<![CDATA[ Latest from Next TV in Public-citizen ]]> https://www.nexttv.com/tag/public-citizen Thu, 29 Oct 2015 16:15:00 +0000 en <![CDATA[ Public Citizen: Keep Net-Neutrality Rider Out of Budget Act ]]> https://www.nexttv.com/news/public-citizen-keep-net-neutrality-rider-out-budget-act-394934 hZeTa6grt9ZotCXqXjkZz5 Thu, 29 Oct 2015 16:15:00 +0000 false false false

Now that there is a budget bill framework, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, budget committees in both the House and Senate will need to rewrite their respective appropriations bills to add to that framework. But those bills are loaded with riders, including one added to the FCC appropriation that would invalidate the FCC's Title II-based network-neutrality rules.

Advocacy group Public Citizen, for one, is advising a no-rider policy for the budget bill and singled out the FCC rider for special mention.

Saying "inappropriate policy riders" have been attached by the hundreds, Public Citizen listed six, and referring to the FCC appropriations rider, said it would "roll back strong net-neutrality rules and prevent the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from enforcing rules that ensure Internet openness and affordability."

The White House has come out in support of the bill, with the caveat that it not contain any "ideological riders."

The House Appropriations Committee approved an FCC budget bill with a rider that would outright block the FCC's enforcement of the new network-neutrality rules, which went into effect June 12. The bill also included an amendment that would grandfather TV joint-sales agreements that the FCC had voted to unwind.

An FCC budget bill approved out of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee includes a rider would prevent the FCC from regulating rates under its new Title II-based network-neutrality rules, but would not block the rules outright.

]]> <![CDATA[ WikiLeaks Puts Bounty on Trade Treaty Drafts ]]> https://www.nexttv.com/news/wikileaks-puts-bounty-trade-treaty-drafts-391024 w2Z7onrb25WXo6uevMdxNX Tue, 02 Jun 2015 13:30:00 +0000 false false false

WikiLeaks has put a $100,000 bounty on a copy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty being negotiated by the U.S. and Pacific Rim countries that includes protections for digital content.

WikiLeaks said the goal of the treaty is, among other things, to "create a new international legal regime that will allow transnational corporations to bypass domestic courts, evade environmental protections, police the Internet on behalf of the content industry..." and more.

"The transparency clock has run out on the TPP," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement. "No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let's open the TPP once and for all."

WikiLeaks has already published several leaked chapters of the treaty draft, but wants more. Those chapters, which included online content protection language, did not sit well with consumer advocates Public Citizen.

“The WikiLeaks text features Hollywood- and recording industry-inspired proposals – think about the SOPA debacle – to limit Internet freedom and access to educational materials, to force Internet providers to act as copyright enforcers and to cut off people’s Internet access,” Burcu Kilic, Public Citizen's legal counsel, said when the chapters were first published.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents TV and movie content producers, sees TPP differently.

The TPP would expand trade, including access to creative content, to much of the Asia-Pacific region, MPAA said, including creating what it calls "strong standards for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights for the 21st century."

"Completion of a meaningful TPP will allow our flourishing industry to continue expanding into some of the world’s largest and most important markets to continue to build on this American success story," an MPAA spokesperson said of the treaty.

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