House Science Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing concern about the potential interference of planned urban 5G networks with existing weather satellite sensors. The sensors, mounted aboard polar-orbiting satellites, are used to discern the presence and properties of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere. The letter calls for the FCC to provide the scientific evidence it is using to inform the commission’s negotiating position ahead of a key international telecommunications meeting. Chairwoman Johnson is seeking the information by Oct. 7 for the committee to review before the start of that meeting Oct. 28.

The letter also, for the first time, releases two reports produced in the past year: one by NASA on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates satellites and contains the National Weather Service, and another by NOAA itself. These highly technical analyses concluded that if deployed widely and without adequate restrictions, telecommunications equipment operating in the 24 GHz frequency band would bleed into the frequencies that NOAA and NASA satellite sensors also use, significantly interfering with the collection and transmission of critical weather data. The NOAA report, for example, warns of a potential loss of 77.4 percent of data coming from microwave sounders mounted on the agency’s polar-orbiting satellites.

Facebook initially mounted an aggressive legal offensive against federal regulators who sought to fine the tech giant billions of dollars for privacy abuses, arguing in newly revealed documents that the company did not harm consumers or profit from mishandling users’ data — and that it would have prevailed in court if it had come to that.

The arguments laid out by Facebook lawyers in a Feb. 28 white paper shed new light on the tech giant’s bare-knuckle, behind-the-scenes efforts at times to spare itself from the toughest punishments by the Federal Trade Commission. The “proposed penalty is unconstitutional, unlawful and unsupported by the allegations in the draft complaint,” lawyers wrote. “No court would entertain such a penalty, and neither will Facebook." The legal jostling between Facebook and the FTC illustrates the precarious decision that government regulators ultimately would have to make — try to fight the tech giant in federal court, embarking on a lengthy, painful legal battle, or settle with the company and obtain whatever relief Facebook was willing to stomach.

The case resulted in a record-breaking settlement that some critics still decried as too weak. 

Media coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns began in earnest well over a year ago — but it is not providing citizens with the news and information we need in order to cast informed ballots. We are two former Federal Communications Commission chairmen who believe one critical issue the media is avoiding is … the media itself. The high level of consolidation and corporatization that exists in the industry today speaks to media’s lack of interest in addressing the current shortfall in our news and information. In fact, consolidation has been the major driver in journalism’s decline. Just six conglomerates control 90% of traditional media, and social media is controlled by even fewer companies.

Reporters should begin asking candidates why we don’t have net neutrality and an open internet despite polls showing 85% of the public — Republicans, Democrats and Independents — support it. Reporters should be asking the candidates if media consolidation troubles them and what they might do about it. Reporters should be asking why so many communities live in news deserts today and what they would do to fix this. Journalists need to be a contributing part of the solution to the declining state of their own craft. It’s their responsibility, and it is our democracy that is at stake. We can no longer afford for the media to continue ignoring itself in covering presidential campaigns.

[Michael Copps is a former FCC commissioner and chairman. He is special advisor on Media & Democracy Reform at Common Cause. Newton Minow is the former chairman of the FCC.]