August 2017

NET NEUTRALITY

TECH CEOS NOT COMMITTING TO TESTIFY ON NN
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix — along with their telecommunication industry foes —have not committed to sending their chief executives to testify before the US Congress in September on the future of network neutrality. Not a single one of those companies told the House Commerce Committee, which is convening the hearing, that they would dispatch their leaders to Washington (DC) in the coming weeks, even at a time when the Trump administration is preparing to kill the open internet rules currently on the government’s books. The panel initially asked those four tech giants, as well as AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon, to indicate their plans for the hearing by July 31. For now, though, the committee said it isn’t giving up and would extend its deadline, as it continues its quest to engage the country’s tech and telecom business leaders on net neutrality. “The committee has been engaging in productive conversations with all parties and will extend the deadline for response in order to allow for those discussions to continue,” a spokesman said.
benton.org/headlines/major-tech-ceos-arent-committing-testify-us-congress-net-neutrality | Vox | The Hill
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REPUBLICANS WANT TECH INPUT ON US NN LEGISLATION
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: David Shepardson]
The House Commerce Committee on July 31 asked for input from Google parent Alphabet, Facebook, Comcast, Amazon.com and other major companies on a proposed rewrite of rules governing consumer internet access. Last week, committee Chairman Greg Walden (D-OR) asked the chief executives of those three companies, as well as AT&T, Verizon, Netflix, and Charter to testify at a Sept. 7 hearing on the future of net neutrality rules. None of the companies have agreed yet to testify. On July 31, a lawyer for the committee, Robin Colwell, asked the companies to weigh in on what net neutrality legislation could look like. "So all we are looking for at this stage is a list of asks. From your perspective, what needs to stay, what needs to be added, and what needs to go?" she wrote in an e-mail.
benton.org/headlines/republicans-want-tech-input-us-net-neutrality-legislation | Reuters
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PAI RESPONSE TO LAWMAKERS OPEN INTERNET
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai]
On July 17, 2017, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai responded to several members of Congress regard the Restoring Internet Freedom Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Numerous lawmakers had written to Chairman Pai expressing concern that the proposal would roll back critical consumer protections by dismantling the current network neutrality rules. Pai said he shared their view on the importance of having a free and open Internet. He wrote, "[I]n this proceeding, the Commission is currently examining the best legal framework for both protecting Internet freedom and providing strong incentives for the private sector to build and expand next-generation networks so that all Americans can be connected to digital opportunity. Currently, the FCC is in the midst of receiving public comment on this matter, and we will go where the facts and the law lead us. Your views are very important and will be entered
into the record of the proceeding and considered as part of the Commission's review. I look forward to continuing to work with you and your colleagues on this critical issue."
benton.org/headlines/chairman-pais-response-members-congress-regarding-open-internet | Federal Communications Commission
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WHEELER INTERVIEW
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Mark Sullivan]
A Q&A with former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Asked, "Do you think it will be Congress that eventually decides how the internet is regulated, and the fate of net neutrality principles?" Wheeler responded, "The question is what does Congress do? There is a law on the books right now. So if Congress is going to renege on that, or walk back the safeguards that are in existence and that have been in existence since 2015 then that’s the wrong thing to do. And it seems to me that the people who are championing doing this are the big ISPs–Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Charter–and they’re Republican supporters and are not the people who have historically stood for a fast, fair, and open internet." Asked, "[FCC Chairman Ajit] Pai likes to say that ISP spending on infrastructure has been chilled by the Open Internet order. Is that a true assessment of what’s happened?" Wheeler responded, "First of all, that assertion is balderdash. That so-called study is highly suspect because it was done by somebody who has never liked the open internet rules, has always taken the position of the ISPs, and during my tenure was exposed for having selectively chosen information to make that same point. So let’s go to what the ISPs tell their financial regulator. You know there’s an important thing that the ISPs have a lobbying message at the FCC and the Congress that is designed to accomplish their goals of giving them free rein. But then over at the Federal Trade Commission they are under the penalty of law required to tell the truth. How does what they say in their financial filings differ from what they say at the FCC? Well, in their financial filings they say they are spending a constant amount–they say they are spending about 15% of revenue on infrastructure investment. Two days ago, Comcast had their quarterly report and reaffirmed they are spending 15% of revenue on building infrastructure. So if this is the best thing the Trump FCC can come up with, the impact on infrastructure argument, then they are playing a pretty weak hand."
benton.org/headlines/interview-former-fcc-chairman-tom-wheeler | Fast Company
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OWNERSHIP

DISCOVERY TO BUY SCRIPPS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Joe Flint, Sarah Rabil]
Discovery Communications has agreed to acquire Scripps Networks Interactive for $11.9 billion, combining two powerhouses of nonfiction television programming at a time of major upheaval in the cable-TV business. The tie-up is a bet that bigger is better as the television industry is upended by cord-cutting and the rise of “skinny” online TV bundles from the likes of Hulu, YouTube, Sling TV and others. The thinking is that a broader portfolio of channels that specialize in nonfiction and lifestyle programming like travel, food and nature could appeal to younger viewers and give the combined company a leg up in negotiations with advertisers and programming distributors. The deal will create a must-buy network group for advertisers interested in targeting women and help the network command more premium ad rates. Of the top 20 US cable networks, the merged company will control four of the top five with the highest percentage of female viewers—TLC, HGTV, Investigation Discovery and Food Network. Discovery said it would be able to expand Scripps’s channels into more overseas markets, which could help generate significant additional revenue. The combined company is also touting its short-form video production, which will help it gain more viewers and ad dollars on social-media platforms. The deal could put pressure on other media companies, from AMC Networks to Viacom Inc., that must defend their turf on the cable dial.
benton.org/headlines/discovery-communications-agrees-buy-scripps-networks | Wall Street Journal | NYTimes | USA Today | The Wrap
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SINCLAIR’S ‘LOCAL’ BROADCASTING
[SOURCE: Portland Press Herald, AUTHOR: Colin Woodard]
Marc McCutcheon of South Portland was watching WGME’s evening newscast as he has for half a century when something came on that shocked him. In the midst of the local news, a taped commentary from President Trump’s former special assistant Boris Epshteyn appeared on the screen, trumpeting the administration’s position with what he thought selective use and abuse of facts. McCutcheon, a small-business owner and political independent, describes the experience as “surreal,” “extremely jarring” and “so out of place with the friendly, local broadcast from news people I’ve come to trust over the years.” There was no rebuttal, no context, no alternate point of view – a situation he found concerning. WGME-TV (Channel 13) and WPFO-TV (Channel 23) each carry the segments nine times a week on orders from their owner, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the nation’s largest owner of local television stations and an aggressive, unabashed disseminator of conservative commentary supporting the Trump wing of the Republican Party. The company has been in the national news regularly because the pro-Trump segments are appearing at the same time the company is awaiting approval from the Trump administration for it to purchase the 42 stations of the Tribune Media company, which will extend its reach to 72 percent of American households.
benton.org/headlines/sinclair-broadcasting-and-2-maine-tv-stations-under-fire-pro-trump-segments | Portland Press Herald
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SECURITY/PRIVACY

FCC SAYS ITS SPECIFIC PLAN TO STOP DDOS ATTACKS MUST REMAIN SECRET
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
The Federal Communications Commission has told members of Congress that it won't reveal exactly how it plans to prevent future attacks on the public comment system. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Democratic lawmakers have been exchanging letters about a May 8 incident in which the public comments website was disrupted while many people were trying to file comments on Pai's plan to dismantle net neutrality rules. The FCC says it was hit by DDoS attacks. The commission hasn't revealed much about what it's doing to prevent future attacks, but it said in a letter in June that it was researching "additional solutions" to protect the comment system. Democratic Leaders of the House Commerce and Oversight committees then asked Pai what those additional solutions are, but they didn't get much detail in return. "Given the ongoing nature of the threats to disrupt the Commission’s electronic comment ﬁling system, it would undermine our system's security to provide a speciﬁc roadmap of the additional solutions to which we have referred," the FCC chief information officer wrote. "However, we can state that the FCC’s IT staff has worked with commercial cloud providers to implement Internet‐based solutions to limit the amount of disruptive bot-related activity if another bot-driven event occurs."
benton.org/headlines/fcc-says-its-specific-plan-stop-ddos-attacks-must-remain-secret | Ars Technica
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GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

PRESIDENT TRUMP DICTATED MISLEADING STATEMENT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ashley Parker, Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker, Tom Hamburger]
Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One, President Donald Trump personally dictated a statement in which Don Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations. The statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared an article, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.” The claims were later shown to be misleading. The extent of the president’s personal intervention in his son’s response adds to a series of actions that President Trump has taken that some advisers fear could place him and some members of his inner circle in legal jeopardy. As special counsel Robert Mueller looks into potential obstruction of justice as part of his broader investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, these advisers worry that the president’s direct involvement leaves him needlessly vulnerable to allegations of a coverup. Although misleading the public or the news media is not a crime, Trump advisers to and his family say that they fear any indication that President Trump was seeking to hide information about contacts between his campaign and Russians almost inevitably would draw additional scrutiny from Mueller. President Trump, they say, is increasingly acting as his own lawyer, strategist and publicist, often disregarding the recommendations of the professionals he has hired.
benton.org/headlines/president-trump-dictated-sons-misleading-statement-meeting-russian-lawyer | Washington Post | analysis
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POLICYMAKERS

SCARAMUCCI REMOVED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Abby Phillip, Damian Paletta]
President Donald Trump removed Anthony Scaramucci from his role as White House communications director just days after the New York financier was named to the job — a move made at the request of new White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. Scaramucci's brief tenure in the role had been marked by turmoil as he feuded publicly with then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Scaramucci's arrival at the White House prompted press secretary Sean Spicer to resign in protest. The abrupt decision signals that Kelly is moving quickly to assert control over the West Wing, which has been characterized by interpersonal disputes and power struggles during President Trump's six months in office. The retired Marine general, who was sworn in July 31, was brought into the White House in the hope that he will bring military-style discipline to Trump's staff. He has been fully empowered by the president to make significant changes to the organization, White House officials and outside advisers said.
benton.org/headlines/anthony-scaramucci-removed-white-house-communications-director | Washington Post
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CARR OMITTED CRITICAL FACTS IN HIS TESTIMONY TO CONGRESS
[SOURCE: Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Bruce Kushnick]
[Commentary] In his written testimony to Congress, Brendan Carr, who has been nominated to be the third Republican Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, omitted the most important fact: He worked for AT&T, Verizon, Centurylink, as well as the CTIA, the wireless association, and the USTA, the telephone association. Moreover, much of this work has direct ties to his current work with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (a former Verizon attorney). Together they have amassed a string of corporate-monopoly friendly, harmful consumer regulations that have passed or are percolating. In the end, Carr and Pai clearly show that they are still working for the industry, not the public interest. On top of this, there are even holes in Carr’s work timeline, as told by his own LinkedIn bio. His resume shows he clerked for a judge in the 2008-2009 timeframe, while his bio shows him also working from 2005-2012 for Wiley Rein and the telecommunications companies and their associations. All of this should be a deal breaker. The Senate should not confirm Brendan Carr’s nomination as FCC Commissioner.
[Bruce Kushnick is the executive director of New Networks Institute]
benton.org/headlines/brendan-carr-omitted-critical-facts-his-testimony-congress-he-worked-att-verizon-et-al | Huffington Post
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August 2017

President Trump: Only 'Fake News Media' and 'enemies' want me to stop tweeting

Lewandowski: Priebus 'ultimately responsible' for White House leaks

President Trump Remains Committed to Moving Broadband Through Infrastructure Bill

U.S. Virgin Islands Becomes First Territory to Join FirstNet Network

Is zero-rating just another form of (pro-competitive) bundling?

Smart City Tech Experts Gather in Kansas City for Annual Gigabit Summit

Report on Foreign Ownership Of Interconnected Voice Over Internet Protocol Applicants

August 1, 2017 (President Trump dictated misleading statement)

Sam Shepard, Actor and Pulitzer-Winning Playwright

President Trump dictated son’s misleading statement on meeting with Russian lawyer