Many federal agencies have more work left to do to make good on administration goals of being forthcoming in responding to Freedom of Information Act requests and being transparent with the public and communicative with media, said experts in interviews Thursday. They said leaks of information on National Security Agency activities and other surveillance operations appear to have had the biggest effect on transparency by spurring an administration clampdown on NSA and other security agencies’ dealings with reporters. Accessibility of experts at non-national security agencies specializing in science, including the Food and Drug Administration, NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also has been curtailed under this administration, said the experts. They said regulatory agencies including the FCC, FTC and SEC generally do better at making experts available and responding to FOIA requests, though there’s room for improvement there, too.

With the FCC about to transition to a new chairman and all proceedings on hold for the government shutdown, it’s hard to know if cable industry efforts to free up unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi will be successful, said several communications attorneys and industry observers in interviews. Cable needs unlicensed spectrum to bridge the gap between consumer demand for mobile broadband and the available wireless spectrum, said New America Foundation Wireless Future Project Director Michael Calabrese in a report sponsored by Time Warner Cable released last week (CD Oct 10 p14). “There’s no possible way the industry can meet consumer demand for movable data at affordable prices using only licensed spectrum,” he told us. “We need to have a second path.”

Lawyers and other communications industry officials hope acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn and the rest of the commission will provide information quickly on what happens next, as soon as the partial government shutdown ends and the agency and the rest of federal Washington gets back to work. Industry officials we spoke with Wednesday expressed the same emotions, relief combined with anxiety as both the House and Senate move forward on votes on a bipartisan Senate agreement to end the shutdown. Another fight could loom because the agreement would fund the government only through Jan. 15.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a bill that would require a search warrant for government entities to obtain electronic communications from carriers. Within three days after a government entity receives such content from a service provider, it would be required to give the subscriber a copy of the warrant and a notice, under Senate Bill 467. Brown said Saturday he vetoed the bill because it requires “law enforcement agencies to obtain a search warrant when seeking access to electronic communications” (http://bit.ly/GWT01I). Federal law requires a search warrant, subpoena or court order. and this bill “imposes new notice requirements that go beyond those required by federal law and could impede ongoing criminal investigations,” said Brown. On Thursday, he vetoed two bills related to the state’s LifeLine program and the purchase of prepaid cellphone minutes. Assembly Bill 1409 would have limited some of the Public Utilities Commission’s powers to adopt new rules for its LifeLine program. Brown vetoed the bill because of an open PUC proceeding to revise the state’s LifeLine program to allow non-traditional carriers to participate in the program, he said in a written statement (http://bit.ly/16dP1DT). “The last minute amendments included in this bill would legislatively preempt the outcome of this proceeding that has taken public comment from hundreds of California citizens.” AB-300 would create an additional system for collecting and remitting fees, surcharges and taxes applicable to prepaid mobile phone services where these charges would be collected from prepaid customers and remitted to the Board of Equalization and the fees from postpaid customers continue to be collected by the PUC, State 911 Fund and local governments, said Brown. AB-300 is “duplicative, complex and will result in significant and unnecessary costs to the state,” he said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1gHWyCw).

The FCC shutdown affected another proceeding, starting last Tuesday. The closure meant the agency couldn’t act to grant or deny a May request by Amazon, Kobo and Sony that the commission find e-readers need not make advanced communications services accessible to the disabled, said those supporting the ACS waiver and petition foes in interviews last week. Some said the import is that as of Oct. 8, e-readers made by those makers of consumer electronics and other companies must, if they have a browser, contain a way for words to be read aloud. The agency’s shutdown, which also took fcc.gov mostly offline, has hit other proceedings on which stakeholders can’t submit comments (CD Oct 10 p3) and meant the agency can’t act on device certifications so CE companies can ship the products (CD Oct 9 p2).

With many filing deadlines already having passed since the partial federal shutdown began Oct. 1, and more looming as the closure enters its third week Tuesday, the FCC potentially faces a land rush of comments the day after the government reopens. Unlike many other government sites, the FCC’s website was shuttered the day the government closed, cutting off access to documents lawyers and others need to prepare filings at the commission, especially reply comments. Several industry officials told us Friday they expect the FCC to grant a blanket waiver for all filings that came due during the closure.

Fewer regulations are needed by states and the FCC to promote competition and to move the IP transition forward, said speakers at the Telecommunications Summit at Murray State University in Kentucky Wednesday. The deregulation of telecommunications services by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission helped to spread investment and innovation in the state by AT&T and Comcast, said Commissioner Larry Landis. State commissions have the opportunity to work with the FCC to change policies in the states, said Landis: “States have a unique perspective to bring to the process, and they understand the need to share a vision as well as each having their own.”

AT&T and T-Mobile executives are frustrated by government shutdown, now well into its second week, they said at the Telecommunications Industry Association conference. The FCC’s work on spectrum auctions, getting spectrum from the Department of Defense, the broadcaster incentive auction -- “all that work has stopped,” said Thomas Sugrue, senior vice president-government affairs for T-Mobile. “One week? Sure, we can all make that up,” he said. “But once it gets a second week, and if we're talking about a third, there could be some real negative impacts on the timing of that.” T-Mobile is “fortunate that we don’t have an intensive, major deal pending,” like AT&T’s bid to acquire Leap Wireless, Sugrue said.

The partial federal government shutdown, in its fourth day Friday, is raising varying levels of anxiety among members of the communications bar. The shutdown’s effects rippled through the Washington area last week, giving most federal workers an unexpected, possibly unpaid, vacation, and raising some fundamental questions for those whose business is dealing with the government. Further adding to problems lawyers face, the FCC unexpectedly took almost all filings and other documents offline for the duration of the shutdown, a much more draconian response than many federal agencies (CD Oct 3 p2).

The week’s government shutdown has yet to disrupt the day-to-day business of lobbying in any profound way, but industry officials are cautiously watching its effects on Congress, several lobbyists told us. Accessibility to Capitol Hill offices is limited for some, and short-term agendas are up in the air as congressional hearings and other events frequently end up postponed (CD Oct 2 p6), they said. None had any sense for how long the uncertainty would last.