Some may be tempted to predict judicial outcomes by looking at the party of the judges and the President who nominated them. The panel scheduled to hear Mozilla v. Federal Communications Commission in the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit features judges who have both ruled for and against administrative agencies. The panel includes Senior Circuit Judge Stephen Williams (appointed by President Reagan) who issued a blistering 68-page dissent against the FCC’s Open Internet Order in 2015. While the court upheld the order, the FCC vacated it in 2017 and issued the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which is now being challenged in the court. The two other judges are Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins, both appointed by President Obama. A cursory review of some of the recent opinions of the judges suggests that conventional interpretations of administrative law are more likely to take precedence than political preferences. In such cases, judges typically determine whether an agency followed the proper procedure and whether interpretations are reasonable per the statute.

In Sept, the Washington DC Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) piloted its “All Hands on Tech” program, setting up two repair events in which the city’s own technicians helped residents fix their devices. Volunteers from local nonprofits like ByteBack, which prepares adults for a career in technology, also came out to help. The events were held at libraries inside Wards 7 and 8, where some of DC’s poorest communities live. America’s digital divide is essentially boiled down to three things. “Nationally, you will hear device access mentioned along with internet access and training as the three-legged stool of digital inclusion,” says Delano Squires, head of OCTO’s digital inclusion initiative Connect.DC. Yet there’s little benefit in having a computer that’s infected with malware, or a smartphone you don’t know how to set up. What residents needed was tech support. 

An indictment unsealed on Jan 28 claims that telecommunication equipment vendor Huawei stole trade secrets from Bellevue (WA)-based T-Mobile USA and then obstructed justice when T-Mobile threatened to sue Huawei in US District Court in Seattle. According to the indictment, in 2012 Huawei began a concerted effort to steal information on a T-Mobile phone-testing robot dubbed “Tappy.” In an effort to build their own robot to test phones before they were shipped to T-Mobile and other wireless carriers, Huawei engineers allegedly violated confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements with T-Mobile by secretly taking photos of “Tappy,” taking measurements of parts of the robot, and in one instance stealing a piece of the robot so that the Huawei engineers in China could try to replicate it. The indictment also claims that after T-Mobile discovered and interrupted these activities and then sued in 2014, Huawei produced a report falsely claiming that the theft was the work of rogue actors within the company and not a concerted effort by Huawei. The indictment says that emails obtained in the course of the investigation reveal the conspiracy to steal secrets from T-Mobile was a companywide effort involving many engineers and employees. As part of the investigation into Huawei, the FBI says it obtained emails revealing that in July 2013, Huawei offered bonuses to employees based on the value of information they stole from companies around the world.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) fired off a letter to the Department of Homeland Security seeking to "better understand the shutdown’s toll on our national security," and sought answers on what, if any, cybersecurity risks were posed by the recent, and possibly future, government shutdown(s). "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was forced to suspend crucial efforts to protect our cybersecurity and infrastructure," said Sen Warner. "Also hindered was the FBI’s ability to conduct cyber investigations. Some agents reported lacking the funds to pay their confidential human sources, therefore losing critical information and irreplaceable sources." Sens Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tom Udall (D-NM), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) sent a similar letter to DHS and the National Security Agency. The senators were responding to reports that the nation's cybersecurity teams were operating with less than half their staffs during the shutdown and that scores of government agencies' websites were either insecure or inaccessible because their security certifications had expired. 

Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to Facebook demanding information about new evidence that the company knowingly manipulated children into spending their parents’ money without permission while playing games on Facebook. Recent findings uncovered by The Center for Investigative Reporting show that Facebook personnel had direct knowledge that children were spending large sums of their parents’ money on in-app purchases without parental knowledge or permission. Specific design features and default settings fostered this practice. In addition, reports suggest that when Facebook became aware of this phenomenon and identified a solution, the company declined to implement the fix, and even designed a mechanism to automatically dispute its users’ requests for refunds.   “Reporting suggests that your users requested refunds for over 9% of the money Facebook made from children, raising serious questions about whether your company has engaged in deceptive business practices and whether all of those affected have been made whole,” write the Sens in the letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Together, these findings point to a problematic culture of putting profits ahead of your users’ financial wellbeing and raise serious concerns regarding the company’s willingness to engage responsibly in its interactions with children.”

At the State of the Net conference, House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH) said that regulators and legislators need to make sure they are not looking in the rearview mirror or putting up roadblocks to innovators who are looking ahead, not backwards. He said that one message he has brought back from his visit to tech startups is they are focused on innovation, so there is not a compliance officer sitting in the corner of the room. Ranking Member Latta also said he thought there was room for consensus on network neutrality. Still, he made a pitch for keeping Internet serivce providers under Title I and the arguments for those. He also said that there are pro-consumer uses of location data, but that access to services, sometimes lifesaving, must be balanced with privacy protections. He signaled that is another area of potential bipartisan agreement. He said it is important not to throw the "Life Alert" baby out with the privacy bathwater, citing his mother's use of that geolocation technology when she had a fall. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the February Open Commission Meeting has been rescheduled and will take place on Thursday, February 14, 2019. Chairman Pai also announced the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the February Open Commission Meeting. These items were originally circulated for the January meeting but were withdrawn due to the lapse in appropriations.

Transitioning to CAF Phase II Auction Support in Price Cap Areas – The Commission will consider a Report and Order establishing a schedule to end Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase I support in price cap areas where winning bidders in the CAF Phase II auction will begin receiving Phase II support and in areas that were not eligible for the auction, while providing interim support in areas that did not receive any bids. (WC Docket No. 10-90)

Licensing Noncommercial Educational Broadcast and Low Power FM Stations – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing revisions to the Commission’s NCE and LPFM comparative processing and licensing rules. (MB Docket No. 19-3)

Elimination of Form 397 – The Commission will consider a Report and Order eliminating the requirement in Section 73.2080(f)(2) of the Commission’s rules that certain broadcast television and radio stations file the Broadcast Mid-Term Report (Form 397). (MB Docket Nos. 18-23, 17-105)

Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) – The Commission will consider a Report and Order, Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and Order adopting some measures, and seeking comment on others, to enhance program management, prevent waste,
fraud, and abuse, and improve emergency call handling in the IP CTS program. (CG Docket Nos. 13-24, 03-123)

Anti-Spoofing Provisions of the RAY BAUM’S Act – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to amend its Truth in Caller ID rules to implement the anti-spoofing provisions of the RAY BAUM’S Act. (WC Docket Nos. 18-355, 11-39)

The influence network led by billionaire Charles Koch is watching a growing push to regulate Big Tech firms with alarm. Officials, scholars, and donors with links to the network expressed unease with the idea that sweeping regulation will solve tech's problems — like platforms that facilitate the spread of malicious content or privacy practices that outrage users — and worried lawmakers aren't being precise enough. “Take the example of privacy — what’s the actual problem you’re trying to solve?" said Jesse Blumenthal, who leads the Charles Koch Foundation's tech policy work.  People are proposing solutions instead of answering questions first, he added. Art Pope, a retail magnate and prominent donor to the network's activities, said that while he believes social media companies are biased against conservatives, he thinks they should be regulated by "voluntary societal pressure" instead of governments.