Gov performance

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) wrote a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai asking if he would like to correct his testimony delivered to the House Commerce Committee at an oversight hearing May 15. Warning FCC Pai that “lying to Congress is a federal crime,” Rep Eshoo wrote there existed a “chasm” between what Chairman Pai told the committee and what Rep Eshoo herself heard from other FCC officials following the meeting.

My topic for this afternoon: How difficult it is for regulators to predict how technology will develop and transform markets, and why that difficulty demands humility from our regulators. This is a particularly important lesson for the Federal Communications Commission, which stands at a unique crossroads between technology and innovation. Regulators are not good futurists.  And what predictive powers regulators have are weakening as technological progress quickens and becomes even less predictable.

As expected, the Democratic leaders on the House Communications Subcommittee used the Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing to hammer FCC Chairman Ajit Pai over policies and actions with which they strongly disagree. In his opening statement, Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) said Chairman Pai had yet to explain to Congress or the American people what it was doing about mobile carriers sharing real-time geolocation data. He also slammed the inaccurate and deeply flawed broadband deployment data, old and faulty business broadband data, and warned the FCC not to act on a USTelecom forb

Federal Communications Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks say that the FCC has not been forthcoming about its investigation into the sale of consumers' real-time cell phone location data by AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. It appears the investigation has not been prioritized by the agency. Around a year after the inquiry was opened, there have been no public updates, and the two commissioners said they have little knowledge on what's actually being investigated. "So far it appears that the FCC is more interested in protecting the privacy of its investigation than

The report condemns the Federal Communications Commission for failing to adequately respond to the September 2017 hurricanes, which knocked out 95 percent of all cell sites, 97 percent of radio stations and all local television stations. The report calls out the agency’s failure to hold wired and wireless carriers to account for neglecting to build resilient networks or respond in a timely or sufficient fashion to restore communications to the islands’ residents.

In written testimomny before the Senate Committee On Appropriations' Subcommittee On Financial Services And General Government, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai outlined the commission's priorities for the next year:

Striking back at The New York Times Company, the Federal Communications Commission is urging a judge to rule that the agency need not disclose information about net neutrality commenters because doing so would compromise their privacy. “If the FCC is compelled to disclose an individual’s IP address, operating system and version, browser platform and version, and language settings, and that information is linked to the individual’s publicly-available name and postal address, that disclosure would result in clearly unwarranted invasions of personal privacy,” the FCC argues in papers filed wit

The US justice system is under attack as part of a long-term Russian effort to undermine the appeal of democracy and weaken the West. Via multi-platform disinformation opera­tions, Kremlin-backed operatives work to exacerbate existent divisions within populations and increase overall mistrust and paranoia against democratic institutions. In the process, justice systems are portrayed as corrupt, inept, and hypocritical. This report describes the nature of this threat and proposes measures for countering it.

The Consumer Federation of America joined a lawsuit challenging the decision of the Federal Communication Commission to extend the allocation of costs between federal and state jurisdictions that was adopted in 2000 for another six years. The consumer pocketbook impact of the misallocation of costs is huge, totaling $150-$250 billion ($200-$300 per household per year) over the next six years.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Office of Inspector General has issued an advisory to alert Lifeline carriers, beneficiaries, and the public to a number of fraudulent enrollment practices found pervasive across the IG’s ongoing investigations targeting Lifeline carriers and the carriers’ sales agents. Many of these enrollment practices rely on identity fraud and the manipulation of personal information, including enrollee names, to evade the program’s safeguards. The advisory describes simple tricks used by fraudsters to create phantom enrollments.