Government & Communications

Pandering to the base is a tradition as old as politics itself. But in the social media age, it’s easier than ever for politicians to take those tailored messages—the kind they might not like to share with the whole world—and disseminate them only to the people who are most likely to agree. And targeting allows campaigns to silo thousands of possible audiences with just a click, making it harder than ever to hold politicians accountable for all of it.

Some have taken to calling this type of ad a “dark post,” an overly nefarious name for what is, in actuality, just the way digital ads operate today. Technically speaking, Trump's ad buy works the same as one for the pair of Zappos shoes that somehow follows you around the internet. You’re seeing those shoes because Facebook thinks you're in the market for shoes. But President Trump isn’t running a shoe store; still less than a year into his term, he's already running a reelection campaign. And when the president sends one subset of the population a message that the rest of the population can’t see—especially one that's at odds with reality—it feels like a fundamental failure of government transparency.

A group of Democratic senators has joined in a call for the Federal Communications Commission to allow for public "review and comment" on tens of thousands of network-neutrality complaints provided through a Freedom of Information Act request in May, saying the FCC has not provided sufficient opportunity to vet them.

They said the documents were only produced a few days before the August Open Internet Order proceeding deadline and were only posted to the FCC website recently. “Although the Commission has undertaken an historic proceeding to undo the Open Internet Order, the FCC has failed to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to comment on the tens of thousands of filed complaints that directly shed light on proposed changes to existing net neutrality protections,” they wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “The public deserves an opportunity to review and analyze evidence that has a direct impact on the proceeding.” The senators want Chairman Pai to tell them what efforts the FCC has taken to analyze the complaints, responses from ISPs and other documents, how it will incorporate them into the record and when, whether the FCC will issue a public notice and comment cycle on them.

Signing on to the letter were Senators Ed Markey (D-MA), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Al Franken (D-MN), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Kamala Harris (D-CA).

In a new report from the Internet Society, a think tank founded by Vint Cerf, authors recommend governments take a “multistakeholder” approach—inviting members of the public and representatives from various industries—to create “consensus policy” surrounding the internet. They could determine what should be censored, how encryption affects national security, and whether citizens maintain their personal freedoms online. That approach is distinct from the “multilateral” approach in which several governments work together, excluding representatives from civil society. “Measures that may be intended to secure cyberspace will increasingly undermine personal rights and freedoms,” the report predicted. “If current trends are any indication, more and more governments will restrict and control Internet use and access through censorship, network shutdowns and other means.”

Republican governors are getting into the “news” business. The Republican Governors Association has quietly launched an online publication that looks like a media outlet and is branded as such on social media. The Free Telegraph blares headlines about the virtues of GOP governors, while framing Democrats negatively. It asks readers to sign up for breaking news alerts. It launched in the summer bearing no acknowledgement that it was a product of an official party committee whose sole purpose is to get more Republicans elected. Only after The Associated Press inquired about the site last week was a disclosure added to The Free Telegraph’s pages identifying the publication’s partisan source. The governors association describes the website as routine political communication. Critics, including some Republicans, say it pushes the limits of honest campaign tactics in an era of increasingly partisan media and a proliferation of “fake news” sites, including those whose material became part of an apparent Russian propaganda effort during the 2016 presidential campaign. “It’s propaganda for sure, even if they have objective standards and all the reporting is 100 percent accurate,” said Republican communications veteran Rick Tyler, whose resume includes Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign.

How can news outlets improve their standing in the eyes of the public? If a study published by Northwestern University in Qatar is any indication, then the key to a higher level of trust might be a lower level of free speech.

Northwestern surveyed seven Middle Eastern countries and found that citizens in six of them ascribe more credibility to their press than Americans do to theirs — by wide margins, in some cases. In the United Arab Emirates, for example, 85 percent of citizens say the media is credible; the rates are 62 percent in Qatar and 59 percent in Saudi Arabia. Only 32 percent of Americans trust the media to report the news fully, fairly and accurately, according to Gallup. While these Middle Eastern credibility ratings sound great, they are attended by brutal restrictions on journalists. Reporters Without Borders rates countries' press freedoms, using such criteria as access to public records, censorship and safety. Out of 180 countries, the United Arab Emirates ranks 119, Qatar ranks 123 and Saudi Arabia ranks 168.

[Commentary] Politicians, in theory, are supposed to be responsive to public outcry. When faced with an avalanche of blast emails from angry constituents, therefore, legislators generally are moved to act. In contrast, independent regulatory agencies are supposed to be (but admittedly often are not) apolitical and immune from such pressure. While it is true that administrative agencies must subject their actions to “public notice and comment” under the Administrative Procedure Act, regulatory agencies should not promulgate rules and regulations based upon the vox populi; rather, these agencies are charged with dispassionately implementing their respective enabling statutes as delineated by Congress based upon the plain text of the statute, the case law interpreting that statute, the economics, and the substantive record before them. If they fail in that task, then administrative agencies can be reprimanded by an appellate court for engaging in arbitrary and capricious behavior or, in very rare cases, be subject to congressional rebuke via the Congressional Review Act. If you want to rant, then have at it on Twitter. But if you want to file something in an official record and meaningfully participate in the regulatory process, then perhaps a few guidelines should apply.

[Spiwak is the president of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies]

The Federal Communications Commission has ignored a public records request for information that might shed light on the legitimacy of comments on Chairman Ajit Pai's anti-net neutrality plan, according to a lawsuit filed against the FCC. Freelance writer Jason Prechtel filed a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request on June 4 asking the FCC for data related to bulk comment uploads, which may contain comments falsely attributed to people without their knowledge. But while the FCC acknowledged receiving his FoIA request, it did not approve or deny the request within the legally allotted timeframe, Prechtel wrote in a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The National Telecommunications & Information Administration has released a report on botnets, DDoS attacks and other cyber threats. The report was based on over 40 responses to NTIA's request for comments on those attacks, which was issued last June. A final report that incorporates the NTIA report is due to the President by May 11, 2018.

NTIA got 47 responses, including from NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, with what the agency said were several broad themes: addressing risks is a shared responsibility; distributed, automated attacks are linked to other threats; they are global and require international cooperation. NTIA said the commenters "resoundingly" endorsed voluntary, consensus-based and community-led processes, including the National Institute of Standards & Technology and NTIA's privacy multi-stakeholder processes. There were also strong voices against too large a regulatory role by government, but others said that the lack of existing security protection and the lack of market incentives to adopt them meant there was greater need for "policy interventions."

US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, apparently, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe. The government snooping continued into early 2017, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump. Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive. Special counsel Robert Mueller's team, which is leading the investigation into Russia's involvement in the election, has been provided details of these communications.

[Commentary] Current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has recently proposed creating a Bureau of Economics and Data. I have no small amount of instinctive sympathy for his proposal, having myself been part of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s then-new Economic Policy Office, now called the Economic Analysis Group, at the beginning of my career. The Office’s goal was to preserve the ability of economists to make policy calls apart from pressures from the lawyers to evaluate cases on the basis of courtroom success.

Nevertheless, while Chairman Pai’s interest in forming a similar organization within the FCC is understandable, as is the support his proposal has received, I do not believe that a such an office of economics is the right fix for the FCC, and may do more harm than good.

[Tim Brennan is a professor of Public Policy and Economics and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He recently served as Chief Economist at the FCC.]