Government & Communications

President Donald Trump once joked that Vice President Mike Pence “wants to hang” all gay people, The New Yorker reported. The publication also reports that President Trump has mocked Vice President Pence for his views opposing abortion and LGBTQ rights. President Trump jabbed at Pence after a legal scholar told the pair that if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many states would probably legalize abortion. “You see?” Trump reportedly said to Pence. “You’ve wasted all this time and energy on it, and it’s not going to end abortion anyway.” And when the meeting began to focus on gay rights, Trump reportedly pointed to Pence, joking, “Don’t ask that guy — he wants to hang them all!” One Trump campaign staffer also told The New Yorker that Trump used to ask people leaving meetings with Pence, “Did Mike make you pray?"

[Commentary] President Donald Trump’s constant press attacks carry a worldwide price — they hurt America’s ability to stand for democratic freedoms around the world. “When the president consistently speaks that way, there’s a loss of U.S. influence and credibility on matters of press freedom,” said Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Even if Trump can’t really get a network’s broadcast license revoked or libel laws changed, he can still can — and does — undermine American values, both here and abroad, when he attacks the press. And no amount of transparency-by-tweet or backslapping access for reporters can make up for that.

The US government's decision to withdraw from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which has a mandate to promote "the free flow of ideas by word and image [and] to foster free, independent, and pluralistic media in print, broadcast and online," will make the world less safe for journalists.

As the lead UN agency responsible for implementing the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, support for UNESCO is intrinsically linked to ensuring that journalists can work without fear of reprisal. The joint statement called for the U.S. government to reverse its decision and instead commit to increasing UNESCO's effectiveness and impact.

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that changing the rules of a soon-to-expire surveillance program could create new barriers to preventing terrorist attacks, similar to those that existed before 2001. In defending his agency’s information-sharing program with the National Security Agency — which civil liberties groups have criticized as a threat to privacy — Wray said his agents get just a small piece of the NSA’s intelligence gathering.

“The FBI only receives collection for a very small percentage of what the NSA does. It’s about 4.3 percent of the targets under NSA collection. But that 4.3 percent is unbelievably valuable to our mission,’’ Wray said. He did not say how large that database is. “Any material change to the FBI’s use of 702 would severely inhibit our ability to keep the American people safe,’’ he said.

On Oct 13, 20 press freedom, media justice, labor and civil liberties groups submitted a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to publicly condemn President Donald Trump's threats to challenge the broadcast licenses of news media outlets he dislikes. Signers of the letter also include former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and former FCC commissioners Michael J. Copps and Gloria Tristani.

"As an independent agency charged with protecting the public interest and overseeing the public airwaves, the FCC must resist any attempts to co-opt the broadcast-licensing process to suit the president’s whims,” reads the letter, which was signed by Color of Change, Committee to Protect Journalists, the Communications Workers of America, Free Press, Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, PEN America and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, among others.

[Commentary] By their silence, the Republicans at the Federal Communications Commission have joined in the president’s strategy to get into the head of every television station news editor and station manager in the country. If, because the FCC failed to make clear that the government can’t bully them, even one broadcaster thinks twice about a story and its effect on their license, then the Constitution has been abridged and the FCC is complicit.

By their inaction, the Republican FCC commissioners have already violated their oath to uphold the Constitution. That sacred document is clear: The government is not to suppress ideas and opinion. There is no ambiguity in the First Amendment. The commissioners owe it to the American public and the Constitution they swore to uphold to issue an immediate and clear statement that speech is a protected right, and that it has no role in the matter of broadcast licenses. While they’re at it, they should also issue an apology to the citizens of the United States that they took over two days to get around to telling America the truth.

[Tom Wheeler is the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission 2013-2017].

As President Donald Trump exploits his office to chill his critics’ speech at a nearly unprecedented level, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has a chance to be on the right side of history. He has a chance to stand up for the free-speech rights of people without power — in particular the rights of people of color, who are President Trump’s favorite punching bags. The question is whether he’ll seize that chance. It’s Pai’s job to protect the public interest in the realm of media, technology and communications. He has a duty, and a moral obligation, to stand up and publicly decry Trump’s behavior.

The president is not letting up on NBC, retweeting former Fox host Bill O'Rielly's take on the Federal Communications Commission license issue and taking new shots at the network for its reporting, including suggesting it could be President's new 'fake news' whipping outlet--replacing CNN.

In a week when NBC News's report about President Trump's alleged contemplation of massively ramping up the nuclear arsenal prompted a flood of tweets and comments excoriating the network, the president showed no signs of slowing down despite some bipartisan pushback. Oct 12 President Trump tweeted: "People are just now starting to find out how dishonest and disgusting (FakeNews) @NBCNews is. Viewers beware. May be worse than even @CNN!" He also retweeted a Bill O'Rielly tweet without added comment: "A free press is vital to protecting all Americans. A corrupt press damages the Republic."

The Connected Government Act (S 1769) would require all federal agencies that create or update a website intended for use by the public to ensure that the website is mobile friendly. A mobile friendly website is defined as one that is configured in such a way that it may be easily navigated and viewed on a smartphone, tablet computer, or similar mobile device. In addition, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA), would report on the implementation of these requirements within 18 months.

Enacting S. 1769 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply. CBO estimates that enacting S. 1769 would not increase direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2028. S. 1769 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.

President Donald Trump's war of words with the press escalated again when he suggested challenging, or revoking, the broadcasting licenses of stations that air network news programming. The response from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission: silence.

Chairman Ajit Pai could probably calm the industry and people across the political spectrum by assuring them that the agency won't violate democratic norms by targeting stations for political reasons. But thus far he hasn't issued an official statement or even a tweet about the president's tweets. "I think Chairman Pai is precariously balancing his desire not to anger the president with his desire not to anger the broadcast industry, which he has assiduously courted," says former FCC special counsel Gigi Sohn. "He certainly doesn’t want to attract the president’s ire."