A bipartisan, bicameral effort in Congress is looking to help the Federal Communications Commission reinstate a new rule requiring broadcasters to do more due diligence when identifying foreign-sponsored programming and FCC Democrats are on board with the effort.

Not only would it restore a mandate to check two government databases, but broadcasters would have to check anywhere else the FCC thinks they should go to establish the identity of foreign programming.

After the FCC unanimously passed a new rule saying broadcasters had to check two government databases (the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act website and the FCC’s U.S.-based foreign media outlets reports) to ensure that such programming was identified to viewers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated that new rule, saying the agency didn't have the authority to require that extra step.

The FCC had said broadcasters needed to check the two federal sources to determine a sponsor's identity, which went beyond the 1934 Communications Act requirement to ask employees and advertisers for the information necessary to establish sponsorship.

Also: Court Nixes FCC Double Verification Mandate

Just last week FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel circulated a new proposal to toughen the foreign-sponsorship identification rules without the mandatory database check, hoping that will pass muster with the courts.

But Monday (Oct. 17), Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced House and Senate versions of a bill, the Identifying Propaganda on Our Airwaves Act, that would give the FCC the statutory backing to require broadcasters to check those databases or, for that matter, “any additional source of information the Commission designates that may enable the licensee to verify whether the matter broadcast by the radio station was paid for or furnished by a foreign governmental entity.”

“By giving the FCC the authority to require disclosure of this foreign propaganda, our bipartisan bill will help stop this practice and improve programming transparency on TV and the radio,” Schatz said.

“The legislation grants the FCC the authority to require broadcasters to check sources that actually identify foreign agents and their shell companies when entering into and renewing airtime lease agreements for sponsored programming on the radio,” Blackburn said.

“The principle that the public has a right to know the identity of those who solicit their support is a fundamental and long-standing tenet of broadcasting,” Rosenworcel said. "Consumers deserve to trust that public airwaves aren't being leased without their knowledge to foreign governments. I appreciate the leadership of Senators Schatz and Blackburn and Representative Eshoo for their efforts to increase transparency and ensure consumers know who is behind the information transmitted over public airwaves."

Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said: “The fact that foreign governmental entities are covertly broadcasting on our television and radio stations is alarming. The American people have a right to know the identity of those using the public airwaves in order to be informed and make their own decisions in separating truth from disinformation.”

The FCC had argued that double verification fell within reasonable diligence and its general authority to prescribe appropriate rules and regulations. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) had argued broadcasters had told the court that the FCC’s decision to make broadcasters affirmatively investigate whether programming — including ads and infomercials — was being paid for by foreign entities was an arbitrary and capricious, unconstitutional response to a “phantom” problem, pointing to a past court decision that statutory language imposes no burden of “independent investigation” by licensees.

The new bill includes that statutory language does impose the “burden” of independent investigation.

“We are closely reviewing this legislation," said NAB spokesperson Alex Siciliano. "NAB and several other broadcast organizations have worked to ensure the rules are focused on the handful of broadcasters that air foreign government-sponsored programming, without creating burdens for the vast majority of broadcasters that do not air this content. As we have made clear from the beginning, we share the goal of ensuring that the public understands when it is watching or listening to foreign propaganda.” ■

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have called on Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan to take enforcement actions against abusive practices by virtual private networks (VPNs).

VPNs are billed as secure (encrypted) private networks that use the public internet.

The legislators tied that call for action to concerns, in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, about protecting the personal information of women seeking abortions. They said they were particularly concerned about "deceptive advertising and data collection practices."

The FTC has authority over deceptive ads and practices via its Sec. 5 authority.

Eshoo and Wyden said that among the VPNs’ abusive practices are promoting false claims about their service, selling data or providing user activity logs to law enforcement despite promises of “total anonymity.”

“As the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has amplified concerns about digital reproductive privacy, people seeking abortion are increasingly told that installing a VPN is an important step for protecting themselves when seeking information on abortion in states that have outlawed and criminalized abortion,“ the lawmakers said. But they said there are no practical tools or independent research to identify VPNs that are secure.

In addition to taking enforcement actions against bad actors, they want the FTC to develop a handbook for “abortion-seekers” on protecting their data, including the benefits and risks of VPNs. ■

Calling out Facebook and Google, among others, nonprofit watchdog group Accountable Tech has called on the Federal Trade Commission to ban targeted advertising based on user data, or what it calls “surveillance” advertising.

That came in a petition for rulemaking filed Tuesday (Sept. 28) that asked the FTC to stop the practice of “unseemly collection and hoarding of personal data to enable ad targeting,” which it calls an example of the unfair competition the agency is charged with preventing.

Also Read: Google Ad Decision Draws Feedback

"These dominant firms [it calls out Google and Facebook by name] have used surveillance advertising to reinforce unfair advantages across business lines, stamp out meaningful competition throughout the digital economy, and broadly abuse their market power in ways that cause significant harm to businesses, consumers, and society," the petition asserts. 

The petition calls for simply prohibiting the use of personal data for targeted advertising, which it calls the ”strongest and simplest remedy,“ though one that would likely wreak havoc with the current model for ad-supported free online content.

Failing that, it said, the FTC could adopt a “more restrained rule” that would prohibit businesses from sharing user data for ad purposes with "any business line, website, advertising technology, or tracker other than the business or service with which a user intentionally interacts.“

But either way, it suggested, ”unless the FTC moves to prohibit the surveillance advertising business model at a fundamental level, it will continue to inflict significant and self-perpetuating harms on competition, consumers, and society.“

The petition has at least one big supporter on Capitol Hill, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who has been a leading voice on reining in such targeted advertising, including working on a bill to ban it.

“The surveillance advertising business model is irredeemably and fundamentally broken,” Eshoo said of the petition. ”I urge the FTC to initiate a rulemaking to ban surveillance advertising, as a petition filed with the Commission last week recommends. This pernicious practice allows online platforms to chase user engagement at great cost to our society, and it enables online disinformation, discrimination, voter suppression, privacy abuses and so many other harms.”

The FTC has historically done its work via lawsuits and settlements, rather than rulemakings, but has been under pressure to flex its rulemaking muscle, something new FTC chair Lina Khan definitely appears willing to do.

Certainly Accountable Tech and Eshoo are rooting for that more muscular approach.

A bipartisan bill has been introduced that would prevent the use of private, as well as public, funds to purchase suspect tech for U.S. networks.

The FCC, under the direction of Congress, published a list of tech suppliers deemed national security threats and prohibited the use of federal funds for telecom networks using that tech--the highest profile companies on that list were Huawei and ZTE.

Now a bill has been introduced by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) and House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) that would extend that ban.

The bill, the Secure Equipment Act of 2021, would prohibit the FCC from reviewing or providing licenses for new equipment from companies on that FCC list of national security threats.

Acting FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said she backed the effort.

"The introduction of the Secure Equipment Act of 2021 is welcome news," she said in a statement included in the announcement of the bill. "This legislation will help protect our national security by ensuring that untrustworthy communications equipment is not authorized for use within our borders. And we're not wasting time--last month, I shared a plan with my colleagues to update the Federal Communications Commission's equipment authorization procedures consistent with this effort. I thank Congresswoman Eshoo and Congressman Scalise for their work--having this policy written into the law will send a strong, bipartisan signal that the United States is committed to developing a market for secure 5G alternatives."
 
A similar bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

The FCC is seeking comment on whether it needs to update its rules limiting excessively loud commercials.

That came in a request from the Media Bureau and following a letter to FCC acting chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel from Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), author of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act that the FCC rules implement, citing a press report that complaints to the FCC about loud commercials increased sharply from April 2020 through February 2021, with the article concluding that "2021 is poised to be the worst year since the initial rollout" of the CALM Act.

Also Read: CALM Act Creator Eyes Streaming

The CALM Act, which passed over a decade ago, requires TV stations and MVPDs to make sure all commercials are transmitted "at the appropriate loudness level in accordance with the industry standard mandated in the statute," a standard that was subsequently adjusted by the FCC to ensure that silent parts of commercials couldn't be used to bring the average down for loud passages.

"We seek comment on the extent to which our rules have been effective in preventing loud commercials," the FCC said. "In particular, we invite consumers to tell us their experiences as they watch programming provided by television broadcasters and MVPDs."

The goal of the law is to prevent commercials from being delivered at volumes louder than the surrounding programming.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus, said COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation is an "info-demic" that requires both short-term and long term solutions.

Also Read: Reps. Urge Big Tech to Address Algorithmic Aid to Extremism

Eshoo was speaking at the 17th annual--and first virtual--State of the Net conference in Washington (or wherever panelists and speakers are remotely).

Eshoo said that, in the short term, the key was to both remove disinformation and take a systematic approach to promoting good information. 

Last week, Eshoo and Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) wrote to the heads of Facebook, Twitter and Google asking them to face up to and fix the "fundamental design features of their social networks that facilitate the spread of extreme, radicalizing content to their users," the sort of radicalizing that resulted in the attack on the Capitol, they pointed out.

Eshoo said there was information overload, both accurate and inaccurate, the latter including conspiracy theories on the virus's origins, foreign efforts to undermine trust in U.S. institutions and a sustained effort by former President Donald Trump to spread disinformation, all of which hinders pandemic response.

As an example, she pointed out that half the nursing home workers did not want to take the vaccine, based on what they had read on social media.

She said that online platforms and government agencies should collaborate with social media "influencers" to promote vaccine and mask use.

Eshoo said the online misinformation problem is largely one of "product" design, meaning that algorithms were designed to spread content that appeals to emotion rather than on "what is true." She said that path leads down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and keeps users in echo chambers of anxiety and fear.

Also Read:NAB Issues COVID-19 Vaccine Messaging Toolkit

Long-term, she said, solutions have to do with fixing that product design, as well as "legal liability." That was almost certainly a reference to the debate on whether and how to eliminate or modify the Sec. 230 shield social media platforms have from civil liability over third-party content on their platforms, like those rabbit holes of conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Short, term, the task was to "do everything we can" to combat COVID-19 misinformation "and the people who spread it."

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has signaled that Congress may need to explore expanding her legislation regulating the volume of TV ads to include streaming services, while FCC chairman Ajit Pai said the Hill is where any such expansion will have to come from.

That came in a letter to Pai seeking data on how the FCC has enforced the CALM Act.

The 2010 bill, whose full name is the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, regulates the volume of broadcast, cable and satellite commercials in relation to the programming around them. The idea was to prevent commercials the volume of commercials from being significantly higher than the surrounding programming.

Essentially the bill incorporates ATSC standards for preventing "large changes in audio loudness from program to interstitials and from channel to channel."

"[T]he growing ubiquity of new formats for consuming video services raises questions about the need to expand the reach of the CALM Act to additional types of providers that Congress may consider," Eshoo wrote the chairman last month.

In asking for data about FCC complaints over loud commercials, she included streaming services in the request for a breakout of what services were being complained about and the most-complained about companies. She also asked if the FCC had studied the "broader issue" of commercial volume on streaming services and, if so, wanted to know what it had concluded. She did not say there was necessarily any problem with over-the-top volumes on over-the-top content, but included it in a general call for looking beyond the traditional TV distribution channels covered by the almost decade-old law.

Pai responded that the top complained-about companies were Comcast, Charter, Cox, AT&T, Verizon, Mediacom, DirecTV and Dish, but that complaints had been going down steadily over the past few years, citing for one thing the FCC's 2014 tweak to discourage producing silent passages in some ads to offset excessively loud ones--the volume is an average over the entire commercial.

As to weighing into streaming service volume, Pai said: "[A]s you note, the CALM Act does not apply to radio or streaming services. Accordingly, the Commission does not have the authority over such services in this regard and has neither collected data from them nor studied the broader issue of commercial volume across these or other similar platforms."

Rep Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) wants the FCC to update its 2009 National Broadband Plan. 

Eshoo Thursday (July 9) introduced the National Broadband Plan for the Future Act, which would require the FCC to update the plan with an eye toward both how the plan has delivered on its goal of, as the title said, "Connecting American, and how the coronavirus pandemic has "changed the online lives of Americans." 

It is by now a given that COVID-19 has dramatically raised the stakes on closing the digital divide, which was. The new plan would "assess the nation’s progress against the original Plan, provide detailed proposals to further expand internet access, and analyze how Americans’ unprecedented reliance on broadband during the coronavirus pandemic will shape the country moving forward.  

“Universal access to reliable, affordable, and high-quality internet is essential in today’s world, and it’s especially needed as we conduct more of our personal and professional lives online during the coronavirus pandemic,” said Eshoo. 

The FCC would have to explain how the revamped plan would "advance consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, worker training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, among other "national purposes."  

Eshoo has the backing of the plan's original author, Blair Levin, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “An update of the 2010 National Broadband Plan is long overdue, and with the COVID Crisis demonstrating the importance of abundant, affordable broadband to economic resiliency and social progress, such an update is also essential,” Levin said of the new bill. 

There is a similar bill that was introduced in the Senate by Ed Markey (D-Mass.). 

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks called the broadband plan update "a great idea," adding that he was glad to see it focus on affordability.  

Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and David McKinley (R-Was.) have rebooted their "dig once" broadband deployment effort as the Nationwide Dig Once Act of 2020.

The pair introduced H.R. 2692, the Broadband Deployment Act last May but it never got past the introduction phase.

The 2.0 version of that bill, which was unveiled this week, "mandates the inclusion of broadband conduit – plastic pipes which house fiber-optic communications cable – during the construction of any road receiving federal funding in areas that lack access to broadband internet service."

Related: Reps Eshoo, McKinley Introduce "Dig Once" Broadband Bill

It is just the latest in a series of attempts to kill two birds--new broadband and road infrastructure--with one shovel, as it were. Eshoo has been pushing for dig once legislation for more than a decade, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has pushed just as hard from that side of the Hill.

The new bill:

"Establishes a process for states to notify broadband providers of federally-funded highway construction that may present opportunities for coordinating installation of broadband infrastructure;

"Requires the installation of broadband conduit if a provider has not committed to deploy conduit as part of a federally-funded construction project; and

"Establishes a task force co-chaired by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation and the National Telecommunications and Information Administrator to consider and propose methods to fund the nationwide dig once policy."

The bill has been added as a section of the INVEST in America Act (H.R. 2) transportation infrastructure bill.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has collected a number of supporters for her bill banning microtargeted political ads.

Those backers include Mozilla, Common Cause, the Center for Digital Democracy, and the Open Markets Institute. 

The idea behind the bill is to battle coordinated disinformation/misinformation campaigns. 

H.R. 7014, the Banning Microtargeted Political Ads Act, would prohibit social media sites, streaming services and ad networks from targeting political ads based on demos or behavioral data.  

It applies to all electioneering communications, meaning both candidate and noncandidate ads. 

The Federal Election Commission will enforce the prohibition and there will be a private right of action as well, class action suits for example. 

The bill does allow ads targeted by state, municipality and congressional district and targeted to individuals who opt in to targeted ads.   

“Political speech is critical to democratic discourse, but organized disinformation and organic misinformation use microtargeting and prevent ideas from being debated in the open. Changing how paid political messaging works online could be a powerful step forward in response to the ongoing challenges of disinformation and manipulation of our democratic processes, whether by candidates, PACs, or others. We appreciate this legislation and the thoughtfulness of Rep. Eshoo in moving this discussion forward,” said Heather West, head of Americas public policy at Mozilla. 

According to a recent poll cited by Eshoo's office, a majority of both Republicans (75%) and Democrats (69%) oppose using personal information for hyper-targeted political ads.  

A bipartisan bill has been introduced to create an AI research resource in the cloud. 

Behind the bill, the pretty self-explanatory National AI Resource Task Force Act, are Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Anthony Gonzales (R-Ohio) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.). 

The task for the bill establishes would be a group of tech experts across government, industry and academia charged with coming up with a detailed plan for the U.S. to "build, deploy, govern, and sustain a national research cloud." 

A companion bill in the Senate has been introduced by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). "AI is shaping our lives in so many ways, but the true potential of it to improve society is still being discovered by researchers," said Eshoo, whose district includes portions of Silicon Valley. "I'm proud to introduce legislation that re-imagines how AI research will be conducted by pooling data, compute power, and educational resources for researchers around our country. This legislation ensures that our country will retain our global lead in AI." 

“We cannot take America's AI leadership for granted. With China focused on toppling the United States' leadership in AI," said Sen. Portman. "[W]e need to redouble our efforts with a sustained commitment to the best and brightest by developing a national research cloud to ensure our technical researchers get the tools they need to succeed...By democratizing access to computing power we ensure that any American with computer science talent can pursue their good ideas.”

Two legislators familiar to media execs have introduced House and Senate versions of a bill to combat online child exploitation, saying it would reverse "a decade of underfunding key enforcement and prevention efforts." 

The Invest in Child Safety Act, from Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), would provide $5 billion in "mandatory funding" to investigate online pedophiles who create and share child pornography online and to fund programs to keep children from becoming victims. 

Related: Senate Mulls Sec. 230 Limits

It would create an Office to Enforce and Protect Against Child Sexual Exploitation, within the White House Executive Office of the President to coordinate efforts across federal agencies. They say that is needed after the Department of Justice declined to do such coordination and reporting as directed in a 2008 law. 

They say the DOJ has cut more than $60 million from child exploitation prevention programs while trying to create encryption backdoors that could weaken online security for everyone. 

“Dogged reporting put a spotlight on the failures of the executive branch and Congress to respond to disgusting crimes against children that are shared online,” Wyden said in a statement. “Our bill will finally provide agencies with enough investigators and prosecutors to confront this menace, fund the organizations who help protect at-risk kids from becoming victims, and provide aid to survivors.” 

The bill would:  

1. "Quadruple the number of prosecutors and agents in DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section from 30 FTEs to 120 FTEs; 

2. "Add 100 new agents and investigators for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Innocent Images National Initiative, Crimes Against Children Unit, Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Teams, and Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces; 

3. "Fund 65 new NCMEC analysts, engineers, and mental health counselors, as well as a major upgrade to NCMEC’s technology platform to enable the organization to more effectively evaluate and process CSAM reports from tech companies; 

4. "Double funding for the state Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces;  

5. "Double funding for the National Criminal Justice Training Center, to administer crucial Internet Crimes Against Children and Missing and Exploited Children training programs;

6. "Increase funding for evidence-based programs, local governments and non-federal entities to detect, prevent and support victims of child sexual abuse, including school-based mental health services and prevention programs like the Children’s Advocacy Centers and the HHS’ Street Outreach Program;   

7. "Require tech companies to increase the time that they hold evidence of CSAM, in a secure database, to enable law enforcement agencies to prosecute older cases;  

8. "Establish an Office to Enforce and Protect Against Child Sexual Exploitation, within the Executive Office of the President, to direct and streamline the federal government’s efforts to prevent, investigate and prosecute the scourge of child exploitation; 

9. "Require the Office to develop an enforcement and protection strategy, in coordination with HHS and GAO; and  

10. "Require the Office to submit annual monitoring reports, subject to mandatory Congressional testimony to ensure timely execution."

“The technology industry is committed to working together with law enforcement to protect children online,” said Jason Oxman, president of tech association ITI. “The Invest in Child Safety Act is another welcome step to strengthen our ability to prevent and prosecute online child sexual abuse. This measure would take meaningful and focused action to address these vile criminal acts by providing additional resources for law enforcement, thereby enabling more robust response to the millions of reports of abusive material technology companies make to authorities every day.”

The dueling broadband bill introductions from Democrats and Republicans this week continued Friday with more than a half-dozen offerings from both sides.

On the Democrats' side, Reps. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) and Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) introduced H.R. 4847, the Broadband Deployment Streamlining Act, which aims to speed deployment by "reforming and improving" the application process for building out broadband using public lands. President Donald Trump last week had signed two executive orders to do just that.

The Democratic bill:

 1) "Requires procedures to be established for tracking applications, monitoring the time between receipt and final decision, and reasons for denial;

 2) "Bases application fees that applicants pay to the designated federal agency on the actual costs of review and maintenance of that application;

3) "Requires that executive agencies act on siting requests with 270 days; and

 4) "Preserves agency obligations to follow applicable environmental laws."

The bill would also mandate a Government Accountability Office report on the National Broadband Map, a government effort to identify where broadband is accessible and where it isn't.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and David McKinley (R-W. Va.) offered up their second broadband bill of the week, the Climb Once Act, which would, they said, ensure that no federal laws get in the way of local "climb once" policies that "allow for a list of pre-approved contractors that pole owners agree on to handle make-ready work, eliminating the need for multiple contractors to perform the work."

The pair introduced a "Dig Once" bill Jan. 17.

Not to be outdone, Republicans followed with more of their promised broadband bill blitz.

Communications Subcommittee chair Marsha Blackburn unveiled five bills Friday, the third tranche of its series of bills, dealing mostly with historic preservation and environmental reviews.

Related: Cable Ops Push for Codified Overlashing Rules

H.R. 4832, “Restoring Economic Strength and Telecommunications Operations by Releasing Expected Dollars (RESTORED) Act,”  would allow companies eligible for Universal Service Fund high-cost money to get up to a 7-month advance on the funds in disaster areas.

H.R. 4845, “Connecting Communities Post Disasters Act,” would give facilities in disaster areas a five-year exemption from environmental and historic reviews to allow them to replace/improve their facilities.

H.R. 4842, “The Streamlining Permitting to Enable Efficient Deployment of Broadband Infrastructure,” would exempt environmental and historic preservation reviews on federal property if another facility on the same property has already been granted one; would exempt other such reviews in some other circumstances.

Related: FCC Takes 'Historic' Pole Position

H.R. 4847, “Broadband Deployment Streamlining Act,” would "direct the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to issue regulations within one year to streamline applications processes to locate or modify communications facilities on public lands."; "amend Section 6409 of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act to institute a firm shot clock by which applications must be granted or denied (an application is deemed granted if the agency fails to grant or deny within the allotted time)" and "would require a GAO report evaluating accuracy and reliability of data collected for the National Broadband Map" (mirroring the Democratic bill).

H.Res. 701 would express "the sense of the House" that environmental and historic reviews for broadband buildouts "should be narrowly tailored and proportional to lands that are physically impacted by the deployment of such facilities."

Two familiar names in the net-neutrality debate are making a bicameral pitch to FCC chair Ajit Pai to rescind his net-neutrality order.

There is scant chance of that since Pai indicated Tuesday (Dec. 5) that the vote would go on as scheduled Dec. 14 and would be adopted.

Related: Pai Signals Dec. 14 Net Neutrality Vote Is On

In any event, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) two of the loudest and proudest proponents of the Title II-based regs Pai is rolling back, have enlisted former FCC general counsel Jon Sallet, who successfully defended the Title II regs in federal court, to team up for a press conference Wednesday (Dec. 6) to talk about how to undo Pai's order in the courts if, as they also appear to acknowledge, the order is approved Dec. 14.

Sallet helped come up with the legal defense of Title II reclassification, which ISPs challenged and the D.C. Court concluded was within the FCC's authority.

The legislators will use the press conference as a chance to paint their vision, likely pretty dystopian, of life under the FCC order, which would reclassify ISPs as Title I information services not subject to common carrier regs like mandatory access and roll back bright-line rules against blocking, throttling or prioritizing (for a price) internet content.

House Democrats used a hearing on emergency alerts to raise red flags on the FCC Republican majority's plan to roll back classification of ISPs as Title II common carriers, which is scheduled to be voted May 18.

The House Communications Subcommittee was looking into the future of alerts, both online and on-air, but in opening statements, some Dems diverged from the topic at hand to an issue much on the minds of legislators.

Ranking member Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said he was "concerned" about the timing of its hearing. "The FCC at its open meeting tomorrow will vote to advance an order that will roll back essential rules that protect and promote a free and open Internet. "

He pointed to over one million comments that have been filed and also pointed out that the committee had yet to hold a hearing on the proposal or an FCC oversight hearing. He said the committee should be discussing the  issue with the commission. "It is critical that they be held accountable by Congress," he said. "With the commission on the brink of considering an enormously unpopular and ill-advised proposal that could have far-reaching implications on the most innovative part of our economy, it seems irresponsible for Congress not to provide the much-needed oversight."

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the parent Energy & Commerce Committee, also talked about the FCC's effort to "strip away" network neutrality protections. "FCC Chairman Pai has proposed a plan that would kill net neutrality, he said, and "would have a chilling influence on our democracy, chip away at our connections with each other and limit opportunities for the future. He urged the FCC to "listen to the American people and reconsider this misguided approach.

Reps. Doyle and Pallone have also asked the FCC to extend the comment period on the Title II rollback notice of proposed rulemaking, a call Doyle renewed at the hearing.

Doyle also called on the committee to hold a hearing on the Sinclair/Tribune deal, something he called for in a letter to the FCC earlier this week.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) seconded the need for an FCC oversight hearing and Sinclair/Tribune hearing. She said the FCC was about to begin the effort to unravel net neutrality and called on Communications Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn to hold an oversight hearing on the proposed merger.

The House took a serious, and mostly bipartisan, look Wednesday (Nov. 16) at the cybersecurity threat posed by the Internet of Things.

A joint hearing, "Understanding the Role of Connected Devices in Recent Cyber Attacks," was held in the Communications Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, chaired by Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Texas).

The hearing was held in the wake of the distributed denial of service attack on Oct. 21 that restricted access to some major websites.

Apparently, the attack only employed 150,000 of about 1.5 million IoT devices still infected with the botnet that allows them to be commandeered to deliver similar or larger attacks in the future.

The seriousness of the issue was highlighted by the fact that the witnesses agreed that that the DDOS attack, which affected Netflix, Twitter and others -- was relatively benign compared to, say, an attack on critical systems that could cost lives.

Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.), a former Navy aviator, said the biggest threat to security is not bombs and missiles but ones and zeros and that, in the current environment, the government has to be proactive.

In fact, Republicans and Democrats were both using the R word (regulation) to talk about addressing the threat, as were all of the witnesses to some degree, though Dale Drew, SVP and chief security officer at Level 3 Communications, focused on standards and existing regs rather than new ones.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee, also suggested that approach. When one witness said a new government agency might be needed to deal with IoT cybersecutiry, she said that would not happen in the new administration. Walden joked that for every new agency created, they could eliminate two, a reference to President-elect Donald Trump's proposed requirement that two regulations be scrapped for every one added.

But Walden got serious, saying that the IoT cybersecurity issue was bipartisan and the Republican leadership would continue to address it.

Walden told the witnesses he was concerned about the government stepping into the marketplace, but primarily because he had heard cybersecurity witnesses before warn government to "first do not harm" and to be careful not to lock things into statute.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee, pointed out that some have argued that regulating devices will constrain innovation.

Witness Bruce Schneier, adjunct Lecturer, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, conceded the point, but said the government would definitely need to step in because the risk was too great. He said there's "a fundamental difference between your spreadsheet crashing and losing your data, and a connected car crashing and losing your life."

He emphasized that it was a catastrophic risk, crashing all connected cars, for example.

"It is an arms race, and the current edge is to the attacker," Schneier said, adding that given the scale of the Web and the ability to affect physical objects via IoT, "it might be that the Internet of fun and games is over."

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) teamed up to make a last-minute push for FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's latest, apps-based, set-top box proposal.

The FCC is still set to vote on that proposal Sept. 29 despite pushback from some of Markey and Eshoo's Democratic colleagues.

At a press conference on Tuesday (Sept. 27), Markey said the FCC had shown its willingness to address concerns about the initial proposal, had done so in the new proposal by adopting the apps-based approach suggested by ISPs, and that "every month" without new rules is another month of consumers paying exorbitant rental fees for "relics of the past."

Eshoo seemed to signal that programmers were now supportive of the FCC proposal, though she later said she was citing an ex parte from Sept. 22 in which those programmers signaled progress, but still said having an apps licensing body was a nonstarter. Eshoo said that the letter "expresses movement."

The same principal cast on the press call held a similar press conference back in June backing the chairman's initial "unlock the box" proposal.

Joining them in the call were Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who along with Markey has been pushing hard for a set-top rules revamp, along with various public interest group representatives; BET founder Robert Johnson, now heading RLJ Entertainment, and Allison Abner from the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW).

A representative of Best Buy, which would benefit from a robust third-party device market to sell against leased boxes, offered his support for the FCC proposal as well.

Johnson, who is now an online video entrepreneur, has been pushing for the proposal as a way to give online video providers more exposure alongside traditional video fare, while purveyors of that traditional fare are concerned that could threaten the business model and contracts of established diverse programmers.

Wheeler's revised plan would make set-top box data and programming available to third-party apps and navigation devices, as a way to finally create competition to set-tops--99% of those are still rented from an MVPD--as well as giving online video a boost as a competitor to traditional cable and satellite.

Johnson said that just as BET would not have existed had cable not "broken the broadcast monopoly," new over-the-top offerings, like his own, will not be able to flourish unless the FCC eliminates cable's "stranglehold" on set-top boxes.

He said that would allow new diverse voices to flourish. He said he had told Wheeler that the set-top decision is the most important decision the FCC has ever made in terms of enhancing diversity and access.

Asked why the NAACP, Urban League and other diversity groups are not supportive of the plan, Johnson said that he said he didn't think they "quite understand the upside benefits of the apps-based approach," and that some of the incumbents, including BET, are afraid that the a la carte regime the set-top proposal represents will lead to their being dropped due to their cost.

Johnson suggested that while that might be the case, the government should not be choosing winners and loser.

Asked why over 60 of her fellow Democrats have asked the FCC to put out the plan for comment rather than vote on it this week, she said she had talked to some of them and they had a "lack of understanding about the revised proposal and what it would do for their constituents." She said they also did not understand that the new proposal kept MVPD content within the new app, which she said was very, very significant. She suggested the lead on that colleague letter should have said: "Regarding throwing sand in the gears."

Republican leaders in Congress are dropping broad hints that it's time (once again) to try to overhaul the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which has been increasingly burdened by legal challenges to FCC decisions (most recently and notably, net neutrality) as well as by dramatic  issues such as privacy and cybersecurity.

Senate Commerce Committee chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said, "It’s time for Congress to be heard from again,” according to a report this week in the congressional newspaper, The Hill.

“There are way more moving parts now than there were back then,” Thune told the newspaper.

President Bill Clinton signed the 1996 Telecom Act into law on Feb. 8 of that year (see photo).

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and  Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), both of whom are considering a bid to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year, agree that a telecom rewrite is overdue. Walden now chairs the E&C Communications and Technology subcommittee; Shimkus chairs its Environment and the Economy subcommittee and is a member of the Communications and Technology group.  

“You want to do a blank slate," Shimkus told The Hill.  He envisions starting the process by assuming "there’s no FCC, but we have the communication devices" and legislators have to create a regulatory ecosystem. Shimkus contended that the '96 law is not suited to today’s technology, calling that tech/law gap an incentive to update the Act.

“I’ve got to believe that’s compelling,” he said. “It shouldn’t be threatening. In fact, you should encourage the FCC to be involved.”

All speculation about Telecom Act reform in the 115th Congress is, of course, uncertain in today's volatile political environment. Control of the Senate may change, and the balance of power in the House may narrow.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House communications subcommittee, told The Hill that the process may depend on who chairs the full Commerce committee and "what kind of leadership and ...  vision [about] what needs to be done across the communications and technology sectors."

Telecom reform legislation has been bruited around Capitol Hill for nearly a decade, with prior Commerce Committee chairs acknowledging the need for updates in the volatile tech/telecom environment. Efforts to seek agreement between the legacy communications providers, including cable as well as telephone companies, and Silicon Valley upstarts have foiled many of the plans. Turf wars are also likely, as the FCC and Federal Trade Commission jurisdictions overlap on issues such as privacy and security. Not to mention the role of military/security concerns in the evolving spectrum wars.

An ambitious effort for a rewrite by House Republican three years ago floundered, and the next attempt will have to delve into the unchartered worlds of the Internet of Things and other applications that were barely in the lexicon early in the Obama administration.

As Thune acknowledged in The Hill report, the term "Internet" barely appears in the 1996 Act, even though the World Wide Web was well underway at that time.

"It’s a whole different world" now, Thune said. "We think that the policies, the regulations, that apply to the industry today need to be updated, need to be modernized.”

Yet finding consensus may be much more challenging than in prior years. Many analysts have pointed to the wider-than-ever range of organizations now touched by FCC rules, making it harder to find agreement. There has been considerable talk about separate updates of the telecom and media portions of the law, but that approach is increasingly difficult as the convergence of the two worlds (Comcast-NBCU and AT&T-DirecTV exemplify the situation) expands and rules affect all sectors of the telecom arena.

Not to mention the roles of non-traditional media providers such as Google and Amazon.

While the next leadership of pertinent Congressional units is unknown, the issue of telecom reform -- complex as it is -- is being positioned as a priority objective for the 115th Congress. It's just not clear how "high" a priority it will become.

The Future of TV Coalition, which includes ISPs and others critical of the FCC's set-top box proposal, fired back Wednesday (May 18) after Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) called on her congressional colleagues to back the FCC against cable ops she said were trying to protect their set-top monopoly.

The coalition circulated a link to its own myths and realities list about the issue, countering Eshoo's "facts and fictions" list backing her side, which she included in a Dear Colleague letter.

“This debate isn’t about whether consumers should have alternatives to leased set-top boxes," said the coalition in a statement on that letter. "All sides agree they should, and this is already happening in the market today.  This debate is really about the best way to advance that innovation even further while respecting the copyright, licensing, diversity, and privacy characteristics of the TV ecosystem.

"A vast and diverse coalition of music, film, and TV creators, networks and programmers, TV distributors, the labor and business communities, dozens of civil rights groups, a host of economists and policy experts, and more than 150 Members of Congress have raised concerns about the scope and impact of the Chairman’s proposed mandate," the coalition added.

Read More:Complete Coverage of the FCC's Set-Top Proposal

National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Michael Powell has been making that point this week at the INTX convention in Boston and before that in an interview with Multichannel News [subscription required].

"This vibrant and healthy market is giving consumers unprecedented options and choice, and we should not freeze this innovation in place with a backward-looking technology mandate that will do far more harm than good," the coalition said.

David Grossman, from the office of House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), is heading to the FCC to be chief of staff to commissioner Mignon Clyburn, according to multiple sources.

Grossman has been senior tech policy advisor for the congresswoman, who has been extremely active on communications issues (her district includes Silicon Valley).

Clyburn chief of staff and media legal advisor Chanelle Hardy exited in January, with Holly Sauer assuming media advisor duties, detailed from the Media Bureau where she has been associate bureau chief.

Hardy had been in the post for only seven months or so, succeeding chief of staff Adonis Hoffman.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee, has signaled she can accept an FCC reform bill with a delay on a provision letting more than two FCC commissioners meet outside of public meetings, but can't accept it if it includes Republican-backed amendments she has already said she opposes.

That message came in prepared text for her opening statement for a markup of H.R. 2583, the FCC Process Reform Act, in the House Energy & Commerce Committee Wednesday (June 3). Eshoo had been a co-sponsor of the bill, but wanted her name removed, said one committee source, to avoid having to vote against her own bill, which has the Republican votes to be amended to include their proposals.

Those include requiring the FCC to publish text of draft decisions when they are circulated (customarily three weeks before a vote), to publish its decisions within 24 hours of a vote, and to publish 48 hours beforehand decisions be granted on delegated authority.

Eshoo said while she continued to support the underlying bill, even with the delay on commissioners meeting, she also suggested the above requirements were essentially poison pills.

"What I cannot support are attempts to stack this bill with partisan amendments that have the effect of tying the FCC in knots," she said. "Proposed under the guise of improved agency transparency and accountability, what these bills actually do is prevent the FCC from being fast, efficient and transparent.

"After four years of debating FCC process reform, the Committee can take one of two routes," she added. "If the Majority wants to offer its partisan amendments, Democrats will oppose final passage and this bill will once again fail to become law. Alternatively, we can adopt the Democratic substitute amendment which incorporates the areas of bipartisan agreement into the underlying bill and join together in urging the Senate to expeditiously pass the FCC Process Reform Act."

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the full committee, concurred.

"While I support H.R. 2853 in its current form, I have been clear that I cannot support the other Republican drafts I anticipate will be added as amendments during markup," Pallone said. "Experts have said, quite simply, that it would result in confusion, litigation, and delay.  So I will oppose those bills and any final bill that includes its provisions."

The Republicans support the Democratic amendments, so on alternative would be for them to vote on the base bill without the Republicans amendments, which would be bipartisan, and then vote separately on the Republican proposals. They almost certainly have the votes to pass them.

Also look for the Democrats to try to amend the base bill legislation mandating that the FCC require more detailed on-air disclosures from the funders of political ads.

Congress continues to weigh in on the Federal Communications Commission's proposal to presume cable operators are subject to competition absent a showing to the contrary. Currently, the presumption is that a local market is not competitive.

A finding of effective competition by the FCC relieves operators of local basic-cable rate regulation.

The latest salvos came from both sides of the aisle and the issue as the FCC is expected any day now to circulate an order on the proposal.

In a letter dated Wednesday (May 13), Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee's Communication Subcommittee, joined with Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) to support the FCC's proposal to "update" the effective competition provision.

They pointed to legacy regulation as an impediment to enhanced flexibility and choice -- the presumption comes from the1992 Cable Act, which dates from a time when cable ops had a 95% MVPD market share, which is now down to a tad more than 50%.

Eshoo and Scalist also cited the time-consuming and costly requirement of the effective-competition provision and said it makes cable ops engage in long and costly proceedings to offer more flexible packaging options to consumers.

They also said saving FCC resources would be saving taxpayer dollars.

On the other side, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, in a letter also dated May 13, asked FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to think hard about the impact of reversing the presumption, pointing to a New Jersey franchising authority's concerns and the impact of the move on consumers.

Pallone said the FCC could simply streamline the petition process and leave the larger question about reversing the presumption for another day, basically inviting Wheeler to punt on the proposed reversal.

The FCC is under an early June congressional deadline to produce an order streamlining the process for smaller cable operators. It was that order the chairman proposed to use to streamline it for all operators by reversing the presumption.