Government & Communications

[Commentary] On April 11, 11 Democratic senators and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanderssent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai requesting that the proposed merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media be denied. Their request didn’t stop there; the senators requested not only that Sinclair’s future acquisitions be denied but that its existing broadcast licenses be reviewed and a decision be made on whether they should be revoked. The senators wrote this letter seemingly without a sense of the tremendous ironies laced throughout.

More than 30 high-tech companies, led by Microsoft and Facebook, announced a set of principles that included a declaration that they would not help any government — including that of the United States — mount cyberattacks against “innocent civilians and enterprises from anywhere, reflecting Silicon Valley’s effort to separate itself from government cyberwarfare.

The Supreme Court announced that it would not decide whether federal prosecutors can force Microsoft to turn over digital data stored outside the United States. The move followed arguments in the case in February and the enactment of a new federal law that both sides said made the case moot.

The United States and the European Union are aligning rules to help crime-fighters access suspects’ emails, text messages, photos and other data, despite simmering trans-Atlantic tensions.

President Trump abruptly issued an executive order demanding an evaluation of the Postal Service’s finances, asserting the power of his office weeks after accusing Amazon, the online retail giant, of not paying its fair share in postage. In the executive order, issued just before 9 p.m., President Trump created a task force to examine the service’s “unsustainable financial path” and directed the new panel to “conduct a thorough evaluation of the operations and finances of the USPS” The president does not mention Amazon in the order, but it is clear that he intends for the panel to substanti

[Commentary] While online rights are coming into question, it’s worth considering how those will overlap with offline rights and civic engagement. We need a conversation about data protections, empowering users with their own information, and transparency — ultimately, data rights are now civic rights.While the US still lacks such data standards, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), scheduled to take effect in May, demonstrates a path toward reliable online privacy balanced with transparency. 

President Trump has long had ties to the nation’s major media players. But his connections with the country’s largest tabloid publisher, American Media Inc., run deeper than most. A former top executive of Trump’s casino business sits on AMI’s four-member board of directors, and an adviser joined the media company after the election. The company’s chairman, David J. Pecker, is a close friend of the president’s.

It is equally important for the Federal Communications Commission to understand how the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) pilot program funding is being spent.  There are several programs that promote and enable broadband deployment and operation within the high-cost or Connect America Fund umbrella.  Some programs are already underway; some are about to commence in the form of upcoming auctions, and some have yet to be implemented.

Facebook's lobbying influence — along with Mark Zuckerberg’s expected mea culpa — may be enough, privacy experts say, to blunt any talk of significant consumer privacy regulations meant to reign in Facebook and other tech giants, regardless of the angry bluster Zuckerberg endures on Capitol Hill both April 10 and 11. “I think it will be really interesting whether Republicans give Facebook a pass given Zuckerberg’s prostrate apology stance — ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

[Commentary] Democrats -- and much of the “liberal” media Trump frequently attacks -- continue to obsess over clumsy Russian efforts to interfere with our elections as the challenge of our times to American democracy. But they could pay more attention to this ongoing assault on two of our most precious rights, enshrined in the Constitution and fundamental to the functioning of any free Republic: the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression and the Fifth Amendment’s protections against government taking of private property without due process of law.