November 2016

Michael Flynn, Anti-Islamist Ex-General, Offered Security Post

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 Vladimir 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.

President-elect Trump’s new lobbying rules could ‘drain the swamp.’ But they may be illegal and are porous.

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.

Strong-arm Apple and tax China bigly: a guide to Trump's possible tech policies

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.

Committee to Protect Journalists Seeks Meeting with VP-Elect Pence

Having already branded President-elect Donald Trump a threat to press freedom and journalist safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists has asked for a meeting with Vice President-elect Mike Pence to talk about the Administration's commitment to freedom of the press. They were writing to him in his capacity as head of the transition team, looking for help in correcting the "terrible example" the Trump campaign's treatment of journalists has set, a precedent of vilification that fuels attacks on press freedom, they argue.

In a letter to Vice President-elect Pence Nov. 17, CPJ executive director Joel Simon said he wanted to remind incoming officials about the "danger" that harassment of the press in the US -- President-elect Trump has criticized media broadly as in a conspiracy against him, insulted journalists specifically, and threatened lawsuits and tightening libel laws -- could be used as a "pretext" by others around the world to "persecute their critics."

Police are spending millions of dollars to monitor the social media of protesters and suspects

Hundreds of local police departments across the United States have collectively spent about $4.75 million on software tools that can monitor the locations of activists at protests or social media hashtags used by suspects, according to new research. The research, by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit organization focusing on criminal justice issues, aims to take a comprehensive look at the fast-growing phenomenon of social media-monitoring by law enforcement. Using public records, the Brennan Center tracked spending by 151 local law enforcement agencies that have contracted with start-ups that siphon data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other sites, largely out of the public eye. Top spenders were the City of Los Angeles, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the County of Sacramento, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the County of Macomb, which is a large county in Michigan. Each spent roughly $70,000 over the past three years, Brennan found.

FCC Denies Broadcaster Complaint Against DirecTV Distributor

The Federal Communications Commission has rejected a pair of broadcasters' complaints against a company delivering TV stations to college students but says it could refocus their complaint at DirecTV if they still have a bone to pick.

The owners of WSEE and WICU, Erie (PA) had complained that Campus Televideo (CTV) has been retransmitting their signals to Edinboro University without either retransmission consent or a right of subdistribution. The FCC's Media Bureau dismissed the complaint on the grounds that Campus Televideo was acting as an agent of DirecTV—AT&T told the FCC that CTA "is an authorized sales agent for DIRECTV’s programming services, and that DIRECTV directly provides the programming services including the Stations to Edinboro University," according to the bureau. The FCC pointed out that DirecTV has to pay SJL license fees related to commercial customers per their retrans deal. The stations said that some of the stations being made available to students violated network nonduplication rules, but CTV countered that that was between DirecTV and the stations, not the university or CTV. The FCC agreed.

DC Circuit Finds FCC’s Unlawful Give-Away of Licenses Unreviewable

In a unanimous decision, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a claim by small wireless carrier NTCH, Inc. the Federal Communications Commission had unlawfully awarded thousands of licenses to Verizon Wireless in violation of the Communications Act. The case arose out of Verizon’s application in 2012 to acquire numerous licenses from SpectrumCo, a consortium of cable companies. The transaction involved a fairly routine examination of whether the acquisition would give Verizon undue power in various submarkets until the very end of the FCC’s review process.

The symbiotic relationship between WikiLeaks and the press

WikiLeaks used to be the press’s only source for anonymously submitted online document dumps. Since then, the press has developed its own digital capabilities and a comfort with leaked material—and WikiLeaks has strayed from editorial curation and toward publishing unedited archives.

Before the election, the conversation around Wikileaks focused on the question of whether or not the press should report on the Podesta e-mails, since they are so targeted, uncurated, and not even clearly newsworthy. The verdict, rightly, was that the press should report on the leaks: Glenn Greenwald argues in The Intercept, and Trevor Timm in The Guardian, that it is the journalist’s job to take what was leaked, decide what is newsworthy, and report on it. The role of the press is not only to report the leaks, but to interrogate the information and assess its newsworthiness. But now, after the election, there is another layer of transparency that is the press’s job to add: transparency on WikiLeaks itself.

Majority of US adults think news media should not add interpretation to the facts

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.

2016 US Election: An Internet Forecast

The unexpected election of Donald Trump, along with continued Republican control of both houses of Congress will have a big impact on our US priorities. While the outlook remains unclear, we’ve prepared the memo below examining the initial impact the election may have on issues that matter to Internet infrastructure companies and organizations. President-Elect Trump has embraced a dangerous precedent that privacy and security are in conflict. The hacks on Democratic National Committee, however, likely served as a signal that all networks are vulnerable and that there is a need to use all of the tools in the cybersecurity toolkit to prevent cyber-crime. We will make sure his team understands the need for strong encryption throughout the Internet ecosystem, and that weak decisions based on poor information will have negative impacts on the Internet, innovation, and the economy as a whole.

Benton

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