The Justice Department must reply to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic by 5 p.m. Dec. 6, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1gwJL7x). The ACLU and the clinic must counter that response by Dec. 20. They had filed a motion before the FISC Wednesday requesting the court release more opinions authorizing government surveillance. That surveillance has encompassed bulk collection of phone metadata as well as bulk collection of Internet metadata and cell-site location information.
Strong growth in Disney’s interactive business helped the company to stronger revenue in Q4 ended Sept. 28 than in Q4 a year earlier, CEO Robert Iger said on an earnings call Thursday. The main contributor to the interactive growth was solid demand for the videogame Disney Infinity, with more than 1 million starter packs sold globally, he said. The “successful launch” of Infinity in Q4 allowed the interactive division, he said, to have an operating profit of $16 million, after a $76 million operating loss in Q4 the prior year. Interactive revenue grew to $396 million from $191 million. “All indications suggest the strong demand” for Infinity “will continue,” said Iger. The “next test” for Infinity “will come this holiday season, where we feel good about its prospects,” said Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo. Total Disney Q4 revenue grew 7 percent year-over-year to $11.6 billion. Profit grew to $1.4 billion from $1.2 billion. Studio entertainment revenue grew 7 percent to $1.5 billion, while media networks revenue inched up 1 percent to $4.9 billion. Operating profit grew 6 percent to $2.5 billion. The improved operating results were fueled by increased sales of console games and Disney’s Japan mobile businesses, it said. The growth was “partially offset” by a decline in Disney’s social games business due to a favorable acquisition accounting adjustment recognized in Q4 last year, it said. The company’s Marvel division opted to sign a deal with Netflix, rather than selecting ABC or another Disney-owned network, that will bring exclusive content to that streaming service because there’s “just so many Marvel shows we thought we could actually fit” on Disney’s own networks, said Iger. ABC already has the show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and is developing another unspecified “concept,” while Marvel also has shows on Disney XD, he said. “So we looked at other opportunities. There was a lot of interest from a variety of different distributors, new and traditional platforms, and ultimately Netflix won out,” he said. This “seemed like a good opportunity” for Disney to provide Netflix with “some branded product that they haven’t had access to except for” the programming the service gets after it’s already aired, he said. It’s a “good opportunity, we thought,” for Netflix and a “great opportunity for us,” he said. Marvel TV will bring original series featuring four of Marvel’s comic characters exclusively to Netflix starting in 2015, the companies said. The content will be led by a series focused on Daredevil, followed by Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, the companies said. The content will be produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Television Studios, they said.
Sage Communications acquired Longbottom Communications, a commercial satellite and space industry marketing firm. The move is part of Sage’s effort to increase its position in the satellite industry, the companies said in a news release. Longbottom will operate as a division of Sage and Longbottom’s current staff will remain intact, the companies said.
Of two major surveillance overhauls before Congress, one entrenches National Security Agency practices and the other ends them, reiterated American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Counsel Michelle Richardson in a Guardian op-ed Friday (http://bit.ly/1iRXOBd). Richardson and others have told us of doubts about the FISA Improvements Act by Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., after it cleared the committee early this month (CD Nov 4 p10). Richardson advocates for the USA Freedom Act of Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. “No matter how you cut it, the Feinstein bill is a big step backwards for privacy, and the USA Freedom Act is an incredibly important step forward,” Richardson wrote. She warned Feinstein’s bill would be “congressional stamp of approval for [the government’s] past overreach.” Maplight, a nonpartisan research group that tracks campaign finance, tracked the amount of money top intelligence contractors have given Feinstein and Leahy since 2007 and on Thursday posted a blog post on the topic and the senators’ surveillance proposals. Feinstein received three times as much as Leahy, with $107,050 for her to $35,300 for him (http://bit.ly/1etLLN9). Feinstein’s spokesman declined comment.
Congress should move forward with a bill to end the integration ban, a Free State Foundation representative said Friday. The bill proposes to kill the integration ban requiring cable operators to use CableCARDs instead of built-in security in set-top boxes. Legal Fellow Sarah Leggin wrote a blog post (http://bit.ly/19KMuFY) praising HR-3196, introduced this fall (CD Sept 30 p6) by House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio.
All data collection and surveillance for national security purposes must comply with human rights requirements, said Council of Europe media and information society ministers Friday. In a political declaration after CoE’s meeting in Belgrade the 47 member countries pushed for effective guarantees against abuse arising from the electronic mass surveillance that they said “may undermine or even destroy democracy.” Officials proposed things including examining the gathering of e-communications data by security agencies and finishing work on a guide of rights for Internet users.
The partial government shutdown cost the FCC 19,000 days of employee furlough time over 16 days in October, said an Office of Management and Budget report Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1dSlAN7). During the shutdown, employees deemed nonessential weren’t allowed to work, and Congress passed a law providing back pay for the entire shutdown once it ended. Total employee furlough days for the Commerce Department were 312,000, the Homeland Security Department 303,000, the Justice Department 200,000 and State Department 4,000, said OMB. It said the government-wide total of furloughed days was roughly 6.6 million, larger than in any past shutdown (http://1.usa.gov/1bfl1cA).
Corrections: (1) The changes city-owned Longmont Power & Communications is making to its fiber network — to which it will continue as sole service provider — is to build it out to reach all residents (CD Nov 7 p5). (2) The USF-funded Lifeline program (CD Nov 8 p6) does not pay for any cellphones that participating carriers give to Lifeline subscribers free of charge. (3) Clarification: The FCC Intergovernmental Affairs Committee starts its reauthorized two-year term the date of its first meeting, which will be after Dec. 2 (CD Nov 4 p15).
Orbcomm reported third quarter 2013 revenue of $19.7 million, a 22.4 percent increase year-over-year. Service revenue was $13.8 million, an 8.3 percent increase from the same period last year, Orbcomm said in a press release (http://bit.ly/1aaIcqB). Product sales jumped 75 percent to $5.9 million, due to an increase in organic sales at its Japanese subsidiary and StarTrak, and the acquisitions of GlobalTrak and MobileNet, it said. Its acquisition of Comtech’s Sensor Enabled Notification System operation this month “is expected to add over 20,000 subscriber communicators in the fourth quarter of 2013,” it said. For Q3, net subscriber communicator additions were 827,000, compared to 744,000 in Q3 2012, Orbcomm said.
AT&T agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act when it knowingly overbilled the Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) Fund, the Justice Department said Thursday. The fund compensates IP Relay service providers for placing calls on behalf of hearing-impaired individuals. Justice had alleged that from December 2009 through December 2011, up to 80 percent of the calls AT&T claimed reimbursement for were ineligible because they didn’t originate in the U.S., or weren’t made by hearing- or speech-impaired people. AT&T’s communication assistants knew the service was being used largely by Nigerian fraudsters, Justice said. AT&T had entered into a consent degree in May with the FCC resolving similar allegations (CD May 8 p11), which were related to today’s announcement, Justice said. AT&T agreed then to pay $18.25 million to settle the FCC investigation. “We will not tolerate abuse of this system,” said Michele Ellison, chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. “While we continue to deny the allegations, we concluded that the most productive course was to resolve what was left of the litigation through a voluntary settlement,” an AT&T spokesman said. “This concerns an exceptionally small line of business that we no longer offer."