Daily Digest 2/19/2018 (Election Interference)

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Elections

13 Russians Indicted by Special Counsel in First Charges on 2016 Election Interference

The special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations owith illegally using social media platforms to sow political discord, including actions that supported the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and disparaged his opponent, Hillary Clinton. In a 37-page indictment filed in United States District Court, Mueller said that the 13 individuals have conspired since 2014 to violate laws that prohibit foreigners from spending money to influence federal elections in the United States. The indictment charges that the foreigners falsely posed as American citizens, stole identities and otherwise engaged in fraud and deceit in an effort to influence the U.S. political process, including the 2016 presidential race. Though the Russians are unlikely to be immediately arrested, they are now wanted by the United States government, which will make it hard for them to travel or do business internationally. All were charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Three defendants were also charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft.

Content

Pro-Gun Russia Bots Flood Twitter After Parkland Shooting

In the wake of Feb 14's Parkland (FL) school shooting, which resulted in 17 deaths, troll and bot-tracking sites reported an immediate uptick in related tweets from political propaganda bots and Russia-linked Twitter accounts. Hamilton 68, a website created by Alliance for Securing Democracy, tracks Twitter activity from accounts it has identified as linked to Russian influence campaigns. As of morning, shooting-related terms dominated the site’s trending hashtags and topics, including Parkland, guncontrolnow, Florida, guncontrol, and Nikolas Cruz, the name of the alleged shooter. Popular trending topics among the bot network include shooter, NRA, shooting, Nikolas, Florida, and teacher.

via Wired
Ownership

AT&T demands Trump administration logs in court battle over Time Warner deal

AT&T is demanding that the Justice Department hand over additional evidence to prove that President Donald Trump did not wield political influence over the agency as its antitrust enforcers reviewed the company's bid to acquire Time Warner. DOJ should produce a log of any conversations that may have transpired between the White House and Attorney General Jeff Sessions pertaining to AT&T's $85 billion merger, the company argued before a federal judge. Separately, DOJ should also be required, AT&T said, to disclose any conversations between AG Sessions and the agency's antitrust division. AT&T's request could deepen a legal probe into whether President Trump interfered in the Justice Department's regulatory review — which, if true, would be a potentially illegal exercise of executive authority, legal experts say.

DOJ: Trump’s dislike of CNN didn’t bias AT&T-Time Warner merger

The Justice Department (DOJ) acknowledged that while President Donald Trump doesn’t like CNN, his unhappiness with the media outlet did not influence a federal antitrust case. “The president is unhappy with CNN. We don’t dispute that,” Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath said at a pretrial hearing. “But AT&T wants to turn that into a get-out-jail-free card for their illegal merger.” The DOJ is trying to prevent the political argument from becoming part of the case. He also argued that CNN is not key to the government's opposition of the deal. "We want to leave CNN right where it is, doing just what it is doing," Conrath said. "CNN does not matter." Judge Richard Leon of the US District Court for the District of Columbia plans to rule Feb 20 on the issue, which is part of the larger case looking at whether the merger would raise prices.

Broadband

Communities can’t afford to wait for the federal government to obtain next gen broadband

[Commentary] Communities should study and emulate the number of models of community-led broadband upgrades that clearly improve the math for investment in next-generation networks, regardless of the public or private delineation. Yet choosing an upgrade model will not be simple; communities should reflect their preferences between certain trade-offs, from control and risk to scale through aggregation or local control. Yet the multitude of new alternatives creates the best opportunity yet for communities to control their gigabit destiny. As is always true with local economic development, help begins with self-help. Communities that have organized themselves to improve the math for investment have often succeeded in seeing that investment follow. Those who have sat back and waited for the market or the federal government to help are largely still waiting today and are likely to continue to be waiting for some time to come. One can hope that markets or the federal government will address everything, but for many communities, their own action is what really will count. [Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program. He oversaw the development of the National Broadband Plan.]

Charter fails to defeat lawsuit alleging false Internet speed promises

Charter Communications cannot use the federal network neutrality repeal to avoid a lawsuit over slow Internet speeds in New York, the state's Supreme Court ruled. The lawsuit was filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman against Charter and its Time Warner Cable (TWC) subsidiary in Feb 2017. AG Schneiderman alleges that the Internet provider "conduct[ed] a deliberate scheme to defraud and mislead New Yorkers by promising Internet service that they knew they could not deliver." Charter thought that the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality repeal would help it fight the lawsuit. In November, Charter argued in a court filing that its motion to dismiss the case was bolstered by the repeal because the FCC also preempted state-level regulation. But the New York Supreme Court rejected that and other arguments made by Charter in the Feb 16 ruling, which denies Charter's motion to dismiss AG Schneiderman's complaint.  

Vermont governor directs state to ensure ‘net neutrality’

How To Roll Your Own Net Neutrality (Fast Company)

Slower spending by AT&T, Level 3/CenturyLink results in lower North American optical capex, says analyst

AT&T and CenturyLink have cut back or delayed big purchases of next-generation optical gear. The slower spending trends at these two carriers combined with weak cloud and colocation capital expenditure spending by other providers drove what Cignal AI says is a weaker-than-expected North American optical capex situation. “Anemic cloud and colo optical capex—combined with brutal 200G pricing, weak deployments by incumbent and wholesale vendors, and a decline in long-haul WDM purchases—resulted in lower overall spending during 2017,” said Andrew Schmitt, lead analyst for Cignal AI. “In fact, cloud and colo was the weakest North American customer market for the year; a counterintuitive development considering the priority equipment companies place on it.”

via Fierce
Journalism

The non-starter

[Commentary] Race remains a no-go topic for much of the media—which will have serious consequences for the press. We the people own the airwaves. It should be our first action to demand that every commercial station have a commercial-free news section and that the reporters, anchors, investigators, researchers, writers, and producers represent as wide a swath as possible of the different peoples of this country. This last ask is a hard one. We need people who are committed to the attempt to represent truth and the point of view that has brought them to this position. Today we should be telling the powers that be that we are tired of the economic system they’re using to placate, subdue, and replace our rights. We may not get the whole truth but we can get a helluva lot closer. [Walter Mosley is the author of more than 43 books, including the best-selling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins.]

Fear itself

[Commentary]  President Donald Trump’s derision hasn’t just seeped into the public consciousness; it’s worked its way into journalists’ bloodstreams, too. Take bad economics, mix in the devaluing of journalism as a profession—both from within and without—and the downgrading of truth in American culture, and you have a recipe for despair. There’s a growing impetus for our best journalists, now and in the future, to write off the profession entirely and opt for a life that’s relatively sane. The day after President Trump leaves office, reporters will no doubt wake up with a spring in their collective step, feeling lighter. But their working lives won’t be easier; if anything, they’ll be more challenging. The industry’s churn cycle is nowhere near finished; the same old worries will pile on top of other worries, the same fears on top of fears. Only the cloud of President Trump will be gone. We’ll no longer have the president of the United States shaking his fist at us, goading us on to commit journalism, whatever the cost. What we will have is an industry full of trauma survivors, with further shocks in store. [Bob Moser is the former editor of the Texas Observer and executive editor of The American Prospect.]

Emergency Communications

Presidential Message on 9-1-1 Telecommunicators Day

Remarks of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai "50th Anniversary of the Fist Call Made to 911"

Spectrum/Wireless

Trump/FCC Propose Billions in New User Fees

The White House, backed by the Federal Communications Commission, is once again seeking to impose a new fee on communications providers that would amount to billions of dollars. That is according to the FCC's FY 2019 budget, released this week as part of the Administration's overall budget proposal. The fee, which would be levied on broadcasters, cable operators, satellite operators, would be in addition to the regulatory fees they already pay to cover the FCC's cost to regulate them. User fees have become a common line item in White House budgets, both Republican and Democratic, including in the Trump 2018 budget, but have heretofore never made it into a final budget passed by Congress, thanks in no small part to the powerful pushback by broadcasters. "Consistent with our position on previous proposed White House budgets, NAB will oppose spectrum fees that imperil the financial underpinnings of local television and the tens of millions of viewers we serve," said National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton. If the new fees were to make it into law, the FCC estimates they would bring in an additional $4 billion over the next decade.

Lobbying

Big Tech Fights Backlash With White House Lobbying Blitz

According to a Bloomberg analysis of Senate disclosures dating back to 2000, lobbying of the White House and its key bureaus by US tech companies has increased steadily, with an acceleration in the past six years. In 2000, only Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle disclosed lobbying then-President Bill Clinton’s White House, including offices potentially representing his closest advisers. Disclosures filed with the government show that, in 2017, lobbyists working for Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Twitter,  and Uber Technologies sought to influence parts of the Executive Office of the President -- which includes Trump’s inner circle and key bureaus such as the ATC, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council of Economic Advisers. “The biggest tech companies have shifted gears and put a lot resources into lobbying and into the executive branch in particular," said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for nonprofit Public Citizen. 

Stories From Abroad

Facebook loses Belgian privacy case, faces fine up to $125 million

A Belgian court threatened Facebook with a fine of up to 100 million euros ($125 million) if it continued to break privacy laws by tracking people on third party websites.  In a case brought by Belgium’s privacy watchdog, the court also ruled on Feb 16 that Facebook had to delete all data it had gathered illegally on Belgian citizens, including people who were not Facebook users themselves. Facebook, which will be fined 250,000 euros a day or up to 100 million euros if it does not comply with the court’s judgment, said in a statement it would appeal the ruling. “Facebook informs us insufficiently about gathering information about us, the kind of data it collects, what it does with that data and how long it stores it,” the court said. “It also does not gain our consent to collect and store all this information,” it added. 

Instagram submits to Russia censor's demands

via BBC
More Online

The Cost of Malicious Cyber Activity to the U.S. Economy

 


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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