FBI Director Robert Mueller asked for legislation to speed government requests for access to user communications on Google, Facebook and other websites. Tuesday at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing about the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Mueller said the FBI wants to ensure that social media websites “have the capability to respond to court orders” seeking communications of users. The FBI had raised the issue at a February hearing in the House Judiciary Committee, but hadn’t called for legislation.

Rick Kaplan, chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau, said that as it moves on spectrum legislation, Congress should give the FCC maximum flexibility to act. The remarks came during a panel Tuesday sponsored by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Speakers disagreed sharply about whether Congress is playing a helpful role as it considers legislation giving the FCC authority to hold voluntary incentive auctions for broadcast and other spectrum, as proposed last year in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. This week, the administration proposed incentive auctions as part of the spectrum provisions in its Jobs Bill (CD Sept 13 p1).

Democrats and Republicans on the House Subcommittee on Rural Development pressed Agriculture Department officials to publish a study on how they're defining “rural” for the purposes of their grants and loans programs, including the broadband loan program. “This report was due two years after enactment of the Farm Bill, yet we still have not received the report,” subcommittee Chairman Tim Johnson, R-Ill., said at a hearing Tuesday. The bill was enacted May 22, 2008. “I hope that USDA can provide an explanation this morning for why this report is still not finished and how long it is expected to be delayed,” Johnson said.

The no. 2 U.S. radio broadcaster is starting to test an FM transmission technology that backers say may improve reception for analog listeners in areas with hills, mountains, skyscrapers and other obstructing terrain. The supporters and an executive who’s sitting out the test said the single sideband (SSB) suppressed carrier technology may eventually help reception of digital radio. There’s skepticism among some executives that the type of modulation will help get HD Radio chips in more consumer electronics.

GENEVA -- Difficult sharing studies have prompted several administrations to oppose some or all of the proposed bands under a WRC-12 agenda item on possible new mobile satellite service (MSS) allocations to spur advanced wireless communications, according to early proposals. Some regional groups, notably the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions, and certain administrations are expected to introduce proposals that may contain support.

Public safety would get the 700 MHz D-block, under the proposed American Jobs Act released late Monday by President Barack Obama. The legislation also authorizes several spectrum auctions to fund the network. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., praised the bill for including proposals similar to his proposed Spectrum Act (S-911).

Due to compliance issues, federal regulators told officials at the Virgin Island Next Generation Network, a broadband initiative funded by NTIA’s BTOP program, to stop all project work and submit an action plan before Oct. 3. Unless the compliance requirements are met, the funding will be suspended Oct. 14. The action plan will be submitted before the end of the week, said project CEO Julito Francis.

Time Warner Cable avoided a program access complaint by Hawaii’s largest telco (CD Aug 11 p6), because the two sides agreed to a distribution deal. The cable operator let Hawaiian Telcom distribute a regional sports network, a spokesman for the telco told us. Other multichannel video providers meanwhile asked the FCC to continue or at least look to continue RSN conditions expiring next year. The agency placed the curbs on Time Warner Cable and Comcast in 2006 as part of letting them buy Adelphia Communications.

The incumbent-backed America’s Broadband Connectivity plan is flawed because it retains the rate-of-return system, gives incumbents the right of first refusal for universal service funds, and doesn’t address the nation’s broadband adoption gap, Blair Levin of the Aspen Institute said Monday. Speaking at a roundtable sponsored by the Minority Media and Telecom Council, Levin criticized the $300 million set-aside for wireless carriers, which he called “the wireless dividend,” and blasted the Department of Agriculture for asking the FCC to guarantee Rural Utilities Service loans, which he said creates “horrible false incentives.”

The FCC likely will soon approve a $2.4 billion radio deal to form a larger No. 2 company in the industry. The Media Bureau is expected by agency and commission officials to be nearly ready to issue, as soon as this week, an order letting Cumulus Media buy Citadel Broadcasting.