Today's Regulatory Mix: FCC Announces Parties’ Work Product Will No Longer be Archived in the SDE Within the BDS and USTelecom Forbearance Proceedings, US Senators Call for Action Against COVID-19 Robocallers, US Congress Broadband Connections Act
In a Public Notice, the Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) of the FCC announced that as of July 3, 2020 it will no longer archive work products created by participants in the business data services (BDS, formerly special access) and USTelecom Forbearance Petition proceedings in the secure data enclave established for that purpose. All data and work products currently archived in “virtual lockers” in the secure data enclave will be destroyed. The Bureau will continue to store copies of the highly-confidential data submitted in response to the FCC’s data request in the above-captioned proceedings pursuant to federal records retention laws.
The FCC contracted with the National Opinion Research Center, dba NORC, at the University of Chicago (NORC) to provide authorized participants in the BDS proceedings remote access to the 2015 Data Collection through a secure data enclave. The secure data enclave also provided authorized participants remote access to the data, the analytical software to analyze the stored data, and “virtual lockers” for storing individual parties’ notes and analysis results, while at the same time ensuring the security of the highly confidential data. These procedures provided authorized parties with a full opportunity to analyze the highly confidential data, and to present the results of their analysis and arguments based on those results to the FCC in the BDS and USTelecom Forbearance proceedings.
The Bureau has found it is no longer in the public interest to archive outside parties’ work product in the secure data enclave and therefore close it effective July 3, 2020. Any notes, analysis results or other documents, programs or files saved to virtual lockers will be deleted. The Bureau will continue to store copy sets of all confidential and highly confidential data and information in the 2015 Data Collection in a manner consistent with the relevant National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) standards for such data and in compliance with federal records retention laws.
U.S. Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Tom Carper (D-DE) have called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to aggressively crack down on scammers seeking to take advantage of Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Senators are asking for information from all four agencies about how they are working together to take enforcement actions against COVID-19-related scammers.
In their letters to the FTC and FCC, the Senators also discuss warnings that the agencies sent to six gateway providers stating that they needed to act to stop enabling COVID-19-related robocalls, including some that originated from overseas. The Senators are asking for an update on what the agencies are doing to ensure that the providers have taken the necessary actions to block scammers. The Senators are also calling on the DOJ to follow through on collecting fines that the FCC imposes on scammers who violate the law and defraud Americans. The Senators discuss a record-setting $225 million FCC fine against a scam telemarketer misrepresenting health plans. However, the DOJ often fails to follow through on collecting FCC fines.
“These scams take many forms, including offering expedited access to economic stimulus payments for a fee, impersonating public health officials, and selling phony products that they claim can prevent or cure COVID-19. These offensive scams are a danger to the health and financial security of Americans,” wrote the Senators. “Government and industry should always cooperate to fight illegal robocalls, but it is even more critical at a time when so many Americans are facing economic and health concerns.”
U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-OR., Richard Blumenthal, D-CT., Mazie Hirono, D-HI, and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., today introduced a bill to ensure that millions of Americans can access essential broadband access in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. S.4095, the Emergency Broadband Connections Act – sponsored by 26 Senate Democrats – would create an Emergency Benefit for Broadband Service to provide free or low-cost broadband service to low-income families or those who have been recently laid off or furloughed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, enhance the FCC’s existing Lifeline subsidy program for qualified low-income Americans, and help the states improve the National Lifeline Eligibility Verifier.
Specifically, the Act would:
The bill would is intended to fill an essential need as the FCC’s voluntary Keep Americans Connected pledge by internet service providers to help consumers continue to access internet service during the pandemic, ends this week. The legislation parallels provisions of the House HEROES Act, and the Emergency Broadband Connections Act by Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas.
__________________________
The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.