Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats pushed Monday for Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to postpone a planned Thursday vote on advancing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh amid recent claims he sexually assaulted Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford in the early 1980s, when both were teenagers. Ford’s “serious allegations were submitted to the FBI for investigation last week” and the bureau should have time to “perform its due diligence and fully investigate the allegations as part of its review of Judge Kavanaugh’s background,” Senate Judiciary ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and other committee Democrats said in a letter to Grassley. “The standard procedure for updates to any nominee’s background investigation file is to conduct separate follow-up calls with relevant parties,” something Feinstein's office was refusing Monday, Grassley said. “Anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard, so I will continue working on a way to hear her out in an appropriate, precedented and respectful manner.” Kavanaugh faced critical questions during his confirmation hearing earlier this month about his dissent in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the D.C. Circuit's 2017 en banc affirmation of the now-rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules in USTelecom v. FCC (see 1809070046). Senate Judiciary members also asked Kavanaugh about his views on court's Chevron deference to agency expertise and on tech-based privacy issues (see 1809060048).

Stephanie Roy, ex-Steptoe & Johnson, joins Perkins Coie as a partner, Technology Transactions and Privacy practice and with Communications industry group ... Virtual new directors are Steve Jones, ex-Association of Cable Communicators, which was taken over by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (see 1702210049), and Melanie Tringali, ex-Cambridge Network, respectively, of client services and marketing communications, and promotions include Stacey Comito to vice president-marketing communications.

The U.S. needs a legislative overhaul that promotes broadband deployment and protects an open internet and privacy with "light-touch" regulation across sectors, said USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter on C-SPAN's The Communicators that was scheduled to be televised Saturday and Monday. "We need a national approach to how we want to govern the internet," he said, citing support for "bright-line net neutrality protections" based on "no blocking, no throttling, no anticompetitive prioritization" principles. "It’s time for Congress to step up, and if it doesn’t, then other folks are going to step in," he said. "Internet innovation and dynamism" can't continue if there are 50 different state rules, such as California's recently passed net neutrality legislation, he said. Many companies in the U.S. are applying the EU's general data protection regulation, he said: "We shouldn’t have the director general of the European Union become our de facto privacy regulator. We need to have our own strong, uniform and consistent national framework ... that’s applicable to all parts of the internet.” He said USTelecom members are committed to ensuring network security, consumer choice, transparency and appropriate breach notifications. Meantime, he expects the FTC to be "vigilant" as a "tough, new cop on the beat" after its broadband authority was restored by FCC reclassification: “I’m sure that all of us are going to be hearing from them." He disputed criticism that Verizon "throttled" the cell service of California firefighters, saying the problem had nothing to do with net neutrality: "Verizon has said very clearly it was a customer service error. They addressed it immediately. They developed new protocols and approaches for service plans for public safety agencies going forward." He said it wasn't ISPs but other internet players that have had their practices subjected to public scrutiny in recent years. He said wireline telcos face "fierce" challenges from cable, wireless and satellite providers. "Competition is white hot," he said, calling for "regulatory parity" to ensure ILECs aren't hamstrung. He praised the FCC for working to close the digital divide but said government shouldn't fund network overbuilding and service duplication. USTelecom members "are on the barricades" of cybersecurity, investing hundreds of millions of dollars and working with the Department of Homeland Security and IT professionals to beef up network defenses, he said, urging others to collaborate.

Lifeline providers endorsed and USTelecom opposed TracFone's emergency petition for the FCC to direct Universal Service Administrative Co. to speed efforts to obtain access to key federal databases or postpone a national verifier's (NV) hard launch. Comments were posted through Thursday in docket 17-287. Sprint noted the databases contain information on consumers who participate in Medicaid, food stamps and other federal assistance programs. "Automated access to this information will help the NV to verify an end user’s ... eligibility to receive the federal Lifeline benefit in an efficient and user-friendly manner, and will reduce the need for resource-intensive manual processing" that's costly for providers and "cumbersome and frustrating for end users," said Sprint in docket 17-287. The FCC should instruct USAC to set the NV hard launch dates only after application programming interfaces and database connections are implemented, said Q Link Wireless, noting its own API petition (see 1808130034). The National Lifeline Association said FCC policy goals were undermined by USAC's initial, soft launch without automated database access to Lifeline-qualifying programs "while simultaneously refusing to accept eligibility documentation from third-party sources such as Managed Care Organizations." Sage Telecom Communications (TruConnect) also supported the petition but asked if the agency moves forward without access to key databases, it allow documentation through such third parties. USTelecom, citing the goal of combating Lifeline abuses, said the FCC shouldn't let delayed access to the databases disrupt the transition to the NV, but instead should work with USAC and states to ensure timely access to the necessary databases. A telecom consultant disputed FCC claims, based on a 2017 GAO report that Lifeline resellers caused extensive program abuses. The report "in no way supports the Commission’s assertions regarding the scale of actual waste, fraud and abuse within the program, let alone its allegations of 'unscrupulous' behavior by resellers," said Gately Consulting, in a letter to House and Senate Commerce Committee leaders posted in the docket. Gately said GAO used a "flawed methodology to verify eligibility," relied on data intended for other purposes, and the "data fell within the statistical error range."

The Senate Judiciary Committee rescheduled a vote on advancing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to Sept. 20 amid ongoing partisan rancor over the process and the nominee's record. The executive session will begin at 9:30 a.m. in 216 Hart. Kavanaugh faced critical questions during his confirmation hearing last week about his dissent in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the D.C. Circuit's 2017 en banc affirmation of the now-rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules in USTelecom v. FCC (see 1809070046). Senate Judiciary members also asked Kavanaugh about his views on Chevron deference by courts to agency expertise and on tech-based privacy issues (see 1809060048).

Frontier Communications temporarily suspended work activities in portions of South Carolina as Hurricane Florence approached, it announced Thursday. The storm was downgraded to a Category 2 the same day. “Repair and installation technicians, contact center employees and others will not be executing any work activities during this time,” Frontier said. “Florence will damage power facilities and down lines and trees, which will affect the speed of communications restoration,” said Senior Vice President-Operations, South Region Melanie Williams. AT&T is launching severe weather channels on DirecTV and U-Verse dedicated to Florence coverage, it said. AT&T, CenturyLink and other carriers also have readied emergency resources (see 1809110046). Carrier preparations were laid out in a USTelecom blog. The Federal Emergency Management Agency Thursday urged residents of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia to stay in communication with friends and family using phones, text messages and social media and to stay informed using TV, radio and local government websites.

Stakeholders backed possible FCC creation of a "connected care everywhere" pilot program, diverging on some details such as the proposed focus on facilities-based projects and rural areas. Some telecom entities urged the agency to include resellers; some healthcare parties sought inclusion of projects in urban areas; and other pushed for consideration of their particular industry or patient interests. About 70 substantive comments were posted through Tuesday in docket 18-213 in response to a notice of inquiry adopted Aug. 2 (see Notebook at end of 1808020034).

The Senate Judiciary Committee set a Thursday vote on advancing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation as part of a committee executive session. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., tweeted Monday she plans to vote no on Kavanaugh if he reaches the full Senate based in part on his dissent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's 2017 en banc affirmation of the now-rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules in USTelecom v. FCC (see 1705010038). Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., pressed Kavanaugh on the USTelecom dissent during his Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing last week. The nominee defended his application of the major rules doctrine and the First Amendment as bases for his dissent, saying there was high court precedent for his view (see 1809050061 and 1809070046). Judiciary on Thursday will also vote on the CyberTipline Modernization Act (S-3170), which would reauthorize and modernize the Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. The markup will begin at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh again defended at his confirmation hearing Thursday night his dissent in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the D.C. Circuit's 2017 en banc affirmation of the now-rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules in USTelecom v. FCC amid criticism from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. She also queried Kavanaugh on his USTelecom dissent during an earlier confirmation session. He faced questions about his views on Chevron deference by courts to agency expertise and on tech-based privacy issues (see 1809050061 and 1809060048). Kavanaugh “went beyond the bounds” of USTelecom and FCC arguments, finding the First Amendment “protects ISPs' right to exercise editorial discretion,” Klobuchar said. Kavanaugh believes the First Amendment argument “seemed on point” for his dissent because it was a major factor in the Supreme Court's 1994 Turner Broadcasting and was in amicus briefs supporting USTelecom. Turner's First Amendment approach “seemed to apply very closely” and has been successfully applied to cases “in other contexts,” Kavanaugh said. “I pointed out” in the dissent that “if a company has market power under Turner then the government does have the authority to regulate, but if a company doesn't have market power,” Turner says that authority doesn't exist. “There's First Amendment rights of individuals to use the internet and express their own views,” Klobuchar said. “You basically said that the companies have those First Amendment rights,” which runs counter to policymakers' view “that unless you have some rules of the road in place, it's going to make it very hard for individuals and small businesses” to maintain internet access, she said. Demand Progress used Kavanaugh's dissent and his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony on the ruling in a Thursday night fundraising email. “Kavanaugh tried to block net neutrality when he was on the D.C. Circuit Court, but he was overruled by the other judges,” Demand Progress said. “On the Supreme Court, he and the other four right-wing justices would have the final word.” If two of the three Senate Republicans who joined Senate Democrats in May to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval aimed at restoring the 2015 rules (see 1805160064) “join every Democrat in voting no on Kavanaugh, his nomination is finished,” Demand Progress said.

Sonic Telecom customers are concerned about a USTelecom petition that seeks sweeping FCC regulatory relief for its large incumbent telco members. They fear their rates will rise and their service will be harmed if the FCC grants the forbearance petition to free the ILECs from wholesale duties to lease out their networks as discounted unbundled network elements. Local competitors such as Sonic, a northern California broadband and voice provider, can use UNEs to reach customers where their fiber-based offerings aren't available.