President Donald Trump sought to discredit a news report that says he asked his then-acting Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker whether he could put a Trump ally in charge of an investigation into hush money paid to women during the 2016 campaign. “The New York Times reporting is false,” President Trump said in a tweet. “They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” President Trump was asked on Feb 19, after the Times story published online, about his reported inquiry to Whitaker. “No, I don’t know who gave you that, that’s more fake news,” President Trump told reporters. “There’s a lot of fake news out there. No I didn’t.” On Feb 20, President Trump tweeted, "The Press has never been more dishonest than it is today. Stories are written that have absolutely no basis in fact. The writers don’t even call asking for verification. They are totally out of control. Sadly, I kept many of them in business. In six years, they all go BUST!" New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman refuted President Trump's claim that reporters fail to reach out to the White House for comment, calling it "a lie". 

The family of the Covington Catholic High School teen from Kentucky who was involved in an encounter with a Native American advocate at the Lincoln Memorial in Jan filed a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post on Feb 19, seeking $250 million in damages for its coverage of the incident. The suit alleges that The Post “targeted and bullied” 16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann in order to embarrass President Donald Trump. “In a span of three days in January of this year commencing on January 19, the Post engaged in a modern-day form of McCarthyism by competing with CNN and NBC, among others, to claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann, an innocent secondary school child,” reads the complaint. The suit seeks $250 million because Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos paid that amount for the newspaper when he bought it in 2013. In a tweet Feb 20, President Trump voiced support for the lawsuit, quoting a line from the complaint and writing: “Go get them Nick. Fake News!”

Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wasted no time taking aim at e-commerce giant Amazon over its economic practices after announcing his 2020 presidential bid — marking an early campaign appearance for the senator's long-standing critiques of tech titans. Sen. Sanders criticized the company over how it conducted its second headquarters search and for not paying any federal income taxes for 2018. Sen. Sanders has consistently challenged companies’ market size and power. While he has not made outright calls for the breakup of major tech firms, Sen. Sanders has questioned whether “Facebook, Google, and Amazon [should] be allowed to control so much of the internet.” In the telecom sector, more recently, he called on federal regulators to reject the proposed $26 billion Sprint-T-Mobile merger. In 2018, Sen Sanders joined a group of Democratic lawmakers in urging US tech companies to extend to Americans the protections offered under a sweeping privacy law the European Union passed. And in recent weeks Sen Sanders has pressed federal agencies to investigate reports that wireless carriers allowed third-party brokers to improperly access and sell subscribers’ location data. On net neutrality, Sen Sanders has called the FCC’s decision to repeal the open internet rules a “disastrous decision.”

Even as the 2019 E-rate season gets underway, hundreds of school and library applicants are still waiting to learn if they will receive the funding they requested in 2018, the result of an application-review process some observers deride as cumbersome despite years' worth of promised fixes. As of February 1, 752 E-rate applications from the 2018 funding year, seeking a total of $356 million, were still under review. The bulk of the pending requests (more than $115 million) were for "lit fiber" service, delivering high-speed broadband over fiber-optic cable. The delays are "woefully par for the course," said John Harrington, the CEO of Funds for Learning, a consulting group that helps thousands of schools and libraries apply each year to program. An FCC spokesman said that E-rate support is being delivered "as quickly and efficiently as possible," noting that 98.7 percent of the roughly 36,000 E-rate applications submitted in 2018 have been processed. That's up a tick from the same point in 2018.

Nearly a year after announcing an investigation into the incident, the Federal Trade Commission is negotiating with Facebook over a fine that could range into the billions of dollars. Experts say the government has to seize on the opportunity to send a message -- to Facebook and its peers -- that it hears consumers’ frustrations and is willing to challenge the tech industry’s data-collection practices. "The Facebook inquiry is a basic test of the credibility of the FTC to be an effective privacy enforcement agency," said William Kovacic, a former Republican commissioner who now teaches at George Washington University. “Anything other than a significant penalty will be seen as a form of policy failure and will really impede the agency's ability to function in the future.” 

Even if the FTC can’t broker an agreement with Facebook over fines and other punishments, privacy advocates have urged the agency to stand its ground -- and take the company to court. Such a legal war could prove brutal for both sides, pitting an agency with limited staff and a meager $306 million budget against a corporate behemoth that took in $55.8 billion in revenue in 2018. Adding to the pressure, the FTC generally runs the risk that an adverse court ruling in a landmark case could jeopardize the very nature of the agency’s authorities to police companies for privacy and security breaches.

The Federal Communications Commission has renewed the charter for the Disability Advisory Committee. The charter became effective December 21, 2018 and provides the Committee with authorization to operate for two years from the effective date. Issues to be considered by the Committee may include, but are not limited to,

1. Communications Access: Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) (Section 225 of the Communications Act); Telecommunications Services and Equipment (Section 255 of the Communications Act); Advanced Communications Services and Equipment (Sections 716 and 718 of the Communications Act); Hearing Aid Compatibility (Section 710 of the Communications Act); Access to Telephone Emergency Services (9–1–1) (Section 106 of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act); National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program (Section 719 of the Communications Act);
2. Video Programming: Video Description (Sections 303(u), (z), and 713 of the Communications Act); Closed Captioning (Sections 303(u), (z), and 713 of the Communications Act); Access to Televised Emergency Information (Sections 303(u), (z), and 713 of the Communications Act); Accessible User Interfaces on Video Programming Apparatus/Access to Program Guides and Menus Provided by Navigation Devices (Sections 303(aa) and (bb) of the Communications Act).