Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) judges Mon. denied all motions for rehearing by webcasters hoping to reverse a ruling to raise fees they pay to stream music online. The decision came as webcasters, musicians and independent record labels announced formation of a SaveNetRadio Coalition to rally support.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report to certain Congressional committees, as required by the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006 (SAFE Port Act), which reviews changes in staffing and other resources devoted to customs revenue functions since the creation of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)¹.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has issued its 2007 annual "Section 1377 Review" of the operation and effectiveness of telecommunications trade agreements. According to the USTR, the review identifies barriers facing U.S. telecommunications service and equipment suppliers, evaluates progress towards resolving ongoing problems, and lays out the specific telecommunications-related issues on which the USTR will focus its efforts this year.

Congress should revise laws on electronic surveillance as a tool for monitoring terrorist activity, witnesses told the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee in a Wed. hearing. Businesses long have cooperated with govt. pursuit of bad actors, but the post-9/11 push to widen the dragnet raises key constitutional questions, experts said. A Conn. library group told Chmn. Feingold (D-Wis.) it was subject to a gag order and banned from discussing an FBI National Security Letter (NSL) sent it demanding material on suspected terrorists. The order was lifted after the ACLU sued, but it was tough sledding, said George Christian, exec. dir.-Library Connection. His group’s name was revealed in The N.Y. Times, but at one point the U.S. justified keeping the gag order in place because “no one in Connecticut reads the New York Times.” Christian urged Congress to require judicial review of NSLs to ensure material collected in such sweeps fits the investigations. Witnesses said the Patriot Act changed how NSLs work, overendowing the executive branch with power. “NSL” really means “Never Seeing the Light,” Ohio State U. Prof. Peter Swire, urging Congress to clarify how this investigative tool is to be used. Now it’s “clouded by secrecy,” he said. NSL-related problems are only going to worsen, former Rep. Barr (R-Ga.) said: “I would urge the chairman to move forward with very aggressive oversight… if the abuses become institutionalized, it becomes that much harder to dislodge.”

Three House Commerce Committee members “strongly oppose” using reverse auctions to set high-cost universal service subsidies, they told Chmn. Martin. “Using reverse auctions to disburse universal service funds would be a mistake that threatens to cripple the availability of reliable telecommunications services to rural Americans,” said Reps. Boucher (D-Va.), Terry (R-Neb.) and Pickering (R-Miss.). In an April 10 letter, they gave 3 reasons for their fears about the impact on rural areas: (1) It’s doubtful that reverse auctions can guarantee “quality service at reasonable and affordable rates,” as required by the Communications Act, they said: “The mere fact that the service provision would go to the lowest bidder makes the reverse auction concept suspect in its ability to fulfill the mandate of Congress.” (2) “Least cost funding incents paring service quality levels to absolute minimums,” they said. If rural service ends up worse than that in urban areas, the FCC can’t meet its Communications Act mandate of assuring rural services are “comparable” to urban. (3) Reverse auctions might not meet a Communications Act requirement that universal service support be “specific, predictable and sufficient,” they said: “A reverse auction raises questions about predictability because support to eligible providers would be temporary. It implicates sufficiency because a reverse auction would create incentives to underbid.”

Congress should revise laws on electronic surveillance as a tool for monitoring terrorist activity, witnesses told the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee in a Wed. hearing. Businesses long have cooperated with govt. pursuit of bad actors, but the post-9/11 push to widen the dragnet raises key constitutional questions, experts said. A Conn. library group told Chmn. Feingold (D-Wis.) it was subject to a gag order and banned from discussing an FBI National Security Letter (NSL) sent it demanding material on suspected terrorists. The order was lifted after the ACLU sued, but it was tough sledding, said George Christian, exec. dir.-Library Connection. His group’s name was revealed in The N.Y. Times, but at one point the U.S. justified keeping the gag order in place because “no one in Connecticut reads the New York Times.” Christian urged Congress to require judicial review of NSLs to ensure material collected in such sweeps fits the investigations. Witnesses said the Patriot Act changed how NSLs work, overendowing the executive branch with power. “NSL” really means “Never Seeing the Light,” Ohio State U. Prof. Peter Swire, urging Congress to clarify how this investigative tool is to be used. Now it’s “clouded by secrecy,” he said. NSL-related problems are only going to worsen, former Rep. Barr (R-Ga.) said: “I would urge the chairman to move forward with very aggressive oversight… if the abuses become institutionalized, it becomes that much harder to dislodge.”

The FTC has FCC envy, if commissioners’ comments to the Senate Commerce Committee Tues. are any indication. There’s no practical reason to exclude the FTC from telcos’ broadband pricing and marketing and related issues, FTC Comr. Thomas Rosch said, adding that the agency’s track record on telecom issues such as mergers “speaks for itself.” All 5 FTC members answered affirmatively to Sen. Dorgan’s (D-N.D.) question on whether the common carrier exemption -- which limits telecom-oriented trade areas to FCC jurisdiction -- should be repealed, but Dorgan criticized their XM-Sirius merger role.

Amid unity on Internet fraud and cross-jurisdictional enforcement authority, FTC commissioners disagreed on a more pressing priority for Congress: identity theft protections. Asked by the Senate Commerce Committee’s Acting Chmn. Pryor (D-Ark.) whether legislation should include free credit freezes -- an issue that some blamed for inaction by the last Congress (WID Nov 20 p1) -- Republicans and Democrats gave different answers. But they spoke with one voice on the need to repeal the “common carrier exemption” that blocks FTC action on some telecom matters.

The 3rd party in Immersion’s long court battle with Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) is looking for more partners to introduce new online applications it is developing using Immersion’s haptic/force feedback technology. Internet Services LLC “hopes to have deals in place later this year so that consumers can begin to enjoy the results” of its development efforts, the company’s pres., Layne Britton, told Consumer Electronics Daily Fri.

A U.S. appeals court will likely hear oral arguments on a challenge of the FCC video franchise order because the case raises high-stakes questions on whether U.S. regulators’ authority trumps cities’, said industry lawyers and law professors. It’s uncertain which court will make the call, since municipal groups last week filed appeals with a half- dozen courts (CD April 4 p8). Bells cheered March’s FCC order because it clears some hurdles for them to compete with cable by selling IPTV and fiber TV service in addition to broadband. Cities slammed the rulemaking as exceeding FCC constitutional and statutory authority.