September 2017

FCC Proposes Fine of Unlicensed Radio Station and Property Owners

The Federal Communications Commission proposed the maximum fine allowable by statute—$144,344—against a so-called “pirate radio” operation in North Miami, Florida. The action marks the first time the FCC has proposed finding the property owners where the transmission equipment was located apparently liable for the operation of the station. Unlicensed radio broadcasts are illegal and can interfere with licensed broadcasting, including broadcasters’ ability to communicate public safety warnings to their communities.

Puerto Ricans hunt for precious Wi-Fi and cell signals

Margarita Aponte and her relatives cleared the road in front of her house with two oxen Sept 24, then drove an hour from her devastated hometown in central Puerto Rico to the old telegraph building in the capital of San Juan. There, thousands of Puerto Ricans gathered for a chance at a resource nearly as precious as power and water in the wake of Hurricane Maria — communication. “It’s ringing, it’s ringing, it’s ringing!”

Aponte, a janitor, screamed as her phone connected to free Wi-Fi and her Facetime call went through to the mainland. Her eyes filled with tears as she talked with nephews, uncles, brothers and sisters in Florida and Massachusetts for the first time since Maria destroyed nearly every cellphone and fiber optic connection on this US territory of 3.4 million people. The low murmur at one of two free Wi-Fi hotspots is occasionally interrupted by the cheering of someone getting through the largely jammed network. Most spend hours frowning at their phones, unable to connect. “There’s no communication. We’re in God’s hands,” Yesenia Gomez, a kitchen worker, said as she left a message for her mother in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Dozens of other Puerto Ricans opted to pull over to the side of the road along various highways where cellphone signals were strongest.

Ham Radio Hobbyists Are Connecting the Caribbean After Hurricane Maria

Most Puerto Ricans are just trying to reach family members. Few have access to Wi-Fi hotspots or electrical outlets. Sustained winds of 155 mph obliterated 95 percent of Puerto Rico's wireless cell sites, leaving much of the country a deadzone. In the past week, Puerto Rico's government has received more than 110,000 outside calls, many, no doubt, from panicked relatives. Remote places like Arecibo, near the western part of Puerto Rico, were particularly hard-hit. Here, the only reliable mode of communication is radio. And amid the silence, a determined network of radio hobbyists, affectionately called "hams," is helping communities make contact.

Ham radio is an older technology, archaic by some modern standards, but highly customizable. Hobbyists must pass a test to obtain a license, so the term "amateur" is something of a misnomer. As of 2015, there were 726,275 hams in the US, and six million worldwide. These networks are remarkably resilient in bad weather, with the exception of solar storms.

White House Reiterates E-mail Policy After News Of Officials Using Private Accounts

News that at least six current or former senior members of the Trump administration have used private e-mail accounts as they conduct official business has prompted the White House to clarify its policy. "All White House personnel have been instructed to use official e-mail to conduct all government-related work," press secretary Sarah Sanders said. "They are further instructed that if they receive work-related communication on personal accounts, they should be forwarded to official e-mail accounts." Private e-mail use by public officials was a hot topic in the 2016 presidential race — and one that then-candidate Donald Trump used to accuse rival Hillary Clinton of breaking federal laws after she used private e-mail to handle official business as secretary of state.

Trump has been great for the economy. The anti-Trump economy, that is.

These are boom times for the anti-Trump industrial complex. Fundraising is through the roof for lefty organizations that hadn’t been relevant since the Clinton era; the grass roots have never been greener for new activist groups; and political hacks may be sexier than ever. A clique of former Obama speechwriters with a sideline in #Resistance podcasting is selling out 6,000-person concert halls; Rob Reiner, the director of “Spinal Tap,” has teamed up with James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, to found the Committee to Investigate Russia; and liberal activists recently surpassed the Guinness world record for the most people on, yes, a conference call.

Trump has picked fights over the flag before. But this time was different.

When President Donald Trump decided, out of the blue, to attack the National Football League over its players’ protests during the national anthem, the resulting controversy followed a well-worn formula. What was different, however, was the enormous backlash that his comments created — far larger than any of those previous incidents combined.

President Trump attacked an enormously popular sport whose fans prefer it to be a politics-free arena, while once again touching on the raw nerve of race. In so doing, the president proved anew that divisive provocations can mean something completely different when they come not from a private citizen, but the man whose very job description is to lead the country. “Most presidents believe that a big part of their job is to keep the country together,” said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, who noted that even Richard M. Nixon spoke of bringing the nation together during his 1969 inauguration. “There is very little sign that Donald Trump has much of an idea that unifying this country has much to do with being president. He just hasn’t shown it.”

UHF Discount Foes Fire First Legal Shot

Opponents of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's restoration of the UHF discount, which helped pave the way for a possible Sinclair/Tribune merger, have taken their first shot in federal court, saying the decision was illegally arbitrary and capricious and served no public interest purpose.

Late Sept 25, a coalition of nonprofit media consolidation critics including Free Press, Common Cause, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Prometheus Radio Project, laid out their case for why the decision to reinstate the discount was arbitrary and capricious and not in the public interest. The previous Democratic-led FCC had eliminated the discount as an outmoded artifact of the analog TV era. The groups, filing their opening brief in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, said the FCC did not present any "valid or factual legal basis" for the discount's return. "The best indication that reinstating the discount was not actually intended to maintain the status quo, is the fact that, just two weeks after the Commission issued its decision reinstating the discount, Intervenor Sinclair announced plans to acquire Intervenor Tribune," they told the court. That deal could give Sinclair, already the largest TV station group at slightly under the 39% cap, a reach of over 70% of the country.

The FEC's plans for political ad disclosures

Officials at the Federal Election Commission are reaching out to political ad buyers, among others, to solicit more comments about potential new disclosure rules. At this point, most of the FEC's efforts are around gathering ideas about ways to modernize outdated disclosure laws. Within the FEC and on Capitol Hill, a few other ideas expected to be considered (they're still very far off from actual implementation): Requiring all online political ads to carry disclosures; Creating a database of all political ads; Banning programmatic (automated) political ads from being sold. It will be hard for the six-person commission, usually divided equally among party lines, to come to a consensus around this, according to sources within the FEC, meaning that any major disclosure efforts would have to come from Congress.

What, Exactly, Were Russians Trying to Do With Those Facebook Ads?

So, the Russian ad buy is a significant Facebook purchase, but not one that seems scaled to the ambition of interfering with a national US election. That could be because: 1) Not all the ads have been discovered, so the $100,000 is a significant undercount. 2) That was the right number, and the ads worked to aid distribution of disinformation. 3) The ads were part of a message-testing protocol to improve the reach of posts posted natively by other accounts. Think of it as a real-time focus group to test for the most viral content and framing. 4) That $100,000 was a test that didn’t work well, so it didn’t get more resources. 5) That $100,000 was merely a calling card, spent primarily to cause trouble for Facebook and the election system.

For internet gatekeepers, consumer protection laws are better than utility-style regulation

[Commentary] As progressive luminaries like Tim Wu and Susan Crawford continue fighting for utility-style regulations for broadband providers, prominent conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon have begun demanding similar utility-style regulations for other internet “gatekeepers,” including major websites and online platforms like Google and Facebook. Even if you accept the premise of that argument — and reasonable minds disagree over just how much control is too much for one corporation to have — it’s far from clear that utility-style regulation is the proper response.

Indeed, in the dynamic markets for internet services, imposing true utility-style regulations would be a huge mistake. By giving up on market forces and ceding dominance to a single firm, utility-style regulation makes future competition impossible. Fortunately, strong antitrust and consumer protection laws can save us from this downward spiral of utility-style regulation.

Benton

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