November 2014

[Commentary] The Internet doesn’t look like a system that needs a lot of help from bungling regulators or their political allies. It works, it improves, it reaches everyone, and it pleases billions; the strongest case that can be made for any regulatory approach is the promise of more of the same.

It’s therefore surprising that the President of the United States and the Federal Communications Commission Chairman he nominated each have proposed to change the Internet’s legal status in different ways while claiming the changes they propose will simply preserve the status quo. They’re both responding to fears, some fact-based and some not, to the effect that the Internet we experience in the US isn’t all it could be. This statement is true because the Internet hasn’t finished improving: plenty of ideas haven’t been fully formed, untold numbers of applications haven’t been developed, and some of the best that have are yet to go mainstream. Rather than continue the never-ending net neutrality squabble, it would be more beneficial for the nation and indeed the world to get to work on remedies for the historical features than make the Internet less welcoming than it should be to the next generation of applications. This particular status quo need not be preserved.

Senate Republicans blocked a sweeping overhaul of the once-secret National Security Agency program that collects records of Americans’ phone calls in bulk.

Democrats and a handful of Republicans who supported the measure fell two votes short of the 60 votes they needed to take up the legislation, which sponsors named the USA Freedom Act. Sen Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Republican leader, worked hard to defeat the bill, which had the support of the Obama Administration and a coalition of technology companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. But the vote only put off a fractious debate over security and personal liberties until next year. While a Republican-controlled Senate is less likely to go along with the kinds of changes that were in the bill, which would have ended the NSA's ability to collect bulk phone call data, the debate could further expose rifts between the party’s interventionist and more libertarian-leaning wings.

Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA), the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, believes the National Security Agency reforms the House passed earlier in 2014 were largely unnecessary.

He was selected to lead the committee in the next Congress with the retirement of current-Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI). Rep Nunes voted in favor of the House version of the USA Freedom Act in May, along with Chairman Rogers and most other Republicans. The legislation, however, lost support from a number of technology groups, outside advocates and Democrats when a compromised version hit the House floor. Rep Nunes previously said the House legislation was largely unnecessary but "should address all the concerns raised by press coverage of the Snowden leaks," according to an op-ed he wrote in the National Review in July. "For the last year, various groups have sought to curtail our intelligence activities based on selectively presented, maliciously leaked documents about anti-terror programs that are widely misunderstood and whose effects have been wildly exaggerated," he wrote in the op-ed.

Without gigabit connectivity, small towns will suffer economic hardships in the coming years, according to elected officials speaking at a rally on high-speed broadband expansion on Nov. 18 in Chattanooga (TN).

State representatives, mayors and private-sector leaders all gathered in “Gig City” to support recent petitions to the Federal Communications Commission that would vacate state restrictions on community broadband operations in Tennessee and North Carolina. The pundits stressed that rural areas with limited or no access to broadband will be unable to develop, attract and retain bright young minds and new businesses unless cities are free to operate publicly owned networks. Tennessee State Sen Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma) called the Internet “the essential utility of the 21st century,” adding that Tennessee’s restriction on expanding Chattanooga’s gigabit network needs to be lifted. “What needs to [happen] is removing the restriction of the electronic footprint, so anybody who wants to provide accessible, high-speed broadband will not be encumbered by unnecessary regulations,” State Sen Bowling said.