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November 2015

Fresh On The Screen: How TV Is Redefining Who We Think Of As 'American'

[Commentary] Currently in development for future seasons are programs like "Eat Pray Thug", rapper Himanshu Kumar Suri's show about a hip-hop musician who returns home to Queens to live with his immigrant parents; "Pre-Madonna", Nisha Ganatra's comedy reflecting on her childhood as an Indian-American girl growing up in Chicago; an as-yet-untitled immigrant family reminiscence from rapper Nicki Minaj; and a sitcom adaptation of Japanese tidyness guru Marie Kondo's book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

These new shows arrive just as the political conversation around immigration seems angrier and more strident than we've seen in generations. But there's reason to believe that this rhetoric is merely the final flare-up of nativism and xenophobia before a greater opening of both minds and borders. Because television has always been a critical indicator of shifting American sentiment. When a social issue makes it to prime time -- working women, single mothers, the right to choose, LGBT equality -- it generally means that the phenomenon is on the verge of attaining mainstream acceptance.

[Jeff Yang is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal Online and the father of Hudson Yang, star of ABC's "Fresh Off The Boat"]

Op-ed

What do we want broadband competition to accomplish?

On October 30, Blair Levin delivered a speech, Achieving Bandwidth Abundance: The Three Policy Levers for Intensifying Broadband Competition, to an Internet Society conference. This week, we're providing excerpts of the speech. Blair Levin oversaw the development of a National Broadband Plan. He is a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institute's Metropolitan Policy Program.

President Obama championed cheap, fast, city-run Internet. His administration won’t.

Regulators may have to wage an uphill legal battle if they want to use federal powers to nurture small, city-run broadband projects. The Justice Department said that it won't be helping the Federal Communications Commission fight a couple of key lawsuits on municipal broadband, in a possible indication of trouble ahead for the FCC. The government's lawyers said they wouldn't be taking a position on the cases, which target a controversial decision by the FCC to strike down state limits on public Internet service in two states, Tennessee and North Carolina.

It's not unheard of for the Justice Department to bow out of a case involving a federal agency. But its decision this time is unusual, many policy analysts say. The Obama Administration has vocally supported city-run Internet initiatives, and urged the FCC to take action on the matter. And the Justice Department is already supporting the FCC in another high-profile lawsuit on Internet policy involving network neutrality. "We don't know for sure, but my best guess is that the DOJ, quite rightly, is concerned about the lawfulness of the FCC's preemption action," said Randolph May, president of the conservative-leaning Free State Foundation and a former FCC lawyer. Others said that the FCC's decision to preempt those state laws falls outside the Justice Department's traditional area of expertise, which could explain its decision to bow out this time.

FCC Sides With Hot Spots, and Hospitality Industry Feels a Chill

Fed up with Internet charges that can range into six figures, more meeting planners are instead using mobile hot spots to connect at conferences and conventions. But their efforts have at times been stymied, when the venues have electronically blocked the transmissions. The Federal Communications Commission has recently been intervening in this high-tech game of cat and mouse.

The FCC proposed a $718,000 fine against MC Dean, the company that provides Internet services at the Baltimore (MD) Convention Center, over accusations that the company blocked Wi-Fi hot spots, as well as a $25,000 fine against Hilton Worldwide Holdings for what the agency called “apparent obstruction of an investigation” into Wi-Fi blocking. In 2014, the FCC fined Marriott International $600,000, then issued a warning in January that blocking hot spots in hotels and “other commercial establishments” was illegal. In August, the agency levied a $750,000 fine against Smart City Holdings, a company that manages Internet services in 28 convention centers. Consumers have a right, the FCC said, to use hot spot technology like smartphones and wireless routers like MiFi without interference. In response, the hospitality industry has countered that the FCC has overstepped its authority and has given poor guidance about how companies are allowed to manage their Internet connectivity. Wi-Fi networks created by hot spots, industry officials contend, are less secure and can interfere with their in-house networks.

Privacy advocates mobilize against trade pact

Digital rights advocates are mobilizing against a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade deal. The White House says the pact will be a valuable tool to combat cyber theft, but critics say it could actually hamper cybersecurity and erode critical privacy protections worldwide. After weeks of anticipation, the Obama Administration finally released the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free-trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim nations.

Numerous security researchers and digital privacy groups warn, though, that the trade pact's rules, if adopted globally, could actually make consumer data more vulnerable to hackers and government spies. They worry that widely touted provisions encouraging the TPP countries to allow the free flow of data between borders may allow them to skirt privacy safeguards needed to secure that information. “We don’t want to see the Internet become balkanized,” said Maira Sutton, a global policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocate. “But having these discussions decided in a trade agreement is exactly the wrong place to do it. There’s been no security researchers at the table, no public interest groups that have been following this for a long time," she added. “Trade agreements are not the place to decide digital policy."

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