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  2. December 2016

December 2016

President Obama Says He Told Putin: ‘Cut It Out’ on Hacking

President Barack Obama said that he refrained from taking aggressive public action in retaliation for Russian hacking of Democratic Party institutions before the presidential election because he was concerned that such moves might be interpreted as unfair meddling in the campaign. In a news conference before leaving for a two-week vacation in Hawaii, President Obama said that he told President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in September to “cut it out,” but that the United States government did not retaliate in a public way before the Nov. 8 election. “We did not,” he told reporters. “And the reason we did not was because in this hyperpartisan atmosphere, at a time when my primary concern was making sure that the integrity of the election process was not in any way damaged,” such a move would “immediately be seen through a partisan lens.”

President Obama lamented the powerful effect that fake news had on the 2016 presidential election, condemning "domestic propagandists." “If fake news released by foreign government is almost identical to reports that are issued through partisan news venues,” he said, “then it's not surprising that that foreign propaganda will have a greater effect, because it doesn't seem that farfetched.”

President Barack Obama: Espionage Is Being 'Turbocharged' By The Internet

The world is entering a new cyber era — one with no ground rules, and with the potential for traditional espionage to be "turbocharged" by the Internet, President Obama said. "Among the big powers, there has been a traditional understanding of, that everybody is trying to gather intelligence on everybody else," President Obama said. "It's no secret that Russian intelligence officers, or Chinese, or for that matter Israeli or British or other intelligence agencies, their job is to get insight into the workings of other countries that they're not reading in the newspapers every day." The informal, unwritten rules of the past are no longer adequate, the President added. "One of the things that we're going to have to do over the next decade is to ultimately arrive at some rules of what is a new game," he said. "And that is the way in which traditional propaganda and traditional covert influence efforts are being turbocharged by the Internet."

FBI backs CIA view that Russia intervened to help Trump win election

FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. are in agreement with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to US officials. Director Comey’s support for the CIA’s conclusion — and officials say that he never changed his position — suggests that the leaders of the three agencies are in agreement on Russian intentions, contrary to suggestions by some lawmakers that the FBI disagreed with the CIA.

“Earlier this week, I met separately with (Director) FBI James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election,” CIA Director John Brennan said in a message to the agency’s workforce, according to U.S. officials who have seen the message. “The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI,” Brennan’s message read.

Trump Deregulatory Fever Is Gripping the FCC

[Commentary] Whoever President-elect Donald Trump appoints to head the Federal Communications Commission, broadcasters figure they should be in much better shape than they have been with the outgoing Chairman Tom Wheeler, who provided no relief on the out-of-date ownership restrictions. With Wheeler's departure, the Republicans will suddenly have a 2-1 majority, a three-person quorum necessary to do business and the power to set the agenda that comes with the chairmanship.

Why The Trump Team Should Adopt Bill Clinton's Plan To Reform The FCC

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump’s advisors, along with leading Members of Congress and the agency’s two Republican Commissioners, have already made clear their first priority: to end the agency’s misguided intrusions into the Internet economy, and to reinstate policies that encourage continued private investment. A visionary plan to transform the agency into an effective 21st century enabler of continued digital innovation is sitting on the Commission’s shelf, just waiting to be dusted off.

Ironically, or not, it was written almost twenty years ago, under the direction of William Kennard, appointed to Chair the agency from 1997 to 2001 by Democratic President Bill Clinton. In two drafts prepared in 1999, Kennard’s Office of Plans and Policy laid out the design for a dramatically redesigned Commission. “The FCC as we know it today will be very different both in structure and mission,” the proposal said, transitioning over five years “from an industry regulator to a market facilitator.”

[Larry Downes is an Internet industry analyst and author on business strategies and information technology.]

OMB Approves Open Internet Enhanced Transparency Rules

According to the Office of Management and Budget, OMB has just approved the added paperwork collection obligations of the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet order enhanced transparency requirements. Those are the parts of the order that require ISPs to provide more information on network performance and business plans, some of which smaller operators say are disproportionately a burden on them financial and otherwise.The rules will go into effect Jan. 17.

That OMB approval came Dec. 15, the same day the FCC's one-year extension for the small business waiver of the enhanced transparency portion of its rules expired without an agreement on a renewal. To date, the waiver has not had any effect because the enhanced transparency rules were not in effect.

San Francisco Passes Ordinance to Protect ISP Competition

San Francisco (CA) EFFers: you did it! Thanks in part to your phone calls and tweets to the Board of Supervisors, the Board unanimously passed an ordinance that will address the problem of landlords unfairly restricting their tenants’ choice of Internet service providers.

Under the ordinance, landlords of multi-unit buildings (four units or more) will be required to honor reasonable requests to allow service by any state-accredited ISP a tenant chooses. The ordinance was first scheduled for a vote at last week’s Board meeting, but it was delayed over a private memo that the City Attorney’s office had sent to the Board. At yesterday’s meeting (PDF), the Board went into a private session to discuss risks of litigation that might result from the measure. We don’t know exactly what came up in the private session, but we’ll be watching closely to see if major landlords and entrenched ISPs attempt to threaten the city over the ordinance.

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