A workplace retaliation lawsuit brought by an FCC employee (see 1609300016) raises red flags about "the prevailing institutional culture" there, with the agency seemingly unconcerned about pornography viewing in the workplace, said Tech Knowledge Director Fred Campbell in a piece in Forbes Thursday. "When the head of the FCC office responsible for promoting business opportunities for women condones loud and conspicuous porn watching by a group of males in a cubicle adjacent to a female employee and admits to using his own office in the FCC as a location for sex, there is evidence of a problem that should be addressed by more than an aggressive legal defense." According to an ongoing suit, the head of the Office of Communications Business Opportunities turned a blind eye to such workplace porn watching, with an employee who complained about it suffering discipline. That same boss, OBCO Chief Thomas Reed, reportedly also had sex in his office with a Washington Post reporter (though not one covering the FCC) who later became his wife. Reed reportedly was not disciplined. Reed and the FCC didn't comment.

The FCC’s scrapped Critical Information Needs study threatened free expression, Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a speech accepting The Media Institute’s Free Speech award Wednesday evening at a dinner we attended. His office has "had success in calling attention to government initiatives that threatened our constitutional freedoms,” he said. “This study involved researchers funded by the agency that licenses television stations going into broadcast television newsrooms and asking questions about editorial judgment.” The FCC canceled the study in 2014 in the face of widespread public opposition and questions from legislators (see 1403040033). Though Pai wrote in The Wall Street Journal attacking the CIN studies as an FCC overstep, he downplayed its part in the agency eventually scrapping the study. “What compelled the FCC to stop was the opposition of Americans from around the country and across the political spectrum,” he said. Pai said an increasing culture of censorship on college campuses is connected with policies designed to prevent offensive speech. “This progressive impulse to squelch speech on college campuses is anything but progressive,” Pai said. “An academic culture pervaded by safe spaces, trigger warnings, and a fear of ‘microaggressions’ must be challenged if America is to preserve the first freedom embedded in our Bill of Rights.” Pai also criticized the CIN study during a speech at a 2014 Media Institute event (see 1411190060)

The FCC didn't put a business data service order on its Oct. 27 meeting agenda released Thursday, which did include a broadband privacy order (see 1610200044) and other items. The BDS order wasn't expected to be on the Oct. 27 agenda, but Chairman Tom Wheeler plans to seek a vote on it at the Nov. 17 meeting, said an industry official Wednesday (see 1610190046). TDS Telecommunications, U.S. TelePacific, Uniti Fiber, Public Knowledge and others made BDS filings posted Thursday in docket 16-143. Also on the Oct. 27 meeting agenda are: enforcement items on Locus Telecommunications, Lyca Tel, Touch-Tel and NobelTel; consent agenda items on two station matters and a Freedom of Information Act request handled by the Office of General Counsel; and three personnel actions. Previous personnel items were approved in party-line votes at the September meeting (see 1610030045).

The Department of Commerce’s National Technical Information Service selected Amazon, HP and 33 other firms Wednesday to be joint venture partners on federally funded data projects. The partnerships are aimed at accelerating “the data innovation process by quickly connecting private sector experts with agencies striving to create smart cities, deliver critical public services, enhance operational excellence or improve accessibility and interoperability among national data sets,” said NTIS Director Avi Bender in a news release. “We expect the new data science platforms, tools and apps created through these partnerships to help agencies save time and money through innovative, effective ways to manage data in carrying out their mission and operations.” NTIS said it selected the 35 joint venture partners through a merit review of submitted proposals.

Yahoo, criticized for scanning customers emails at the behest of the government, is urging Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to provide clarity about national security orders issued to obtain user data (see 1610050038). In a Wednesday letter to Clapper, Yahoo General Counsel Ron Bell said media reports mentioned the company's involvement with the "alleged classified order," but "we find ourselves unable to respond in detail. Your office, however, is well positioned to clarify this matter of public interest." Bell is asking Clapper to confirm whether the order was issued, declassify the order, if it exists, in whole or in part, and "make a sufficiently detailed public and contextual comment to clarify the alleged facts and circumstances." An ODNI spokesman emailed, “we can confirm that we have received the letter and will respond to Yahoo directly.”

The FCC's "thoughtful and collaborative" AM revitalization process is in stark contrast to its "misguided, partisan decision" in media ownership rules, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said Tuesday at the International Broadcasters IdeaBank Conference in Buffalo, New York, according to a transcript online. With the FCC having been in court in the past over its handling of the quadrennial review of media ownership rules, O'Rielly said, "the unrealistic nature of the latest attempt" will likely meet the same fate. "It is incomprehensible and patently unfair that broadcasters alone should be kept on this particular regulatory leash, while their competitors roam the radically expanded landscape relatively free of Commission interference," O'Rielly said. He also urged the agency to "take a more realistic view" of the media market by including nonbroadcast and non-newspaper competitors in its analysis: "An updated market definition could set the table for us to better promote localism, competition, and diversity by thoughtfully removing outdated restrictions to media combinations." O'Rielly and Commissioner Ajit Pai unsuccessfully supported more-relaxed newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules in the media ownership order (see 1608250063). O'Rielly also said he hoped the FCC's update of contest rule will lead to broadcasters' ability to use the internet for fulfilling other regulatory requirements like sponsorship identification and broad advertising of employment opportunities.

Recent FCC efforts in the name of protecting consumers and promoting competition include last year's open Internet order, 2014's update of minimum benchmark broadband speeds and adopting new rules earlier this year modernizing the Lifeline program, the agency said Wednesday, as Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote an opinion piece on the subject. Of the 14-page report, 10 pages are bullet-point synopses of various policy decisions, orders and enforcement actions in five categories. Under open networks, the FCC pointed to its work on cracking down on Wi-Fi blocking and modernization of the E-rate program. Under protecting competition, the FCC highlighted its spectrum aggregation policy revisions. Under consumer protection, the agency mentioned robocalling limits and nixing the sports blackout rule. Under strengthening emergency communications, it cited its rules promoting text-to-911 availability and updating wireless emergency alerts. For consumer empowerment, the FCC pointed to creation of its mobile broadband speed test app and Consumer Help Center. Wednesday on CNET, Wheeler wrote, "Thanks to advances in communications technology, there's never been a better -- or more complex -- time to be a US consumer. Faced with many challenges, Americans should know that the FCC works every day to protect consumers." He also talked up the broadband privacy and set-top box proceedings now before the agency, saying the privacy order on October's agenda will "give consumers the tools they need to make informed decisions about how ISPs use and share their data." A draft order circulated earlier this month, and may get a 3-2 vote (see 1610060031). He also said the set-top proposal the commissioners are considering "would end the set-top box stranglehold" by letting consumers access their pay-TV content via free apps and would give viewers "a better viewing experience thanks to integrated search and new innovation that will flow from enhanced competitive choice." The set-top item has been seen as possibly stalled, with many eyes on what Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel will do (see 1610180052).

The Disaster Information Reporting System for Hurricane Matthew is now deactivated, the FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau said in a public notice Tuesday. The hurricane caused numerous telecom network outages across the Southeast coast (see 1610110038).

Correction: The FCC isn't assigning stations to a queue for tower crews. The queues were used for modeling purposes to simulate capacity constraints on equipment manufacturing/ordering for the scheduling tool (see 1610170063).

Pointing to traditional fixed satellite service (FSS) earth station licensing practices that it says leave significant amounts of spectrum unused, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) is pushing the FCC for major changes in earth station licensing. In a petition for rulemaking Monday, FWCC said it wants FSS frequency coordination rules to be more akin to those governing fixed service (FS). "The routine practice of full-band, full arc earth station coordination might have made sense fifty years ago," FWCC said, saying FSS earth station coordination should be only for the frequency, azimuth and elevation angles it intends to use; that the earth station license and construction certification specifies those combinations; and that a frequency/azimuth/elevation angle combination on a license that goes unused for more than 90 days must be reported to the FCC and deleted from the license. Its proposal would let an FSS application coordinate additional frequency/azimuth/elevation angle combos as "growth capacity" that can be renewed indefinitely and that FS applicants must try to avoid. The group proposed an exception where FSS applicants can ask for a waiver letting one coordinate a choice of frequencies/azimuths/elevation angles without any construction deadlines if the earth station will be part of a network with a need to access multiple satellites. FWCC said this petition differs from a similar attempt it made in 1999, since that request made no mention of growth capacity. FWCC declined Tuesday to name its membership. Membership includes microwave equipment makers, licensees of terrestrial fixed microwave systems, communications service providers, public utilities, public safety agencies, cable-TV providers and backhaul providers.