler still doesn’t get it. People aren’t flooding his phone lines and filling his in-box because they’re confused about his proposal. They understand all too well that his plan would create a pay-to-prioritize Internet with fast lanes for the few. There’s a better way to protect the public, and Chairman Wheeler’s excuses for not taking that path aren’t convincing anyone. If the chairman truly wants to do right by the Internet and avoid losing another costly court battle, he should follow the letter of the Communications Act, exercise the FCC’s clear authority and reclassify Internet service providers as common carriers. It’s not only the most sensible and courageous approach, it’s also the quickest way to bring a final resolution to this issue. And it’s the only approach that puts the needs of Internet users first. The future of the open Internet can’t rest on the supposed good intentions of one chairman. Internet users and innovators need the certainty that comes with common carriage, not Wheeler’s ‘just trust me’ approach to stopping harmful behavior from providers. Mr. Wheeler needs to realize that the push for reclassification is about much more than Net Neutrality. Title II isn’t something that he holds in his back pocket to use at a later date. It’s the law Congress intended to apply to these vital services, so that users would be free to communicate without unjust online discrimination.
benton.org/node/182439 | Free Press
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WHY NET NEUTRALITY MATTERS TO EDUCATION
[SOURCE: EdSurge, AUTHOR: Jessy Irwin]
[Commentary] Although many schools heavily filter web content to comply with federal E-rate regulations, the loss of network neutrality would immediately impact:
Free and open source web tools for education that could be edged out by for-profit competitors who can afford to pay for better access to their customers.
Open source textbook adoption initiatives that rely on volunteer work and donations to create content could suffer from lower-tier access in schools.
Wikis and collaborative sites that allow for educators to share content could be edged out by larger resource-sharing sites that can afford to pay for faster access to schools.
School and university libraries that serve as gateways for hard-to-access information, as lesser-used databases and niche research tools for academics would suffer from 3rd party interference from larger publishers. [Irwin is a marketing and communications professional]
benton.org/node/182412 | EdSurge
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MORE INTERNET/BROADBAND

REPORT: AVERAGE US BROADBAND PRICES ARE BELOW WORLD AVERAGE OF $76.61
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Andrew Burger]
Affordable access to broadband telecommunications networks and services has become practically essential in today’s world, whether you live in the US or a developing-world country. So which countries have the cheapest residential broadband service rates and where is stand-alone residential broadband access most expensive? Point Topic’s “Broadband tariff country scorecard -- Q1 2014” tells the tale. Point Topic market researchers converted monthly stand-alone residential broadband subscription rates spanning 90 countries -- including copper, cable and fiber networks -- to US dollars and adjusted them for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in order to make something of an “apples-to-apples” comparison. Monthly residential broadband subscription rates as of 1Q proved to be lowest in France, Romania and Japan and highest in Bolivia and Peru, they found. For Q1 2014, Point Topic found the global average monthly charge for residential broadband services was $76.61. The average bandwidth provided by residential services was 55 Mbps, meaning the global average cost per megabit was $1.39. The US ranked 43rd of the 90 countries surveyed in Point Topic’s market research and analysis, ranking just behind Colombia and one place ahead of Greece. Monthly US broadband subscription rates did fall below the global average of $76.61, however.
benton.org/node/182553 | telecompetitor
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A MAJOR WIN FOR THE OPEN INTERNET
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: Michael Daniel, Lawrence Strickling, Daniel Sepulveda, Christopher Painter, Scott Busby]
As one of Brazil’s leading Internet scholars and chair of Netmundial Virgilio Almeida brought NETmundial to a close, the US government delegation rose in applause. And almost everyone else in the room rose with us. We affirm the Multistakeholder Statement of São Paulo, the ideas it presents, the ideals it embraces, and the multistakeholder process that made it possible. We rose out of appreciation for the Brazilians and the Internet community leaders that brought us together and impressively managed a challenging conversation. And we rose in joint commitment to preserving, promoting, and expanding the benefits of a single, interoperable, open, and global Internet for all of the world’s people. NETmundial clearly demonstrates the suitability of the multistakeholder approach over intergovernmental discussion to address Internet governance issues. We will carry this experience forward as we approach upcoming multilateral events like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in Korea in October, where we will work to ensure that the ITU remains relevant and responsive to the evolution of technology in its traditional areas of competence, and leaves issues such as Internet governance to the fully capable global multistakeholder community.
[Michael Daniel serves as Special Assistant to the President and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator. Lawrence E. Strickling serves as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Ambassador Daniel A. Sepulveda serves as U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the U.S. Department of State. Christopher Painter serves as Coordinator for Cyber Issues at the U.S. Department of State. Scott Busby serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.]
benton.org/node/182443 | White House, The
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GIG CITY'S HIGH-SPEED INTERNET DOESN'T REACH ALL RESIDENTS
[SOURCE: McClatchy News Service, AUTHOR: Dave Flessner]
Chattanooga (TN) offers the fastest Internet connections in America along fiber-optic links stringing out from a revitalized downtown. But urban planners taking part in the Vanguard Next City conference still found physical and economic barriers separating the central city and its Gig technology with nearby neighborhoods, especially the Westside. The barriers are both physical and economic. To get to nearby businesses and jobs, many of those living in the College Hill Courts public housing project cut through a chained-link fence and walked through a field to cross US Highway 27 and connect with downtown. And many Westside residents can’t afford Chattanooga’s superfast Internet. But that could change if the city implements the winning suggestions from the Chattanooga Challenge that ended the fifth annual Next City conference. A team of government and civic leaders from across the country suggested that Chattanooga offer free Wi-Fi service to College Hill Courts to bridge the digital divide and develop a new pathway to connect downtown and the neighborhood.
benton.org/node/182444 | McClatchy News Service
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WINDSTREAM ON TDM-TO-IP TRANSITION: AT&T SHOULD OFFER SPECIAL ACCESS EQUIVALENT
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
Windstream isn’t satisfied with how AT&T has proposed to handle wholesale customers in its proposal for TDM-to-IP transition trials and is asking the Federal Communications Commission to establish rules to govern this aspect of the IP transition. Windstream, an AT&T wholesale customer, wants the FCC to require AT&T to continue to offer high-capacity circuits including IP equivalents to DS-1 and DS-3 special access circuits -- a requirement that isn’t likely to sit well with AT&T. In its proposal for the TDM-to-IP trials, AT&T said it would discontinue certain TDM-based offerings but would continue to make copper loops available to other network operators. The company noted, however, that it would not provide electronics, instead expecting the other carriers to provide those electronics -- and what Windstream is asking would require AT&T to provide electronics. “In the post-IP world, competitors still will need equivalent access to last-mile facilities and services to continue offering business services to millions of customers,” argues Windstream in a letter sent to the FCC.
benton.org/node/182414 | telecompetitor
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CABLE OPERATORS PREPARED TO ENTER GIGABIT ERA
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Jeff Baumgartner]
In a wide-ranging discussion at The Cable Show, a handful of the cable’s top tech and engineering executives said technologies such as DOCSIS 3.1 position them well to offer Gigabit-level broadband services as they increasingly find themselves matched up with competitors such as Google Fiber and AT&T and the potential expansion of the telecommunication’s fiber-based “U-verse with GigaPower” platform. Time Warner Cable, which is pairing off with Google Fiber in Kansas City, is wary of that competition, but has found that the new entrant has had limited success and that some customers are coming back because they like TWC’s video service better. Google Fiber “is certainly a worthy competitor, if they’re going to overbuild us,” but that they offer “nothing dramatically different” than what TWC can bring to bear, Mike LaJoie, TWC’s executive vice president and chief technology and network operations officer, said. “Their product works. Our product works just as well.” Cable’s incremental economics are generally better than someone who is entering the market in a greenfield situation and looking to cherry pick, Tony Werner, Comcast’s EVP and CTO, said, noting that Comcast has raised its speeds 13 times in the last 12 years and has begun to make 100 Mbps (downstream) its main flagship product in the Northeast and will look to continue that trend.
benton.org/node/182445 | Multichannel News
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VIACOM BLOCKS CABLEONE SUBSCRIBERS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Viacom has turned up the heat in its carriage disputes with several small operators, blocking its website content from Cable One subscribers, in apparent retaliation for the operator’s decision to not carry its networks. Cable One dropped 15 Viacom networks on April 1, including Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and Spike, over what it claimed were unreasonable fee increases. The Phoenix-based operator, which has about 730,000 customers in 19 states, replaced the Viacom channels with BBC America, Sprout, The Blaze, Hallmark Channel, National Geographic, Investigation Discovery, TV One and SundanceTV. While Viacom did not offer specifics, Cable One broadband customers are basically blocked from accessing free content on Viacom websites that are available to all other broadband subscribers. According to some people familiar with the companies, Cable One subscribers could be harder hit because there are few broadband alternatives in its markets – only a small portion of its footprint is overlapped by AT&T U-Verse and Mediacom.
benton.org/node/182544 | Broadcasting&Cable
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS

CALLING WITH WI-FI HOTSPOTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Dunlap]
In the era of smartphones, pay phones look increasingly dumb. Dumb, that is, to everyone but advertisers and pay phone operators, who are happy to place thousands of small billboards at consumer eye level. That bleak landscape may change significantly. The franchises under which 9,133 phones are operated in 7,302 enclosures on city streets will expire in October. To replace and augment these enclosures, the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio envisions as many as 10,000 “public communications structures.” These kiosks would provide free Wi-Fi service around the clock and at least enough standard telephone service to permit anyone to place a free call to 911 or 311. “Making these pay phones digitized, 21st-century Wi-Fi hot spots is going to be incredibly exciting for so many New Yorkers who otherwise have a hard time getting access,” said Maya Wiley, counsel to the mayor. She said the new structures had the potential to “level the playing field” for New Yorkers who cannot afford to subscribe to a broadband Internet service at home.
benton.org/node/182547 | New York Times
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TELEVISION

BROADCASTERS SEEK CONSUMER GROUP HELP IN RETRANS FIGHT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Broadcasters are hoping to enlist consumer groups in battling cable operators over what broadcaster group TVfreedom.org is calling abusive pay TV practices. At least one, Public Knowledge, signaled it would be happy to work with the group on the issue of billing practices. In a letter to eight public interest groups, TVFreedom called on them to "join the organization in developing an open and collaborative process that will place a public spotlight on the abusive billing and business practices being undertaken by the cable and satellite TV industry that are harming consumers." The groups, in addition to Public Knowledge, are Free Press, Consumers Union, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, New America Foundation, National Consumer League and Public Citizen. The letter cites a lack of competition and consumer choice in the US video marketplace as justifying a hard look at cable's alleged billing practices including hidden fees, excessive equipment rentals, early termination fees and overbilling.
benton.org/node/182447 | Broadcasting&Cable
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OWNERSHIP

COMCAST: TOO MUCH CONTROL
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Mary Crim]
[Commentary] In many markets, Comcast and other big telecommunications companies don’t directly compete with each other, meaning consumers don’t have other options to turn to. The companies prefer to control their respective domains -- and our pocketbooks. And this is all about to get worse. Much, much worse. Comcast, the nation’s No. 1 cable and Internet company, wants to take over Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 cable provider. Put them together and you get one media giant controlling the vast majority of pay-TV and Internet access in America. A bloated Comcast will likely engage in all kinds of shenanigans that hurt consumers -- everything from instituting totally unnecessary data caps to restricting what kinds of devices customers attach to the network to forcing folks to purchase expensive equipment. And though Comcast is obliged to adhere to the FCC’s now-overturned (and loophole-ridden) open Internet rules, this condition will expire in January 2018. All of this will result in higher prices. This much power in the hands of one company is bad news for all US residents, including those who live in communities Comcast and Time Warner Cable don’t serve. Comcast would be able to use its market power to dictate the terms of broadband openness, cost and access at a time when the US is falling behind other nations on each of these measures. With Comcast in charge we’ll continue to sink in the ratings.
benton.org/node/182440 | Free Press
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NCTA PANEL -- COMCAST/TWC GOOD FOR INDUSTRY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Michael Farrell]
Consolidation will help make the industry as a whole more competitive and will give cable operators a leg up on new technologies, according to Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge at the Cable Show 2014 General Session. Comcast agreed on Feb. 13 to acquire Time Warner Cable, in a deal worth about $69 billion that will boost the combined company’s reach to just under 30% of the television households across the country. Now, Comcast agreed to divest about 4 million customers to Charter in a trio of deals worth about $20 billion. The deals, which include the outright sale of 1.4 million TWC subscribers to Charter, a swap between Comcast and Charter involving systems with 1.6 million customers and the spin-off of an additional 2.5 million customers into a separate publicly traded company managed by and 33% owned by Charter, will effectively double the Connecticut-based company’s owned and managed systems to about 8.2 million customers. In a briefly tense moment at the session when moderator, CNBC on-air editor John Fortt, reminded Rutledge of his past criticism of the deal and asked why the Charter CEO believes it is a good one now. Rutledge quickly wiped an annoyed look off his face, telling the moderator that this deal is different.
benton.org/node/182551 | Broadcasting&Cable
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AT&T-DIRECTV DEAL?
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Shalini Ramachandran, Thomas Gryta]
AT&T has approached DirecTV about a possible acquisition of the satellite-TV firm, say people familiar with the situation, the latest sign of a possible shake-up in the television industry. A combination of AT&T with satellite-TV firm DirecTV would create a pay television giant close in size to where Comcast will be if it completes its pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable. DirecTV is the second biggest pay TV operator, serving about 20 million customers, while AT&T's landline-based TV business serves about 5.7 million. The nearly 26 million subscribers served by the combined company would compare with Comcast which -- with TWC -- would serve close to 30 million subscribers. A deal would likely be worth at least $40 billion, DirecTV's current market capitalization, a fraction of AT&T's $185 billion market capitalization. Acquisition of DirecTV would give AT&T a national footprint in pay television at a time when the telecom company sees video delivery as core to its future. An acquisition would allow AT&T to offer bundles of wireless and TV services, and could give AT&T new ways to deliver video to its mobile and broadband customers. Whether regulators would agree to a DirecTV-AT&T merger is a major question. Any acquisition would likely be evaluated by the Justice Department for its impact on competition and would require approval by the Federal Communications Commission. The companies would have to prove to the FCC that the transaction would be in the public interest and the combined company would be able to offer consumer benefits not possible outside the merger. However, a person familiar with the FCC's thinking predicted the merger would have a solid chance at approval because offering video or voice service alone is viewed as a dying business and the combined company would be in a position to compete with Comcast, the leading cable and broadband provider. Competition in the broadband market is likely to be the central issue in any review.
benton.org/node/182559 | Wall Street Journal
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SPRINT SAID TO PLAN T-MOBILE BID AFTER PUSHING BANKS FOR FUNDING
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Alex Sherman]
Sprint plans to push forward with a bid for T-Mobile US after meeting with banks to make debt arrangements for that offer, people with knowledge of the situation said. Sprint Chief Financial Officer Joe Euteneuer and Treasurer Greg Block met with six banks to ensure the lenders would be ready with financing structures when Sprint decides to pursue a takeover, said three of the people, asking not to be named because the discussions are private. Masayoshi Son, chief executive officer of SoftBank, which owns about 80 percent of Sprint, is expected to make a formal bid in June or July 2014, one of the people said. While regulators have consistently expressed concerns about a combination of the third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers in the US, Son and his advisers are building an argument they hope will convince the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice about the long-term health of the US wireless industry.
benton.org/node/182557 | Bloomberg | Revere Digital
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DIVERSITY

SILICON VALLEY TURNS TO AN ALGORITHM TO FIX ITS DIVERSITY PROBLEM
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Rebecca Greenfield]
In Silicon Valley, the algorithm is seen as a magic bullet that can fix almost anything. Now one company is banking on an algorithm to fix the industry's dearth of women and minorities in tech. Entelo, which helps high-profile tech companies like Yelp and Facebook with recruiting, has launched a new product, Entelo Diversity. For $10,000 a year, organizations can target certain groups, like women, black men, or "old" people, with certain skills for job openings using Entelo's "proprietary algorithm." Entelo assures that its technology won't lead to reverse discrimination, especially given the recent Supreme Court affirmative action ruling. "I'm sensitive to that," said Entelo's CEO Jon Bischke. "But there's active discrimination going on today and we hope this will mitigate that." The technology claims to sift through already qualified candidates, assuring no "token" hires. Unfortunately, the algorithm does nothing about the social issues behind the hiring imbalances. Silicon Valley's discrimination problems run too deep. Women often don't "qualify" for jobs because fewer women pursue careers and training in math and science. Multiple studies have shown that women drop out of STEM fields because of cultural, not innate, reasons.
benton.org/node/182517 | Fast Company
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CONTENT

POLITICAL PREFERENCE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nick Bilton]
Social media’s promise was that people with different views and political ties could mingle in digital bliss. But some social sites are more popular with one political party than another. According to a new survey by the Harvard Institute of Politics, Democrats love Google Plus and Twitter, while Republicans are more interested in sharing on Pinterest. Some sites showed virtually no differences between the parties. Democrats and Republicans used Facebook the same amount, 87 percent. With Snapchat, 24 percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Republicans said they actively used the service. Most other sites were predominantly used by Democrats, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Tumblr. While it’s difficult to tell why more Republicans than Democrats have joined Pinterest, this could be because of Mitt Romney, who used Pinterest to share pictures and information during his presidential campaign. His wife, Ann Romney, was also a frequent user of the site.
benton.org/node/182529 | New York Times
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PRIVACY/SECURITY

SPY COURT HEARS FIRST ANTI-NSA ARGUMENT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Julian Hattem]
For the first time, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court heard a formal argument that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of people’s phone records is illegal. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed early in April and just declassified, the Center for National Security Studies said that the surveillance program is not authorized under current law. “Congress has never authorized the telephone metadata program,” the think tank told court. “When the government acts in an area of questionable constitutionality, Congress cannot be deemed to have authorized that action by mere implication or acquiescence,” it added, “Rather, Congress must explicitly indicate that it intends to alter the rights and limitations normally afforded by the law.” Yet with regards to the controversial NSA operation, Congress never “made such an explicit statement.” According to Kate Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, the brief is the first formal argument the FISA Court has heard outlining how the bulk data collection does not comply with the law. “The court hasn’t heard the opposing view on that before issuing these orders, on that question,” she said.
benton.org/node/182525 | Hill, The
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CONFUSED BY FACEBOOK PRIVACY SETTINGS? SO IS THE SUPREME COURT.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Andrea Peterson]
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a pair of cases that will shape what privacy protections Americans have against warrantless searches of electronic devices. But during the two-hour discussion, Chief Justice John Roberts touched on a related issue that millions of Americans are challenged by every day: Facebook privacy settings. The privacy settings of the social network and its related applications came up in the discussion of Riley v. California, a case involving a San Diego college student, David Riley, who was pulled over for expired tags, only to have police seize his phone and use a photo on it to convict him for participation in a drive-by shooting. Litigator Jeffrey Fisher, representing Riley, argued that even flipping through photos on a smartphone draws on a multitude of data that is "intrinsically intertwined" in the device in such a way that implicates the Fourth Amendment. "Including information that is specifically designed to be made public?" asked Chief Justice Roberts, "I mean, what about something like Facebook or a Twitter account?" Depending on a user's privacy settings, Facebook activity can range from entirely public to only available to an individual user -- although Facebook changes the settings often enough that users aren't always aware of the current setup. But Chief Justice Roberts went on to say there is not really "any privacy interest" in a Facebook account -- or it's "at least diminished because the point is you want these things to be public and seen widely" -- before asking if there would be a way to create a rule that police could search "those apps that, in fact, don't have an air of privacy about them." Even Roberts's argument about accessing publicly posted information doesn't seem to be making a lot of sense -- which isn't entirely surprising considering the court's previous problems with technology concepts -- mostly because if something is already public, there would be no need for law enforcement to use an arrestee's device to access it.
benton.org/node/182448 | Washington Post
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THE US SUPREME COURT NEEDS TO KEEP UP WITH OUR CELLPHONES -- AND THE NSA
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Yochai Benkler]
The US Supreme Court arguments involved a seemingly basic legal question about the future of the Fourth Amendment: do police officers need a warrant to search the cellphone of a person they arrest? But the two privacy cases pit against each other two very different conceptions of what it means to be a supreme court in the first place -- and what it means to do constitutional law in the 21st century. "With computers, it's a new world," several justices reportedly said in the chamber. Are they ready to be the kinds of justices who make sense of it? Cellphones expose so much of our most personal data that the decision should be a 9-0 no-brainer. The basic problem that makes it a harder call is that lawyers and judges are by training and habit incrementalists, while information and communications technology moves too fast for incrementalism to keep up. But this kind of narrow legalism simply cannot do when the world is changing as rapidly as it is today: all narrow analogies will systematically fail to preserve the values they did five or ten years ago, especially when we're walking around with all the metadata coming out of the bank/medical monitor/full-on GPS trackers in our pockets. The world is changing, and that narrow view of constitutional adjudication will not offer us meaningful protection. What we need in these news cellphone cases is for those five justices to join together and show that constitutional vision is more than just the workmanlike competence of lawyers. Otherwise, the coming decades will become a series of lurches from one formally defensible but substantively implausible invasion to another, with no end in sight -- as long as there's another iPhone in the works.
benton.org/node/182515 | Guardian, The
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

US STATE DEPARTMENT ADOPTING SOCIAL MEDIA TO COUNTER AL-QAEDA PROPAGANDA
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: David Kravets]
The State Department unveiled that it is widely employing social media as a method to counter online violent extremism from Al-Qaeda and others. Buried in an intelligence report, the government said that the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), established in 2011, produced more than 10,000 online postings globally in 2013, some of which included one of 138 government-produced videos. "CSCC's programs draw on a full range of intelligence information and analysis for context and feedback. CSCC counters terrorist propaganda in the social media environment on a daily basis, contesting space where AQ and its supporters formerly had free rein. CSCC communications have provoked defensive responses from violent extremists on many of the 249 most popular extremist websites and forums as well as on social media," said the document, Country Reports on Terrorism 2013. The paper also said that in 2013, "violent extremists increased their use of new media platforms and social media with mixed results."
benton.org/node/182521 | Ars Technica
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LOBBYING

SMARTPHONE KILL SWITCH
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: George Skelton]
[Commentary] In truth, I wouldn't know a smartphone "kill switch" from a typewriter shift key. But I do know strong special interest influence when I smell it. I'm not saying that every state senator who voted against a bill to require kill switches as theft deterrents on new smartphones got bought off by the telecommunications industry. But surely some did. And they know who they are. Well, maybe they don't. Denial is a common human characteristic, especially in legislative halls packed by lobbyists with access to campaign money. Of course, it's never the money that influences. It's the merits of the argument. Right! The telecom industry, during the previous two election cycles, contributed nearly $1.4 million to California state senators, according to Maplight, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political money. Of that, $700,000 came from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. Legislators in both houses -- Assembly as well as Senate -- received nearly $2 million from the telecom lobby during the 2012 election cycle alone.
benton.org/node/182549 | Los Angeles Times
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