In an effort highly unlikely to succeed, Congressional Republicans are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to stand down from its proposed new digital equity rules.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and 27 colleagues said the FCC should rescind its draft order on digital discrimination, which they say is tantamount to government control over virtually all aspects of the Internet. Cruz is ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee.

They argued in a letter to FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel that the rules would also open internet service providers up to “expansive, indeterminate and crippling” liability under a “disparate impact” standard.

The FCC is scheduled to vote November 15 on proposed rules implementing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which the Republicans acknowledge directed the FCC to “prevent digital discrimination of broadband access based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin."

Also Read: FCC’s Geoffrey Starks Says The Time for Digital Equity Is Now

But they also say the way the Democrat-led commission has chosen to try and do that is “untenably” broad and even inconsistent with the law the rules are implementing because they would “undermine Congress’s objective of promoting broadband access for all Americans.”

The Biden administration has told the FCC it should adopt a broad definition of digital discrimination, including in pricing, as it comes up with rules for handing out tens of billions of dollars in broadband buildout subsidies intended to achieve universal deployment by decade's end.

The FCC is planning to adopt such a broad definition, one that includes both intentional and, more problematic for Republicans, unintentional negative effects from facially neutral policies that have disparate impacts on minorities.

Disparate impact tests have long been a tool used in civil rights legislation.

ISPs have said that unintentional impacts should not be part of the definition. ISPs have asserted that a definition that included impacts would divert needed investment from maintaining and improving their networks, but the Biden administration advised the FCC that those claims should be “resisted.”

Also Read: Internet Providers Face Dual Regulatory Campaign

In the Republican letter, a copy of which was supplied to Multichannel News, Republican senators suggested a disparate impacts standard is an existential business threat because it would punish “the practical business choices and profit-related decisions that sustain a vibrant and dynamic free enterprise system.”

Signing on to the letter were Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Katie Boyd Britt (R-Ala.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.).

Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee have released a report they said shows that the Biden administration’s $42 billion-plus Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program is duplicative of other subsidy programs and ripe for waste, fraud and abuse, like doling out money to serve unserved locations at the National Zoo or funding “beachfront properties, mountain vacation homes and remote islands.”

The report also claims the program, which gives money to states to spend on broadband buildouts, includes requirements that “drive up overall program costs [and] burn through funding.” BEAD’s goal is to get internet to all Americans by the end of the decade.

On the duplication front, the report says that because the program did not distinguish between unserved locations that needed the money and ones that were technically unserved but about to be served using other broadband funding, over five million unserved locations that were already being funded under other programs got BEAD money.

The report basically lays out the Republican view of broadband subsidies in recommending “fixes” for BEAD. Those include that the money should not be used to overbuild where there is already service and should not be biased in favor of fiber.

Republicans disagree with the BEAD program’s focus on fiber builds, saying that high-speed satellite broadband could be a more cost-effective solution.

The Biden administration favors fiber over wireless for the money, but is allowing for technology flexibility so long as the service meets baseline high-speed and quality standards. The money is being allocated with the aid of the FCC’s updated Broadband Availability Map.

Awards range from $27 million to more than $3.3 billion, with every state receiving a minimum of $107 million.

Also Read: ISP Associations Track Biden’s Broadband Billions

The funding will initially go to deploy and upgrade broadband networks, then of there is any left over it can go to access, adoption or equity-related issues.

The report suggests the funds are being diverted from truly unserved areas to, well, questionable ones.

“According to the FCC’s National Broadband Map,” the report says, “which was used by NTIA [the National Telecommunications & Information Administration] to allocate BEAD funding based on each state’s share of unserved locations, 58 of the 184 unserved locations in D.C. are at the Smithsonian National Zoo, including the Butterfly Garden, Lion-Tiger Hill and the Otter Pond.”

D.C’s share of the BEAD money was a whopping $547,000 per unserved location.

“Forty-two billion dollars is more than enough money to deliver broadband to every American,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), ranking member of the Committee in his introduction to the report. “Will it, said succeed in doing so? In light of these findings? [C]ount me skeptical. This report should serve as a call to action for the Biden administration and the states to ensure BEAD dollars are not funneled to duplicative and wasteful purposes, and instead are used to solve the nation’s connectivity challenges once and for all.”

Not surprisingly, the association representing fixed wireless internet providers, whose service to the unserved the Biden Administration did not favor subsidizing, saw the report as "spot on."

"Government policy to close the digital divide is awash in wasteful conflict, which limits its reach and ultimately dooms those who truly lack broadband," said Matt Mandel, VP of government affairs for WISP[Notice of Funding Opportunity], which sends $42 billion to the states for duplicative overbuilding – spending made even more pernicious due to the “Biden administration’s technology bias against non-fiber broadband [which] will drive up costs by billions of dollars and likely deprive some communities of any broadband access at all,” notes the Report. 

WISPA said the Biden Administration should follow the report's recommendation and end its bias against fiber alternatives like the internet service its members provide.

The opponents of Gigi Sohn's nomination to the Federal Communications Commission are bringing out their familiar artillery in their effort to keep her off the agency, where she would be the third Democrat, giving the Biden administration the majority it would need to tackle partisan issues, notably network neutrality rules.

Following President Joe Biden's renomination of Sohn last week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), launched an attack on her character and her politics, while Fox News Channel also ran a story taking aim.

“Gigi Sohn is one of the most radical and ethically compromised nominees I have ever seen during my Senate tenure and should never have been nominated in the first place,” Cruz said in a statement.

Also: Sohn: Fox News Criticism Does Not Extend to Viewers

Cruz — ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which votes on FCC nominations — said it was the committee's duty to conduct a “full and thorough vetting process” now that the president has thrown Sohn’s hat into the ring for a second time.

Sohn has already been nominated and vetted in two separate hearings, but that initial nomination failed to make it out of the Commerce Committee due to pushback from Republican critics and some concerns by a Democrat or two related to her net neutrality advocacy, views on rural broadband and tweets — as a public citizen — about Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.

Also: Sohn Says She Has Been Victim of Unfair Attacks

Cruz said there needs to be “updated paperwork, meetings with Senators and staff, and a new public hearing.”

Fox News ran a story January 8 pointing to a past Sohn tweet — actually a retweet of someone else — critical of former President Trump’s handling of racial issues, not a unique view among progressive Democrats. Sohn has tweeted criticisms of Fox News — also not unique among Democrats, which Fox pointed out in its story.
The story cited various Sohn critics, but she also has plenty of fans. Those include media mogul Byron Allen and three former chiefs of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, including two former top military officers. 

Sohn is the former head of fair-use advocacy group Public Knowledge and a former top adviser to Obama-era FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. She would be the first openly gay commissioner and first from the public advocacy sector — there have been several from the private advocacy sector, including Wheeler, who once ran NCTA-The Internet & Television Association.

FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel is waiting on a fifth commissioner to be able to tackle potential broadcast and internet service provider reregulation that the two Republican members are unlikely to support. ▪️

The Senate has weighed into what was described as an “overgrown standing army” of Big Tech monopolists, with Senate Antitrust Subcommittee chair Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) saying to the army of lobbyists that would try to take down a tough new antitrust law under consideration: “Bring it on.”

The bill, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, is aimed at preventing big online platforms like Apple, Google, Amazon and others from self-favoring conduct that leverages their dominance in search and apps and online commerce to suppress competition. A House version of the bill was also introduced in June, but the Senate version has a number of changes that would have to be reconciled.

Those new parts of the bill include clarifying that some types of “privacy-enhancing conduct” would be permitted, making sure that powerful platforms not publicly traded do not escape the bill’s coverage, and that subscription services like Amazon Prime Video and other streamers were not impacted.

The bill also now requires guidelines to be issued to the business community within nine months and a one-year period for covered platforms to come into compliance.

Klobuchar, a lead sponsor of the bill, said that helped the measure strike the right balance, but the hearing featured much striking out at provisions of the law from both sides.

While the bill did eventually pass out of committee Thursday, there is no guarantee it can achieve the necessary votes in the full Senate. 

While attacking Big Tech is one of the few issues that unites Democrats and Republicans, the bill being marked up by the Senate Judiciary Committee was hardly a bipartisan beatdown of the Big Tech pinata. In fact, it appeared to divide not only Democrat from Republican, but Democrat from Democrat.

There was disagreement on the content of the bill, the consequences — or unintended consequences — of the bill, and the process that got it to markup on Thursday (January 20).

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), ranking member of the antitrust panel, made it clear the bill was not, in its current form, the way to go. He said he could not support it, and he was not alone.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he still had issues that needed to be resolved before he could vote for it on the Senate floor.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had big problems with the bill's focus on regulating the behavior of the biggest big tech companies — Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon — while allowing others to engage in the same conduct. She said it could be a “very dangerous” law that could tip the balance of power toward big foreign firms not covered by the bill.

Feinstein said the bill had major security problems because it required companies to take down protections, a complaint lodged by some Republicans. She said she would oppose the bill and said it should have gotten a full committee hearing.

Lee also said one of his issues was there had been no legislative hearing on the bill. He conceded that it had been “mentioned” on occasion in other Big Tech antitrust hearings, but that did not equate with a legislative hearing on the bill itself.

The hearing featured a testy exchange between Feinstein and Klobuchar, with Klobuchar saying one claim Feinstein made about administration concerns with the bill was “not true.”

Lee asked how much pro-competitive behavior could get caught in the bill and end up with the unintended consequence of removal of popular products and services that helped consumers.

The bill potentially fines violators 15% of a company's total revenue, which Lee said would just line government coffers. He said the penalties were not tied to actual harms, and could just push online platforms to stop working with third parties.

Lee also said he was concerned about giving federal agencies sweeping new power to redefine markets. He said that’s something that has never worked and he didn’t see why it would now.

He raised another hot-button issue. He said deep state bureaucrats should not be given control over Big Tech, and said the bill should address Big Tech censorship, rather than giving the keys over to the Federal Trade Commission to control those companies then use it against Republicans.

Klobuchar said she was shocked by some of the things Lee said and that the hearing — in December — where the bill was raised was hardly perfunctory and the Republicans' own witness supported the bill. Klobuchar said there have been four separate hearings related to the issues the bill addresses.

The American Edge Project has taken out ads on Washington media outlets opposing the bill and claiming it could hurt America's tech edge globally. Klobuchar conceded at the hearing that the bill's supporters did not have the money to take out TV ads showing their support, but were behind it nonetheless.

The bill did unite strange political bedfellows Klobuchar and conservative Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Hawley said the bill goes “right at competitive conduct." Hawley is one of the biggest Big Tech critics. He disagreed with Lee that the bill could, ironically, strengthen Big Tech, though he agreed with the Big Tech/Big Government alliance and about censoring speech.

Klobuchar warned that there would be attempts to delay the bill with a raft of amendments. Lee took issue with that, saying his amendments were an effort to make the bill better, not kill it.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said the bill was an overreach and needed more work, but said he would not call for a vote on the 40-plus amendments he had filed. His issues included who was covered, what it meant by making “preferencing” illegal and what the consequences of illegal “preferencing” would be. Another 40-some amendments were also withdrawn, but Klobuchar said she would stay there day and night to finish the markup.

Small Hopes for Compromise

While the bill made it out of committee, it was tough to see how there could be a meeting of the minds on exactly the way forward, particularly with the concerns addressed by many Democrats. Some of those Democrats said they could not vote for the bill in committee, others said they would vote for it, but could not vote for it in the full Senate without changes.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) backed an amendment to allow for individuals to sue Big Tech over violations of the new law, pointing out that support was a reversal from the norm, where Democrats push for private rights of action and Republicans oppose, including himself. But Cruz said Big Tech's conduct was so egregious he was ready to “unleash the trial lawyers.”

Some Democrats argued that the bill unfairly targeted conduct by larger players, but Cruz said that the bill was targeted to the large companies because “they were the monopolists.”

He ultimately withdrew all his amendments, saying he looked forward to working on the issue and would vote for the bill out of committee, but reserved judgment on a full-Senate vote.

Cruz used some of his time on bill discussion to agree with Lee that censorship of conservative speech by Big Tech is “pervasive, pernicious and brazen.” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) added that he saw Big Tech as a “killing field” for the truth. 

“This bill endangers U.S. digital leadership, and puts consumers’ security and privacy at risk," said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association after the 15-6 vote to report the bill to the full Senate. "Rather than drafting general rules to protect consumers’ welfare, the bill regulates the business models of a handful of companies.  This bill is European-style industrial policy, not competition policy.”

Consumer Reports, which got a shout-out during the hearing over its support of the bill, was understandably pleased it made it out of committee.

“The bill will stop the largest online platforms from imposing their self-serving rules on markets and society," said Sumit Sharma, senior researcher for tech competition at Consumer Reports. "The bill will benefit consumers by making it easier to install, choose, and use alternative apps and online services. It will remove the roadblocks that the largest online platforms have put up to hinder innovation by competitors. We will see more innovation as a result of the bill, which will create more choices for consumers.”■

Some powerful Republican Senators are taking strong issue with a Trump Administration request for input on a government-managed 5G network.

That came in a letter to President Trump from 19 senators, led by Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee.

That makes the feeling bipartisan and mutual. House Democrats two weeks ago pushed back on nationalized 5G.

Related: Pai Opposes Nationalized 5G Net

The senators tread carefully, opening their letter with praise for the President's leadership in the race to 5G and the "free market path" he has so far taken before saying that a Department of Defense request for information (RIF) on such a government-managed network worked against the President's objectives.

"Nationalizing 5G and experimenting with untested models for 5G deployment is not the way the United States will win the 5G race," they told the President. But they suggested it is the way to make 5G more vulnerable to attack. "When bad actors only need to penetrate one network, they have a greater likelihood of disrupting the United States communications services."

Kelly Cole, senior VP of government affairs, for telecom association CTIA, backed up the letter, quoting Trump's own words. “We commend Senator Thune and his 18 Senate colleagues for their continued leadership and commitment to a free market approach to building the 5G economy," said Cole. "As President Trump has said, a nationalized 5G network ‘won’t be as good, nearly as fast.’ He is right, and thanks to this Administration’s support for auctioned spectrum and private sector solutions, we benefit from multiple nationwide 5G networks today.”

Amid similar concerns last year about nationalizing the net to ensure its security from foreign attacks, the President signaled that he favored a private sector-driven approach.

Among the other senators signing on to the letter were Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) waded into Big Tech big time in a Federal Trade Commission oversight hearing that featured much edge-provider critiques.

Cruz was arguably the most pointed critic during the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing Tuesday (Nov. 27), which dealt primarily with online privacy and data protection and what additional authority the FTC needed to protect it. 

During questioning the FTC chair suggested the FTC should not be getting into the issue of censorship of speech by platforms, suggesting perhaps that was an area for the FCC.

Sen. Cruz, a former FTC staffer himself, got assurances that the commission was looking into what he called Google's "deceptive and intrusive collection of location information on Android smart phones, its tracking of in-store purchases and its "deceptive by design" user privacy settings.

Cruz asked if the FTC had investigated those claims and what it had found. 

While he said that he could not talk about the specifics of any non-public investigation, which in itself seemed to signal there was one, FTC chair Joseph Simons said that "if you read about it in the press"—Multichannel News was among those who wrote about those issues—or "if there's a congressional letter that points out a potential problem, we're on it."

That appeared to satisfy Cruz. But he was far from done.

He pointed to an Esquire article about how Facebook and Google are together worth $1.3 trillion dollars, and compared that to the companies often cited for their dominance.

To put that in perspective, he said, "you could merge the world's top five advertising agencies [WPP, Omnicon, Publicis, IPG and Dentsu], with five major media companies [Disney, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, CBS, Viacom] and still need to add five major communications companies [AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Charter and Dish]" and still only have 90% of what Google and Facebook are worth combined. 

He asked FTC chair Joseph Simons whether the FTC was concerned about the "massive accumulation of power" by Big Tech and how antitrust law should approach that massive concentration. 

Simons said the FTC was worried about the exercise of market power, not the fact of that power. He cautioned that the fact that they are big does not mean it is a problem unless "they got big by being bad"—through anticompetitive conduct—or remain big through such conduct, that is something the FTC needs to stop.

Democratic commissioner Rohit Chopra suggested there might be some competition issues in that very size. He said that if you talk to investors, many say they won't fund a new startup unless they can see the payday of it eventually being bought by a Google or Facebook. He told Cruz he wasn't sure there could be a competitive market or innovative economy "where investors are putting money only into ideas that they can sell to an existing incumbent. 

Cruz called those "good and important" concerns.

But he was not done. He wanted to talk about the issue of Silicon Valley censoring conservative speech. He said they were using their market power to silence discourse in the public space that they disagreed with—he cited Twitter banning a conservative speaker, apparently a reference to conservative Jesse Kelly (coincidentally, he has since been reinstated, Fox News reported Tuesday. Cruz said there was virtually no transparency about what Twitter, or Google or Facebook, might be doing to censor speech. He asked Simons what the FTC could and should be doing about that. 

Simons signaled it was not clear to him that the FTC should be doing anything in the area of speech. He said what Cruz was talking about was similar to the FCC's "fairness Act"—he meant Fairness Doctrine, under which the FCC enforced balanced speech on the airwaves. 

He said "maybe there is an FCC angle there that is appropriate for either the Congress or the FCC to pursue." Cruz was unlikely to be in favor of that, since Republicans long railed against the doctrine as itself a way to repress conservative speech. Simons said that unless it related to a competition issue, or is unfair or deceptive, "then I don't think we have a roll."

Democrat Chopra again signaled he was thinking more along Cruz's lines. He said that he agreed with Cruz that the public knows very little about how edge providers make those content decisions. While he conceded there were free speech issues that might not be in the FTC's wheelhouse, the FCC has [6B) authority to compel information about business practices and to vote to make some of that info public. 

Chopra said the FTC was in a position to reveal some of that information and that he would think hard about those speech issues. Cruz encouraged him to do so. 

Cruz said the FCC had ample authority to provide transparency if platforms were holding themselves up as neutral public squares, but were not. That, he said, would be false and deceptive, something the FTC can address not through antitrust authority but through its Sec. 5 authority.

Chopra, who clearly has his own issues with Big Tech, pointed out that the FTC's authority also extends to enforcing consent decrees with "several of the largest tech companies on the planet," including Google and Facebook. "We expect that those orders are followed. They are not suggestions."

GOP presidential candidate and Texas senator Ted Cruz wants the Congress to block the FCC from preempting state laws related to government provision of Internet access services or loosening communications restrictions on Cuba.

That is according to a copy of a raft of proposed amendments to a couple of FCC-related bills being marked up in the Senate Commerce Committee April 27.

On the FCC Process Reform Act, Cruz and Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) are jointly proposing the amendment to rein in the FCC's preemption of state laws limiting municipal broadband buildouts. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says those laws are pushed by incumbents to prevent price and service competition and the FCC has stepped in to preempt state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina. The FCC is currently in a court battle over that decision.

The amendment, according to the amendment list obtained by Multichannel News/B&C, "Prohibits the FCC form preventing states from implementing  laws relating to provision of broadband Internet access service by state and local governments."

Cruz is also looking to bulk up the FCC Reauthorization Act of 2016 (S. 2644) with a couple of amendments targeted at Administration efforts to ease restrictions on Cuba (Cruz's father, Rafael, was tortured and imprisoned in Cuba [during the Batista regime], according to the candidate).

The First would overturn the FCC's order removing Cuba from the "exclusion list."

In January, the FCC removed Cuba from that very short list--Cuba was actually the only country on the list--as part of the larger Administration effort to reestablish diplomatic ties to the island nation.

The FCC action meant that U.S. telecoms can provide Internet and phone service to Cuba without seeking a separate approval from the FCC. Those telecoms will be able to get authority more easily, says the FCC, or those already with authority to deploy won't need an additional sign-on from the commission.

Cruz also wants to block the FCC from launching a Cuba-related rulemaking about "certain nondiscrimination requirements relating to Cuba.

Those are just some of a boatload of amendments being teed up for the two bills. Others include 1) a GAO study on the IP transition, 2) a review of "certain media ownership rules," 3) a report on the incentive auction repack, 4) a small business exemption (fewer than 250,0000 subs) from the enhanced transparency rule in the Open Internet order (a similar waiver has already passed the House); 5) a GAO report on waste and overbuilding in the E-rate program, 6) a requirement that the FCC include a disclaimer when making a public statement about a notice of apparent liability, 7) a requirement that it publish complaints on a publicly available Web site, 8) a requirement that the GAO report on "issues" related to the National Broadband Map, 9) permitting NTIA to authorize Federal agencies to "accept certain payments related to spectrum efficiency and reallocation," an FCC report on "the use of certain proceeds from a competitive bidding process; 10) a requirement that the FCC report on any auctions it expects to conduct in succeeding 12-month periods; 11) a requirement that a member of the FCC sign any "compulsory" process or request for documents, information or testimony "in support of an investigation or inquiry," and 12) a report on "delays in processing broadband license applications."

WASHINGTON — Fox News Channel has confirmed that its March 21 Republican Presidential Candidate Debate from Salt Lake City, Utah, has been canceled due to the pullout of two of the three remaining candidates.

"On Feb. 20, the Republican National Committee announced that a GOP presidential primary debate would be held on March 21 in Salt Lake City," 
said Michael Clemente, EVP, news, for FNC, in a statement. "They offered that debate to Fox News Channel to host, provided there were enough candidates actively campaigning.

[SEE RELATED STORY: Donald Trump makes the morning talk-show rounds, says "there could be riots" in Cleveland at GOP convention.]

"This morning, Donald Trump announced he would not be participating in the debate," said Clemente, which set the dominos in motion. "Shortly afterward, John Kasich's campaign announced that without Trump at the debate, Kasich would not participate. Ted Cruz has expressed a willingness to debate Trump or Kasich — or both. But obviously, there needs to be more than one participant. So the Salt Lake City debate is cancelled."

The debate was to have aired on the eve of the Utah and Arizona primaries and hosted by Fox News's same trio of moderators, Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, who had hosted the three previous FNC GOP debates.

Those three debates have been the three highest-rated programs of any type in Fox News’s history, topped by the first debate on Aug. 6 with 24 million viewers.

The debate was still on the RNC's list at press time, but with sponsors "TBD." Now make that "not TBD."

WASHINGTON — Free Press Action Fund released a 2016 Internet Voter Guide Monday (March 14) providing its take on the candidates views on the issues the net neutrality fan says are most important to Internet voters.

Nobody got particularly high marks on the issue of encryption, with free press saying no candidate has backed "strong, pro-consumer" measures.

"Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio have all challenged Apple’s right to protect the security of its users, and both Democratic candidates vaguely advocated for both parties to work together for a solution," Free Press said. For its part, the group has backed protests of the FBI's legal effort to get Apple to help it access info on the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The guide also out, for example, that Hillary Clinton in 2015 wrote a piece in support of the FCC's preemption of state laws limiting municipal broadband buildouts, while Ted Cruz wrote the FCC claiming it was a threat to states rights

Other takeaways:

• "While more than 34 million Americans lack truly high-speed Internet at home, Donald Trump and Cruz have been silent on the issue and Gov. John Kasich has suggested that consumers are to blame for high broadband prices. In the Republican field, only Rubio has backed legislation to expand affordable Wi-Fi deployment and further use of unlicensed spectrum for Internet access.

• "Though three-quarters of Americans have either no broadband or no choice of Internet service providers, Cruz and Rubio oppose community broadband networks, which give local businesses and residents alternative options for high-speed Internet access. Neither Trump nor Kasich have articulated positions on the issue.

• "Cruz was one of only four Republicans to sponsor the USA Freedom Act, which curbs some of the government’s mass surveillance powers, and Kasich agreed that it was a “step forward.” When Secretary Hillary Clinton was in the Senate, she cast votes that enabled NSA mass surveillance but has since called on the NSA to be more transparent. Sen. Bernie Sanders has opposed the Patriot Act and stated that he would 'absolutely' end sweeping NSA surveillance. Trump and Rubio are both in favor of government spying on Americans.

• "Cruz, Rubio and Trump all oppose the Net Neutrality protections that millions of Americans fought for: All three Republican contenders have come out against the FCC’s open Internet rules. Both Democratic candidates have advocated for enforcing strong Net Neutrality rules."

Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump appear poised to dominate in the Super Tuesday primary state voting March 1, and Trump has widened his lead nationally over a diminishing GOP field, according to various national and state polls.

Trump has 49% of Republicans, 33 points ahead of his closest rival, Marco Rubio, with Ted Cruz at 15% (essentially Rubio and Cruz are in a statistical tie for second), according to the latest CNN/ORC poll (conducted Feb. 24-27).

On the Democratic side, Clinton has 55% of Democratic voters to rival Bernie Sanders' 38%.

If Trump and Clintondominate, each will be in a strong position to grab their respective nominations, though Cruz is leading in his home state of Texas, which would give him more than a quarter (155) of the delegates at stake on the GOP side.

A dozen states (and American Samoa) hold their primaries March 1, with 595 delegates at stake on the Republican side and 865 on the Democratic, according to an NPR Super Tuesday primer.

A total of 2,383 delegates are needed to win the Democratic nomination and 1,237 needed to win the Republican nod. Political analyst Josh Putnam, interviewed for the Washington Post, said the different totals are because the Republicans only allocate three delegates per congressional district, whether is heavily Republican, while Democrats allocate more delegates in Democrat-heavy districts.

To mark the one-year anniversary of the FCC's partisan vote to impose Title II-based network neutrality rules, eight Republican senators including two presidential candidates co-sponsored a bill to nullify that vote and prevent any future reclassification of Internet access as a telecommunications service subject to Title II.

Presidential candidates Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.) signed on to the bill, spearheaded by Sen. Mike Lee (Utah), along with former candidate Rand Paul (Ky.), John Cornwyn (Tex.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Benjamin Sasse (Neb.), and Thom Tillis (N.C.).

The bill is essentially one paragraph, and states: "The rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission....on Feb. 26, 2015 (relating to broadband Internet access service) shall have no force or effect, and the Commission may not reissue such rule in substantially the same form, or issue a new rule that is substantially the same as such rule, unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of enactment of this Act."

“The Internet has always been one of the best models of the free market,” said Rubio in a statement after the bill was introduced. “There are low barriers to entry, back and forth communication between consumers and providers, and a rapid evolution of ideas. “Through burdensome regulations and tight control like the net neutrality rule, the government only hinders accessibility and the diversity of content,” he said. “Consumers should be driving the market, and we can help by encouraging innovation, incentivizing investment, and promoting the competitive environment this industry needs.”

“The threat of anticompetitive behavior should always be taken seriously,” Lee said in introducing the bill, [b]ut it makes no sense for a five-person panel of presidential appointees to write a sweeping law aimed at solving a problem that might someday exist. There are more effective, more democratic, and less intrusive ways to address anticompetitive behavior, including existing antitrust and consumer-protection laws.”

The bill makes a statement, but is highly unlikely to make it into law. Republicans tried a similar net neutrality- blocking maneuver with riders on last year's omnibus budget bill.

On the other side of the presidential race, both former Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are big backers of net neutrality rules. Sanders, in fact, joined in an amicus brief from Democratic senators last fall backing the FCC in its court defense of Title II-based regs.

With all due respect to Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the biggest winners at Monday night’s Iowa caucus were the cable news networks.

With viewer interest in this year’s presidential political campaign at unprecedented levels, its not surprising that Fox News, CNN and MSNBC drew big numbers for their coverage of the political primary season’s first voting night.

Fox News and CNN can fight over whose caucus coverage won over the biggest audeince – Fox News drew 4.3 million viewers during the 8 p.m. to midnight time period to top all news nets, while CNN reached a cable news network high 1.4 million viewers in the adult 25-54 category – but the fact is that coverage from all three networks easily bested their respective primetime audience averages.

The high ratings performances continues the trend begun last fall with the Republican Presidential debate telecasts notching record audiences for Fox News and CNN, as well as Fox Business Network and CNBC.

With the New Hampshire primaries a week away and primaries in Nevada and South Carolina later this month, look for viewers to continue to vote for the cable news networks as the primary outlets for their political fix.