Benton RSS Feed
"The outlook is murky."
-- House Commerce Chairman Joe Barton on chances of passing telecom reform legislation this year
http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/2993
HOUSE'S BARTON SEES MURKY FUTURE FOR TELCO BILL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jeremy Pelofsky]
The prospects of passing legislation this year that would help telephone companies more quickly get licenses to offer television service are "murky," House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) said Thursday. Last month the House passed a Barton-sponsored bill that would enable telephone carriers like AT&T to apply for a national license to offer subscription cable television service. But a similar bill, sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) may stall in the Senate because it does not have the 60 votes needed to end debate and vote on the legislation. "The outlook is murky," Rep. Barton told the Electronic Industries Alliance. Still, he noted "there are over 50 votes for the bill" in the Senate. Rep Barton also said that lawmakers would return to Washington after the November congressional elections so there would be additional time to work on the legislation. After his speech he said the chances of getting a bill passed were 50-50. "I think if he (Stevens) can get a bill to the floor, we jump up to 80-20 or even higher that we'll get a bill," Rep Barton, chairman of the House Commerce Committee, told reporters. Any differences between the House and Senate measures would have to be worked out in a conference of lawmakers and Rep Barton predicted many provisions in the broader Senate legislation would be dropped.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID...
CONGRESS MUST ACT NOW TO PROTECT INTERNET FREEDOM AND INNOVATION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA)]
[Commentary] An important task facing Congress as we assemble our to-do list for July is addressing the question of “network neutrality.†For good reasons, net neutrality has become a major focus in the debate on the legislation to grant national video licenses to telecommunications companies. Network neutrality refers to the principle underlying the development of the Internet, essentially ensuring that all data traveling across the network is treated in a nondiscriminatory manner. For businesses, civic organizations or alumni associations, that means selling a product, announcing an initiative or organizing an event is as easy as setting up a website that is accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. For the consumer, it means easy access to an ever-expanding array of services, products and information of their choosing. Network neutrality serves as the Internet’s nondiscrimination policy and is similar to policies that ensure large phone companies like Verizon and BellSouth have to connect calls from Sprint or T-Mobile with the same speed and accuracy that they would for their own calls. Since its inception, this powerful medium has flourished as an engine for economic growth and political activism under the rules of equal access to the Internet. Congress needs to address this issue before, not after, the phone and cable companies fundamentally change the nature of the Internet. We have all seen the dynamic change that it has brought to our country and, indeed, the world. Congress shouldn't just sit by and watch network neutrality and the vibrancy of the Internet slip away.
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/071906/ss_...
NET NEUTRALITY IS REALLY NET NOT-SO-NEUTRAL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)]
[Commentary] The success of this relatively new medium is in no small part due to the hands-off approach government has taken when it comes to regulation and taxation. The Internet has proved once and for all that free markets work best. Like always though, some see a free market and experience an urge to impose government regulation. Today there is a push on Capitol Hill to have government take a bigger role in the Internet’s basic functioning. That ought to concern all of us. Any effort to impose new regulations on the Internet should be cause for a serious study of the potential ramifications. We all know that when it comes to regulations government has repeatedly failed to follow the old maxim that says, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.†Once enacted, regulations almost always have unintended consequences and are virtually impossible to repeal. That’s why the concept of net neutrality has prompted such debate over the past weeks. The stakes are enormous when you begin tinkering with a resource millions upon millions of Americans depend on every day. It would be irresponsible for Congress to regulate blindly, but that appears to be what some are asking us to do with net neutrality. Sometimes it’s more responsible not to act. Congress ought to continue exercising its oversight authority, and the Commerce Committee should monitor the functioning of the Internet, but we must resist interfering as much as possible. Over the past months we've worked to address the serious online sexual-predator problem that presents a discernible threat to the Internet and American families. It should be clear that we have enough real challenges ahead without Congress leaping to create solutions for problems that may not actually exist.
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/071906/ss_black...
CHRISTIAN COALITION RAMPS UP EFFORT ON BEHALF OF 'NET NEUTRALITY' PLAN
[SOURCE: Technology Daily, AUTHOR: David Hatch]
The Christian Coalition will play a critical role in trying to generate needed Republican support for a controversial network neutrality amendment sponsored by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND). The Christian Coalition has 50 state organizations. It is worried that if the Internet is divided into faster and slower lanes -- as envisioned by AT&T, Verizon Communications and other major companies -- it might have difficulty reaching its 3 million members. In August, the group will target about 20 conservative Republican legislators -- using grassroots efforts such as letters, phone calls, e-mails and participation in town hall meetings, to build support for strict neutrality safeguards. The group will focus its campaign on lawmakers who are not members of Senate Commerce panel, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Meanwhile, one source said Snowe is targeting moderate Republicans -- including her Maine colleague, Sen. Susan Collins, and Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- in seeking support for the net neutrality plan.
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-LEWX1153417556554.html
Christian Coalition Ramps Up Effort On Behalf Of 'Net Neutrality' Plan
FRIST SEEKS SWIFT ACTION ON WEB GAMBLING
[SOURCE: Reuters]
A bill to ban Internet gambling faces opposition in the U.S. Senate, but backers still hope to win passage of it within a few weeks, a top aide to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Thursday. "We are trying to get something done before the August recess," set to begin on August 4, said Eric Ueland, Frist's chief of staff. Earlier on Thursday, another Frist aide said lawmakers were still working on the bill, but would not be able to vote on it before the Senate heads off for its month-long vacation. Ueland rejected that characterization, saying Frist had not given up on getting a vote before the August recess. The Senate bill is virtually identical to legislation overwhelmingly approved earlier in July by the U.S. House of Representatives. It would prohibit most forms of Internet gambling and make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites. The Republican-backed bill has been criticized by some as an election-year appeal to the party's conservative base. Supporters of a crackdown on Internet gambling say legislation is needed to clarify that a 1961 federal law banning sports betting also covers an array of online gambling.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID...
POLITICOS PUSH TO UPDATE COLD WAR-ERA ALERT SYSTEM
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
In an age of omnipresent cell phone, Internet and BlackBerry users, why does the government rely primarily on analog television and radio to beam its national emergency alerts? Politicians asked that question -- and urged support for legislation aimed at expanding the Cold War-era system -- at a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing Thursday. The hearing focused primarily on the Warning, Alert and Response Network, or WARN, Act, which was formally proposed last week by Reps John Shimkus (R-IL) and Albert Wynn (D-MD). That bill calls for government and the private sector to devise a "voluntary" national alert system capable of transmitting messages "across the greatest possible variety of communications technologies," including wireless devices and the Internet. The existing system, first deployed by President Harry Truman in 1951 with the intention of warning Americans about impending nuclear threats, requires national presidential alerts to be transmitted through analog radio, television and cable systems. Now called the Emergency Alert System, or EAS, it is also available for use by state and local governments on a voluntary basis. The idea of expanding the warnings to other media appears to have escalated in popularity since Hurricane Katrina and the communications bungles that occurred during the storm. Last November, the FCC issued rules requiring that digital television, cable and audio broadcasters and satellite radio operators also deliver the alerts, beginning Dec. 31, 2006. Satellite television providers must meet that requirement by May 31, 2007. The FCC itself is still contemplating whether the current structure of the EAS remains the best way to get the word out and is reviewing public comments on whether to deploy a new type of system, such as a satellite or Internet-based mechanism, Julius Knapp, acting chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology, told the politicians. A recent executive order from President Bush and a report by an independent FCC panel reviewing communications during Katrina have also called for improvements. The WARN Act, for its part, would not explicitly require the messages to be sent to devices like cell phones and e-mail accounts, because "voluntary, incentive market-based competitive products (do) a better job of encouraging full deployment," Rep Shimkus said. Instead, details would be worked out by a new government office and a working group composed of federal, state and local government representatives and experts from industries related to the system. That working group would have a year from the law's passage to recommend guidelines, technological standards and other protocols, for any new alert systems.
http://news.com.com/Politicos+push+to+update+Cold+War-era+alert+system/2...
* Katrina Exposed Deadly Flaws in Public Alert System; Bipartisan Backing Grows to Add Mobile Phones, E-mail
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/News/07202006_2000.htm
* Hearing info: Shimkus-Wynn Bill, Expanding Emergency Alert System
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/07202006hearing1998/hearing...
** See also
[SOURCE: Prometheus Radio Project]
"It has been five years since the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Telecommunications has heard testimony about the essential service that low power FM (LPFM) radio provides to churches, schools, community groups, and to towns and cities across America. Today Sara Allen, an experienced engineer who has built radio stations from New Mexico to Florida spoke before the Subcommittee on the unique service that LPFM stations provide when hurricanes and other natural disasters take communications systems offline. Across the Gulf Coast and in countless other situations across the country, locally owned, volunteer-run community radio stations like LPFMs have been the difference between life and death, safety and danger for local communities. As Ms. Allen brought to the attention of the Subcommittee, stations like WQRZ-LP, a low power station in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, were perfectly placed to give neighborhood-by-neighborhood coverage of the damage of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and to help those communities know exactly how to interface with local and federal safety and health officials after the storms. But these stations are few and far between -- limited from thousands more towns and neighborhoods by an out-of-date law limiting low power radio to small, remote communities. With the WARN act, Congress has the opportunity to expand the national EAS infrastructure to reach millions of Americans at risk from a lack of local information about emergencies. If Congress moved to expand low power FM radio to thousands more towns and cities across this country, these communities would enjoy a reliable and well-understood local technology when disaster struck."
http://www.prometheusradio.org/
Politicos push to update Cold War-era alert system
ED TECH SCORES SENATE VICTORY
[SOURCE: eSchoolNews]
Advocates of educational technology received encouraging news July 18 as members of the influential Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee voted to level-fund the Enhancing Education Through Technology block-grant program, the largest single source of ed-tech funding in the federal budget, at $272 million. The move comes after House lawmakers followed President Bush's proposal in voting to kill the program in the coming fiscal year. Though the program's fate is by no means guaranteed, the move leaves open the door for EETT to return in 2007.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=6449
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=6449
SURVEILLANCE BILL MEETS RESISTANCE IN SENATE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dan Eggen]
A Senate surveillance bill personally negotiated by President Bush and Vice President Cheney ran into immediate trouble this week, as Democrats and other critics attacked the proposal while key GOP leaders in the House endorsed a different bill on the same topic. The Senate legislation, drafted during negotiations between the White House and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), would allow the administration to submit the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program to a secret intelligence court for review of its legality. The proposal was billed as a rare and noteworthy compromise by the administration when unveiled last week. But the legislation quickly came under attack from Democrats and many national security experts, who said it would actually give the government greater powers to spy on Americans without court oversight. A competing bill introduced by Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-NM) was endorsed this week by two key House GOP leaders: Peter Hoekstra (MI), the intelligence committee chairman, and F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (WI), head of the Judiciary Committee. Sen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, canceled a markup session for his proposal that had been scheduled for yesterday. He announced instead plans instead for a full committee hearing Wednesday on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the 1978 statute at the center of the debate. The developments add to the uncertainty surrounding the eavesdropping program, which allows the NSA to intercept telephone calls and e-mails between the United States and locations overseas without court approval if one of the parties is suspected of links to terrorism.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR200607...
(requires registration)
Surveillance Bill Meets Resistance in Senate
JUDGE REFUSES TO DROP SPYING SUIT AGAINST AT&T
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco rejected on Thursday both the U.S. government's and AT&T's requests to dismiss a class action suit accusing the telephone giant of assisting the National Security Agency in a sweeping, allegedly illegal terrorist surveillance program. "Because of the public disclosures by the government and AT&T, the court cannot conclude that merely maintaining this action creates a 'reasonable danger' of harming national security," Judge Walker wrote in a 72-page order. The judge also dealt a blow to AT&T's request to dismiss the case on three separate grounds. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, filed the suit in January, charging that AT&T had opened up its telecommunications facilities to the NSA for use in spying on the phone calls and e-mails of "millions of ordinary Americans." Such a practice violates free speech and privacy rights spelled out by the U.S. Constitution and also runs afoul of federal wiretapping law, the EFF claims. Judge Walker's ruling on Thursday "vindicates the privacy and security rights of every citizen in the United States," said Robert Fram, an attorney with the law firm Heller Ehrman, which assisted the EFF in the case. EFF staff attorney Kevin Bankston said in a conference call that the organization was "very happy" with the ruling and was prepared to go ahead with the process of discovery, or gathering relevant pretrial documents.
http://news.com.com/Judge+refuses+to+drop+spying+suit+against+AT38T/2100...
* Judge Declines to Dismiss Privacy Suit Against AT&T
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/washington/21data.html
* Judge Denies AT&T, U.S. Motion To Dismiss Domestic-Spying Case
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115342628067612772.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
(requires subscription)
* Judge Declines to Dismiss Lawsuit Against AT&T
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR200607...
* U.S. Loses Bid to Dismiss AT&T Surveillance Suit
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fi-att21jul21,1,783...
Judge refuses to drop spying suit against AT&T
BROWNBACK DOESN'T BACK KIDS MARKETING MANDATES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Senator Sam Brownback, whose bill boosting FCC indecency fines was recently passed into law, says he is not prepared for Congress to mandate a crackdown on food marketing to kids. At a Washington conference on food marketing to children, sponsored by Children Now, the Kansas Republican said Thursday he preferred to hold hearings and to meet with the advertising and food industries to talk about ways everybody could work together to address the issue of TV's impact on kids. He said he had been talking recently with a top Disney executive about ways to make TV choice less about government action and more about consumer empowerment through mechanisms to screen out unwanted programming, or let it all in, he added. What Sen Brownback was willing to push hard for is additional science to study the affects on the brain of different kinds of TV programming. While he called for more hard science, he said he had some anecdotal evidence. Sen Brownback adopted two children, one who had watched a lot of TV, and the other who hadn't. The TV watcher is tough to get away from the set, he said.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6355015.html?display=Breaking...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6355015.html?display=Breaking%20News