The Digital Global Access Policy Act (HR 1359) would direct the Department of State and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to collaborate with other agencies, international organizations, foreign governments, and other entities to promote the availability of access to the Internet in developing countries. In addition, the bill would require the Administration to report to Congress on its policy to promote such access.

The Department of State and USAID indicate that upon enactment of HR1359 they would hire 25 full-time employees (at an average compensation of about $126,000 in 2020) to support efforts to improve Internet infrastructure in developing countries, encourage digital literacy programs, and provide technical advice. After adjusting for inflation, CBO estimates that implementing HR 1359 would cost $17 million over the 2020-2024 period. The cost of the legislation fall in budget function 150 (international affairs).

White House counsel Pat Cipollone told House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) that the White House is rejecting their request for information that would shed light on whether President Donald Trump tried to sway the Justice Department into opposing the AT&T-Time Warner merger. Cipollone said that the documents requested by the lawmakers were shielded under confidentiality protections afforded to the President and his advisers. "As I have conveyed to the Committee before, we stand ready to work to accommodate all congressional committee requests for information related to a legitimate legislative purpose,” Cipollone wrote. “We cannot, however, provide the Committee with protected communications between the President and his most senior advisors that are at the very core of the Executive Branch's confidentiality interests.” Chairmen Nadler and Cicilline made their request in March after The New Yorker published a story reporting that Trump had pressured Gary Cohn, his former top economic adviser, to press the Justice Department to intervene on the merger.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Office of Inspector General has issued an advisory to alert Lifeline carriers, beneficiaries, and the public to a number of fraudulent enrollment practices found pervasive across the IG’s ongoing investigations targeting Lifeline carriers and the carriers’ sales agents. Many of these enrollment practices rely on identity fraud and the manipulation of personal information, including enrollee names, to evade the program’s safeguards. The advisory describes simple tricks used by fraudsters to create phantom enrollments. Such fraud results in substantial losses to the Universal Service Fund every year and diverts telecom support away from the program’s intended beneficiaries.

A Q&A with former Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps.

On the revolving door between government and big business, Copps said, "I think the goal of [the Trump] administration and perhaps even [FCC Chairman Ajit Pai] is to put [the FCC] out of business. They’re trying to get rid of every rule and regulation they ever had that had to do with broadcast, they don’t want anything to do with net neutrality and an open Internet.  [They want to] give it all to the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, which has very weak enforcement authority, it has no power even to write rules. But yet they’re saying, get it out of here, put it over there and pretty soon they’ll be able to put a 'Going Out of Business' sign over the front door of the Federal Communications Commission, which is an agency established in 1934 to serve the public interest. [Congress] gave the FCC a lot of powers, which the current Republican majority just denies… because they don’t believe in government."

On the subject of 162 million Americans who don't have broadband access, Copps said, "To me, access to broadband is a civil right, because I don’t think you can be a fully functioning member of our society, in terms of being able to find a job or educate yourself, the list just goes on and on, without having access to that basic communications [tool]that so influences all of our lives, the lives of those who have it."

[Michael Copps writes for the Benton Foundation's Digital Beat Blog, and currently leads the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause.]