News

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, Free Press filed a petition to deny the license transfers between Verizon, SpectrumCo and Cox Communications.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, members of the House of Representatives negotiating the payroll tax cut extension reportedly reached a compromise on provisions related to spectrum. The agreement would establish firmly the FCC’s ability to preserve unlicensed use in the current TV band, even if the FCC reallocates and then auctions some of that band for wireless broadband.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, a bipartisan letter from 42 members of the House of Representatives urged congressional leadership to keep prime wireless spectrum available for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other innovative new technologies.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, 45 public-interest groups sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee opposing two bill that would severely limit the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to promote competition, innovation and access to communications services.

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, Free Press, the Media Access Project, Public Knowledge and the Greenlining Institute filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission requesting that Verizon, SpectrumCo and Cox Communications make unredacted versions of their joint operating and marketing agreements in their spectrum deals available to parties in the proceeding.

WASHINGTON — On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it will solicit ideas for new research on barriers to entry for small businesses and underrepresented groups to participate in the communications and media industries.

On Friday night, Arizona State University (ASU) responded to thousands of complaints from ASU students and Free Press activists and stopped blocking student access to the popular petition website Change.org.

WASHINGTON — On Monday, Rep. Ed Markey will introduce a discussion draft of a bill aimed at giving cellphone users more information on the monitoring software that may exist on their phones. The bill would also require disclosure of how any data that software collects is used and shared.

On Saturday, six journalists, many with press credentials, were arrested when Oakland, Calif. police clashed with Occupy protesters. These arrests bring the total number of journalists detained in Occupy protests nationwide to nearly 50. Free Press has been tracking journalist arrests and press suppression related to the Occupy movement since September.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, Free Press released Citizens Inundated, a report that follows the money trail from big-spending political donors to the bank accounts of the nation’s largest broadcast companies.