Government & Communications

President Donald Trump's decision to block his Twitter followers for their political views is a violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled May 23, saying that President Trump's effort to silence his critics is not permissible under the US Constitution because the digital space in which he engages with constituents is a public forum. The ruling rejects administration arguments that the First Amendment does not apply to President Trump in this case because he was acting as a private individual.

Police departments pay Amazon to use facial-recognition technology the company says can “identify persons of interest against a collection of millions of faces in real-time.”  More than two dozen nonprofits wrote to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to ask that he stop selling the technology to police, after the ACLU of Northern California revealed documents to shine light on the sales.

Journalists from CNN, the Associated Press and E&E News, a publication that covers energy and environment issues, were barred by the Environmental Protection Agency from entering an event, which was focused on harmful chemicals in water. A handful of other reporters from other news organizations, however, were allowed inside the event for Director Pruitt's opening remarks after having been previously invited by the agency the day before. Jahan Wilcox, an EPA spokesman, said the agency barred reporters from attending due to space limitations inside the venue.

The House Commerce Committee's Digital Subcommittee held a hearing on a bipartisan bill, the State of Modern Application, Research and Trends (SMART) IoT Act, which charges the Commerce Department with studying the Internet of Things (IoT) from various angles with an eye toward what the government needs to do to promote adoption while protecting the security of the nation's networks. On hand to talk about the kind of information the government needs were Tim Day, VP at the U.S.

Sens Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) issued a strong call to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to identify and address fraudulent behavior that has led to potentially two million fake comments being filed under stolen identities on public rulemakings. Though they come from different sides of the aisle, Sens Merkley and Toomey share a personal connection to this issue: Both had their identities stolen to file false comments on the FCC’s net neutrality proposals.

The hallmark of President Trump’s Twitter feed is that it sounds like him — grammatical miscues and all. But it’s not always Trump tapping out a Tweet, even when it sounds like his voice. Apparently, West Wing employees who draft proposed tweets intentionally employ suspect grammar and staccato syntax in order to mimic the president’s style. They overuse the exclamation point! They Capitalize random words for emphasis. Fragments. Loosely connected ideas.

As required by the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, with this Public Notice, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, in coordination with the Wireline Competition Bureau, establishes a portal for Internet service provider (ISP) transparency disclosures. The Order becomes effective on June 11, 2018, and the revised transparency rule requires ISPs to publicly disclose information about their service in one of two ways – by providing the disclosure on a publicly available, easily accessible website or by submitting it to the Federal Communications Commission for posting. On May 29, 2018

Apparently, President Donald Trump has personally pushed US Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms to ship packages, a dramatic move that probably would cost these companies billions of dollars. Brennan has so far resisted Trump’s demand, explaining in multiple conversations occurring in 2018 and last that these arrangements are bound by contracts and must be reviewed by a regulatory commission, apparently.

The Federal Communications Commission’s submission provides a spending level of $333,118,000, derived from regulatory fees for regular FCC operations, and an auction spending cap of $112,734,000.

The Office of Special Counsel has ruled that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai did not violate ethics laws by participating in a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, but said that it will be conducting standards training with agency employees in the coming months. "After considering all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the event, OSC has concluded that you did not violate the Hatch Act by merely participating in the panel discussion in an official capacity," OSC official Ana Galindo-Marrone wrote in the letter to Ch