The Justice Department said Monday (July 19) that it has formally changed its policy to restrict the use of “compulsory processes” — such as subpoenas — to get information or records from members of the press on activities in the course of doing their jobs and in the “scope” of newsgathering.

The policy, effective immediately, was announced in a memo to department staff leadership by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Garland has asked a deputy attorney general to look into codifying the policy into department regulations to ensure the “durability” of the change, and added that he supports legislation that would protect the news media.

The Justice Department had already announced that it would not be issuing subpoenas for reporters' records in leak investigations.

The changes in policy followed a report in The New York Times that not only was the Biden White House continuing the pursuit of records from Times reporters, a holdover from a Trump-era investigation, but that it had issued a gag order preventing the publisher’s executives from talking about the matter, even to its own staff.

CNN also reported that the Trump administration had obtained phone records and email messages from the network’s correspondents as part of leak investigations.

Conservative cable news network Newsmax TV has added two former officials in the Trump campaign and White House to its lineup.

J. Hogan Gidley, who was deputy assistant to the president and principal deputy White House press secretary, and Jenna Ellis, who was a Trump attorney and senior legal adviser to the 2020 re-election campaign, will be on-air contributors.

Gidley's resume also includes communications director for former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and GOP Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Rick Santorum.

Gidley will analyze political news, while Ellis will provide a "legal and faith-based" perspective on the 2022 and 2024 elections.

According to Newsmax, it is currently in over 100 million homes, delivered by all the major cable operators, as well as on a number of over-the-top platforms.

President Joe Biden has rescinded former President Donald Trump’s May 2020 Section 230 executive order on online censorship (order 13925 on “Preventing Online Censorship,”) which was targeted at social media sites Trump had long argued were biased against conservatives and his Administration.

The current president has his own issues with Section 230 (candidate Biden told The New York Times it should be revoked. That section of the Communications Act provides websites with immunity from civil liability for their treatment of content posted on their sites by third parties, but the Trump effort was clearly not the way he wanted to approach the issue, which is still hot, though the effort to enlist the FCC as a regulator did not go anywhere.

Trump’s May 28 executive order enlisted the Federal Communications Commission in trying to weed out alleged censorship of conservative speech by labeling it deceptive and thus a violation of an online content provider's terms of service.

Current acting FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel at the time opposed the agency‘s participation in what appeared to be an exercise in discouraging content the president didn't like.

The order also directed the government not to spend ad dollars on sites determined to be violating those terms of service.  

As an independent agency, the FCC is not subject to executive orders, so the National Telecommunications & Information Administration was charged with asking the FCC to implement new rules allowing the FCC to judge under what conditions restricting access to content can be considered a violation of an online platform's terms of service. Currently the FCC does not regulate social media sites or ISPs beyond their terms of service.

The FCC ultimately took no action on the NTIA petition to regulate social media sites.

Biden revoked the order along with some others that tried to prevent the removal of "American Monuments, Memorials and Statues," and tied their attempted removal to "criminal violence."

The Justice Department filed its expected antitrust lawsuit against Google Tuesday (Oct. 20), joined by 11 states attorneys general. It called the company an illegal monopoly and vowed to "remedy the competitive harms."

The states are Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas.

Justice likened the suit to the iconic antitrust actions against AT&T and Microsoft.

Justice charges Google with "unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets," including by using ad revenues to anticompetitively pay phone manufacturers, carriers and others to keep Google as their default search engine.

"Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is deeply flawed," said a Google spokesperson. "People use Google because they choose to -- not because they're forced to or because they can't find alternatives."

The antitrust suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said Google acted anticompetitively by:

'Entering into exclusivity agreements that forbid preinstallation of any competing search service.

"Entering into tying and other arrangements that force preinstallation of its search applications in prime locations on mobile devices and make them undeletable, regardless of consumer preference.

"Entering into long-term agreements with Apple that require Google to be the default – and de facto exclusive – general search engine on Apple’s popular Safari browser and other Apple search tools.

"Generally using monopoly profits to buy preferential treatment for its search engine on devices, web browsers, and other search access points, creating a continuous and self-reinforcing cycle of monopolization."

"Google has foreclosed any meaningful search competitor from gaining vital distribution and scale, eliminating competition for a majority of search queries in the United States," Justice alleges, and [b]y restricting competition in search, Google’s conduct has harmed consumers by reducing the quality of search (including on dimensions such as privacy, data protection, and use of consumer data), lessening choice in search, and impeding innovation."

“Today, millions of Americans rely on the Internet and online platforms for their daily lives. Competition in this industry is vitally important, which is why today’s challenge against Google — the gatekeeper of the Internet — for violating antitrust laws is a monumental case both for the Department of Justice and for the American people,” said Attorney General William Barr of the announced suit. “Since my confirmation, I have prioritized the Department’s review of online market-leading platforms to ensure that our technology industries remain competitive.  This lawsuit strikes at the heart of Google’s grip over the internet for millions of American consumers, advertisers, small businesses and entrepreneurs beholden to an unlawful monopolist.”

“As with its historic antitrust actions against AT&T in 1974 and Microsoft in 1998, the Department is again enforcing the Sherman Act to restore the role of competition and open the door to the next wave of innovation—this time in vital digital markets,” said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen.

The search giant has long been in the Washington spotlight, dating back at least to hearings under then Senate Commerce chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), over its monopoly, either natural or unnatural, over online search and allegations it disadvantaged competitors.

Justice, the FTC and Congress have all been investigating Big Tech, including Google, over how it got that way and how that vast power is used.

In a separate announcement, New York Attorney General Letitia James and the attorneys general of Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah said they will continue their separate investigation into Google, which should be wrapping up in the 'coming weeks,' said James' office.

"If we decide to file a complaint, we would file a motion to consolidate our case with the DOJ’s. We would then litigate the consolidated case cooperatively, much as we did in the Microsoft case,” she said, adding that a multistate antitrust investigation into Facebook continues.

Related: Senate Dems Want Confirmation of Big Tech Investigations

While ISPs used to be Washington's favorite regulatory target as alleged gatekeepers, edge players have taken over the spotlight over issues like search and privacy and content moderation.

Related: Hill Ponders Taking Tougher Stance on Tech

President Donald Trump, who said Silicon Valley is out to un-elect him, had signaled Monday (Oct, 19) that some kind of lawsuit against The Edge was imminent.

The President's signaling of a lawsuit came after he was asked about Sec. 230 issues., but on Tuesday Barr said the Google suit was a separate issue from the government's concerns about online platform's Section 230 immunity from civil liability over their treatment of third-party content.

"The complaint filed today against Google is based on violations of the U.S. antitrust laws and is separate and distinct from concerns raised about content moderation and political censorship by online platforms," said Barr. 

Barr also signaled the suit did not close the book on the department's investigation of Big Tech and antitrust. "This is an important milestone, but not the end of our review of market-leading online platforms,' he said. "The Department will continue to vigorously investigate and enforce the antitrust laws where appropriate to protect and promote competition in the digital economy for the benefit of the American consumer.”

"Today’s lawsuit is the most important antitrust case in a generation," said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), one of Big Tech's biggest critics. "Google and its fellow Big Tech monopolists exercise unprecedented power over the lives of ordinary Americans, controlling everything from the news we read to the security of our most personal information. And Google in particular has gathered and maintained that power through illegal means. That is why I launched a sweeping antitrust investigation of Google when I was Missouri Attorney General, and that’s why I stand behind the Department of Justice’s actions today. But to be clear - this is just a first step, and I will continue to fight for the legislative solutions needed to end the tyranny of Big Tech."

Not surprisingly, computer companies were not happy with the announcement.

“One reason the U.S. technology sector is the envy of the world is antitrust policy that encourages dynamic markets that reward innovators and disrupt sluggish competitors," said Computer & Communications Industry Association president Matt Schruers. "It cannot escape notice that this suit was hurried out on the eve of an election where the Administration has aggressively pressured tech companies to take actions in its favor. Antitrust law should be driven by consumers’ interests, not political imperatives. We look forward to a court’s review of the facts and the evidence.”

The Trump Administration's efforts to get the FCC to regulate social media has drawn a crowd to the FCC docket seeking comment on the petition to that effect filed by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration.

Initial comments were due this week and so far total over 20,000, claiming the top spot on the FCC's top 10 list of busiest dockets in the past 30 days by more than tenfold over number two at 1,961 (the list of earth stations getting reimbursed by the FCC for their C-Band relocation).

FCC chairman Ajit Pai has said that he will err on the side of inclusiveness when it comes to such comments, which leaves the opportunity for some novel submissions.

Among the most recent were several variations of comments from "hell," ascribed to Lucifer, Hades, and Satan. All warned against regulating social media, likening the President's executive order on regulating social media, which mandated the NTIA petition, to "the torture we have in hell."

The docket features hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of identically worded comments asking the FCC to "reject the executive order to gut Section 230 and oppose similarly misguided proposals from politicians on both sides of the aisle."

President Trump is not alone in suggesting that Sec. 230 needs work. There are Democrats and Republicans inside and outside Congress who argue that the section, which provides social media sites with immunity from civil liability for most of the third-party content they moderate, needs a rethink in an age when those sites have so much control over what gets said by whom, to whom.

The price for extracting from U.S. networks equipment and software from Chinese vendors deemed security threats by the Trump Administration will come in at around $1.8 billion, according to figures released Friday by the FCC. 

The agency also said that most of that money, $1.6 billion of it, could be eligible for reimbursement to U.S. network operators from the federal government. 

In June, the FCC deemed technology provided by Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE to be security threats. The agency blocked access to the Universal Service Fund to any U.S. network operator that didn’t comply with the edict to remove Huawei and ZTE tech from their networks and not to buy any more of it again. 

The mandate burdened network operators with the task of replacing relatively inexpensive technology from the Chinese vendors with gear and software from pricier vendors—essentially buying the same tech twice, and paying substantially more the second time around. 

In March, however, the Trump Administration signed into law the Secure and Trusted Communications Act, which underwrote much of the replacement costs with tax dollars. 

Notably, The Verge quoted the CEO of a small Oregon carrier in June who said it would cost $1.5 million to replace Huawei equipment his company originally paid $500,000 for. The company also said it might not be able to come up with the cash to make the switch before receiving the government reimbursement. 

AT&T said it supports "the growing consensus that online platforms should be more accountable for, and more transparent about, the decisions that fundamentally shape American society today," including requiring them to disclose their management practices just as internet service providers must disclose their network management.

That came in the company's comments to the FCC on a Trump administration effort to regulate social media, which it said was meant to contribute to a bipartisan dialogue on edge providers who "enjoy extraordinary legal immunities designed a quarter-century ago to protect nascent innovators, not trillion-dollar corporations." That’s a reference to immunity from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter enjoy over their handling of third-party content.

It is that section that President Donald Trump, via the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, has asked the FCC to “clarify” so social media platforms can be regulated.

RELATED: Trump Tackles the Edge

When creating the immunity in 1996, AT&T said, Congress could not have foreseen courts expanding it to "confer near absolute immunity for online conduct that bears no relation" to the section's objective of reducing liability risks for platforms blocking "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" content. It said Congress also could not have foreseen that the protection from expensive lawsuits would extend not to financially vulnerable start-ups but to "the largest and most powerful companies in the world."

AT&T said platforms should be commended rather than condemned for their innovation and success, but that success breeds responsibility and should bring accountability. Policymakers should ensure accountability in two ways, the telco said: 1) by transparency about their "algorithmic choices" and 2) "just as AT&T and other ISPs disclose the basics of their network management practices to the public, leading tech platforms should now be required to make disclosures about how they collect and use data, how they rank search results, how they interconnect and interoperate with others, and more generally how their algorithms preference some content, products and services over others." 

While AT&T said it is not asking edge providers to reveal their "secret sauce," it does think that the public should get a gander at how a dominant platform designs algorithms to goose its own vertically integrated services over the competition. 

RELATED: Free State: FCC Has Authority to Clarify Sec. 230

AT&T also said it is OK with modifying Section 230 so that it does not provide immunity when leading platforms, as they routinely do, "amplify some content over other content and shape how it appears," often for financial reasons. In that case they should not play by "radically different" rules from publishers, like TV and radio, who have no such liability immunity.

AT&T did not endorse the Trump proposal for how to reform Section 230, but it did endorse a revisit and a single set of nationally consistent rules.

"It is time for federal policymakers to step back, return to first principles, and revisit whether and when the nation’s largest online platforms should enjoy legal immunities unavailable to similar companies in similar circumstances," the company said. 

The Trump Administration is asking for input on what questions it should be asking, or not asking, in the next Internet Use Survey.

That is according to Rafi Goldberg, policy analyst for the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, the administration's chief communications policy advisory arm.

In a blog post, Goldberg said NTIA was still studying the results of its latest survey, conducted in November of last year in conjunction with the Census Bureau, but is already looking for ways to improve the survey, either questions that should be changed or deleted or ones that weren't asked but should be.

NTIA said it will revise the survey accordingly, with Census Bureau experts doing "cognitive testing" of the next survey to weed out any questions that could case "confusion or elicit inaccurate responses."

The November survey included more than 50 questions on everything from WiFi and streaming video use to whether they have ever been cyberbullied.

No mention of whether NTIA will add a question about whether respondents think Big Tech censors political speech, which NTIA, at President Trump's behest, has asked the FCC to potentially regulate.

Early returns from the November survey include that "a persistent digital divide still exists based on income levels, age groups, and race, among other factors" and that the gaps between Whites and other groups when it came to internet use was significant and deserved more study.

It also found that the use of smart TV's and TV-connected devices increased rapidly over the past decade, from 14% of respondents in 2011 to 41% in 2019.

The Trump Administration's move Tuesday (July 28) limiting the DACA immigration program after the Supreme Court upholding it has drawn criticism from the tech industry.

The Administration is reviewing the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, but in the meantime it is freezing applications for the program.  

DACA is the Obama-era program that protects from deportation undocumented young people who immigrated to the U.S. as children. Tech companies argue that DACA "dreamers" are often highly skilled workers in tech and innovation industries. 

"Immigrants and children of immigrants play a key role in founding and leading innovative, fast-growing companies including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Intel," Consumer Technology Association President Gary Shapiro said following the Supreme Court decision to allow DACA to continue. 

"The Administration has gone from placing DACA applicants 'into A bucket' to throwing them away," said TechNet. 

“In June, DACA recipients and applicants breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s attempt to arbitrarily end the program," said TechNet President Linda Moore. "Just last week, the Justice Department stated in open court that they are defying the Court's decision by holding new applications and placing them 'into a bucket.’ Now, the administration is thumbing its nose at our courts further by refusing new applications and slashing DACA recipients’ renewal period by half, from two years to one." 

“Today’s guidance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security creates more uncertainty and hardship for our nation’s DACA recipients, limiting their ability to contribute important talents and innovative spirit to the U.S. economy," said tech association ITI President Jason Oxman. "Rather than advancing efforts to eliminate or weaken the DACA program, we urge the Trump Administration to advance a permanent legislative solution that would ensure these Americans’ legal status once and for all.” 

Fox Corp. has tapped a Trump Administration official to head up federal public policy.

Abigail Slater, who will be senior VP policy and strategy, had been special assistant to the President for technology, telecommunications and cybersecurity, advising National Economic Counsel President Larry Kudlow as well as the President.

She reports to Danny O'Brien, executive VP and head of government relations. "Abigail Slater has been a technology policy maker at the highest levels of government and industry and will use that expertise to craft and communicate Fox's policy priorities," said O'Brien.

O'Brien, once a top aide to former Vice President and now presidential candidate Joe Biden, was brought on in October as executive VP and head of government relations for the new Fox Corp.

The new Fox consists of the Fox broadcast networks, its owned stations, the Fox national sports channels and Fox News, the result of parent News Corp.'s spin off of its 21st Century Fox programming assets to Disney.

Before joining the White House, Slater had been general counsel and VP, legal and regulatory policy, for the Internet Association--whose members include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Netflix--and, before that, was at the Federal Trade Commission as an attorney dealing with competition and antitrust issues as well as an adviser to then FTC commissioner Julie Brill.

Fox also made it official this week that Ann Bobeck has joined the team as VP for FCC legal and business affairs. B&Creported the hire in early April.

"Ann Bobeck is a national expert in broadcast regulatory matters whose deep legal and regulatory background will well serve the Fox Network and our Fox Television Stations," said O'Brien.

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said that the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. is on the way back to this country and the Trump Administration expects a report from him on the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist with The Washington Post who disappeared while visiting the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.

But Nauert refused to speculate on the cause of the disappearance and who might be responsible, saying they were going to wait for the facts.

She said an investigation is underway by multiple agencies, that the department won't get ahead of that investigation, and warned against relying on "speculation and rumors." That speculation--and reporting--includes that Khashoggi was either kidnapped or killed by the Saudis over his criticism of the government there.

The Washington Post reported Thursday (Oct. 11) that three were U.S. intercepts of Saudi official conversations that suggested Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman "ordered an operation to lure 'Washington Post' columnist Jamal Kashoggi back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia and then detain him." But Turkish officials concluded Khashoggi was instead killed at the consulate, said the Post.

The Post said the Administration had not commented on whether it warned Khashoggi about the potential detention.

One of the more fascinating ratings trends developing thus far in 2017 has been the strong, post-presidential election performance of cable news networks.

Not surprisingly, ratings for Fox News Channel, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC trended up in 2016 during a year that featured a particularly intense and heavy news-driven presidential campaign. Adult viewers spent more than 73.5 billion minutes consuming news in an average week last year, an 18% increase from the prior year, according to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report for fourth quarter 2016.

Most of the increases were generated by the national cable news networks. Viewers consumed 27.1 billion minutes of news from those channels during the year, compared to 18.8 billion in 2015, according to the report. By comparison, national broadcast TV news drew 14.3 billion minutes of news consumption in 2016, while local broadcast TV news generated 15.1 billion minutes.

The increases were solid across all age demos, including the elusive millennial audience. In fact, millennial viewers spent more time on a weekly basis in 2016 getting their news from national cable news channels than from any other source, with the exception of local radio, according to Nielsen. Ethnic groups also preferred to get their news fix from national cable news outlets compared to any other source, according to the report.

Overall, viewers spent more than six hours per week consuming cable news in 2016, up from more than four hours a week during the year of the 2012 campaign, according to Nielsen.

Once the election was over, most industry observers believed that cable news network viewership would return to traditional levels. Yet the strength of cable news network ratings has continued after the election and into President Donald Trump’s first 100 days.

Viewer fixation on cable news spilled into the first month of 2017 through Trump’s inauguration and the official transfer of power. Adult viewers averaged more than two hours per week watching national cable news in January, which was 20% higher than in January 2016, according to Nielsen.

Well into the first quarter of 2017, the appeal of cable news has yet to abate. Fox News was easily the most watched cable network in primetime and on a total day basis during the quarter, with MSNBC and CNN finishing among the top 15 most watched networks in primetime during the period, as the health-care law battle, investigations over alleged Trump administration Russian ties and wiretapping charges dominated coverage.

It’s arguable whether the cable news genre can continue its torrid ratings pace for the rest of 2017. But if the first quarter is any indication, it’s certainly possible that cable news networks could remarkably match or surpass their 2016 election ratings tallies.

PHOTO:Reports on the Trump administration's first 100 days -- such as CNN's coverage of the $21.6 million the president's golf trips to his Mara Lago Resort have cost taxpayers in the first 80 days vs. the $97 million President Obama's travel cost over his two terms -- are keeping cable news network ratings up.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Small Business Committee has approved Linda McMahon, cofounder and former CEO of TV wrestling empire WWE, as the administrator of the Small Business Administration.

While Tuesday was filled with moves to block President Donald Trump's cabinet picks, the vote for McMahon was 16 to zero and her nomination now goes to the Senate for a vote with the recommendation of the committee for confirmation.

Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), House Small Business Committee chairman, praised the move.

“As Linda demonstrated in her hearing last week, she will be a tremendous advocate for our nation’s 28 million small businesses and the absolute right person to lead the SBA," said Chabot.

At that Jan. 24 hearing, McMahon told the panel that as an entrepreneur, she had shared the experiences of small business owners, “the engines of our national economy,” while putting food on the table or braces on their children’s teeth.

She said she would advocate on their behalf if confirmed and said she was proud of growing WWE into a global business and knew what it was like to “take a risk on an idea.”