Congress should enact reforms that prevent the National Security Agency from being able to collect data about Americans’ phone records and online activities, and launch an investigation into NSA programs that facilitated the collection of such data, said a group of civil liberties organizations in a letter to Congress Wednesday (http://bit.ly/11Zn03N). The coalition of 115 advocates and Internet companies -- which includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU and Mozilla -- urged Congress to “immediately and publicly” reform Section 215 of the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act “to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court.” Additionally, Congress should form a committee “to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying” and propose “specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance,” the letter said.

Free Press reiterated its “disappointment” with the latest draft order that would seek broadband deployment data as the FCC takes over National Broadband Map obligations from NTIA (CD June 17 p10). In a meeting Friday with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Policy Director Matt Wood warned that the draft item “will fail utterly” if it doesn’t collect pricing data (http://bit.ly/11ZEixQ). “There should be no rush to close the door” on the possibility of collecting pricing data on the Form 477s, making data available to researchers pursuant to a protective order, and using road-segment reporting for large census blocks in rural areas, Free Press said. “The Commission should pull the item from the agenda in the absence of substantial improvements to the areas outlined above,” the group said. FCC officials have said delaying the order would jeopardize collection of data needed for the National Broadband Map.

ASC Signal received a contract from Artel and Boeing Commercial Satellite Services to provide the first in a series of wideband, 9.4-meter Ka-band gateways to form a global network of antenna systems operating on the Inmarsat Global Xpress network, said ASC in a press release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/19RFgB9). The gateways will use ASC’s sub-reflector tracking technology, environmental control systems, monopulse feed system and next-generation controller to ensure the most accurate tracking. “We chose ASC Signal because of the significant value its high-performance antennas deliver for applications where failure is not an option,” said Artel CEO Ted Hengst in a statement. The system is one of nearly 300 Ka-band gateways that ASC has deployed around the world.

Comcast filed two petitions to be excluded from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices for 10 Massachusetts communities this week, said filings in FCC docket 12-1. They cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The proposed deregulation would affect just under 69,000 households, including the communities of Marblehead, Danvers (http://bit.ly/19RvjDN), Hingham and Randolph (http://bit.ly/15jW7Wj). The FCC Media Bureau also granted a Time Warner Cable effective competition petition this week for three communities in Kentucky, said FCC filings (http://bit.ly/120j82r). TWC’s petitions cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects just under 21,000 households, including Knott and Perry counties.

The FCC will take meetings July 22-24 on user interface accessibility for people with problems seeing, said a Media Bureau public notice (http://bit.ly/102GWC1). With an Oct. 9 deadline in 2010’s 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act for completing the UI and programming guides proceeding, it’s “more efficient for Commission staff to set aside a few days for ex parte meetings,” said the notice. It said Media Bureau Policy Division and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staff “will be available for meetings with interested parties to discuss issues raised in comments.” Deadlines for those were also set Tuesday (CD June 19 p15).

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will grant a patent to FourthWall Media for “Dynamic Application Insertion Technology,” a set-top box technology that allows ads targeted toward individual consumers to be embedded in a video stream, the company said Wednesday. FourthWall will get the patent after paying a fee to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the patent is now considered allowed, a company spokesman told us. “Unlike other targeted ad technologies where a separate ’switching’ application and the corresponding set-top box targeting information need to be downloaded ahead of time, this technology embeds the switching app in the video stream which then selects the right version of the ad to display in the targeted home,” said co-founder Louis Slothouber in a news release. The new technology allows advertisers to “change their targeting criteria without having to wait for a new application or targeting information to propagate across the system,” the release said.

Verizon Wireless and Discover Financial Services joined the NFC Forum, the group of near-field communication stakeholders said in a Wednesday news release (http://bit.ly/15jWiAW). The group includes 190 companies and nonprofits, said Chairman Koichi Tagawa in a statement.

Sprint Nextel sued Dish Network and Clearwire Monday to block Dish’s offer to buy at least 25 percent of Clearwire at $4.40 per share. The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, claims Dish’s tender offer “violates the rights on Sprint and other Clearwire stockholders under Clearwire’s governing documents and Delaware law” (http://bit.ly/19epPQC). Sprint’s actions came after Clearwire’s board ditched Sprint’s own offer to buy full control of Clearwire at $3.40 per share in favor of Dish’s offer (CD June 14 p8). Sprint claimed that Dish had “repeatedly attempted to fool Clearwire’s shareholders into believing its proposal was actionable in an effort to acquire Clearwire’s spectrum and to obstruct Sprint’s transaction with Clearwire.” Dish’s offer could not be accepted without at least 75 percent of Clearwire’s outstanding voting securities and Comcast’s approval, Sprint said. The suit is a “transparent attempt to divert attention from its failure to deal fairly with Clearwire’s shareholders, as well as to exploit its majority position to block Clearwire’s shareholders from receiving a fair price for their shares,” Dish said Tuesday in a statement.

The second edition of “Digital Crossroads” is available for pre-order on Amazon (http://amzn.to/10uNBrc). Its authors, Dean Philip Weiser of the University of Colorado Law School, and Wilmer Hale partner Jonathan Nuechterlein, spoke at the American Enterprise Institute Tuesday (http://bit.ly/10uO90g) on changes they made for the new edition of their book, first published in 2004. The authors limited the amount of time spent discussing the increasingly “antiquated” and “obsolete” Telecom Act of 1996, they said, and gave considerable focus to the IP transition and the spectrum issues. Weiser gave the FCC credit for reorienting the USF program to focus on broadband, and on fixing the program to stop producing new wireless carriers in areas that already had wireless service. The big challenge, Weiser said, is whether it’s economical to keep wireline connections in areas that are more remote, he said. Any decision to let go of legacy networks is “one of the painful implementation challenges” the industry will face, he said. In the IP transition, the FCC will have a big role ensuring non-economic, social policy objectives are met, Nuechterlein said. “I am much more skeptical” about the FCC’s role in economic issues such as the need for price regulation, interconnection and leasing obligations, he said.

The FCC Media Bureau granted a Comcast petition to exempt it from municipal rate-setting for basic-video and some other prices in seven communities in New Mexico, said a Media Bureau order released Monday (http://bit.ly/13R67s9). Comcast’s petitions cited video competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The deregulation affects just under 75,000 households, including the communities of Santa Fe, Lovington and Santa Fe County.