Upcoming event

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released a draft of its controversial Order that would repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, Commissioner Brendan Carr as well as Federal Trade Commission Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen will each deliver remarks on the commission’s upcoming agenda.

The speeches by the Chairman and Commissioners will be followed by a discussion with our expert panel, featuring:

8:30 – 9:00: Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00 – 9:15: Welcome Remarks and Introduction

• Lawrence J. Spiwak, President, The Phoenix Center

9:15 – 10:15: Panel Discussion – Is Schumpeterian “Creative Destruction” Still Possible in Today’s Regulatory Environment?

Panelists:

On November 29, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Carpenter v. U.S., one of the most important technology policy cases pending at the Court this year. The Justices are expected to decide whether the Fourth Amendment permits the compelled, warrantless disclosure of increasingly precise and revealing stored cell phone location information.

This briefing will provide an opportunity for individuals to learn more about the draft order, its legal underpinnings, and the ways it will likely harm consumers and the free market. The hill briefing is open to the public.

Moderator: Chris Lewis, Vice President, Public Knowledge

Panelists:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 14, 2017:

The hearing will examine how actions taken by tech companies and online platforms affect consumer privacy and choice.

After several significant data breaches in recent years impacting hundreds of millions of Americans, malicious actors can now package consumer information from multiple stolen data sets into one stolen identity profile.The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will examine how to verify identities and protect personal data online compromised in this new, post-breach world.

In the wake of the deadly riots in Charlottesville, VA in August, neo-Nazi websites were dumped by a series of technology providers in quick succession. Perhaps most publicly, content-delivery network and security provider Cloudflare terminated The Daily Stormer’s service at the behest of its CEO, Matthew Prince, who, in a subsequent blog post, identified serious questions around the future of online free speech and censorship that his actions raised.