February 2019

In the last Weekly Digest, I presented a retrospective of a major policy story from 2018: The democratic harms of “Big Tech.” This week, a polar vortex accompanied a vortex of more privacy abuses from Big Tech, and further concerns about the very bigness of Big Tech.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced the appointment of Christine Calvosa as the FCC's Chief Information Officer. Chairman Pai said, "During her time as Acting CIO, she oversaw the information technology for the 28 GHz auction and led implementation of the FCC’s updated and modernized National Broadband Map. In short, Ms. Calvosa has demonstrated the ability to deliver on this agency’s complex information technology requirements. I look forward to continuing to work with her.”

President Donald Trump takes credit for popularizing the term “fake news.” But the consequences? Not his concern. In lengthy and at times contradictory remarks about the news media — which he deemed “important” and “beautiful,” but also “so bad” and “unfair” — President Trump called himself “a victim” of unfair coverage and declined to accept responsibility for a rise in threats against journalists since he took office. “I do notice that people are declaring more and more fake news, where they go, ‘Fake news!’” the President said. “I even see it in other countries.

Rep Will Hurd (R-TX) — the only Republican to hold a district that falls along the southern border — is not in favor of a border wall. Instead, he’s partial to the idea of a “digital” wall: a border-wide system of technology such as cameras, sensors, and drones communicating through a fiber optic network to keep the border secure.