SAN FRANCISCO -- A three-hour hearing in federal district court Friday examined questions Judge Jeffrey White still had after reading the briefs on cross-motions for summary judgment and to dismiss cases challenging the government’s alleged warrantless online surveillance program. The cases, Carolyn Jewel v. the National Security Agency (NSA) and Virginia Shubert v. George W. Bush, were brought after Mark Klein, a one-time AT&T engineer in San Francisco, raised allegations that AT&T was diverting Internet traffic to an NSA-controlled room in AT&T’s San Francisco facilities.
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Joe L. Allbritton, 87, whose company owns eight ABC-affiliated stations including WJLA Washington, and a D.C.-area cable news channel that was among the first of its kind and which he helped start in 1991, died Wednesday in Houston. After making his mark, and money, in banking, in 1974 Allbritton bought The Washington Star and sold it four years later to comply with FCC cross-ownership rules. He’s survived by wife Barbara, son Robert who is CEO of Allbritton Communications, and two grandchildren.
The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters backed the FCC devising a pathway to promote minority ownership of stations. That’s if NABOB’s preferred approach, that the forthcoming order ending the quadrennial review of ownership do that, isn’t taken. Outside the FCC Wednesday, activists voiced opposition to ownership deregulation, while Sinclair continued (CD Dec 10 p13) seeking changes to the draft Media Bureau order so it doesn’t deem attributable TV joint services agreements (JSAs). The pathway to completing research on barriers to entry faced by people of color and women owning radio and TV stations is also getting attention at the commission (CD Dec 12 p5). “The Commission must, at a bare minimum, provide a clear commitment, complete with a timetable, for completing the necessary studies and for adopting such a policy” on minority ownership, NABOB Executive Director Jim Winston wrote FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Seventeen years after the Supreme Court’s Adarand decision on what government agencies must show to adopt rules targeting certain demographic groups, the commission still lacks a minority ownership policy, Winston wrote. He said an order “which continues the long history of dawdling and delay that has characterized the Commission’s approach to creating such a policy will send a very negative message to minority communities” and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that’s remanded two previous ownership orders. The 3rd Circuit’s 2011 ruling obligates the agency to finish studies before adopting the order, though if the FCC approves new rules it must show the 3rd Circuit it’s “not ignoring this issue or putting it off until some unspecified date in the future,” Winston wrote Tuesday in docket 09-182 (http://xrl.us/bn54r2). Such a commitment should discuss the studies the commission will prepare and have a timetable to complete them and to start a new policy, Winston said. The number of black-owned radio stations fell 10 percent to 225 between 1995 and 2012, and the number of such TV outlets fell 65 percent to eight, he said. “The Commission must take concrete steps to end this loss of voices.” Free Press said its activists and others, gathering outside the commission, distributed fliers opposing ownership deregulation. The headline of the mock-up newspaper Free Press said “OBAMA OPPOSES CROSS-OWNERSHIP,” a reference to then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. (http://xrl.us/bn54rs). A bureau spokeswoman had no comment. Sinclair CEO David Smith met Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to oppose attributing TV JSAs, which have “nothing to do with the control” of TV programming, the company said in a filing in the docket (http://xrl.us/bn54sn). It said cost savings from the arrangements “are vital to the financial health of both stations” in a JSA.
Partisan strife flared in a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Wednesday over the FCC framework for the spectrum incentive auction. Republican lawmakers and FCC commissioners sparred with Democrats over how the government should acquire and reallocate some of the nation’s most valuable airwaves. Partisan differences over how much spectrum should be preserved to protect licensed spectrum and be used for lower-power unlicensed activities played out in recent days in commissioners’ prepared testimony (CD Dec 12 p7). Democrats separately expressed disapproval of a draft order that would relax media cross-ownership rules (CD Dec 12 p5), which they said would have a negative impact on media diversity and localism.
FCC staff working toward a redrafted quadrennial media ownership order to end the current review early next year are considering adding provisions that target some deregulation to aid diversity beyond the current draft, agency, industry and nonprofit officials said. They said career staffers appear to be giving attention to including provisions that industry and nonprofit backers say would help diversity without targeting only minorities. Targeting women and minorities can’t be done until research on barriers to entry is completed (CD Nov 19 p1). If staff finds provisions that are non-controversial inside and outside the agency, those adds could go in the new order to end the review due in 2010 under the Telecom Act, said officials observing the redrafting.
The Newspaper Association of America said it supports the FCC’s proposal to relax its “antiquated” ban on media cross-ownership. Its support came in a letter Tuesday to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. The FCC should go beyond the “modest changes” in its proposal and “allow for investments in newspaper journalism from television stations that are ranked in the top four in their markets,” the letter said. “This outdated rule is preventing media companies from investing in newspapers at a time when local journalism needs to be bolstered,” the group said.
A new FCC task force will provide recommendations on ways to modernize and coordinate the commission’s policies on Internet Protocol interconnection, the resiliency of modern communications networks, business broadband competition and consumer protection on voice services, officials said. Recommendations for the proper focus of the Technology Transitions Policy Task Force were divided. Large telcos and anti-regulation think tanks encouraged deregulation; CLECs, special access purchasers and smaller providers encouraged adoption of IP interconnection policies. All told us their recommended policies would maximize consumer welfare, competition and innovation.
Sinclair’s top lawyer visited the FCC to ask it not attribute ownership of separately owned stations in the same market that are in TV joint sales agreements, as foes of consolidation opposed the same draft ownership rules on other grounds, filings in docket 09-182 say. The “stale” record from a 2004 rulemaking notice proposing to attribute such agreements shouldn’t be relied on in the forthcoming order ending the quadrennial ownership review due to Congress in 2010 (CD Nov 29 p5), Sinclair General Counsel Barry Farber told commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel and aides to Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Robert McDowell. “The FCC should open the proceeding for further comment in order to refresh” the record, the company said (http://xrl.us/bn5b9y). Four groups saying they're the largest U.S. civil rights organizations clarified they don’t back allowing newspaper/broadcaster cross-ownership. “We do not object to a relaxation of the NBCO if such a relaxation would not diminish minority ownership,” the Asian American Justice Center, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Council of La Raza and National Urban League wrote (http://xrl.us/bn5cac). The 30-day comment period through Jan. 4 on female and minority radio and TV station ownership figures isn’t “sufficient to analyze whether any relaxation of the NBCO will diminish minority ownership,” the four groups said. “The burden of proof is on the Commission to produce analysis for further public comment that any proposed changes to the NBCO or anything else in the 2010 Quadrennial Review will not diminish minority ownership.” There’s a “growing chorus of popular and political opposition to the course of action charted and the rule changes” in the draft order, Free Press reported (http://xrl.us/bn5cag) telling an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The order is expected to be voted on next year (CD Dec 5 p2).
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., urged the FCC not to weaken its rules on cross-ownership of newspapers, television and radio stations in the same media markets, in a news conference Thursday. They said they oppose any rule change that would discourage diversity in media ownership, limit public access to unbiased information and impact local news coverage and competition, according to a news release.
The European Commission plans to deal with troublesome online content issues starting next year, it said Wednesday after an “orientation debate” called by President José Manuel Barroso. With Europe’s digital economy predicted to grow seven times faster than its overall gross domestic product in the next few years, the EC wants to ensure that copyright rules work in the digital context, it said. Parallel tracks will deal next year with several issues where quick progress is needed, with decisions coming in 2014, it said. The EC hasn’t really tackled those matters until now, focusing instead on studies and limited topics such as collective licensing and orphan works, EC sources said. But the Digital Agenda mid-term review, due Dec. 19, is expected to name copyright reform as a top priority, and government leaders want concrete acts to spur the digital single market. There wasn’t enough work being done on the critical issues, and then the polarized focus on enforcement in the context of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) made things worse, they said.