The National Security Agency’s Prism program, which monitors Web traffic for potential terrorist activities, “is not a civil liberties issue -- it’s a business issue for American companies,” said former Google head of U.S. public policy Alan Davidson. “The rules that we have in place are protective enough of privacy,” he said during a Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee event Friday. But “if people don’t trust these services they are not going to use them,” said Davidson, now a visiting scholar at MIT’s technology and policy program. Davidson said “the low hanging fruit for Congress is more transparency about the number of the orders.” Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said Congress should amend Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits the government to get court orders to collect “tangible things” when the FBI certifies they're relevant to a government investigation. “We are of course very disappointed that these tools are being used for surveillance on everyday Americans,” she said. Judicial oversight of the programs is not adequate, said Richardson: “This is an area of law that has not been litigated in pubic courts. We really don’t know what they are doing.” This month the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the government that alleged the NSA program violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. The scale of the government’s surveillance of millions of Americans “makes any meaningful oversight more of a chimera,” said Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute.

Correction: Motorola Solutions is not asking the FCC to stand firm on its Dec. 31, 2016, 700 MHz narrowbanding deadline (CD June 21 p18).

International TV program distributor CABLEready filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Connecticut, the company said in a press release Friday. CABLEready CEO Gary Lico blamed industry consolidation, competitors willing to pay higher advances for programming, and the “uncertain global economy squeezing independent companies like ours,” said the release. CABLEready will continue operations while looking into “the many possibilities that are available to reorganize its debts and transition the business for the benefit of our employees and customers,” it said. Lico said he believes the Chapter 11 process can restore the company to “financial health.”

The Electronic Communications Committee will do a “major study” on the future use of UHF frequencies with a focus on the 470-694 MHz band, the group responsible for harmonizing radio spectrum across Europe said in a release Friday (http://bit.ly/12Sb7i2). “The study should consider the most effective spectrum management framework for” future use of this range of spectrum, it said. “The ECC wishes to look beyond a piecemeal approach (’salami-slicing') to the use of this prime range of spectrum, and to consider options for a more joined-up strategy, especially for the longer term and below 694 MHz,” said ECC Chairman Eric Fournier. “A particular challenge for us is that the optimum rate of evolution, as well as the ideal longer term equilibrium, is unlikely to be the same throughout Europe.” ECC created a task group to look into development of the 470-694 MHz band, the mandate from the European Commission to study the use of 700 MHz for mobile radio and the establishment of an EU policy for the UHF band as a whole. The task group is led by ECC Vice-Chairman Jaime Afonso, of Portuguese spectrum regulator ANACOM, it said. The ECC expects the task group to finish its work within a year.

Correction: The type of networks AT&T’s LTE Advanced will be more efficient than is 3G, and the increase in speed is 135 percent, said Assistant Vice President Richard Clarke, while the type of jobs Bell-Mason fellow Larry Downes said would be lost would be those of state regulators concerned about keeping their jobs if, as he thinks should be the case, they have nothing to do if the circuit-switched phone network was retired (CD June 21 p16).

To ensure success the FCC should not place limits on how much any carrier can buy in the upcoming incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, Free State Foundation Research Fellow Seth Cooper said in a paper released by the group. “Amidst the myriad engineering and economic complexities confronting the FCC, here is one simple thing it must get right: The FCC should keep the upcoming incentive auction, in which it hopes that TV broadcasters will voluntarily offer up spectrum for sale, open to all wireless providers,” Cooper wrote (http://bit.ly/11syltq). “Congress required that auction proceeds meet minimal thresholds or the auction fails. Open eligibility is critical to ensuring the auction produces enough bid revenue to succeed. An open approach is also essential to ensuring the most efficient approach whereby those carriers that will pay the most for spectrum licenses can put those resources to their highest use."

The FCC proposed a total of $45,000 in fines for TV stations missing deadlines to file kids’ programming reports, in Media Bureau notices of apparent liability Friday. Carmen Cabrera faces a $3,000 possible penalty because WIMN Araceibo, Puerto Rico, missed several filing deadlines (http://bit.ly/1c4w7BH). Abacus Television faces a possible $9,000 fine because WJKF Jacksonville, Fla., didn’t file on time for 14 quarters (http://bit.ly/14OrhYT). First Media Radio could face a $6,000 fine because WNVN Roanoke Rapids, N.C., didn’t file on time for three quarters (http://bit.ly/17smPTB). Byrne Acquisition Group faces a possible $18,000 fine because W48CX Hilton Head, S.C., missed 23 filing deadlines (http://bit.ly/16Uwf6F). Specialty Broadcasting faces a possible $9,000 fine because WRCF-LP Orlando, Fla., missed 10 filing deadlines (http://bit.ly/15qTvFX).

Inflight Internet access company Gogo priced its 11 million shares of common stock at $17 per share, it said in a Thursday release (http://prn.to/107WlBg). It began trading shares Friday under the ticker symbol GOGO, and in its first day of trading, the stock price fell 5.88 percent to $16. The IPO closes Wednesday.

The Parents Television Council asked Best Buy to stop sponsoring violent TV shows, at the company’s shareholder meeting, a PTC press release said Thursday. “Independent studies at great universities like Ohio State and Michigan confirm that viewers are 67 percent less likely to remember the name of an advertiser when a program is laden with violence or sex, even if viewers enjoy the show,” said PTC Chief Development Officer Michael Neils in the release. Neils criticized the company for sponsoring the shows American Horror Story, The Following, and Hannibal. “The question is whether it is good for this company to associate itself regularly with this kind of content,” Neils said in the release. Best Buy did not comment.

Intel miscalculated the “level of congestion” in the UHF band above Channel 37 in comments filed in the incentive auction proceeding, said NAB in an ex parte filing Thursday (http://bit.ly/13Yciuq). T-Mobile later used the same bad data in its own filings, said NAB. “The result inadvertently distorts the breadth of the challenge of repacking broadcasters.” The inaccurate filings demonstrate “how little is commonly understood about the task of relocating broadcasters who do not participate in the auction,” NAB said. In a study filed in docket 12-268 in March (http://bit.ly/WKg7Dl), Intel said 98 percent of TV markets have three or fewer stations above Channel 37, which NAB said suggests that the 600 MHz band is much clearer than it really is. “More than one-third of all full power and Class A TV stations (602 out of 1702 stations) in the UHF band are located above channel 37,” NAB said. Instead of basing its study on DMAs, Intel used each station’s city of license as its market, leading to “nonsensical results,” according to NAB. “The more appropriate approach would consider the effect of repacking through a DMA lens,” said NAB. The Intel study “considers Florida stations licensed to Leesburg and Melbourne to be in different markets despite the fact that the stations are located at the same transmitter site,” said NAB. The Intel study also contained “the head-scratching conclusion that Fairbanks, Alaska, is the most congested TV market in the nation,” NAB said. Intel said in an email Friday that its study is “directly derived from the FCC’s own database of broadcasters” and that it had discussions with NAB about the study before filing it that “generated no objections to use of the same FCC city-aggregated data.” Intel also said it concedes in its filing that “rigorous analysis of adjacent market interference will be necessary” to create a working band plan. The data from the Intel study were referenced by T-Mobile in reply comments filed in 12-286 earlier this month (http://bit.ly/11GXoVg). “According to Intel’s analysis, in 59 percent of markets, there are no broadcast television channels above Channel 37,” said T-Mobile in comments outlining its proposals for a 600 MHz bandplan. “Obviously, in those markets, 84 MHz can be made available without clearing or repacking any broadcasters at all,” said T-Mobile. T-Mobile did not comment. NAB said the record needed to be corrected so the communications industry and the commission can “work from the same page to properly analyze and address the enormous challenge of repacking and relocating broadcasters.”