Daily Digest 7/02/2018 (NSA Purge)

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Surveillance

NSA Purges Hundreds of Millions of Call and Text Records

The National Security Agency has purged hundreds of millions of records logging phone calls and texts that it had gathered from American telecommunications companies since 2015. NSA realized that its database was contaminated with some files the agency had no authority to receive. The agency began destroying the records on May 23. Officials had discovered “technical irregularities” in its collection from phone companies of so-called call record details, or metadata showing who called or texted whom and when, but not what they said. Glenn Gerstell, the NSA’s general counsel, said that because of several complex technical glitches, one or more telecom providers — he declined to say which — had responded to court orders for targets’ records by sending logs to the agency that included both accurate data and also some numbers of people the targets had not been in contact with.

Privacy

Facebook offers fresh detail about its ties to dozens of outside companies in more than 700 pages of new data turned over to Congress

Facebook shared user information with 52 hardware and software makers, including some based in China, under agreements designed to make its social media platform work more effectively on smartphones and other devices. The list of these partners includes major American tech brands such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, along with South Korean tech giant Samsung and China-based companies Huawei and Alibaba. Not all of the companies are device makers; some make operating systems or other software. Facebook has ended 38 of the 52 partnerships and plans to soon end seven more. The acknowledgment, which came in more than 700 pages of replies to the House Commerce Committee, is the fullest to date regarding reports that Facebook shared user data with some companies for years after it stopped doing so with most app makers.

First Amendment

How Conservatives Weaponized the First Amendment

Conservative groups, borrowing and building on arguments developed by liberals, have used the First Amendment to justify unlimited campaign spending, discrimination against gay couples, and attacks on the regulation of tobacco, pharmaceuticals and guns. “The libertarian position has become dominant on the right on First Amendment issues,” said Ilya Shapiro, a lawyer with the Cato Institute. “It simply means that we should be skeptical of government attempts to regulate speech. That used to be an uncontroversial and nonideological point. What’s now being called the libertarian position on speech was in the 1960s the liberal position on speech.” And an increasingly conservative judiciary has been more than a little receptive to this argument. A new analysis prepared for The New York Times found that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has been far more likely to embrace free-speech arguments concerning conservative speech than liberal speech. That is a sharp break from earlier eras. As a result, liberals who once championed expansive First Amendment rights are now uneasy about them.

Journalism

Fox News Once Gave Trump a Perch. Now It’s His Bullhorn.

In 2011, Fox News announced that a new guest would appear weekly on “Fox & Friends,” its chummy morning show. “Bold, brash, and never bashful,” a network ad declared. “The Donald now makes his voice loud and clear, every Monday on Fox.” It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Seven years later, the symbiosis between President Donald Trump and his favorite cable network has only deepened. Fox News, whose commentators resolutely defend the president’s agenda, has seen ratings and revenues rise. President Trump views the network as a convenient safe space where he can express himself with little criticism from eager-to-please hosts. Now, the line between the network’s studios and Trump’s White House is blurring further. Bill Shine, a former Fox News co-president who helped create the look and feel of the channel’s conservative programming, is expected to be hired as the president’s new deputy chief of staff, overseeing communications.

The war against the press comes to the local newsroom

[Commentary] It is heartbreaking, but necessary, to recognize that the openness that defines local news likely carries too high a risk; local newsrooms, at least for now, may have no choice but to fortify themselves. Since Donald Trump chose, in the very earliest days of his presidential campaign, to make attacks on a free press in the United States one of his signature themes, many of us have thought it inevitable that his dangerous rhetoric would one day be a trigger for tragedy. Our focus this long two years has been on the big, high-profile news organizations that most occupy Trump’s obsessions and his Twitter feed. They are what we think about when we worry about threats to the press, and they have become stand-ins for those, inside the government and out, who rail against fake news. But what we missed is that for most Americans, the media is not some big-city skyscraper or national TV network with layers of security, where everybody needs a badge to get in. It’s our local newsroom down the street, staffed by professionals reporting on what matters most to people where they live. We’re reminded this week that in the war against the press, they may well be the journalists in America who are most at risk.

President Trump: Journalists should be free from fear of violent attacks

President Donald Trump lamented the “horrible” shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis (MD) saying journalists should not face grave danger in the United States. “This attack shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief,” President Trump said. “Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.” President Trump vowed his administration “will not rest until we have done everything in our power to reduce violent crime and protect innocent life.” “To the families of the victims,” he added, "Our warmest best wishes and regrets.”

This attack is just the latest blow against local journalism

[Commentary] The attack on the Capital Gazette in Annapolis (MD) horrified the nation, but especially those of us in journalism. On a personal level, we mourn the loss of five devoted colleagues who were working tirelessly, at modest wages, to provide a vital service to their community. More broadly, though, this attack is merely the latest blow inflicted on local journalism — an institution that, despite its fundamental importance to our democracy, has been experiencing serious decline. There are several ways we might reverse the decline of local news. Philanthropy can play a role. So, too, can the federal government, which can take actions to make local news broadly profitable again — such as forcing social media platforms to distribute a much bigger share of ad revenue they make on news stories to the organizations that originally gathered the news. It’s bad enough that reporters at local papers such as the Capital Gazette already have to endure low pay and long hours. That they now have to worry about being targeted for violence is just another ominous sign of the decline of our democracy.

[Paul Glastris is editor in chief of the Washington Monthly.]

Internet/Broadband

Senate Farm Bill Sets New RUS Broadband Finance Standards

The Senate has passed a Farm Bill whose broadband section reins in potential overbuilding of commercial broadband operators with government broadband subsidies. The bill, which passed overwhelmingly (86 to 11), "establishes new broadband standards for projects financed through USDA." That translates to reforms to the USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) broadband funding program to better target the funds to unserved areas where there is no high-speed broadband, rather than to underserved areas where the money could be used to overbuild existing commercial providers. ISPs have long argued that government broadband funds should go to build out broadband, not overbuild it, and pushed the agriculture committees to square the RUS funds with that philosophy. Fans of the program argued that some overbuilding was necessary to make the more expensive unserved buildout portions sustainable. The Senate Farm Bill must still be reconciled with a House-passed version, which won't happen until after the July 4 break.

Hawaii Broadband Law Clears Way for 5G Development

Hawaii’s legislators and governor have approved a bill aimed at more closely defining wireless broadband facilities while streamlining the application process for providers. The legislation acknowledges wireless broadband’s necessity and foundational significance to the island state’s economic and technological future. The new law establishes a process for the co-location of small wireless facilities by communication service providers on state- and county-owned poles, and is seen as essential to the rollout of 5G technology and an increasing growth and demand for data by residents and visitors. The law specifies that the state or county involved in permitting will notify an applicant “within 20 business days of receiving an application” whether it’s complete; shall notify an applicant of the basis for a denial on or before “the day” it’s denied; and opens a 90-day window for the applicant to address deficiencies without an additional fee. The bill further specifies that applicants seeking to deploy small cell facilities may file a “consolidated application” and get a single permit for the “co-location” of up to 25 small wireless facilities in a three-square-mile radius without having to perform services or provide goods unrelated to the permit — such as in-kind contributions like “reserving fiber, conduit or pole space” for the agency. Applicants may be required to attest that a small cell facility will be “operational” within a year after a permit is issued. But the state or county “shall not require” placement of small cells on “any specific utility pole or category of poles,” limit small cells “by minimum separation distances” or require multiple antennas to be located on a single pole.

Wireless

AT&T is raising an obscure fee on customer bills to make an extra $970 million a year, analyst says

AT&T’s wireless customers are expected to pay almost $1 billion in new fees every year to the company after it increased a monthly “administrative fee” this spring in a move that went largely unnoticed, according to an industry analyst. The analyst, Walt Piecyk of BTIG, initially estimated that AT&T could pocket roughly $800 million more annually from the higher fee, before revising that figure upward to $970 million once he learned that the fee hike will also affect tablets and smartwatches on AT&T’s network, not just cellphones. “Some people might not get hit 'til next cycle,” Piecyk said. The higher fee reflects a 58 percent increase over its previous level of $1.26 per line. The fee is now more than three times what it was when AT&T first introduced it in 2013. It does not apply to prepaid customers, but affects the vast majority of AT&T’s roughly 65 million postpaid subscribers, Piecyk said. “Presumably the Administrative Fee is another way to help AT&T fund its network build and Time Warner acquisition going forward,” wrote Piecyk in his note airing the discovery. AT&T declined to say whether the fee would be allocated toward defraying its merger costs. The company said in a statement that the fee is a standard practice across the industry, and that it “helps cover costs we incur for items like cell site maintenance and interconnection between carriers.”

Ownership

T-Mobile and Sprint Pitch Their Case Before Congress

Last week, T-Mobile and Sprint officially filed their public interest statement on their merger to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This week, the bosses of T-Mobile and Sprint made their case before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights at a hearing titled, “Game of Phones: Examining the Competitive Impact of the T-Mobile – Sprint Transaction.” Though Congress will not be reviewing the deal (that job is left to the FCC and the Department of Justice), the hearing provided the companies a chance to make their case for the transaction that regulators will be reviewing over the next several months. Throughout the over two-hour hearing, some key disagreements surfaced over the state of wireless competition, the necessity of the deal for 5G buildout, and the certainty of consumer benefits.

There’s only one way for T-Mobile/Sprint to satisfy regulators

T-Mobile and Sprint are small players in a wireless market where being small makes it hard to survive. One expert told me that if the deal is framed as a pairing of two of the four national wireless carriers, it has little chance of making it past the regulators. That’s why T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Sprint executive chairman Marcelo Claure have been trying to describe the combined company as a new kind of entity that sells not only wireless service, but potentially home broadband service and a host of media in the future. A combined T-Mobile and Sprint will very likely aspire to sell new kinds of broadband service like fixed wireless service for the home. Sprint owns a treasure trove of 5G wireless spectrum. That combined with T-Mobile’s considerable 5G spectrum holdings will pave the way for those. Which view will more closely match reality a year or two after a merger? In reality both will likely prove true. The merger will likely degrade competition in the wireless space over time, but it will also likely create a stronger single company with a much better chance of survival. The new company would instantly be roughly the size of Verizon and AT&T, with a subscriber share of about 29%. A period of “rationalizing” the two companies’ redundant people, facilities, and technology (the companies have said that $40 billion in “efficiencies”) could result in a more efficient and competitive company. What we don’t know is the balance of the two effects. Moreover, the new company will not just be competing with the other national wireless companies (AT&T and Verizon), but rather with any company that sells wired or wireless broadband and, increasingly, internet TV service over the top. This could mean Comcast, Charter, Frontier, and Century Link–companies that are increasingly making a living by selling broadband service.

The 17 years since the Microsoft antitrust case taught us that regulation can spur innovation

In June of 2000, a judge in the US district court for the District of Columbia ruled that Microsoft should be broken up into two separate units—one for Microsoft’s operating system and another for its software products. In June of 2001, an appeals court disagreed. The Microsoft case set a precedent for not breaking up big tech companies, but also prohibited Microsoft from tying Internet Explorer to Windows. This allowed other browsers like Netscape and Firefox to compete on computers that ran the Windows operating systems, and curbed Microsoft’s power, effectively creating room for upstarts like Google and Facebook to grow. “Google, the tiny start-up, would have faced an unfair fight against Bing. Microsoft-Myspace might have become the default social network instead of Facebook. And who knows whether Netflix or any other online video service would have been started?” Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Columbia Law professor Tim Wu wrote earlier in 2018.  Seventeen years later, the companies who have benefited from the Microsoft ruling are the ones under scrutiny. Companies like Facebook and Google have made the case that regulation might actually hinder innovation. But a look back at the history of the tech industry shows that innovation and regulation are cyclic: Even Microsoft was the beneficiary of another antitrust case against IBM in the early 1980s.

via Quartz
Security

LTE wireless connections used by billions aren’t as secure as we thought

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile device standard used by billions of people was designed to fix many of the security shortcomings in the predecessor standard known as Global System for Mobile communications. Mutual authentication between end users and base stations and the use of proven encryption schemes were two of the major overhauls. Now, researchers are publicly identifying weaknesses in LTE that allow attackers to send nearby users to malicious websites and fingerprint the sites they visit. The attacks work because of weaknesses built into the LTE standard itself. The most crucial weakness is a form of encryption that doesn’t protect the integrity of the data. The lack of data authentication makes it possible for an attacker to surreptitiously manipulate the IP addresses within an encrypted packet. Dubbed aLTEr, the researchers’ attack causes mobile devices to use a malicious domain name system server that, in turn, redirects the user to a malicious server masquerading as Hotmail. The other two weaknesses involve the way LTE maps users across a cellular network and leaks sensitive information about the data passing between base stations and end users.

You Should Be ‘Significantly Concerned’ There’s No White House Cyber Coordinator, Policy Experts Say

How concerned should Americans be about a White House shuffle that removed the cybersecurity coordinator position? Significantly concerned, according to a collection of top cybersecurity policy experts.  White House National Security Adviser John Bolton eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator position soon after taking office in May. The elimination was greeted with consternation by many cyber analysts who believed the job, which encompasses government cyber protections, international cyber negotiations and broad US cyber policy, was too complex to be subsumed into broader White House operations. The cyber coordinator role was created in the first year of the Obama administration and first filled by government veteran Howard Schmidt. Cyber coordinators have played key roles in responding to major cyber events, including the 2014 Sony hack, the 2015 Office of Personnel Management breach and Russian digital meddling in the 2016 election.

Kids and Media

Conservative Groups Push for Loosening Kids TV Mandates

Limited-government groups want the Federal Communications Commission to limit the mandates in its enforcement of children's programming legislation dating from the early 1990s, while a prominent kids TV group sees it slightly differently, while agreeing changes are needed. The FCC is tentatively proposing to eliminate a number of children's TV rules, and is seeking comment on changing others, concluding that educational and informational programming does not have to be at least a half-hour in length and regularly scheduled.  The agency also proposes cutting the frequency of kids TV reports to the FCC from quarterly to annually. In comments this week on the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, over two dozen groups including Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste, and the American Conservative Union, said that was the right way to go. In its comments on the proposal, the Parents Television Council said that while it agrees the rules need to be modernized, the proposal reads like a broadcaster wish list. instead, it suggested, the FCC should employ some of the data-driven processes the new chairman has espoused to identify and define what the programming needs of children and families are, then seek input from parents, and get testimony from the scientific and education communities.

Content

EFF Sues to Invalidate FOSTA, an Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law

We are asking a court to declare the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (“FOSTA”) unconstitutional and prevent it from being enforced.  The law was written so poorly that it actually criminalizes a substantial amount of protected speech and, according to experts, actually hinders efforts to prosecute sex traffickers and aid victims. In our lawsuit, two human rights organizations, an individual advocate for sex workers, a certified non-sexual massage therapist, and the Internet Archive, are challenging the law as an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. Although the law was passed by Congress for the worthy purpose of fighting sex trafficking, its broad language makes criminal of those who advocate for and provide resources to adult, consensual sex workers and actually hinders efforts to prosecute sex traffickers and aid victims. EFF strongly opposed FOSTA throughout the legislative process. During the months-long Congressional debate on the law we expressed our concern that the law violated free speech rights and would do heavy damage to online freedoms. The law that was ultimately passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump was actually the most egregiously bad of those Congress had been considering.

Lobbying

Internet Service Providers Pour $1 Million into California Assembly As Net Neutrality Debate Rages

California’s major internet service providers and their trade association have contributed more than $1 million to members of the California Assembly since January 2017. 

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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) -- we welcome your comments.

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