federal communications commission – Page 5

FISA Reflections: FISA and The FCC

Harold July 11, 2008 July 11, 2008How Democracy Works, Or Doesn't, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Well, the foul FISA Amendments Act is signed. I shall have more refections as time permits. But I did have one thought here. FISA and the FCC.

The Title II of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, the “Protection for Electronic Communications Service Providers,” provides for protection from any “covered civil law suit.” As John Dean first observed, the bill does not refer to criminal immunity. Personally, however, I think that is a bit of a red herring, although I am curious as to whether the pardon power really runs to corporations and other artificial person that exist solely as a function of law. But lets assume it does. So let us assume that on his last day, Bush pardons anyone and everyone involved in the whole sorry affair. Where does that leave us?

The Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC is not a “court” of the United State as defined by the act. A complaint brought to the FCC under the Customer Premise Network Information (CPNI) rules, or even the broader provisions of Section 202 “just and reasonable practices,” does not fall within the purview of a “covered civil action.” In the event that a pardon is considered to cover possible administrative sanction, I would observe that a Petition for Declaratory Ruling that the conduct disclosed violated the CPNI rules is not a criminal action or civil liability, but would still entitle the Commission under its broad powers pursuant to Section 4(i) and Section 403 to investigate. Indeed, under Section 403, the Commission is free to conduct an investigation into the matter on its own motion — if it so desires. The Commission is not limited by the Article III “cases or controversies” requirement. It can investigate anything pertinent to its regulation of all communications by wire or radio, particularly when related to administration of any provision of the Act.

The upside is that, short of a statute specifically prohibiting the FCC from investigating anything related to the domestic spying program, it is damn hard to take this broad investigative authority away. As noted above, even the absence of any criminal or civil liability cannot divest the FCC of its authority to investigate communications carriers — particularly those regulated as common carriers under Title II. Given that the Chair of the FCC cannot be removed by the President, and I would need to check about the applicability of an executive order to the FCC, nothing short of a direct Act of Congress again could deprive the FCC of its ability to investigate. (I imagine we will need to watch the appropriations bills very carefully to see if some clever person sneaks it in under the radar.)

The downside, of course, is that this lies entirely within the discretion of the agency. Even a filed complaint or Petition for Declaratory ruling cannot compel the agency to action.

So we shall just have to see what happens after the election. If we have an FCC interested in letting the American people know how their government spied on them, what actual benefit accrued, if any, and what the FCC might do under existing law to keep that from happening again in the future (all, of course, consistent with national security, blah, blah), we can at least find out what went on and shame these companies into being more careful the next time around. OTOH, if we have an FCC that believes that “national security” means giving the telcos a free ride if the Administration asks nicely, then we can’t find out jack.

Stay tuned . . . .

Rather Trivial In the Scheme of Things, But Trivial Is What The News Has Become.

Harold June 23, 2008 June 23, 2008Life In The Sausage Factory, Tales of the Sausage Factory

In the journalists who act like the stereotypical blogger rather than the bloggers that rise to level of journalists, I cannot help but include this little piece by Ted Hearn over at Multichannel News. It is perhaps no surprise that reporters for trade magazines beholden to cable television have been, to put it politely, less than pleased with Kevin Martin. But there is a difference between general unfavorable coverage that upholds journalistic standards and the sort of gratuitous nastiness that is supposed to be the purview of the blogosphere and the editorial pages. Or there used to be. And when Hearn compounds this by missing the opportunity for a more interesting story to focus on the little Martin-zingers, I just gotta wonder if I should consider myself a journalist after all.

Hearn’s story is about a Korean journalist miffed at Martin having a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, at the OECD Ministerial Meeting. Hearn’s opening, that “Fifty-five years of peace on the Korean peninsula suffered a minor setback last week after Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin landed in Seoul for a two-day ministerial session of the 30-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,” can be dismissed as comic overstatement for humor. It’s the little zinger at the end that has me shaking my head in wry amusement wondering if Hearn has been taking lessons recently from Rita Skeeter.

The whole thing would hardly be worth a raised eyebrow but for how it illustrates a more serious issue that Hearn muffed. As anyone who follows international news in even a cursory way knows, U.S. – S. Korea relations have been in a bit of a tailspin over the decision of S. Korean Pres. Lee Myung-Bak to lift restrictions on importation of U.S. beef (‘Said Myung-Bak: “We have assurances that the U.S. guarantees the safety of it beef.” Sadly, the U.S. Ambassador was suffering from salmonella from some U.S. tomatoes and could not respond to a request for a quote . . .’) That a reporter was miffed over Martin’s conduct is a potential barometer for the touchiness of U.S.-Korean relationships and whether the beef business will spill over into cable or tech concerns, and whether the trivial conduct of U.S. officials may have impact for American interests.

Such a story would have been timely and important, but would have required some actual work and reporting. So much easier to simply take what someone else has done and editorialize around it. You know, like this thing you’re reading here. Except this is a blog that I write in my spare time without the pretension of pretending to be a journalist. Although given this story and last week’s MSM hack job on Kozinski, I’m starting to rethink calling myself a journalist. Judging from what I’m seeing, what I do isn’t really that different.

Stay tuned . . . .

Jabberwocking the Fundies

John December 2, 2007 December 2, 2007Memology, My Thoughts Exactly

Here at Wetmachine we have a tradition of posting what the New Critics called “close readings” of arcane texts. Usually these close readings are done by Harold Feld in Tales of the Sausage Factory or by Greg Rose in Econoklastic, and most often the closely-read documents are obscure legal decrees, rulings, opinions, pronouncements, etc, originating from the Oracle at Federal Communications Commission, or they’re drafts of some lobbyist-written telecommunications bill lurking in the shadows of some state legislature or congressional committee, hoping to become law while nobody’s looking –although occasionally Harold treats us to a scholarly exegesis of a biblical or Talmudic text.

Over at Enter the Jabberwock, my erstwhile OpenLaszlo colleague Josh Crowley has a long-running series of close readings of illustrated tracts by the crackpot so-called “Christian” fundamentalist Jack Chick. Crowley calls these analyses “Chick Dissections”. In them he mercilessly skewers the artwork, logic and theology of individual Chick tracts. He does this in a direct, unironic voice, taking each frame of the comic book under review at face value. In other words, he does not come at them with a knowing, jaded air of sophistication and superiority. He engages them on their own terms.

When I first saw these Chick Dissections I wondered what the point was, since the comics themselves are so ineptly drawn and poorly reasoned that they basically are self-refuting; they are their own parody.

But, you know, Jack Chick is not some lone nut promulgating his paranoid ravings in photocopied pamphlets on a streetcorner to an indifferent audience of dozens. He’s a lone nut promulgating his paranoid ravings to an audience of millions, some of them quite credulous, through his website and publishing empire. The fundamentalist meme, in Christian, Islamic, Hindu, or whatever form, is a present danger to civilization. Therefore Jabberwock/Crowley is right to resist it. The Chick Dissections are not to everybody’s taste, but Jabberwock is providing a valuable service. And he’s often quite funny.

AT&T's $10 DSL and the Renomination of Commissioner Tate: What The Senate Confirmation Hearing Should Ask

Harold June 21, 2007 June 21, 2007Life In The Sausage Factory, Tales of the Sausage Factory

The Consumerist runs this good but inaccurate report on AT&T’s offering its mandated $10 DSL intro rate for those who have not subscribed to DSL previously. AT&T accepted this as a merger condition when it acquired BellSouth last year. What Consumerist gets wrong is that this condition comes not from the FTC, which did not review the merger (regular readers will recall that it was the Department of Justice Anti-Trust Division that gave the merger a thumbs up with no conditions). The price control aspect came from the FCC, as part of the bucket ‘o concessions AT&T made after it failed to get McDowell unrecused and suddenly had to respond to Democrats rather than blowing them off with bogus concessions.

This matters for two reasons. First, it means that complaining to the Federal Trade Commission, as suggested by Consumerist, is not exactly effective. FTC had nothing to do with the condition and won’t enforce it under their merger authority. If AT&T makes it damn hard for people to order the cheap rate, then there might be a claim as an unfair or deceptive trade practice, but I think that is kind of a stretch.

No, the place to complain is at the Federal Communications Commission. While it doesn’t hurt to file a complaint with the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, you will also want to make sure that you copy it to the FCC’s record in the AT&T/BellSouth merger via its Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). The relevant docket number is 06-74.

But, more importantly, this raises some serious questions that Congress needs to ask not merely about AT&T’s commitment to honoring the merger conditions, but also about the FCC’s willingness to enforce them — especially in light of statements made by Chairman Martin and Commissioner Tate at the time of the merger. Fortunately, President Bush’s decision to nominate Tate for a second term provides an excellent opprtunity for members of the Senate Commerce Committee to put these questions to Commissioner Tate directly.

Because while $10 DSL is important, this is also important to other AT&T merger conditions, such as network neutrality condition. And while, unlike many of my colleagues, I don’t think Martin or Tate are mindless Bellheads or wholly owned subsidiaries of AT&T, I do think it’s important to get them pinned down on the record that they will vigorously enforce the merger conditions and not allow AT&T to weasel out by “complying” in a way that deprives these conditions of meaning.

More below . . . .

The Federal Trade Commission Gets in on Network Neutrality

Harold August 23, 2006 February 24, 2013Tales of the Sausage Factory

As widely reported, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Deborah Platt Majoras announced that the FTC will look at network neutrality. In the same paragraph, however, she also expressed her doubts on the need for network neutrality legislation. That, combined with her choice of forum (Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Aspen Summit; PFF is a vigorous opponent of NN), the FTC’s natural bias toward post-conduct remedies rather than prophylactic regulation, and Majoras’ decision to sign off on the Adelphia transaction without considering the voluminous evidence collected by the FCC make me suspect that the FTC will conclude that Congress should take no action and that antitrust solves everything.

A bit more analysis below.

The GAO Makes the Case for Community Broadband

Harold May 22, 2006 February 24, 2013Tales of the Sausage Factory

Not that you would know it either from the headline or the general coverage, but the the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, issued its own report that makes a strong case in favor of community-based broadband and against more regulatory goodies for the incumbent telcos and cable cos. Not that the GOA intended to make that case, and they word their conclusions carefully. But dig down into the actual report and you find a lot of good stuff beyond discrediting the FCC’s rosy numbers on broadband penetration and competition.

A Network Neutrality Primer

Harold May 3, 2006 April 26, 2012General, Series of Tubes, Tales of the Sausage Factory

For those just tuning in, Network Neutrality (aka �NN�, becuase every public policy deserves its own acronym) has gone from sleepy tech issue to major policy fight. So I have prepared a rather lengthy primer below for folks who want a deeper understanding of what’s happening (at least as of today, May 3, 2006).

The last wireless believer has left the Federal Building

Harold December 21, 2005 February 24, 2013General, Tales of the Sausage Factory

Michael Gallagher, the Assistant Secretary in charge of the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) is leaving. It looks like a bleak year for those who believe that more spectrum made available to the public will bring greater economic propserity and freedom of speech for all.

Did I really see that?

Harold December 2, 2005 February 24, 2013General, Tales of the Sausage Factory

On November 29th, 2005, Washington DC experienced a sighting more fantastic than naturalists finding a flock of ivory billed woodpeckers doing figure eights over the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Kevin Martin, Chairman of the FCC, stated that a previous FCC report “relied on problematic assumptions and presented incorrect and incomplete analysis.” And he said it about a report on the CABLE industry! The people for whom the FCC lies so often that the Government Accounting Office has twice warned Congress “don’t trust the FCC about cable.”

Oh my stars. Just when I think Kevin Martin can’t impress me anymore he goes and tells the world the FCC issued a bad report last time. I just know I’m in for disappointment once he gets around to ownership, but I’ll take the crumbs I can get.

Why am I so giddy over this, especially when I haven’t taken a stand on the actual substance of Martin’s discussion (a la carte cable programming) and I’m not thrilled with the notion of “family friendly” cable progrmaming tiers? See below . . .

We take on Chicago and Milwaukee Commercial TV

Harold November 14, 2005 February 24, 2013General, Tales of the Sausage Factory

I had a little unintended hiatus for the last 8 weeks or so. Hopefully, I’ll be back to more regular posting.

To catch up on the news. Media Access Project, where I work, has filed challenges against the licenses of the commercial television stations in Chicago and Milwaukee. You can read the press release here. You can follow the links to the Chicago petition and the Milwaukee Petition. Or you can see my quick analysis about why you should care below.