The FCC has expanded its role in national security enforcement by imposing a fine on Marlink over its non-U.S. employees' access to its domestic infrastructure and customer data (see 2601080025), Morgan Lewis lawyers blogged last week. They said companies in the U.S. telecommunications and information and communications technology and services sectors that have national security mitigation agreements will need to carefully review their compliance frameworks and make sure they're adhering to those obligations. The FCC's enforcement action "sets a strong precedent" that commitments under the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector "are not optional and will be actively monitored and enforced." It also shows that administrative and timing requirements in mitigation agreements are enforceable conditions, the lawyers added.

A group of press freedom and civil liberties groups, including several that commonly work on FCC matters, issued a joint statement Thursday condemning an FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home. Signatories included Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Media and Democracy Project, the Newsguild sector of the Communications Workers of America, the American Civil Liberties Union and others. The FBI searched reporter Hannah Natanson’s home Wednesday in connection with an investigation into leaks of classified information.

The FCC fining Marlink over its non-U.S. employees' access to its domestic infrastructure and customer data (see 2601080025) shows that the agency will pursue robust enforcement "when a clear national security nexus exists," Proskauer foreign investment lawyer John Ingrassia and national security lawyer Eric Johnson wrote this week. The fine and mandatory compliance plan are signs that the FCC and the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector ("Team Telecom") see regulatory commitments about critical communication infrastructure and access to sensitive customer data as "binding and non-negotiable." Companies with obligations under Team Telecom national security mitigation agreements should view them as enforceable commitments and make sure internal compliance procedures are thoroughly resourced, the lawyers said.

DOJ asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to realign parties in the case that the justices agreed to hear about FCC enforcement and data privacy rules (see 2601120047). With multiple challenges to decisions by courts of appeal, the realignment would ensure “that the same parties are not treated as petitioners in one case and respondents in another, overlapping case,” the department said in docket 25-406.

Consumers’ Research and its allies outlined the legal reasoning behind their latest attack on the legality of the USF contribution factor, filing a brief Monday with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explaining why the conservative circuit should once again declare the factor unconstitutional.

FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty laid out a framework for the agency to work on protecting communications networks from national security threats in a speech Monday to the Hudson Institute, saying that doing so has become a priority for her as a commissioner. Modernizing U.S. communications networks requires updating legacy infrastructure, hardening “critical nodes” such as submarine cable landing stations and 911 centers, improving space and satellite security, and using data and AI to spot threats, she said. She called on the FCC to better protect submarine cables by coordinating with other agencies and the intelligence community; focus on stronger cross-border spectrum coordination; and “help support more robust situational awareness tools for state, local, and tribal emergency authorities.” Local officials "increasingly depend on timely, accurate, and actionable information about network outages, and modernizing those tools would strengthen response and recovery during crises."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a lower court’s dismissal of False Claims Act (FCA) actions brought by lawyers Mark O’Connor and Sara Leibman against UScellular, a former regional wireless carrier. O’Connor and Leibman sought review of a decision last February by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Marlink will pay a $175,000 fine and revise its controls of non-U.S. employees' access to its domestic infrastructure and some customer information under a consent decree with the FCC, announced Thursday. The commission said its investigation found that the satellite communications company didn't submit 186 foreign employees to DOJ for vetting before giving them access to U.S. communications infrastructure and customer information, as it was supposed to under a mitigation agreement that was a condition of its FCC licensing. Marlink's plan in the settlement includes setting up procedures for compliance with obligations concerning its foreign employees' access to domestic communications and communications infrastructure. The FCC said the Marlink consent decree was its first-ever enforcement of a mitigation agreement made with the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector ("Team Telecom").

The House Communications Subcommittee is considering holding its first FCC oversight hearing of this Congress next week, potentially on Jan. 14, several communications policy lobbyists told us. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr will likely draw most lawmakers’ questions, but fellow Commissioners Anna Gomez (D) and Olivia Trusty (R) will also appear before the subpanel, lobbyists said. Its last FCC oversight hearing was in July 2024 (see 2407090049). Carr testified at a House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee hearing in May on the agency's FY 2026 budget request (see 2505210074).

The FCC properly axed a restriction on the use of 136.75 MHz for aeronautical en route communications in part of the U.S., but that requires eliminating another section of agency rules as well, Aviation Spectrum Resources Inc. said in a filing posted Monday (docket 25-133). The subsection of Rule 87.263 was cut as part of the FCC's direct final rule vote at its October meeting (see 2510280024). ASRI said the DFR decision missed another subsection of the rule that also deals with oversight of and restrictions on 136.75 MHz, and the repeal of both is needed to be effective. It urged either a modification of the DFR or a supplemental DFR.