Input continued to pour in following President Donald Trump's signing Monday (April 4) of a resolution nullifying the FCC's broadband privacy rules after Hill Republicans approved it on close, politically divided, votes in both Houses of Congress.

Privacy groups promised to fight on while advertisers said the fight was over "innocuous" info that didn't warrant "barrage" of opt-in notices.

"By vetoing the repeal of the broadband privacy rules President Trump could have sent a powerful message that he heard Americans' demands to have a real say over how their personal information is used and shared for commercial proses, and was willing to stand up for them," said the Consumer Federation of America.

But given that the President added his imprimatur, what now? "This fight is not over," vowed CFA. "The Consumer Federation of America and the other organizations with which we work will continue to push for real privacy protections for Americans."

The National Hispanic Media Coalition was similarly displeased and similarly ready to continue the fight.

"With the stroke of his pen, President Trump quietly sealed the fate of FCC regulations aimed to protect the private information and web browsing histories of Americans across the country," said Carmen Scurato, director of policy and legal affairs. "Latinos value their private information and will not soon forget a President who failed them, especially in light of all the public concerns he has for his own privacy. The act was a clear gift to Internet Service Providers at the expense of the American people. But the American people were not quiet during this process and left one resounding message: we will continue to stand together to preserve and protect the open internet."

Michael Copps, former FCC chairman and now a special adviser to Common Cause, saw it as a handover of consumer rights to big business by the President.

"Privacy goes the way of populism as Trump rolls over again for big business," he said. "Despite a campaign filled with rhetoric about the plight of forgotten Americans, Trump has once again come down on the side of corporate profiteering at the expense of Americans who don't sit on corporate boards and can't afford a $200,000 membership at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. Trump has flip-flipped on his own campaign promises and handed over Americans' right to privacy to those with the deepest pockets."

Looking at it from an entirely different angle was the Association of National Advertisers, which had pushed the FCC to reconsider the rules and Congress to repeal them.

“This rule would have required vast amounts of innocuous information to be treated suddenly as highly sensitive and needing opt-in consent from consumers," ANA said in a statement. "This is an important major step to help assure a level playing field for privacy regulation for all businesses, and to see to it that consumers will not be bombarded with incessant opt-in notices. ANA also is pleased that the leadership of the FCC and FTC have committed to working cooperatively to return primary regulatory authority over privacy issues to the Federal Trade Commission, which is where we think it should rightfully belong due to the FTC’s long history of oversight and expertise in the privacy arena.”

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), a longtime advocate for privacy online, particularly of children, and a frequent critic of media companies, said the rule rollback "will give giant internet service providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T an open invitation to more easily collect, share, and sell your personal information without your consent."

“All Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, and I believe that right extends to the internet,” said Franken, ranking member of the Senate Privacy Subcommittee. “Your digital footprint—the sites you browse, the apps you use, and the sensitive data you provide to websites—deserves to be protected. President Trump has made a grave mistake by signing this disastrous legislation, which will deepen the pockets of big internet conglomerates like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T by allowing them to more easily broker your private information. This law is as anti-consumer as it gets—it gives broadband providers free rein to collect, share, and auction off your data to the highest bidder without your consent. Your privacy is under threat, and I plan to fight back. We cannot allow corporate profits to outweigh consumer privacy rights.”

Democratic senators hammered FCC Chairman Ajit Pai over his decision to rescind a report on the successes of the FCC's E-rate program, one of several actions late in his predecessor's tenure (Jan. 18, two days before FCC

Chairman Tom Wheeler's exit) that the new chairman rolled back in his first days in office, signaling it did not reflect the official views of the agency.

The topic of E-rate and the report is likely to come up in Wednesday's Senate Commerce Committee FCC oversight hearing with Pai and the other commissioners.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who was the author of the E-rate program--a subsidy for advanced telecom to schools and libraries--as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act--led a group of a dozen senators who said they were worried about what the report's pullback meant for the future of the program.

"Your actions threaten to roll back progress made in all of these states and disrupt schools and libraries’ carefully planned multi-year budgets," they wrote. "Accordingly, we call on you to guarantee that this treasured program will not be undermined in any way under your watch.”

They cited the benefits of the program--increasing the number of students connected to the 'net and expanding funding for Wi-Fi nets, helping low-income and rural communities--Pai has signaled that rural broadband access will be a priority at the new commission.

"Your decision to retract these facts and eliminate the report is worrying to us, who support this vital program," they said.

Also signing on to the letter were Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Jeffery Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.)

An FCC official said on background that the chairman continues to support the E-rate program and continued investment in next gen tech for students and library patrons, but that the report was rescinded because it was released without notifying the commissioners and without coordinating it with the appropriate staffers.

He said the rescission was because the report reflected the views of its drafter, rather than of the agency.

The report remains available on the FCC Web site.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Corey Booker (D-N.J.) are leading more than a dozen senators (all Dems except independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont) calling on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to reverse his decision to withdraw Lifeline broadband subsidy authorizations from nine companies.

Pai said the decision was due to 1) procedural errors, 2) because they were issued in the waning hours of the previous Administration, something Republicans warned against, 3) and because he suggested the FCC needed to hit the pause button on expanding the low-income subsidy program until it got a better process for monitoring for waste, fraud and abuse.

The senators, who also included Al Franken of Minnesota, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon, said they were deeply troubled by the action.

Related: Ex-Wheeler Aide Sohn Slams Pai for Lifeline Decision

They said the chairman was undermining the program, making it more difficult for low income residents to afford critical communications services, and appearing to run counter to his pledge in the first days of his chairmanship to make closing the digital divide a priority under his watch.

The senators said that to "abruptly revoke" the authorizations only weeks after they had been granted was "unfairly punishing" low-income consumers.

Pai had pointed out in a blog post that eight of the nine customers had no customers so far, so the impact should not be great, and that there were still some 900 companies authorized and providing the subsidies.

The senators pointed out that the customers of at least one of the nine would have to be disconnected.

Evoking Sec. 706 of the Communications Act, they said that the FCC has an obligation to ensure “consumers in all regions of the country, including low-income consumers” have access to “advanced telecommunications services,” and asked him to reconsider the decision.

”Chairman Pai shares the Senators’ commitment to closing the digital divide and believes that the Lifeline program can play an important role in helping to achieve that objective," said a Pai spokesman. "The Wireline Competition Bureau’s decision last week did not have any impact on over 99% of the companies in the program, and eight of the nine companies affected did not have any Lifeline customers.

"These nine companies’ applications were rushed out the door in the final days of the last Administration through an improper process. Some of these companies did not follow Commission rules requiring consultation with Tribes. The Bureau granted some applications without waiting for the 30-day public comment period set forth in our rules to close. And there was inadequate attention paid to whether necessary safeguards were in place to prevent the waste, fraud, and abuse that has plagued the program. For all these reasons, it was important for these nine companies’ applications to receive additional review.”

Some Hill Democrats were praising the FCC's report finding that some zero-rating plans may run afoul of network-neutrality rules.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) had led calls for tough action on "harmful zero-rating offerings" thought to run afoul of the rules and led the applause at the findings.

RELATED > FCC: DirecTV Now Plan Appears to Violate Net Neutrality Order

Zero-rating offerings exempt some services, including video streaming services, from counting toward a user's broadband data plan. In some cases, the service pays the ISP to exempt its content.

“In response to our inquiry, the FCC has issued clear guidelines on how to protect consumers from harmful zero-rating plans that violate the core tenants of net neutrality,” Markey said. “These guiding principles will help the FCC, industry, and the public evaluate zero-rating offerings and identify plans that distort competition, stifle innovation, and hamper user choice and free speech. I will continue to work with my colleagues to encourage the commission to enforce these guidelines and ensure that the internet remains a permission-less environment where anyone with an idea or voice can participate.”

The FCC's senior Republican, Ajit Pai, signaled that the FCC under new management did not share the report's opinion.

But Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), a big network-neutrality fan, and among those who joined in a letter to the FCC last November asking for the review, shared the FCC's concerns.

"A free and open Internet has been a crucial engine for innovation and economic growth," Franken said. "That's why I'm pleased to see that the FCC has heeded our call and released a framework for evaluating zero-rating plans, which can often harm competitors and consumers. This report evaluating whether zero rating plans violate net neutrality will help make sure the internet remains the free and open platform that it's always been. Keeping the internet open is critical to our democracy.”

The FCC under Republican control is widely expected to roll back the FCC's approach to network neutrality, likely including the "general conduct standard" review under which the FCC concluded that AT&T's DirecTV Now sponsored data and Verizon's FreeBee Data 360 zero-rating plans were problematic.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) were also signatories to the letter and added their applause. 

“Despite clever branding gimmicks, so called ‘free data’ or zero-rating plans like those offered by AT&T and Verizon are a scheme to manipulate consumers and transfer money from their pockets to a company’s bottom line,” Wyden said. “This report lays the framework for ensuring zero-rating plans don’t betray net neutrality and is a step in the right direction towards maintaining a free and open Internet.”

Blumenthal added: “I commend the commission for undertaking this careful and thorough report on how zero-rating offerings may negatively affect consumers and competition. As wireless carriers look for creative ways to differentiate themselves, it would serve them well to take heed of this report’s findings and address any red flags in their own offerings. This report confirms my concerns that some zero-rating offerings not only subvert the spirit of net neutrality, but also unfairly distort competition, disadvantage consumers, and decrease choice.”

WASHINGTON — Veteran consolidation critic Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has serious issues with the AT&T-Time Warner Inc. merger, he told Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler and Attorney General Loretta Lynch in letters to both officials on Monday (Oct. 24).

Franken urged the "highest level" of scrutiny, and could do some scrutinizing of the deal himself, or at least of the players, particularly if Democrats win back the Senate. He said he is skeptical of any further media consolidation, period.

"Combining these behemoths would create a mega media conglomerate with both the incentive and ability to use its platform to harm consumers and competitors alike," he said.

RELATED: Merger Critics Take Aim at AT&T-Time Warner

If the deal is approved, it will almost certainly have conditions, even in a consent decree, or FCC behavioral conditions, to try and prevent that.

AT&T has said its platform would be open to competing programmers and signaled the digital rights to Time Warner programming would be available as well, but Franken signaled he is not assuaged by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson's suggestion behavioral conditions would take care of concerns about access to content.

"I have serious doubts about the enforceability and reliability of such conditions as a remedy for anti-competitive behavior," Franken said.

He cited the Comcast-NBCUniversal deal, which he also opposed, and the protracted fight with Bloomberg TV over a "news neighborhooding" prohibition as an example of those conditions not working as advertised. He also cited AT&T's DirecTV price hikes increases and accusations that it failed to meet some commitments in the BellSouth/Cingular integration. "To the extent that AT&T has a history of going back on its commitments made in furtherance of an acquisition or merger, such history should be taken into account when evaluating Its current proposal," he said.

Combining these behemoths would create a mega media conglomerate with both the incentive and ability to use its platform to harm consumers and competitors alike," said Franken. "It could promote its own programming above that of other TV and entertainment companies or restrict other distributors' ability to offer its highly-desired content. Innovative offerings like HBO's internet streaming service [HBO Now] could be jeopardized entirely, or made available on different and discriminatory terms to broadband customers of companies other than AT&T, if such restrictions were profitable for the combined company."

He also shares the concerns of the American Cable Association about boosting the bargaining power of another large media company. "[N]either independent programmers nor small pay TV and online video distributors would be able negotiate on fair terms against the gigantic entity this massive deal would produce," he told Wheeler.

RELATED: AT&T Exec Blogs Case for Time Warner Merger

“We look forward to discussing the many benefits of this transaction with our regulators," said David McAtee, AT&T senior EVP and general counsel. "In the modern history of the media and the Internet, the U.S. government has always approved vertical mergers like ours, because they benefit consumers, strengthen competition, and, in our case, encourage innovation and investment.”

Niantic says its Pokémon Go mobile app collects user information, which Niantic shares "from time to time" with third parties for marketing and other purposes, but not share that information for anyone under 13.

That came in a letter to Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who had sought information from the company given the runaway popularity, including among teens and kids, and its collection of user information for the game.

But Niantic says it does not sell Pokémon Go information to third parties, "aggregated, de-identified or otherwise"--and has no plans to do so.

Related: PokéSTOP!: CCFC Warns Against Kid-Targeted Ads

Niantic is a Google spin-off and in which Google is still part owner. But Niantic says it does not share user information with its investors, though it does share info with Google as a third-party app developer.

Niantic also collects detailed location information on its users when the application is open--such info is integral to the augmented reality experience of the game, and stores it for a maximum of 120 days. Niantic said it does not do background collection of information when the app is closed.

The company also assured Franken it had fixed an error in the Pokémon Go iOS account creation process that had requested users signing into a Google account to provide full account permissions. It now asks only for limited account permissions. It said Google had provided a server-side fix to the problem.

Franken dubbed the Niantic response comprehensive," but still plans to have his staffers meet with officials to clarify some of its answers.

“The launch of Pokémon GO earlier this summer represented a new era in gaming, but shortly after the app's release, there were strong concerns about how it treats its users' digital data,” said Franken. “Now I believe that Americans have a fundamental right to privacy—and that right includes access to clear and comprehensive information about how users' personal information is treated. That’s why I pressed app maker Niantic to detail how Pokémon GO collects, uses, and shares its users' information. I appreciate Niantic’s response, but I intend to work further with the company in the future to ensure that we’re doing everything possible to protect the privacy of Americans—particularly American children—who play Pokémon GO.”

Franken has long been concerned about location privacy issues, like stalker apps and info collection by Web sites.

A dozen senators (11 Democrats and an Independent) have asked the Federal Communications Commission to rethink its proposal to assume cable operators have local market competition and thus can get out from under basic-cable rate regulation.

Among the FCC's directives from Congress in the STELAR Act satellite reauthorization bill that passed last December was streamlining the process for effective-competition petitions for small cable operators. The FCC decided to propose a broader change, reversing the presumption that cable operators of all sizes were not subject to competition, given that the agency had granted virtually all such requests recently.

But in a letter to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, the senators, including longtime cable rate critic Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn), said they believe reversing the presumption "is contrary to Congress’ direction and may increase the rates that consumers pay for cable TV while reducing the number of channels offered in a cable company’s lowest-cost package.

"[R]ather than focusing on reforms targeting the specific needs of these small cable operators," they added, "the Commission’s proposal to implement Section 111 goes beyond Congress’ stated intent, providing unnecessary regulatory benefits to large cable companies."

The FCC has a June 1 deadline to come out with an order, according to STELAR.

In addition to Franken, signing on to the letter were Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Democratic senators who don't like the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger reminded the FCC of that fact in advance of a planned meeting on Wednesday between Justice Department officials and the companies.

The senators were buoyed by reports that Justice was leaning against approving the deal.

Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent letters to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and the Justice Department saying the deal would give the combined companies too much market power and the public fewer choices.

Read more at Broadcastingcable.com.

On the eve of the annual Data Privacy Day (Jan. 28), Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Uber for more information on its data privacy policies.

He had asked the app-based taxi service late last year for information on the "scope, transparency and enforceability" of those policies but was not happy with what he said was a lack of detail.

He wants answers to follow-up questions by Feb. 11, covering topics including Uber's indefinite retention of customers' personal information, customers' ability to opt in or out of information sharing with third parties and how the company determines which employees should have access to customer records.

Franken has been one of the most active senators in the privacy space and is currently ranking member on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. Uber, based in San Francisco, is available in 50 cities across 25 countries.

Since his first week on the job in July 2009, when he jumped into the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has hit the ground running. He is a prominent inquisitor on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he has taken the lead on big privacy issues as chairman of the privacy subcommittee.

A Harvard graduate, five-time Emmy Award winner and best-selling author, the 63-year-old former comedian has been a familiar TV face, and voice, to the Baby Boomer generation for decades as one of Saturday Night Live’s original writers and performers. As Stuart Smalley in the 1990s, Franken sought daily affirmation that could have served as a campaign slogan: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and doggonit, people like me.”

He is currently seeking a second Senate term this November, which would take him through 2020. According to Public Policy Polling, Franken leads all his potential Republican opponents by double digits. That would be a big change from 2008, when he won in a recount by a razor-thin margin over incumbent Norm Coleman — Franken was not sworn in until July of 2009.

With the retirement of “prairie populist” Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) in 2010, Franken arguably inherited the mantle of the Senate’s biggest media-consolidation critic — Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont is in the running as well — with a reputation for doing his homework and saying what he thinks.

Franken has said his opposition to the merger of Comcast, parent of NBCUniversal, with Time Warner Cable is nothing personal, even though he was an NBC employee when a writer and performer on SNL. Instead, his view is that the deal is too big to succeed, if success means a consumer-friendly programming platform receptive to independent content.

In a rare, wide-ranging interview, Franken talked to Multichannel News Washington bureau chief John Eggerton about those deals, network neutrality, privacy and why the former funnyman became a serious legislator.

MCN: How has your experience of being part of the media business, particularly working for NBC, informed and shaped how you view big media companies?

Al Franken: I want to emphasize that I really loved my time at Saturday Night Live. Even though I opposed Comcast buying NBC, I kind of recognized that, in a way, it was better for NBC to be owned by a media company rather than a company that sells toasters [General Electric]. But what I have been taught is that, sometimes, what these media companies say in hearings is not what happens.

I think you wrote about it when I talked about fin-syn in the Comcast-NBCU deal. The lesson from that was that [when the fin-syn rules, which prevented networks from owning a financial interest in the domestic syndication of shows on their air, were removed] they swore up and down that they wouldn’t favor their own content. (Chuckles.) And I’m laughing, because you know what happened. They said: “Why would we do that? We just want the best shows that get the best ratings. We just want the best content.” And then as soon as fin-syn went away, they started favoring their own content. We have seen what happened to independent production on television: It plummeted. My experience was that the networks basically said, “Now that we can, we will own as much of our content as we can.”

And when an independent producer would do a pilot, say, there would be kind of an implicit understanding that if the independent owner gave some ownership to NBC it was more likely to get on the network and into a good timeslot. So, they leveraged their position, and this has given me an insight into how this leverage not only can be used, but is used.

MCN: Is that why you have had issues with companies adhering to conditions put on deals?

AF: Even [with] how they are able to be enforced, because of the FCC’s resources versus the resources of these companies. You know, a Tennis Channel that is competing with Comcast/NBC, if they feel like Comcast is favoring its own channel, enforcing these conditions sometimes has to be through private right of action, and boy it is really hard to do that against a behemoth. And even when the FCC wants to take action, that large company can drag it out and task the resources of the FCC.

MCN: You have been a big critic of the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger. What is your biggest concern?

AF: That it will hurt consumers, that it will be anti-competitive, so we will have less innovation and worse service to consumers in Minnesota and elsewhere, and less choice. It’s just too big. It is the No. 1 cable provider buying the No. 2 cable-TV provider. It’s the No. 1 Internet-broadband provider buying the No. 3 provider, and Comcast has about 12% or 13% of all television content and they can leverage all of that in a way that poses a lot of difficulties that I have with competition and it makes them a kind of gatekeeper in content. It gives them too big a position in the market and they will leverage that position with their Wall Street investors on their phone calls.

MCN: Are there any conditions the government could put on the deal that would make it acceptable? Say, extending the network-neutrality conditions beyond 2018?

AF: I am not talking about conditions at this point, because I think the FCC and [Justice Department] should block the deal.

MCN: Do you have a similar “bigness” issue with AT&T-DirecTV?

AF: I am continuing to evaluate that deal. It is a different thing, but I have the same kind of problems. One of them is size and what that does to competition. They say they will make broadband access available to millions of new customers and that the deal will create jobs, but this will just give AT&T a lot of power across the telecommunications industry, and that can be bad for consumers.

MCN: But you don’t oppose it?

AF: I have not come to a conclusion on that. I’m still analyzing the deal. I wrote a letter to the FCC and the DOJ explaining my concerns, and I pressed AT&T about some of the questions I had in the hearings on municipal broadband and on net neutrality. I am very concerned about network neutrality, as you know.

MCN: Comcast and others argue that they need this size and scale to compete with each other and to have the wherewithal to invest in all this higher-speed, more available broadband the government is pushing them to deploy. Don’t they have a point?

AF: When AT&T is saying it needs its size to compete with Comcast if it buys Time Warner Cable, I think that speaks to the importance of not allowing Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable, because you see that more concentration of media begets more concentration of media.

I believe that media consolidation is a huge problem for American consumers and a real threat to our democracy. We need more competition, not less, because as these big corporations get bigger, consumers get stuck with higher prices, fewer choices and worse service. And these companies aren’t selling widgets; they control the means by which we communicate with each other and share ideas, so media consolidation threatens the diversity of views on which our democracy relies.

MCN: Moving to network neutrality, you are pushing the Federal Communications Commission to use its Title II authority to restore the rules …

AF: Yes, just label [broadband service as] a telecommunications industry. The court has said they could do that, and I think they should probably take the court’s advice. I think that would go a long way toward protecting net neutrality and I think it would go a long way toward making this sphere more competitive.

MCN: You described FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposed new Open Internet order as possibly the beginning of the end of the Internet as we know it. Why did you say that?

AF: The chairman had brought up the idea of fast lanes, essentially. And I find that completely, diametrically opposed to net neutrality. I mean, the whole point of net neutrality is that all content is treated neutrally, or the same and travels at the same speed, and that has been the architecture of the Internet from the beginning. I want people to understand that. We’ve had members of Congress saying, “Well, we’ve had all this innovation of the Internet without net neutrality,” and they don’t understand that. I don’t want any of your readers to misunderstand that because we have had net neutrality from the beginning and the Internet has grown and exploded not just while we have had net neutrality, but because of it. The innovation that has come along has allowed startups and new companies to compete with very large companies and beat them because their content gets to travel at the same speed.

MCN: You were talking earlier about municipal broadband. You signed on to a letter about pre-empting municipal broadband regulations. Why should the FCC step in?

AF: I think the incumbents in Internet broadband have worked to stop municipal broadband, which can serve their residents and citizens very well. [Incumbents] have funded campaigns in state legislatures to stop municipalities from doing their own broadband, and I think that’s wrong.

That is why I asked [AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson] whether they had done that [at a June 24 hearing on the AT&T-DirecTV merger], and I guess he didn’t know.

MCN: Ultimately, though, it is the legislatures that vote on those laws. So, are they ostensibly representing their constituents?

AF: There has just been a big lobbying effort in state legislatures that has kind of been one-sided, and I think that they may not be voting in the interests in these municipalities and the citizens of these municipalities. So, it is sometimes when these very big, deep-pocketed corporations exercise those resources you get results that don’t necessarily serve the people.

MCN: Protecting privacy online is one of your signature issues. What is the latest on that front?

AF: I have been looking at location privacy. Smartphones have exploded over the last several years and these phones have apps, and sometimes the phones themselves, that can record where you are. And I feel that this location information is sensitive. It is where you live and work and take your children to school and go to church and where and when you go to the doctor. So, I think people should have the right to control that information; to give their approval if you want to take that information and share it.

Obviously, a lot of great things come out of there being this location data. If you want to go to the nearest Pizza Hut or bowling alley or whatever, you need to do that, and you are going to say, “Yes, take my location.” But there also have been abuses, and one of the worst abuses was from one of the first pieces of testimony that I got when I first did hearings, which was from the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women. It was about a woman in Northern Minnesota in an abusive relationship who went to a county building where there was a domestic-violence center. The counselors there took her to a county courthouse to file a restraining order against the guy. Within a few minutes, he texted her and asked why she was in the courthouse.

This cyber-stalking has being going on for a long time, but the last statistics DOJ had on this were, I believe, from 2006, and it was 25,000 cases. Think of what the explosion has been since then in the use of smartphones. We have had hearings with law-enforcement and domestic-violence groups and this is very, very prevalent. Part of what I am trying to do with my location bill is making the marketing and selling of these [stalking apps] illegal.

MCN: What made you decide to get into politics and do you see it as a natural progression from your taking aim at the right wing, both on Air America and through your books, to actually being able to do something about it through the process?

AF: Well, yeah. I had been very conscious of public policy throughout my entire life. Ever since I was 11 or 12 years old, during the civil rights movement, I got kind of involved and interested in public policy. My dad was a Republican, but during the civil-rights debate he became a Democrat because of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. Sen. [Barry] Goldwater [then the Republican candidate for president] had voted against it, and my dad said, “That’s it.”

That was very informative to me. This is something I have always been interested in. When I started doing comedy in high school with Tom Davis, I started doing political satire. When we got to Saturday Night Live, we were doing a lot of the political satire with Jim Downey, who is conservative, but a very, very thoughtful conservative. We felt the job of the show was to be insightful in our satire, but not to be liberal or conservative.

I think we did a really good job of that, and I am very proud of the work I did with a lot of my other writers there. But when I left the show in 1995 finally, I saw what the Gingrich revolution was, and I wrote the book about Rush Limbaugh [Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations]. That was my sort of saying, “OK, now I’m not writing for a bunch of other people, I’m writing for me.” I think your take is exactly right that it was a natural progression [to politics].

The tragedy of Paul and Sheila and Martha and others all dying in that plane crash was also part of the road there. [Paul Wellstone, former Democratic senator from Minnesota, was killed in a plane crash in 2002 along with his wife, Sheila, and daughter, Martha.]

MCN: Do you consciously downplay your funny side so you will be taken more seriously, or are you just a Harvard government major who got sidetracked by comedy?

AF: People have written a lot about this and I think it is overplayed. I think my staff will say I’m funny around the office and my colleagues will say I’m funny. But I’m also very serious, and I think you can be funny and serious at the same time.