Further Reading, Other Developments, and Coming Events (22 October)

Further Reading

•  “A deepfake porn Telegram bot is being used to abuse thousands of women” By Matt Burgess — WIRED UK. A bot set loose on Telegram can take pictures of women and, apparently teens, too, and “takes off” their clothing, rendering a naked image of females who never took naked pictures. This seems to be the next iteration in deepfake porn, a problem that will surely get worse until governments legislate against it and technology companies have incentives to locate and take down such material.
• “The Facebook-Twitter-Trump Wars Are Actually About Something Else” By Charlie Warzel — The New York Times. This piece makes the case that there are no easy fixes for American democracy or for misinformation on social media platforms.
• “Facebook says it rejected 2.2m ads for breaking political campaigning rules” — Agence France-Presse. Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg said the social media giant is employing artificial intelligence and humans to find and remove political advertisements that violate policy in order to avoid a repeat of 2016 where untrue information and misinformation played roles in both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
• “Huawei Fallout—Game-Changing New China Threat Strikes At Apple And Samsung” By Zak Doffman — Forbes. Smartphone manufacturers from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) appear ready to step into the projected void caused by the United States (U.S.) strangling off Huawei’s access to chips. Xiaomi and Oppo have already seen sales surge worldwide and are poised to pick up where Huawei is being forced to leave off, perhaps demonstrating the limits of U.S. power to blunt the rise of PRC technology companies.
• “As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place” By Davey Alba and Jack Nicas — The New York Times. With a decline and demise of many local media outlets in the United States, new groups are stepping into the void, and some are politically minded but not transparent about biases. The organization uncovered in this article is nakedly Republican and is running and planting articles at both legitimate and artificial news sites for pay. Sometimes conservative donors pay, sometimes campaigns do. Democrats are engaged in the same activity but apparently to a lesser extent. These sorts of activities will only erode further faith in the U.S. media.
• “Forget Antitrust Laws. To Limit Tech, Some Say a New Regulator Is Needed.” By Steve Lohr — The New York Times. This piece argues that anti-trust enforcement actions are plodding, tending to take years to finish. Consequently, this body of law is inadequate to the task of addressing the market dominance of big technology companies. Instead, a new regulatory body is needed along the lines of those regulating the financial services industries that is more nimble than anti-trust. Given the problems in that industry with respect to regulation, this may not be the best model.
• “‘Do Not Track’ Is Back, and This Time It Might Work” By Gilad Edelman — WIRED. Looking to utilize the requirement in the “California Consumer Privacy Act” (CCPA) (AB 375) that requires regulated entities to respect and effectuate the use of a one-time opt-out mechanism, a group of entities have come together to build and roll out the Global Privacy Control. In theory, users could download this technical specification to their phones and computers, install it, use it once, and then all websites would be on notice regarding that person’s privacy preferences. Such a means would go to the problem turned up by Consumer Reports recent report on the difficulty of trying to opt out of having one’s personal information sold.
• “EU countries sound alarm about growing anti-5G movement” By Laurens Cerulus — Politico. 15 European Union (EU) nations wrote the European Commission (EC) warning that the nascent anti-5G movement borne of conspiracy thinking and misinformation threatens the Eu’s position vis-à-vis the United States (U.S.) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). There have been more than 200 documented arson attacks in the EU with the most having occurred in the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands. These nations called for a more muscular, more forceful debunking of the lies and misinformation being spread about 5G.
• “Security firms call Microsoft’s effort to disrupt botnet to protect against election interference ineffective” By Jay Greene — The Washington Post. Microsoft seemingly acted alongside the United States (U.S.) Cyber Command to take down and impair the operation of Trickbot, but now cybersecurity experts are questioning how effective Microsoft’s efforts really were. Researchers have shown the Russian operated Trickbot has already stood up operations and has dispersed across servers around the world, showing how difficult it is to address some cyber threats.
• “Governments around the globe find ways to abuse Facebook” By Sara Fischer and Ashley Gold — Axios. This piece puts a different spin on the challenges Facebook faces in countries around the world, especially those that ruthlessly use the platform to spread lies and misinformation than the recent BuzzFeed News article. The new article paints Facebook as the well-meaning company being taken advantage of while the other one portrays a company callous to content moderation except in nations where it causes them political problems such as the United States, the European Union, and other western democracies.

Other Developments

• The United States (U.S.) Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Cyber-Digital Task Force (Task Force) issued “Cryptocurrency: An Enforcement Framework,” that “provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging threats and enforcement challenges associated with the increasing prevalence and use of cryptocurrency; details the important relationships that the Department of Justice has built with regulatory and enforcement partners both within the United States government and around the world; and outlines the Department’s response strategies.” The Task Force noted “[t]his document does not contain any new binding legal requirements not otherwise already imposed by statute or regulation.” The Task Force summarized the report:
  • [I]n Part I, the Framework provides a detailed threat overview, cataloging the three categories into which most illicit uses of cryptocurrency typically fall: (1) financial transactions associated with the commission of crimes; (2) money laundering and the shielding of legitimate activity from tax, reporting, or other legal requirements; and (3) crimes, such as theft, directly implicating the cryptocurrency marketplace itself. 
  • Part II explores the various legal and regulatory tools at the government’s disposal to confront the threats posed by cryptocurrency’s illicit uses, and highlights the strong and growing partnership between the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Commission, and agencies within the Department of the Treasury, among others, to enforce federal law in the cryptocurrency space.
  • Finally, the Enforcement Framework concludes in Part III with a discussion of the ongoing challenges the government faces in cryptocurrency enforcement—particularly with respect to business models (employed by certain cryptocurrency exchanges, platforms, kiosks, and casinos), and to activity (like “mixing” and “tumbling,” “chain hopping,” and certain instances of jurisdictional arbitrage) that may facilitate criminal activity.    
• The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has launched a new website for the United States’ (U.S.) quantum initiative and released a report titled “Quantum Frontiers: Report On Community Input To The Nation’s Strategy For Quantum Information Science.” The Quantum Initiative flows from the “National Quantum Initiative Act” (P.L. 115-368) “to  provide  for  a  coordinated  Federal  program  to  accelerate  quantum  research  and  development  for  the  economic and national security of the United States.” The OSTP explained that the report “outlines eight frontiers that contain core problems with fundamental questions confronting quantum information science (QIS) today:
  • Expanding Opportunities for Quantum Technologies to Benefit Society
  • Building the Discipline of Quantum Engineering
  • Targeting Materials Science for Quantum Technologies
  • Exploring Quantum Mechanics through Quantum Simulations
  • Harnessing Quantum Information Technology for Precision Measurements
  • Generating and Distributing Quantum Entanglement for New Applications
  • Characterizing and Mitigating Quantum Errors
  • Understanding the Universe through Quantum Information
  • OSTP asserted “[t]hese frontier areas, identified by the QIS research community, are priorities for the government, private sector, and academia to explore in order to drive breakthrough R&D.”
• The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) published its report on the July 2020 Twitter hack during which a team of hacker took over a number of high-profile accounts (e.g. Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian West, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk) in order to perpetrate a cryptocurrency scam. The NYDFS has jurisdiction over cryptocurrencies and companies dealing in this item in New York. The NYDFS found that the hackers used the most basic means to acquire permission to take over accounts. The NYDFS explained:
  • Given that Twitter is a publicly traded, $37 billion technology company, it was surprising how easily the Hackers were able to penetrate Twitter’s network and gain access to internal tools allowing them to take over any Twitter user’s account. Indeed, the Hackers used basic techniques more akin to those of a traditional scam artist: phone calls where they pretended to be from Twitter’s Information Technology department. The extraordinary access the Hackers obtained with this simple technique underscores Twitter’s cybersecurity vulnerability and the potential for devastating consequences. Notably, the Twitter Hack did not involve any of the high-tech or sophisticated techniques often used in cyberattacks–no malware, no exploits, and no backdoors.
  • The implications of the Twitter Hack extend far beyond this garden-variety fraud. There are well-documented examples of social media being used to manipulate markets and interfere with elections, often with the simple use of a single compromised account or a group of fake accounts.In the hands of a dangerous adversary, the same access obtained by the Hackers–the ability to take control of any Twitter users’ account–could cause even greater harm.
  • The Twitter Hack demonstrates the need for strong cybersecurity to curb the potential weaponization of major social media companies. But our public institutions have not caught up to the new challenges posed by social media. While policymakers focus on antitrust and content moderation problems with large social media companies, their cybersecurity is also critical. In other industries that are deemed critical infrastructure, such as telecommunications, utilities, and finance, we have established regulators and regulations to ensure that the public interest is protected. With respect to cybersecurity, that is what is needed for large, systemically important social media companies.
  • The NYDFS recommended the cybersecurity measures cryptocurrency companies in New York should implement to avoid similar hacks, including its own cybersecurity regulations that bind its regulated entities in New York. The NYDFS also called for a national regulator to address the lack of a dedicated regulator of Twitter and other massive social media platforms. The NYDFS asserted:
    • Social media companies currently have no dedicated regulator. They are subject to the same general oversight applicable to other companies. For instance, the SEC’s regulations for all public companies apply to public social media companies, and antitrust and related laws and regulations enforced by the Department of Justice and the FTC apply to social media companies as they do to all companies. Social media companies are also subject to generally applicable laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act and the New York SHIELD Act. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which regulates the storage and use of personal data, also applies to social media entities doing business in Europe.
    • But there are no regulators that have the authority to uniformly regulate social media platforms that operate over the internet, and to address the cybersecurity concerns identified in this Report. That regulatory vacuum must be filled.
    • A useful starting point is to create a “systemically important” designation for large social media companies, like the designation for critically important bank and non-bank financial institutions. In the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis, Congress established a new regulatory framework for financial institutions that posed a systemic threat to the financial system of the United States. An institution could be designated as a Systemically Important Financial Institution (“SIFI”) “where the failure of or a disruption to the functioning of a financial market utility or the conduct of a payment, clearing, or settlement activity could create, or increase, the risk of significant liquidity or credit problems spreading among financial institutions or markets and thereby threaten the stability of the financial system of the United States.”
    • The risks posed by social media to our consumers, economy, and democracy are no less grave than the risks posed by large financial institutions. The scale and reach of these companies, combined with the ability of adversarial actors who can manipulate these systems, require a similarly bold and assertive regulatory approach.
    • The designation of an institution as a SIFI is made by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (“FSOC”), which Congress established to “identify risks to the financial stability of the United States” and to provide enhanced supervision of SIFIs.[67] The FSOC also “monitors regulatory gaps and overlaps to identify emerging sources of systemic risk.” In determining whether a financial institution is systemically important, the FSOC considers numerous factors including: the effect that a failure or disruption to an institution would have on financial markets and the broader financial system; the nature of the institution’s transactions and relationships; the nature, concentration, interconnectedness, and mix of the institution’s activities; and the degree to which the institution is regulated.
    • An analogue to the FSOC should be established to identify systemically important social media companies. This new Oversight Council should evaluate the reach and impact of social media companies, as well as the society-wide consequences of a social media platform’s misuse, to determine which companies they should designate as systemically important. Once designated, those companies should be subject to enhanced regulation, such as through the provision of “stress tests” to evaluate the social media companies’ susceptibility to key threats, including cyberattacks and election interference.
    • Finally, the success of such oversight will depend on the establishment of an expert agency to oversee designated social media companies. Systemically important financial companies designated by the FSOC are overseen by the Federal Reserve Board, which has a long-established and deep expertise in banking and financial market stability. A regulator for systemically important social media would likewise need deep expertise in areas such as technology, cybersecurity, and disinformation. This expert regulator could take various forms; it could be a completely new agency or could reside within an established agency or at an existing regulator.
• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluated how well the Trump Administration has been implementing the “Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary Government Data Act of 2018” (OPEN Government Data Act) (P.L. 115-435). As the GAO explained, this statute “requires federal agencies to publish their information as open data using standardized, nonproprietary formats, making data available to the public open by default, unless otherwise exempt…[and] codifies and expands on existing federal open data policy including the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) memorandum M-13-13 (M-13-13), Open Data Policy—Managing Information as an Asset.”
  • The GAO stated
    • To continue moving forward with open government data, the issuance of OMB implementation guidance should help agencies develop comprehensive inventories of their data assets, prioritize data assets for publication, and decide which data assets should or should not be made available to the public.
    • Implementation of this statutory requirement is critical to agencies’ full implementation and compliance with the act. In the absence of this guidance, agencies, particularly agencies that have not previously been subject to open data policies, could fall behind in meeting their statutory timeline for implementing comprehensive data inventories.
    • It is also important for OMB to meet its statutory responsibility to biennially report on agencies’ performance and compliance with the OPEN Government Data Act and to coordinate with General Services Administration (GSA) to improve the quality and availability of agency performance data that could inform this reporting. Access to this information could inform Congress and the public on agencies’ progress in opening their data and complying with statutory requirements. This information could also help agencies assess their progress and improve compliance with the act.
  • The GAO made three recommendations:
    • The Director of OMB should comply with its statutory requirement to issue implementation guidance to agencies to develop and maintain comprehensive data inventories. (Recommendation 1)
    • The Director of OMB should comply with the statutory requirement to electronically publish a report on agencies’ performance and compliance with the OPEN Government Data Act. (Recommendation 2)
    • The Director of OMB, in collaboration with the Administrator of GSA, should establish policy to ensure the routine identification and correction of errors in electronically published performance information. (Recommendation 3)
• The United States’ (U.S.) National Security Agency (NSA) issued a cybersecurity advisory titled “Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Exploit Publicly Known Vulnerabilities,” that “provides Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) known to be recently leveraged, or scanned-for, by Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors to enable successful hacking operations against a multitude of victim networks.” The NSA recommended a number of mitigations generally for U.S. entities, including:
  • Keep systems and products updated and patched as soon as possible after patches are released.
  • Expect that data stolen or modified (including credentials, accounts, and software) before the device was patched will not be alleviated by patching, making password changes and reviews of accounts a good practice.
  • Disable external management capabilities and set up an out-of-band management network.
  • Block obsolete or unused protocols at the network edge and disable them in device configurations.
  • Isolate Internet-facing services in a network Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to reduce the exposure of the internal network.
  • Enable robust logging of Internet-facing services and monitor the logs for signs of compromise.
  • The NSA then proceeded to recommend specific fixes.
  • The NSA provided this policy backdrop:
    • One of the greatest threats to U.S. National Security Systems (NSS), the U.S. Defense Industrial Base (DIB), and Department of Defense (DOD) information networks is Chinese state-sponsored malicious cyber activity. These networks often undergo a full array of tactics and techniques used by Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors to exploit computer networks of interest that hold sensitive intellectual property, economic, political, and military information. Since these techniques include exploitation of publicly known vulnerabilities, it is critical that network defenders prioritize patching and mitigation efforts.
    • The same process for planning the exploitation of a computer network by any sophisticated cyber actor is used by Chinese state-sponsored hackers. They often first identify a target, gather technical information on the target, identify any vulnerabilities associated with the target, develop or re-use an exploit for those vulnerabilities, and then launch their exploitation operation.
• Belgium’s data protection authority (DPA) (Autorité de protection des données in French or Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit in Dutch) (APD-GBA) has reportedly found that the Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) violates the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Real-Time Bidding (RTB) system used for online behavioral advertising allegedly transmits the personal information of European Union residents without their consent even before a popup appears on their screen asking for consent. The APD-GBA is the lead DPA in the EU in investigating the RTB and will likely now circulate their findings and recommendations to other EU DPAs before any enforcement will commence.
• None Of Your Business (noyb) announced “[t]he Irish High Court has granted leave for a “Judicial Review” against the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) today…[and] [t]he legal action by noyb aims to swiftly implement the [Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU)] Decision prohibiting Facebook’s” transfer of personal data from the European Union to the United States (U.S.) Last month, after the DPC directed Facebook to stop transferring the personal data of EU citizens to the U.S., the company filed suit in the Irish High Court to stop enforcement of the order and succeeded in staying the matter until the court rules on the merits of the challenge.
  • noyb further asserted:
    • Instead of making a decision in the pending procedure, the DPC has started a second, new investigation into the same subject matter (“Parallel Procedure”), as widely reported (see original reporting by the WSJ). No logical reasons for the Parallel Procedure was given, but the DPC has maintained that Mr Schrems will not be heard in this second case, as he is not a party in this Parallel Procedure. This Paralell procedure was criticised by Facebook publicly (link) and instantly blocked by a Judicial Review by Facebook (see report by Reuters).
    • Today’s Judicial Review by noyb is in many ways the counterpart to Facebook’s Judicial Review: While Facebook wants to block the second procedure by the DPC, noyb wants to move the original complaints procedure towards a decision.
    • Earlier this summer, the CJEU struck down the adequacy decision for the agreement between the EU and (U.S. that had provided the easiest means to transfer the personal data of EU citizens to the U.S. for processing under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (i.e. the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield). In the case known as Schrems II, the CJEU also cast doubt on whether standard contractual clauses (SCC) used to transfer personal data to the U.S. would pass muster given the grounds for finding the Privacy Shield inadequate: the U.S.’s surveillance regime and lack of meaningful redress for EU citizens. Consequently, it has appeared as if data protection authorities throughout the EU would need to revisit SCCs for transfers to the U.S., and it appears the DPC was looking to stop Facebook from using its SCC. Facebook is apparently arguing in its suit that it will suffer “extremely significant adverse effects” if the DPC’s decision is implemented.
• Most likely with the aim of helping British chances for an adequacy decision from the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published guidance that “discusses the right of access [under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)] in detail.” The ICO explained “is aimed at data protection officers (DPOs) and those with specific data protection responsibilities in larger organisations…[but] does not specifically cover the right of access under Parts 3 and 4 of the Data Protection Act 2018.”
  • The ICO explained
    • The right of access, commonly referred to as subject access, gives individuals the right to obtain a copy of their personal data from you, as well as other supplementary information.
• The report the House Education and Labor Ranking Member requested from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the data security and data privacy practices of public schools. Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) asked the GAO “to review the security of K-12 students’ data. This report examines (1) what is known about recently reported K-12 cybersecurity incidents that compromised student data, and (2) the characteristics of school districts that experienced these incidents.” Strangely, the report did have GAO’s customary conclusions or recommendations. Nonetheless, the GAO found:
  • Ninety-nine student data breaches reported from July 1, 2016 through May 5, 2020 compromised the data of students in 287 school districts across the country, according to our analysis of K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center (CRC) data (see fig. 3). Some breaches involved a single school district, while others involved multiple districts. For example, an attack on a vendor system in the 2019-2020 school year affected 135 districts. While information about the number of students affected was not available for every reported breach, examples show that some breaches affected thousands of students, for instance, when a cybercriminal accessed 14,000 current and former students’ personally identifiable information (PII) in one district.
  • The 99 reported student data breaches likely understate the number of breaches that occurred, for different reasons. Reported incidents sometimes do not include sufficient information to discern whether data were breached. We identified 15 additional incidents in our analysis of CRC data in which student data might have been compromised, but the available information was not definitive. In addition, breaches can go undetected for some time. In one example, the personal information of hundreds of thousands of current and former students in one district was publicly posted for 2 years before the breach was discovered.
  • The CRC identified 28 incidents involving videoconferences from April 1, 2020 through May 5, 2020, some of which disrupted learning and exposed students to harm. In one incident, 50 elementary school students were exposed to pornography during a virtual class. In another incident in a different district, high school students were targeted with hate speech during a class, resulting in the cancellation that day of all classes using the videoconferencing software. These incidents also raise concerns about the potential for violating students’ privacy. For example, one district is reported to have instructed teachers to record their class sessions. Teachers said that students’ full names were visible to anyone viewing the recording.
  • The GAO found gaps in the protection and enforcement of student privacy by the United States government:
    • [The Department of] Education is responsible for enforcing Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which addresses the privacy of PII in student education records and applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program administered by Education. If parents or eligible students believe that their rights under FERPA have been violated, they may file a formal complaint with Education. In response, Education is required to take appropriate actions to enforce and deal with violations of FERPA. However, because the department’s authority under FERPA is directly related to the privacy of education records, Education’s security role is limited to incidents involving potential violations under FERPA. Further, FERPA amendments have not directly addressed educational technology use.
    • The “Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act” (COPPA) requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to issue and enforce regulations concerning children’s privacy. The COPPA Rule, which took effect in 2000 and was later amended in 2013, requires operators of covered websites or online services that collect personal information from children under age 13 to provide notice and obtain parental consent, among other things. COPPA generally applies to the vendors who provide educational technology, rather than to schools directly. However, according to FTC guidance, schools can consent on behalf of parents to the collection of students’ personal information if such information is used for a school-authorized educational purpose and for no other commercial purpose.
• Upturn, an advocacy organization that “advances equity and justice in the design, governance, and use of technology,” has released a report showing that United States (U.S.) law enforcement agencies have multiple means of hacking into encrypted or protected smartphones. There have long been the means and vendors available in the U.S. and abroad for breaking into phones despite the claims of a number of nations like the Five Eyes (U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) that default end-to-end encryption was a growing problem that allowed those preying on children and engaged in terrorism to go undetected. In terms of possible bias, Upturn is “is supported by the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Luminate, the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, and Democracy Fund.”
  • Upturn stated:
    • Every day, law enforcement agencies across the country search thousands of cellphones, typically incident to arrest. To search phones, law enforcement agencies use mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs), a powerful technology that allows police to extract a full copy of data from a cellphone — all emails, texts, photos, location, app data, and more — which can then be programmatically searched. As one expert puts it, with the amount of sensitive information stored on smartphones today, the tools provide a “window into the soul.”
    • This report documents the widespread adoption of MDFTs by law enforcement in the United States. Based on 110 public records requests to state and local law enforcement agencies across the country, our research documents more than 2,000 agencies that have purchased these tools, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We found that state and local law enforcement agencies have performed hundreds of thousands of cellphone extractions since 2015, often without a warrant. To our knowledge, this is the first time that such records have been widely disclosed.
  • Upturn argued:
    • Law enforcement use these tools to investigate not only cases involving major harm, but also for graffiti, shoplifting, marijuana possession, prostitution, vandalism, car crashes, parole violations, petty theft, public intoxication, and the full gamut of drug-related offenses. Given how routine these searches are today, together with racist policing policies and practices, it’s more than likely that these technologies disparately affect and are used against communities of color.
    • We believe that MDFTs are simply too powerful in the hands of law enforcement and should not be used. But recognizing that MDFTs are already in widespread use across the country, we offer a set of preliminary recommendations that we believe can, in the short-term, help reduce the use of MDFTs. These include:
      • banning the use of consent searches of mobile devices,
      • abolishing the plain view exception for digital searches,
      • requiring easy-to-understand audit logs,
      • enacting robust data deletion and sealing requirements, and
      • requiring clear public logging of law enforcement use.

Coming Events

• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will hold an open commission meeting on 27 October, and the agency has released a tentative agenda:
  • Restoring Internet Freedom Order Remand – The Commission will consider an Order on Remand that would respond to the remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and conclude that the Restoring Internet Freedom Order promotes public safety, facilitates broadband infrastructure deployment, and allows the Commission to continue to provide Lifeline support for broadband Internet access service. (WC Docket Nos. 17-108, 17-287, 11- 42)
  • Establishing a 5G Fund for Rural America – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would establish the 5G Fund for Rural America to ensure that all Americans have access to the next generation of wireless connectivity. (GN Docket No. 20-32)
  • Increasing Unlicensed Wireless Opportunities in TV White Spaces – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would increase opportunities for unlicensed white space devices to operate on broadcast television channels 2-35 and expand wireless broadband connectivity in rural and underserved areas. (ET Docket No. 20-36)
  • Streamlining State and Local Approval of Certain Wireless Structure Modifications – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would further accelerate the deployment of 5G by providing that modifications to existing towers involving limited ground excavation or deployment would be subject to streamlined state and local review pursuant to section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012. (WT Docket No. 19-250; RM-11849)
  • Revitalizing AM Radio Service with All-Digital Broadcast Option – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would authorize AM stations to transition to an all-digital signal on a voluntary basis and would also adopt technical specifications for such stations. (MB Docket Nos. 13-249, 19-311)
  • Expanding Audio Description of Video Content to More TV Markets – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would expand audio description requirements to 40 additional television markets over the next four years in order to increase the amount of video programming that is accessible to blind and visually impaired Americans. (MB Docket No. 11-43)
  • Modernizing Unbundling and Resale Requirements – The Commission will consider a Report and Order to modernize the Commission’s unbundling and resale regulations, eliminating requirements where they stifle broadband deployment and the transition to next- generation networks, but preserving them where they are still necessary to promote robust intermodal competition. (WC Docket No. 19-308)
  • Enforcement Bureau Action – The Commission will consider an enforcement action.
• The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on 28 October regarding 47 U.S.C. 230 titled “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?” with testimony from:
  • Jack Dorsey, Chief Executive Officer of Twitter;
  • Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary, Google; and 
  • Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Facebook.
• On 29 October, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will hold a seminar titled “Green Lights & Red Flags: FTC Rules of the Road for Business workshop” that “will bring together Ohio business owners and marketing executives with national and state legal experts to provide practical insights to business and legal professionals about how established consumer protection principles apply in today’s fast-paced marketplace.”
• On 10 November, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing to consider nominations, including Nathan Simington’s to be a Member of the Federal Communications Commission.

© Michael Kans, Michael Kans Blog and michaelkans.blog, 2019-2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Kans, Michael Kans Blog, and michaelkans.blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Image by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz from Pixabay