President Barack Obama Friday established a new National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) Executive Committee as a “forum” on communications issues of importance to national security. The new committee will have a high-profile membership and is to make recommendations directly to the president.

The FCC granted several complaints about “slamming” -- unauthorized changes to a customer’s telecom service provider -- in a series of orders released Friday. In response to complaints against 14 telecom providers, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted nine, denied three, and declared the remainder “resolved.” Most of the granted complaints were against small rural providers, but Frontier was among the telcos accused of insufficiently responding to FCC requests for information, and subsequently found in violation of the rules. A Frontier spokeswoman told us the company “takes all complaints seriously. As such we are investigating the complaint and subsequent ruling."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled last week that the appointment of the judges of the Copyright Royalty Board “as currently constituted” violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. To correct the violation, the court said it is invalidating and severing a portion of the law that restricts the ability of the Librarian of Congress to remove the judges.

Idaho telephone companies will no longer have to fix outages within 24 hours or give customers a free month of service for failing to do so, ruled the Idaho Public Utilities Commission Tuesday in a 2-1 vote. At stake was Idaho’s Telephone Customer Relations Rule 502, which demands such quick repair for weekday outages and mandates the credit if that deadline is missed. About a dozen people and the AARP worried changing the rule would put the elderly, low-income and rural without the service they need.

Broadcasters worry about a repeat of problems with an ownership form when the FCC starts a system for all TV stations to upload to fcc.gov documents on paper in public files at main studios, their lawyers told us Thursday. They said the absence of a system to accept documents listing how much campaign ads sell for to politicians around the time of elections, quarterly lists of informational and educational programs, and other paperwork -- less than a month before online public files must start being created -- is causing some angst. The Media Bureau seems to be rushing to complete work on the forthcoming system, which could lead to another instance of glitches with a new paperwork collection system, as occurred for Form 323 biennial ownership reports, broadcast lawyers said.

The FCC quietly modified rules covering the 76-77 GHz band, both at the request of industry, intended to spur use of the band. Acting on a request from Toyota, the FCC agreed to change the limits for radiated emissions in the band to allow more use of “stop and go” adaptive cruise control and rear pre-collision systems in the cars it manufactures for sale in the U.S. The commission also agreed to allow fixed radar in the 76-77 GHz band at airports for foreign object debris detection and general safety. The FCC approved an order Tuesday, and released it Thursday.

A U.S. regulator gave more time to agree on set-top box energy efficiency standards among advocates at nonprofits seeking reduced energy use, and executives of consumer electronics companies and multichannel video programming distributors hoping to avoid rules. The executives said the talks on standards for set-tops have been fruitful, and they're hopeful conversations will pick up steam. The Department of Energy said Thursday it’s delaying a rulemaking schedule until after Oct. 1 to give the talks time to progress, and executives told us a fall time frame for a deal is reasonable.

EU lawmakers Wednesday blocked the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in what the author of the lead committee report called the “biggest ever defeat” of a European Commission legislative proposal. The EC could present Parliament with revised language later, but it’s more likely that the treaty is dead, said David Martin, of the U.K. and Socialists and Democrats. The 478-39 vote was the first time the body exercised its power under the new EU Treaty to reject an international trade agreement, Parliament said. The move shows that digital rights, as a political issue, is now center-stage for European policymakers, European Digital Rights Advocacy Coordinator Joe McNamee said in a newsletter. The intellectual property (IP) community, however, was furious.

CEA is no more enamored of NAB’s lobbying the FCC to encourage the voluntary inclusion of radio chips in mobile devices than it was with past NAB proposals urging Congress and the agency to mandate FM receivers in cellphones, CEA President Gary Shapiro told us in a statement Tuesday. He responded to NAB President Gordon Smith’s call on the commission earlier this week to begin “a serious discussion about the voluntary activation of radio chips” in mobile phones (CD July 5 p15). As ammunition in his letter Tuesday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Smith cited the important role radio stations played in distributing weather information during the recent storms that struck the East Coast and Midwest. Smith thanked Genachowski for convening a July 20 meeting of broadcast and wireless industry representatives to discuss the issue.

Special access reform and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s initial push for a vote on an order rejecting AT&T and Windstream pricing flexibility petitions are expected to be key areas for questions July 10 when commissioners are scheduled to appear before the House Communications Subcommittee for an oversight hearing. Other likely topics include USF/intercarrier compensation reform, progress on a voluntary incentive auction of broadcast spectrum and other spectrum issues, the Verizon Wireless/cable AWS deals and privacy regulations, said government and industry officials.