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CONGRESS AND THE BENEFITS OF SUNSHINE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] Representative-elect Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has decided to post details of her work calendar on the Internet at the end of each day so constituents can tell what she is actually doing for their money. For all the worthy proposals for ethics reform being hashed out by the incoming Congress, a heavy dose of Internet transparency should not be overlooked in the effort to repair lawmakers’ tattered credibility. The technology is already there, along with the public’s appetite for more disclosure about the byways of power in Congress. The Web is increasingly wielded by both campaign donors and bloggers clicking and tapping as wannabe muckrakers. Politicians would be wise to catch up. Local citizens were enlisted to track pork-barrel abuses in the last campaign by a new watchdog organization, the Sunlight Foundation, which enlisted Ms. Gillibrand’s disclosure pledge. It aims to have voters use the Internet as an engine of political information. Much more than disclosure is needed to cure the Capitol’s ills -- particularly some sort of independent agency to prod Congress to fully investigate corruption allegations. But prompt, searchable postings of basic data -- from lobbyists’ itineraries and expenses to incumbents’ donor ties and legislative labors -- should be part of any corruption cure. In the information age, this amounts to a modest proposal for a Congress truly intent on reform.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/opinion/14thu3.html
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FOX SAYS FCC'S INDECENCY POLICY GOES TOO FAR
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The FCC's new indecency policy of cracking down on cussing "has reached too far and censored too much speech," said Fox in its reply to the FCC's defense of its new policy. Fox took aim in a filing with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The FCC found two Fox Billboard Awards show broadcasts to be profane, and thus indecent, because they allowed variants of the words "fudge" and "shoot" to be broadcast outside of the FCC's 10 p.m.-6 a.m. safe harbor for "indecent" broadcast speech. Fox argued that neither of the broadcasts would have been found indecent under the previous almost 30 years of FCC indecency policy (1975-2004) and that "without adequate explanation or even acknowledgment, the FCC has abandoned the restrained understanding of indecency that served the public for three decades." Fox says the FCC's new policy means it can punish "virtually any isolated use of the words," with only "arbitrary exceptions when the word might be justified in context."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6399802.html?display=Breaking...

NBC SAYS FCC IS VIOLATING ITS OWN INDECENCY STANDARD
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
After receiving a terrible tongue lashing from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, executives of NBC are saying the Commission is indecent. Actually, NBC says that the FCC's profanity findings against phrases like Cher's "Fudge 'em" on Fox's Billboard Awards or Bono's "Fudging brilliant" on NBC's Golden Globes, both cited by the FCC, are misapplied and contrary to "its own standard, common sense, conventional wisdom and ordinary usage." In its brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in the broadcaster court challenge to that new FCC profanity enforcement policy, NBC says the FCC decision should be reversed and that "no reasonable observer could actually conclude that Cher was exhorting the audience to have 'chocolate activities' with those critics, or that her comment related somehow to chocolate-producing organs." NBC says it is not saying a "properly designed indecency regime could never bar the repeated broadcast of expletives used as intensifiers" but that the FCC cannot "transform a standard that expressly requires material to 'describe or depict' sex into a dragnet for words that neither depict nor describe sexual or excretory activity." NBC also argued that the FCC's decision is invalid under the Chevron test, which holds that an appeals court must first determine if the will of Congress was clear in a statute, and if so, that ends the discussion. NBC argues, as it did in its initial brief to the court, that Congress clearly intended to be blasphemous and that the FCC cannot arbitrarily change the definition to fit its regulatory leanings.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6399800.html?display=Breaking...

COMCAST QUESTIONS FCC'S EFFICIENCY
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
Comcast is pointing out that the Federal Communications Commission’s interest in speeding phone company entry into local video markets seems to clash with the plodding pace at which the agency is reviewing pending cable requests for action. In a Dec. 11 letter filed at the FCC, Comcast claimed that the FCC has sat on at least five Comcast “petitions for effective competition” for more than two years and that the agency failed to act on Comcast’s major set-top box waiver request within the 90-day window mandated by federal law. Comcast’s physician-heal-thyself tone was a rare slap at the powerful regulatory body, and it could be a sign that the largest U.S cable operator will no longer disguise its frustration with FCC chairman Kevin Martin, who is attempting to placate AT&T and Verizon on video policy.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6399780.html?display=Breaking+News

FCC CHAIRMAN LOOKS TO FORMER BOSS TO TAKE KEY ROLE
[SOURCE: MarketWatch, AUTHOR: Corey Boles]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has tapped a former boss -- no, not former-Gov Bush, he's still committed to something else for a couple of years -- to head an arbitration scheme that would resolve disputes in the lucrative telecom business market serviced by a merged AT&T and BellSouth. Former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, whom Chairman Martin worked for as a staffer for two years, would be the chairman's pick to run an arbitration scheme. The notion of the creation of an arbitration scheme may now be redundant as it seems likely that Commissioner Robert McDowell will participate in the vote among FCC commissioners over whether to approve the $80 billion merger, giving Chairman Martin the majority he needs. This could mean the he would no longer need to negotiate with Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein and could push through approval for the merger with few or any conditions attached, beyond those already agreed to by AT&T. But, according to analysts, an arbitration scheme could still come back on the table if Copps and Adelstein can be persuaded to cut a deal rather than have a divided 3-2 vote on the matter. Furchtgott-Roth has a reputation as being strongly in favor of deregulation and being pro-business. In his four years at the commission between 1997 and 2001, he openly questioned whether the FCC had any role in telecommunications mergers whatsoever.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/fcc-chairman-looks-former-boss/sto...