Politico

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is making calling and video visitation free for inmates after the coronavirus forced a halt to in-person visits, the agency said in a letter to Congress. “Effective April 9, 2020, telephone calls were made free for the inmate population,” Bureau Director Michael Carvajal wrote to Sen.

All eyes are on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on whether he’s about to unveil a potential order to approve a long-pending application from Virginia-based satellite company Ligado Networks, which wants to light up 5G operations in some airwaves it currently holds. Lawmakers have nudged him for months to make a call on this industry request, but the Pentagon and other parts of the Trump administration have cried foul and said Ligado’s plans would disrupt their own critical operations in nearby airwaves — charges Ligado disputes.

Google and Apple’s plan to team up to create new contact tracing technology to combat the coronavirus is already raising eyebrows among key policymakers in Washington.

The internet is still functioning in Europe, aside from some of the same kinds of slowdowns, interruptions

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who has previously waded into debates on net neutrality, slammed the Federal Communications Commission and broadband companies for not doing enough to address the digital divide. In a video with Rep.

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold one of the first known congressional “paper hearings” to discuss the use of personal data during the coronavirus outbreak, which has forced Capitol Hill to move much of its business online. The session, as the name indicates, will be carried out entirely through written statements, questions and responses set to be posted online, with witnesses having four days to respond to queries from lawmakers after the end of business April 9. 

House lawmakers will now have to email-in bills, amendments and other floor materials — a push to protect members of Congress and their staffers and adhere to public health guidelines during the pandemic. “Staff must electronically submit all Floor documents — including bills, resolutions, co-sponsors and extensions of remarks — to a dedicated and secure email system, rather than deliver these materials by hand to staff in the Speaker’s Lobby or Cloakrooms,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced.