November 2016

TRUMP TRANSITION

TRUMP SELECTS JEFF SESSIONS FOR AG
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Lichtblau, Maggie Haberman, Ashley Parker]
President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Sen Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a conservative from Alabama who became a close adviser after endorsing him early in his campaign, to be the attorney general of the United States. While Sen Sessions is well liked in the Senate, his record as United States attorney in Alabama in the 1980s is very likely to become an issue for Democrats and civil rights groups expected to give it close scrutiny. While serving as a United States prosecutor in Alabama, Sessions was nominated in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan for a federal judgeship. But his nomination was rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee because of racially charged comments and actions. At that time, he was one of two judicial nominees whose selections were halted by the panel in nearly 50 years. The appointment of Sen Sessions is expected to bring sweeping change to the Justice Department as it operated under Loretta E. Lynch and her predecessor, Eric H. Holder Jr., who, when he was nominated to be the first black attorney general, pledged to make rebuilding the civil rights division his top priority. Several former Justice officials predicted that Sen Sessions would reverse the emphasis on civil rights and criminal-justice reform that Holder put in place.
benton.org/headlines/president-elect-trump-selects-senator-jeff-sessions-attorney-general | New York Times | Washington Post | Washington Post
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PAI ON SESSIONS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai]
I want to congratulate Senator Jeff Sessions on his prospective nomination by President-Elect Trump to serve as Attorney General of the United States. I had the honor of working for Senator Sessions on the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he chaired the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts. Senator Sessions was and is a good man and a superb senator: honorable, thoughtful, devoted to the Constitution, and deeply committed to equal justice and the rule of law. He has long employed a diverse staff of attorneys—during my tenure, his staff consisted of an African-American man, two women, and me, a first-generation Indian-American—all of whom worked every day to fulfill his vision of a just and free America. I commend Senator Sessions’ nomination without reservation. The Department of Justice and the American people will benefit from his leadership.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-commissioner-pai-prospective-nomination-senator-sessions-attorney-general-united | Federal Communications Commission
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MIKE POMPEO IS TRUMP'S CHOICE AS CIA DIRECTOR
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Mark Mazzetti, Julie Hirschfeld Davis]
President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Rep Mike Pompeo (R-KS), a hawkish Republican from Kansas and a former Army officer, to lead the CIA. Rep Pompeo, who has served for three terms in Congress and is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, gained prominence for his role in the congressional investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. He was a sharp critic of Hillary Clinton on the committee. If confirmed by the Senate, Rep Pompeo would take control of a spy agency that has been remade in the years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with a relentless focus on manhunts, counterterrorism and targeted killing operations. Over the past year, the CIA has undergone a bureaucratic reorganization under its director, John O. Brennan, an effort Rep Pompeo would decide whether he wants to continue. On the intelligence committee, Rep Pompeo has taken a particularly hard-line stance on how to treat National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. After Snowden's allies began a campaign to get him pardoned, the entire House Select Committee on Intelligence wrote a letter to President Barack Obama urging against a pardon. The letter said Snowden was no whistle-blower, but rather a "serial exaggerator and fabricator." At that time, Rep Pompeo issued his own press release, calling Snowden a "liar and a criminal," who deserves "prison rather than pardon."
benton.org/headlines/mike-pompeo-president-elect-trumps-choice-cia-director | New York Times | The Hill | ars technica
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MICHAEL FLYNN OFFERED POST OF NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matthew Rosenberg, Maggie Haberman]
President-elect Donald J. Trump has offered the post of national security adviser to Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, potentially putting a retired intelligence officer who believes Islamist militancy poses an existential threat in one of the most powerful roles in shaping military and foreign policy. General Flynn, 57, a registered Democrat, was President-elect Trump’s main national security adviser during his campaign. If he accepts President-elect Trump’s offer, as expected, he will be a critical gatekeeper for a president with little experience in military or foreign policy issues. General Flynn stunned former colleagues when he traveled to Moscow in 2015 to appear alongside Russian President Vladi¬mir Putin at a lavish gala for the Kremlin-run propaganda channel RT, a trip General Flynn admitted he was paid to make and defended by saying he saw no distinction between RT and US news channels such as CNN.
benton.org/headlines/michael-flynn-anti-islamist-ex-general-offered-security-post | New York Times | Washington Post
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ADMIRAL MICHAEL ROGERS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
The heads of the Pentagon and the nation’s intelligence community have recommended to President Barack Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael Rogers, be removed. The recommendation, delivered to the White House last month, was made by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr, according to several US officials familiar with the matter. Action has been delayed, some administration officials said, because relieving Adm. Rogers of his duties is tied to another controversial recommendation: to create separate chains of command at the NSA and the military’s cyberwarfare unit, a recommendation by Clapper and Carter that has been stalled because of other issues. The news comes as Adm. Rogers is being considered by President-elect Donald Trump to be his nominee for director of national intelligence to replace Clapper as the official who oversees all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Adm. Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump at Trump Tower. That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters.
benton.org/headlines/pentagon-and-intelligence-community-chiefs-have-urged-president-obama-remove-head-nsa | Washington Post
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TRUMP'S LOBBYING RULES MAY BE ILLEGAL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Catherine Ho]
President-elect Donald Trump’s new proposals to crack down on lobbyists’ influence in Washington read like the most stringent attempt in recent history to rein in the booming influence industry. But the reality could be much different. Ethics experts and lobbyists say the new rules intended to “drain the swamp” of the special interests that President-elect Trump believes control the nation’s capital are rife with holes, appear vague and could be unconstitutional. And their biggest immediate impact is to make it more difficult for the Trump transition, which is already scrambling to fill thousands of government jobs in the next several weeks, to find qualified people to work in the administration. “It’s going to be really difficult to fully flesh out a working government if you’re not able to collect the talent of people who know how to pull the levers of government,” said Democratic lobbyist Zach Williams, a partner at the lobby firm Forbes-Tate.
benton.org/headlines/president-elect-trumps-new-lobbying-rules-could-drain-swamp-they-may-be-illegal-and-are | Washington Post
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A GUIDE TO TRUMP'S POSSIBLE TECH POLICIES
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Geof Wheelwright]
President-elect Donald Trump brought up cybersecurity many times, often referring to it as “cyber”, very much emphasizing his priority of increasing the security of government systems. “To enhance the defense of the other agencies of government, including our law enforcement agencies, we will put together a team of the best military, civilian and private sector cybersecurity experts to comprehensively review all of our cybersecurity systems and technology,” he promised on Oct 3, speaking to veterans in Virginia. “This will include the various methods of internal monitoring, attack and penetration, investigation of suspected hackers or rogue employees, and identity protection for government employees.” Civil rights organisations have been quick to seize on the potential impact of President-elect Trump’s policies on personal privacy. Neema Guliani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said President-elect Trump should “categorically reject proposals to mandate encryption backdoors and supports reforming surveillance programs that have violated the rights of millions of Americans”. That, however, is unlikely. Given that so many in the technology industry either publicly or privately backed Trump’s rival Hillary Clinton in the election, there is some concern that President-elect Trump might try to “punish” Silicon Valley. “He has a lot of people criticizing him and if he spent his whole time getting back at people, he wouldn’t get anything done,” said Atkinson. “Trump is going to need the tech sector. You can’t make America great again if you don’t have a great tech industry.
benton.org/headlines/strong-arm-apple-and-tax-china-bigly-guide-trumps-possible-tech-policies | Guardian, The
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SPEED BUMPS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Lauren Gardner]
It was supposed to be a big, beautiful infrastructure bill. But President-elect Donald Trump’s pitch for a $1 trillion upgrade of the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports is already running into potholes as it meets reality in Washington. The overwhelming sticking point, as always, is how to pay for it. Trump's advisers are so far floating the same kinds of financing schemes that Congress has batted around for years with little success, including proposals to lure private investors or reap a revenue windfall through an overhaul of the tax code. Key lawmakers say they’re in the dark on how Trump’s plan would work — with some conservatives simply hoping that his call for massive tax breaks will provide an economic jolt that makes the hard spending decisions easier. Democrats, meanwhile, are split on whether to cooperate with President-elect Trump on his plan. Even congressional Republicans who have long championed spending on transportation projects say they don’t yet know the details of Trump’s 10-year proposal, which the president-elect has vowed will “put millions of our people to work” while making US infrastructure “second to none.” It is unclear to infrastructure finance experts whether his plan would involve much, or even any, additional federal spending on top of the five-year, $305 billion transportation bill that Congress approved in 2015.
benton.org/headlines/trumps-1-trillion-plan-hits-dc-speed-bumps | Politico | Business Insider
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JOURNALISM

MAJORITY OF US ADULTS THINK NEWS MEDIA SHOULD NOT ADD INTERPRETATION TO THE FACTS
[SOURCE: Pew Research Center, AUTHOR: Michael Barthel, Jeffrey Gottfried]
A key question that news organizations face, particularly during intense periods like election years, is to what degree journalists should present the facts with some interpretation, giving their audience guidance in navigating all the information that comes at them. A majority of US adults (59%) reject the idea of adding interpretation, saying that the news media should present the facts alone, a recent Pew Research Center survey found. Four-in-ten favor adding some interpretation to the facts. The survey of 4,132 adults on the Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel was conducted Sept. 27-Oct. 10, before Election Day. Although the public prefers the news media to present “just the facts,” they may not even agree on what the facts are. In the same survey, 81% of registered voters said that most supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump not only disagree over plans and policies, but also disagree on basic facts.
benton.org/headlines/majority-us-adults-think-news-media-should-not-add-interpretation-facts | Pew Research Center
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FACEBOOK FAKE NEWS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Mike Isaac]
After more than a week of accusations that the spread of fake news on Facebook may have affected the outcome of the presidential election, Mark Zuckerberg published a detailed post describing ways the company was considering dealing with the problem. Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chairman and chief executive, broadly outlined some of the options he said the company’s news feed team was looking into, including third-party verification services, better automated detection tools and simpler ways for users to flag suspicious content. “The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible.” The post was perhaps the most detailed glimpse into Zuckerberg’s thinking on the issue since Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election. Within hours of his victory being declared, Facebook was accused of affecting the election’s outcome by failing to stop bogus news stories, many of them favorable to Trump, from proliferating on its social network. Executives and employees at all levels of the company have since been debating its role and responsibilities.
benton.org/headlines/facebook-considering-ways-combat-fake-news-mark-zuckerberg-says | New York Times | LA Times | Washington Post | CNN | Recode | The Hill
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

UNIVERSAL SERVICE REFORM
[SOURCE: American Enterprise Institute, AUTHOR: Daniel Lyons]
[Commentary] Though tech policy was not a significant focus for the Trump campaign, one aspect should be vitally important to the new administration: expanding broadband access. Policymakers across the political spectrum recognize the importance of narrowing the digital divide. Unfortunately, while many acknowledge the problem, a solution has proven elusive, in part because of the flotsam and jetsam of legacy universal service programs that hamper efforts at revolutionary change. Through universal service reform, the incoming administration has an opportunity to achieve significant and lasting reform on an issue that has bipartisan support and that affects the population upon which President-elect Trump focused his campaign message—those at risk of being left behind by the forces of change. In March 2016, AEI published my white paper outlining a proposal for more comprehensive universal service reform. The high cost for monthly broadband service is only one of many factors that prevent low-income households from purchasing internet access. Even with a subsidy, many families cannot afford a computer, while others do not fully appreciate the value of online connectivity. To address these multiple drivers, the white paper encourages Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to take a more holistic approach, encompassing not only a targeted monthly subsidy but also digital literacy programs in local communities and a one-time equipment purchase subsidy for qualified households. It also reflects a market-based approach, focused on increasing the purchasing power of low-income households rather than simply giving them a monthly handout.
[Lyons is an associate professor at Boston College Law School]
benton.org/headlines/rethinking-universal-service-how-next-administration-can-narrow-digital-divide | American Enterprise Institute | read the paper
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LABOR

WHAT TECH COMPANIES LOST WHEN TRUMP WIN KILLED TPP
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: April Glaser]
Here’s what American technology companies would have gotten had the Trans-Pacific Partnership been finalized.
The TPP’s e-commerce chapter included the world’s first set of international trade rules that would have barred governments from blocking how companies share data across national borders.The Internet works by freely moving data across the world.
In many of the participating countries it is not currently illegal to break the digital rights management, a digital lock that technology companies can add to their products to prevent piracy, tinkering and repair.
Six of the twelve participating countries would have expanded their copyright terms an additional 20 years.
Tech companies also were in favor of the TPP’s ban on “forced localization,” or laws that require a company to keep its citizens’ user data stored within its borders.
benton.org/headlines/heres-what-large-tech-companies-lost-when-trumps-win-killed-trans-pacific-partnership | Vox
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FCC REFORM

HOUSES PASSES POTENTIAL FCC REGULATION-BLOCKING BILL
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A recently-passed House bill would make it easy for Congress to invalidate any last-minute regulations from an agency like the Federal Communications Commission or Federal Trade Commission with a single vote. The House on Nov 17 passed (240 to 179) a bill, the Midnight Rules Relief Act (HR 5982), to backstop those warnings to all federal agencies about 11th-hour votes, on or off a public meeting. The bill can't get a Senate vote until at least Nov. 28 since the Senate is not holding any business sessions until that date given the Thanksgiving holiday. The bill "amends the Congressional Review Act to allow Congress to consider a joint resolution to disapprove multiple regulations that federal agencies have submitted for congressional review within the last 60 legislative days of a session of Congress during the final year of a President's term. Congress may disapprove a group of such regulations together (i.e., 'en bloc') instead of the current procedure of considering only one regulation at a time." The bill would apply to the FCC and FTC, according to a spokesperson for Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA) who introduced the bill, as well as federal agencies like the Department of Agriculture, FDA and EPA. If passed by the Senate, it would have to wait until President-elect Donald Trump was sworn in to be submitted for a presidential signature since the current President has already signaled it would be vetoed. The Executive Office of the President said the "arbitrary packaging of rules for an up-or-down vote, as this bill does, is unnecessary."
benton.org/headlines/house-passes-potential-fcc-regulation-blocking-bill | Broadcasting&Cable
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POLICYMAKERS

ROSENWORCEL NOMINATION DRAMA
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Margaret Harding McGill, Alex Byers]
Federal Communications Commission member Jessica Rosenworcel is facing new obstacles to win re-confirmation in the Senate for another term, and the clock is also working against her. Commissioner Rosenworcel’s already fraught path to confirmation was dealt a potential death blow when Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) put a hold on her nomination, citing inaction on several recent FCC proposals. The holds further complicate the calculus for Commissioner Rosenworcel. Unless lawmakers reconfirm her, she must leave the FCC when this Congress adjourns. Republicans have also had longstanding holds on Rosenworcel’s nomination, sparking previous retaliation from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who’s been standing in the way of technology and telecommunications bills coming out of the Senate Commerce Committee. Now that some Democrats are also holding up Commissioner Rosenworcel, the Commerce Committee’s leadership is calling on Sen Reid, who is retiring, to let its legislation through. “Bipartisan technology legislation passed by the Commerce Committee should not face further delay from the Senate Minority Leader over a nominee Senate Democrats are now blocking,” said committee spokesman Frederick Hill. Among the bills Hill flagged that are in need of passage are the MOBILE NOW Act and The FCC Reauthorization Act, both of which are on Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune’s (R-SD) priority list. Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman questioned whether Commissioner Rosenworcel is the right choice for Democrats, but Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said he disagreed with the holds on her nomination. “Free Press does not support the strategy, nor do we believe the claims underlying it. We did not ask any senators to take this step,” said Wood.
benton.org/headlines/fccs-rosenworcel-confirmation-drama | Politico
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November 2016

Privacy Order Would Hike Broadband Prices

13% of Americans don’t use the internet. Until a few months ago, I was one of them.

LifeLock shares jump on $2.3-billion deal with Symantec

The Presidential Polls Weren’t As Wrong as the Interpreters

Apple Abandons Development of Wireless Routers

Standing taller because of Gwen Ifill

India's Cash Crunch Drives Fresh Interest in Digital Finance

Talent Gap Is a Main Roadblock as Agencies Eye Emerging Tech

Global Over-the-Top Content Revenues to Reach $53.2 Billion by Year-End

November 21, 2016 (Cabinet Picks)