Lobbying

Nicole Ozer has been appointed as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation effective June 1. Ozer is a legal expert on privacy and surveillance, artificial intelligence, and digital speech. She currently serves as the inaugural executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco.

Across the country, policymakers are reexamining outdated telecommunications rules that no longer reflect how Americans communicate. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission took another big step toward speeding our nation’s transition to modern digital networks, joining the more than two dozen states who have made this progress a priority. This requires reforming decades-old state rules, such as “Carrier of Last Resort,” that require phone companies to spend billions maintaining outdated copper networks rather than focusing on faster, stronger networks consumers actually use.

If AI were a politician, it'd be headed for a landslide defeat. In the Trump administration, Silicon Valley, and select AI-obsessed

As we mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, I can’t help but reflect on how pivotal that moment was, not just for our industry, but me personally. I worked on the Act when I was leading NTCA’s government affairs efforts, and even then, we knew it was both a product of its time and an attempt to carry forward principles that would guide communications policy for generations.

AT&T CEO John Stankey recently said, “I’ve never seen federal policy this supportive of market-based investment in advanced networks.” That statement raises multiple interesting investor related questions about what does, and does not, support investment in advanced networks, including the relative importance of those policies that drive supply and those that drive demand, and how government is treating advanced networks versus networks that have lower cost structures but also involve lower performance metrics.

NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association announced that Mike Romano has been named Chief Executive Officer, effective March 15. Romano currently serves as executive vice president of NTCA, where he oversees public policy, government affairs, and business development initiatives, the educational and community-focused mission of the Foundation for Rural Service, and several areas of association operations, including member engagement and information technology.

Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, has served the telecommunications industry for about 40 years and will retire in March. Bloomfield said that, despite the big technological changes she has witnessed, the industry’s overriding purpose is the same. “At the end of the day, it’s all about connectivity,” she said. “How do you make sure everybody has access? The thing I’ve always loved — and that continues to drive my passion — is working with companies who take to heart their mission to serve their neighbors and their communities.

In a bid to tamp down growing unrest in communities over tech giants’ expansion of power-hungry data centers, President Donald Trump said his administration would push Silicon Valley companies to ensure their massive computer farms do not drive up people’s electricity bills, seizing on a promise Microsoft made public to be a better neighbor. The Trump administration has gone all in on artificial intelligence, pushing aside concerns within the MAGA movement and seeking to 

Before President Trump returned to the White House in January, the titans of the tech industry went all out to win him over with inauguration donations and pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago.

There is a battle set to play out across the country as super PACs backed by Trump-supporting tech moguls and the social network giant Meta try to use the 2026 midterms to reengineer Congress and state legislatures in favor of their ambitions for artificial intelligence. The groups aim to wrest control of the public narrative around AI, just as politicians in both parties have started warning that the industry is moving too fast. The largest of the pro-AI super PACs, Leadin