Determining the right balance between national security and privacy rights will remain “an enormous issue” that the Supreme Court and lower courts will need to continue to grapple with over the next 10-20 years, high court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said during the Senate Judiciary Committee's Thursday confirmation hearing. Kavanaugh continued to discuss Chevron deference by courts to agency expertise and said he would maintain an open mind on calls to open the Supreme Court to live media coverage. Kavanaugh faced questions Wednesday on Chevron and his dissent in the D.C. Circuit's 2017 en banc affirmation of 2015 net neutrality rules in USTelecom v. FCC (see 1705010038 and 1809050061).
USTelecom's bid for incumbent telco wholesale relief faced further resistance from rivals and others in replies to the FCC due Wednesday, though more large ILECs filed support than initially (see 1808070024). New competitors, some state regulators and consumer advocates said the commission should dismiss or deny the petition. Now, they are joined by more than 8,000 individuals filing substantive opposition, according to Incompas. Our review of docket 18-141 appears to confirm that.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden will subpoena Google if necessary to get a top executive to testify, the Oregon Republican told us Thursday. A day earlier, the platform was criticized for its absence at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing (see 1809050057). “Someday, we will have the Google execs in just like we had [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg, just like we had [Twitter CEO Jack] Dorsey," Walden said. "We’re just going to continue to march right through, and obviously we have tools to get there if we have to use them. We shouldn’t have to use them.”
No further action by the New York Public Service Commission is needed to require Charter Communications and any successor ISP to follow net neutrality rules, a PSC spokesman said Thursday. He responded to Democratic state legislators urging the agency to use its leverage in the Charter dispute to require adherence to FCC now-retracted 2015 rules. Observers on each side of the net neutrality debate said not to count out net neutrality rules in an expected settlement that could let the company remain in New York. In California, legislators urged Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to sign their net neutrality bill to build momentum elsewhere.
Local government officials warned concerns continue over wireless 911 location accuracy, at an NG911 Institute lunch Wednesday. Meanwhile, CTIA said the four nationwide wireless providers -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon -- are adding new location-based tools to existing wireless 911 location technologies starting this year.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to parse his views on deference by courts to agency expertise under the Chevron decision, saying he's not totally opposed to the precedent, during the Senate Judiciary Committee's Wednesday confirmation hearing session. Kavanaugh's views on Chevron as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit mean many in the communications sector believe he would raise the bar for FCC regulations (see 1807100020). Kavanaugh defended his dissent in the D.C. Circuit's 2017 en banc affirmation of 2015 net neutrality rules in USTelecom v. FCC, as expected (see 1705010038 and 1808310045). Questions continued into the evening.
From encouraging spectrum sharing to ensuring regulatory streamlining, Congress has plenty of levers to promote the commercial space industry, space interests said during a Satellite Industry Association panel Wednesday. To have a bigger voice in spectrum policy issues, the space community needs to be unified, said House Space Subcommittee Chairman Brian Babin, R-Texas. "Without spectrum, there is no space business."
Parties diverged on how to curb abuse of toll-free-number originating access charges, which the FCC proposed to phase out over three years. Large telcos, cable interests and others backed transitioning all "8YY" call hand-offs to a bill-and-keep regime, under which carriers exchanging traffic recover costs from users not each other. Rural carrier groups, one cable company and others opposed such a move and sought different solutions. Comments were posted Tuesday and Wednesday in docket 18-156 on a June 8 Further NPRM. Chairman Ajit Pai says the intercarrier compensation (ICC) system is being gamed, including by robocallers generating toll-free traffic to spark payments.
Local franchising authorities shouldn't use video franchising power to regulate incumbent operators' non-cable services offered over their cable systems, under a tentative conclusion in a draft Further NPRM on the Sept. 26 commissioners' meeting tentative agenda. The agency Wednesday released other draft meeting items that would propose to improve 911 calling in buildings and complexes, establish a framework for auctioning toll-free numbers, set rules governing earth stations in motion (ESIM) and eliminate the cable data collection Form 325 reporting requirement (see 1809040058). A draft wireless infrastructure was posted (see 1809050029).
Twitter is considering releasing historical data to increase transparency about account takedown and suspension decisions, CEO Jack Dorsey told the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday. Dorsey, at a hearing with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, said the platform might expand its transparency report to include archived suspension data. Transparency is key to calming concerns, he said.