Verizon is touting its commitment to firefighters and public safety in a new ad, released weeks after Verizon throttled the Santa Clara County fire department while it was fighting California's largest-ever wildfire. "From coast to coast and everywhere in between, people rely on us to ensure they can communicate when they need it most," Verizon said in an introduction to the new ad. "Our innovations and technology allow first responders to do their jobs. What we do saves lives." The ad, titled "Enabling heroes," received a chilly reception on YouTube, leading Verizon to disable comments and voting on the video.

At the request of Federal Communications Commission staff, Verizon executives met with FCC officials just prior to Verizon’s Oct. 1 5G launch in parts of Houston, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Sacramento. In the meeting, Verizon executives once again noted the need for low-, mid- and high-band spectrum and encouraged the FCC to continue its work to make more spectrum available for 5G. The meeting was related to T-Mobile’s application to combine with Sprint, although Verizon didn't take an official position on that transaction. Verizon is looking to move rapidly beyond fixed wireless to other 5G opportunities—including to more futuristic things like autonomous vehicles and drones enabled by 5G mobility.

Whether they are Wi-Fi kiosks, urban sensors, fiber networks, or built-from-scratch “smart” neighborhoods, new urban technology deployments are under the microscope. Despite the potential of these projects to drive innovation and economic growth, they are often met with mixed reception and a myriad of justifiable questions. Take the Quayside project in Toronto led by Sidewalk Labs. Concerned residents teamed together to create a shared list of questions about incentives, privacy, diversity, and data ownership: “Who will own/control/have access to the data that is captured by the sensors deployed in this project? How should the issues of “consent” and “contract” be approached in the smart city? How do we define the community that needs to be consulted and engaged on this project?” This grassroots-generated skepticism points to a real need for better-designed processes around local, smart city deployments — processes that safeguard resident opinions, resident consent, and procedural justice as urban innovation is pursued.

[Denise Linn Riedl is the Manager of Ecosystem Development for the City Tech Collaborative in Chicago and a Benton Fellow]

Rick Gates, a  top Trump campaign official, requested proposals in 2016 from an Israeli company to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation, and to gather intelligence to help defeat Republican primary race opponents and Hillary Clinton. The Trump campaign’s interest in the work began as Russians were escalating their effort to aid Donald Trump. Though the Israeli company’s pitches were narrower than Moscow’s interference campaign and appear unconnected, the documents show that a senior Trump aide saw the promise of a disruption effort to swing voters in Trump’s favor. Gates sought one proposal to use bogus personas to target and sway 5,000 delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention by attacking Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX), Trump’s main opponent at the time. Another proposal describes opposition research and “complementary intelligence activities” about Hillary Clinton and people close to her. A third proposal by the company, Psy-Group, which is staffed by former Israeli intelligence operatives, sketched out a monthslong plan to help Trump by using social media to help expose or amplify division among rival campaigns and factions.