Government & Communications

It is a pleasure to be here with my fellow regulators to discuss the amazing benefits and challenges presented by the new digital age. My goal today is to provide a picture of how this complex subject is being considered within the United States and what that may mean for my international counterparts.
Please forgive me for having the task of reminding everyone that I do not speak for the Trump Administration or the Federal Communications Commission as a whole. My views are just my own.

The FCC’s regulatory speed – and I am sure this isn’t a US specific issue – quite candidly cannot keep up with technological change or the demands of consumers. Simply put, our rather drawn-out pace is not well suited for the dynamic digital age. For this reason, I maintain that we must be very hesitant to regulate new, disruptive technologies. Instead, the presence of these innovative technologies should lead to reduced regulation of our traditional, more heavily regulated sectors.

The hack into the accountancy giant Deloitte compromised a server that contained the e-mails of an estimated 350 clients, including four US government departments, the United Nations and some of the world’s biggest multinationals, apparently. The incident was potentially more widespread than Deloitte has been prepared to acknowledge and that the company cannot be 100% sure what was taken. Deloitte said it believed the hack had only “impacted” six clients, and that it was confident it knew where the hackers had been. It said it believed the attack on its systems, which began a year ago, was now over. However, apparently, the company red-flagged, and has been reviewing, a cache of e-mails and attachments that may have been compromised from a host of other entities.

[Commentary] Congress is about to make a major decision about privacy protection, civil liberties and national security. The 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act, including its most controversial provision, Section 702, is set to expire on Dec. 31. The two of us — both members of the panel that President Barack Obama appointed in 2013 to review the government’s foreign intelligence programs in the wake of Edward Snowden’s disclosures — agree that FISA Section 702 should be reauthorized but with a significant reform.

The government should no longer be permitted to search the data collected under Section 702 without a warrant when seeking information about US citizens and legal permanent residents. There is, however, one aspect of the way the 702 program has evolved that we believe needs to change: the FBI’s practice of searching the data for information on Americans without first obtaining a warrant. Americans are entitled to full protection of their privacy. They should not lose that protection merely because the government has information in a foreign intelligence database that it legally acquired. Importantly, the government collected that information by using a standard that could not be legally be employed to target an American anywhere in the world.

[Geoffrey Stone is a law professor at the University of Chicago. Michael Morell was the deputy director of the CIA from 2010 to 2013 and twice served as acting director.]

Would you say that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in public, even those that are deeply offensive to other people; or that government should prevent people from engaging in hate speech against certain groups in public? That choice kicked off a lengthy survey on free speech and tolerance that will be released later in Oct by The Cato Institute, which collaborated with YouGov, the market research firm, to collect responses. The final data set was drawn from answers to scores of questions provided by 2,300 people.

In addition to the elimination of the main studio rule, another media item is proposed for consideration at the Federal Communications Commission’s October 24 meeting. A draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) was released earlier this week proposing two changes in FCC requirements – neither change, in and of itself, offering any fundamental modifications of significant regulation, but both showing that this Commission is looking to eliminate bothersome burdens on broadcasters where those burdens are unnecessary in today’s media world or where they do not serve any real regulatory purpose. One change proposes to limit the requirement for TV stations to file Ancillary and Supplementary Revenue Reports to those stations that actually have such revenue, and the other proposing to eliminate the obligation of broadcasters to publish local public notice of significant application filings in a local newspaper.

The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Voice of the First Amendment Task Force is calling on the Senate Intelligence Committee to ignore a tweet from President Donald Trump seeking an investigation into what he called “Fake News Networks.” The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of several entities investigating allegations of collusion between Russia and some members of the Trump campaign and inner circle. While at first the tweet appears to be just another escalation of the president’s ongoing rhetorical war against news stories with which he disagrees or that he just doesn’t like, the task force believes it must be taken seriously.

"This White House has said that Mr. Trump’s tweets constitute official communications from the president of the United States. So what we have here is the highest elected official in the land seeking a congressional investigation into the content of news reports,” said Dan Shelley, RTDNA Executive Director. “Such an investigation would be a clear violation of the First Amendment.”

White House officials believe that chief of staff John Kelly’s personal cellphone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December, according to three U.S. government officials. The discovery raises concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on Kelly’s phone while he was secretary of Homeland Security and after he joined the West Wing.

Tech support staff discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to White House tech support this summer complaining that it wasn’t working or updating software properly. Kelly told the staffers the phone hadn’t been working properly for months, according to the officials. White House aides prepared a one-page September memo summarizing the incident, which was circulated throughout the administration. A White House spokesman said Kelly hadn’t used the personal phone often since joining the administration. This person said Kelly relied on his government-issued phone for most communications. The official, who did not dispute any of Politico’s reporting on the timeline of events or the existence of the memo, said Kelly no longer had possession of the device but declined to say where the phone is now.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders boiled over with frustration at the press during Oct 5's news briefing, telling CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta that “you have a responsibility to tell the truth.” Acosta, who has been a persistent critic of the administration, asked Sanders whether President Donald Trump believes the First Amendment protecting free speech and press rights is as important as the Second Amendment, which enshrines protections for gun owners. "Absolutely,” Sanders said. “The president is an incredible advocate of the First Amendment. With the First amendment ... with those freedoms also come responsibilities. You have a responsibility to tell the truth. To be accurate.”

Earlier in the day, President Trump tweeted that the Senate Intelligence Committee should investigate “Fake News Networks” to see “why so much of our news is just made up.” Sanders was pressed on whether the president believes the committee should investigate American media organizations. “I don’t know that that’s the case,” she responded. “But I do think that we should call on all media to a higher standard. I think you have a lot of responsibility, and a lot of times false narratives create a bad environment, certainly aren't helpful to the American people, and you have a responsibility to provide and report fair and accurate details. When we don't, that's I think troubling for all of us.”

President Donald Trump suggested that the Senate Intelligence Committee investigate media companies that he believes are reporting information that is “just made up.” “Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!” the president tweeted from his personal account early Oct 5.

The president's tweet comes one day after leaders of the committee announced that their findings confirm the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. They also warned that Russian operatives may try to continue to interfere in future elections, including the midterms next year and the 2020 presidential election.

[Commentary] Why does President Donald Trump talk endlessly about fake news? For the same reason he talks about voter fraud: to soothe his ego and hoodwink his supporters.

In a world where voter fraud threw the election and a nefarious news media make up stories to embarrass Trump, Trump is actually the popular, effective pick of the American people. That’s a much nicer thing to be than the broadly unpopular and at times fumbling leader of a country in which a majority of voters preferred someone else. The real question is whether Trump actually believes either of these claims. Does he actually believe that, somehow, millions of votes were cast illegally without any evidence of that emerging a year later? And, probably more important, does he actually believe that the news media make up reports? The main question: Who’s he trying to convince, his supporters or himself? And which of those options is more problematic for the country?