Daily Digest 7/6/2018 (Ed Schultz)

ACT: The App Association, which represents more than 5,000 app developers and device makers, said the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) should be the one collecting and compiling data on broadband availability, not the Federal Communications Commission. "[T]he technology administration [NTIA] is more at home working across government agencies to put together an unbiased report," said ACT senior policy director Graham Dufault. NTIA was in charge of populating a broadband availability map as part of broadband stimulus funding allocated during the Obama Administration, but that funding ran out in 2015 and the FCC took over the job. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has introduced legislation to return oversight of that data collection and mapping to NTIA.

Republican leaders and lawmakers are setting their sights on a new target as they head into a difficult midterm election: an increasingly-powerful tech industry they view as biased against conservatives. Republicans, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Trump 2020 Campaign Manager Brad Parscale are making more noise about a host of Silicon Valley slights against conservatives, an issue that seems to be succeeding at firing up the GOP base. “Our supporters out there, by and large, believe that that’s true that a lot of these tech companies have an agenda,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD). “I think it’s a real issue, but I also think it probably has some political value.”

The grievances have sent tech executives scrambling to defend themselves and prove they don’t harbor anti-conservative prejudice. If recent polling is any indication, tech-bashing may very well resonate with GOP voters, which Republican leaders hope will help them stave off the predicted “blue wave” of Democratic electoral victories. A majority of Republicans hold negative views of Silicon Valley. Eighty-five percent say they think social media sites are likely to censor their views, 64 percent say tech companies are likely to favor the views of liberals over their own, and 44 percent support increased regulation of the industry.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is fighting back against some of the negative claims that US government officials have been making about the company in recent months. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, Huawei focused on recent moves by the agency to restrict rural carriers from purchasing telecommunications equipment made by Huawei and other Chinese companies. Huawei, with the help of telecommunications economist Allan Shampine, argued that by imposing new rules, the agency could hurt poor, rural communities. “These high costs, which would particularly harm Americans in remote and low-income areas, cannot be justified by the supposed national security benefits of the proposed rule, because these are speculative,” Huawei wrote.

President Donald Trump attacked the media once again on July 6, calling them "downright dishonest" and "really bad people" during a campaign-style rally in Montana. "I see the way they write. They're so damn dishonest," President Trump said. "And I don't mean all of them, because some of the finest people I know are journalists really. Hard to believe when I say that. I hate to say it, but I have to say it. But 75 percent of those people are downright dishonest. Downright dishonest. They're fake. They're fake." "They make the sources up. They don't exist in many cases," he continued. "These are really bad people."

Geoffrey Starks, who sailed through a Senate Commerce Committee confirmation vote with unanimous backing, had seemed poised June 28 to assume a vacant Federal Communications Commission seat in a Senate vote by unanimous consent, paired with current-FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s nomination for a second term. But despite optimism from Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), the nominations didn't go through. The apparent reason: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who is apparently looking to move the FCC nominees in a broader package of nominations. Senate Democrats cleared the FCC nominees before the recess. McConnell spokesman Don Stewart disputed that the majority leader caused any stall and said Democrats weren’t ready to move before the recess. How could both be true? A different Senate staffer says that Democrats were advancing only the pair of Starks and Carr while McConnell was unsuccessfully seeking to advance a broader package of nominees (including Starks and Carr) for consideration. One source mentioned judicial nominees being of possible interest for Majority Leader McConnell and said the goal seems to be moving the broader package in the next month.

[Press release] President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate William Bryan of Virginia to be the Under Secretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security. Bryan currently serves as Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  As the science and technology advisor to the DHS Secretary, he leads the research, development, innovation, and testing activities in support of DHS operational components and first responders across the Nation.  Previously, he was the President of ValueBridge International’s Energy Group and held leadership roles in the Departments of Energy Defense. Bryan is a United States Army veteran.  He graduated summa cum laude from Colorado Technical University and earned his MS from the Joint Military Intelligence College.

Germany’s top telecommunications regulator has set its sights on US technology groups such as Google and Facebook, insisting that providers of messaging and email services should be regulated just like ordinary telecommunications companies. “What we are seeing is that the line between traditional telecommunications services and web-based services like [Google’s] Gmail and [Facebook’s] WhatsApp has become very blurred. Users often cannot see any difference at all,” said Jochen Homann, the president of Germany’s Bundesnetzagentur.  “It cannot be right that a company providing traditional telecommunications services has to meet certain regulatory requirements, like those concerning data protection, while a company providing comparable services over the web does not,” he added. The Bundesnetzagentur, or Federal Network Agency, has been locked in a legal battle with Google since 2014, after it ordered the US internet giant to register its email service as a telecommunications operator. That status triggers a series of additional regulatory requirements, in areas such as data protection and security, including the obligation to provide information and access to police and security services. The case is currently before the European Court of Justice. Homann made clear that he regards the legal dispute with Google as a test case, and that victory at the European tribunal would be followed by a broader crackdown.