Benton RSS Feed
When it comes to broadband internet access, the U.S. still lags behind other developed nations. We don’t have the broadband connections that other countries have, and fewer people are using them. Google Fiber — the gigabit internet service the company offers in Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri — has sparked hope that the U.S. could one day catch up to countries such as South Korea and Japan. But although Google is expanding its fiber services to more cities — and private companies like AT&T and CenturyLink have promised to step up fiber offerings in some areas — we’re a long way from nationwide high-speed internet. Rural communities, in particular, are underserved by broadband providers.
One solution may be municipal broadband services — services owned and operated by local governments, as opposed to independent ISPs. The Media Consortium hosted a conference call with Christopher Mitchell of Institute for Local Self Reliance; Kansas City, Missouri assistant city manager Rick Usher; and Matt Wood, policy director of Free Press, to compare community broadband initiatives with Google Fiber. While Usher praised Google’s efforts in Kansas City on both sides of the state line, Mitchell and Wood highlighted some of the reasons that a community might want both a commercial offering and a municipal broadband network.
Why Your City Should Compete With Google’s Super-Speed Internet
The latest entity to offer gigabit service is a community owned network in Cedar Falls, Iowa that is managed by Cedar Falls Utilities. That organization also manages municipally-owned electricity, water and natural gas utilities.
The Cedar Falls network is different from gigabit networks in some other communities in that service in most cases can be turned up immediately, said Betty Zeman, marketing manager for Cedar Falls Utilities. “We’re in almost every property in town with an ONT [optical network terminal] already,” she explained. The new Cedar Falls gigabit network traces back to a hybrid-fiber coax network originally constructed in the 1990s with funding raised through a referendum.
Execs Share Details on New Iowa Gigabit Network
China again denied that it has used cyberattacks to steal American military and business secrets, following new accusations leveled this week.
“China opposes all forms of cyberattacks. China is also a victim of hacking,” said Assistant Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang during a press briefing previewing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with President Obama next week. Zheng noted that China and the United States have agreed to set up a working group to regularly discuss the issue.
China continues to deny carrying out cyberattacks against US
The top two Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have initiated an investigation into whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied under oath during his May 15 testimony on the Justice Department’s (DOJ) surveillance of reporters.
Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), the chairman of the subcommittee on investigations, sent a letter to AG Holder detailing specific aspects of his testimony that they say conflicts with subsequent media reports about Holder’s involvement in the surveillance of James Rosen, a reporter for Fox News. “The media reports and statements issued by the Department regarding the search warrants for Mr. Rosen’s emails appear to be at odds with your sworn testimony before the Committee,” the letter reads in part. “We believe — and we hope you will agree — it is imperative that the Committee, the Congress, and the American people be provided a full and accurate account of your involvement in and approval of these search warrants.”
House Judiciary panel launches official probe into whether AG Holder lied House Judiciary investigating whether Attorney General Holder lied under oath (The Hill)
Attorney General Eric Holder is planning to meet with the Washington (DC) bureau chiefs of major news outlets this week as he reviews the Justice Department’s (DOJ) policies for issuing media subpoenas.
The meetings over the next two days will initiate more lengthy discussions in the coming weeks with representatives from print, radio, television, wire, and online news groups and trade associations, according to a DOJ official. President Barack Obama directed AG Holder to review the department’s media subpoena policies last week after a firestorm of criticism erupted from news organizations and lawmakers over the DOJ’s handling of two separate leaks investigations. A DOJ official, speaking on background, said that Holder’s review is an attempt to ensure First Amendment rights are respected by the department and that it would include conversations with news media executives and general counsels in addition to government intelligence and investigative experts.
AG Holder to meet news media chiefs in review of subpoena policy
[Commentary] I’m all for a shield law to protect journalists and their sources from government prosecutors. I hope Congress passes one. But I don’t have lots of faith that the ideas under consideration in Congress or any law can protect journalists adequately.
This is one of those areas where custom carries more weight than statute, the custom being the general good sense of prosecutors not to go after reporters for their information. For the most part prosecutors—and by that I mean everyone from county attorneys on up—have refrained from going after reporters, including the notable and obvious exception of the Obama Justice Department. Yes, there are cases where prosecutors have gone subpoena-happy, from the BALCO steroids case to the Aurora shooting to the CIA leak case, where I was caught up in the maelstrom. But, generally, prosecutors don't pursue reporters even when they can. This unspoken compact began to become undone during the Bush administration, and, of course, it has unraveled during the Obama years as the national-security state has expanded. Inevitably, prosecutors have to seek a balance. In the case of James Rosen, even if you grant that the leak of North Korean nuclear-testing information was a huge deal, and you imagine that it may have been dependent on human intelligence in Pyongyang and you fear its revelation led to us having to roll up networks or even harm coming to sources, you can see the fervor with which DOJ, along with the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community, would want to go after such a leak. But from what we’ve heard about the case, it’s hard to see why you’d need to subpoena the reporters e-mails and phone records. The government already has extensive rights to look over the documents of employees with high security clearances. If you have their records, do you really need the Fox ones? Even if you do, is it worth it? For a long time, prosecutors answered the question “no”—not because they were saintly but because it was in their self-interest, and ours.
Why a Media Shield Law Isn't Enough to Save Journalists Journalists don’t have clear-cut case about leaks to Associated Press (Washington post)
[Commentary] In a few weeks, the 186 governments that are members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will gather in Morocco with the goal of crafting a Treaty For The Blind.
The agreement would facilitate global production and lending of audio books, Braille translations, and otherwise enable the visually impaired and those with certain learning disabilities to have affordable access to books. This will most benefit the millions of blind people in the developing world who live in poverty, by adopting many of the rights to translate works into braille or other forms accessible to the visually impaired that are already law in the United States. But last minute lobbying by Hollywood and publishing interests in the U.S. and Europe have threatened to derail the Treaty for the Blind at the last minute.
Treaty for the Blind in Jeopardy, Copyright Zealots to Blame
Mary Meeker, the Internet analyst, has become something of a legend in the tech world for her annual Internet Trends report. Here are some major takeaways from her latest:
- Mobile Is Moving Fast -- There are about 2.4 billion Internet users worldwide, a gain of 8 percent from 2012, driven largely by emerging markets like Iran and Indonesia. And there are 1.5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, compared with 1.1 billion a year earlier. That’s roughly 30 percent growth. In addition, mobile makes up 15 percent of Internet traffic over all.
- Wearables, Sharables, Drivables, Flyables -- The next few decades will be about wearable computing, like Google glass and fitness tracking bracelets, as well as new gadget categories like drones and smarter cars. That, in turn, will drive the personal data revolution.
- The Personal Data Revolution – The amount of personal data from wearables, videos and even sound files that we upload to the Web is growing exponentially and will continue to grow.
- Facebook Is Still the King of Social Media
- The Rise of the Visual Web -- On average, more than 500 million photos are shared each day. Meeker expects that figure to double year over year.
- Americans Share Less Than the Rest of the World -- On average, 24 percent of the world says they share “most or everything” that they do. But only 15 percent of Americans admitted to sharing nearly everything online.
Mary Meeker Peers Into the Future of Mobile, Wearables and Facebook
[Commentary] Looking for a mortgage? Tell us how much you owe and how much you earn. Think you might have a health problem? Tell us your age, gender and medical history. Want to buy a new pair of shoes? Please provide your size, preferred color, style and zip code – and, by the way, how did that last pair work out for you?
These inquiries may seem like a slight nuisance, but the repercussions are broad. As the global economy shifts to a digital economy, data has become the lifeforce of commerce. Big data is big business, presenting enormous opportunities for economic growth. But not without risk – data privacy and security have quickly become critical business and social risks, leading us to question whether, in fact, our secrets are safe.
How are companies handling those vast terabytes of personal information? Have adequate measures been taken to ensure it can't be hacked by foreign governments, criminals, or thrill-seeking computer activists? And do the companies we place our faith in have appropriate policies and practices to ensure they're protecting the privacy we as consumers want and demand?
[Natasha Lamb is vice president, shareholder advocacy and corporate engagement, at Trillium Asset Management LLC; Corey Johnson is sustainability research analyst at Pax World Funds; Michael Connor is executive director of Open MIC, a non-profit organization that works with companies and investors on open media issues.]
Privacy and data security: why should investors care?
Martin Franks, executive VP of planning, policy and government affairs for CBS, is retiring effective Sept. 30.
Franks has been instrumental in CBS' retransmission negotiations and has been a top executive, based out of both New York and Washington. "It is with considerable reluctance that I have accepted Marty Franks' decision to retire, effective Sept. 30. At the same time, of course, I wish him nothing but the very best in that retirement," CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves said in an e-mail to staffers.
"The CBS we know today would not have been possible without Marty's contributions over the past 25 years," he wrote. "His achievements are almost too numerous to mention. For example, he was instrumental in enacting Retransmission Consent, and then helped turn it into what is now a fast-growing, nine-figure revenue source for our Company. Marty also played a key role in helping repeal the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules that helped make it possible for broadcast networks to own the programs we air, and then syndicate them both at home and abroad. As a result, our CSI franchise alone has earned more than $3 billion for the Company, and the ownership of content has become a cornerstone of our success.”
CBS' Marty Franks Retiring CBS’s Marty Franks Retiring in September (TVNewsCheck)