Federalism, Surveillance Resolutions Pass NARUC Telecom Committee
ORLANDO -- The NARUC Telecom Committee approved resolutions on federalism and surveillance at its meeting Monday. The federalism resolution approved a yearlong effort to update a paper on federalism and how the states interact with the FCC and the industry. The surveillance resolution, introduced by Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Larry Landis, was also passed by the committee with major changes to reflect concern that customer proprietary network information (CPNI) restrictions are being breached by telco cooperation with the National Security Agency. All NARUC commissioners will vote on the resolutions at the closing session Wednesday.
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A statement on the need for USF support was added to the federalism resolution at the request of O'Neal Hamilton, South Carolina public service commissioner. South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner Chris Nelson and California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine Sandoval said that would be a valuable contribution to the resolution. “Universal service is important to many states including California,” said Sandoval. “We address this in our principles in the paper, and I support the amendment."
The USF is still up in the air, with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing the case on the transformation order scheduled for Tuesday, said James Cawley, Pennsylvania public utilities commissioner. Cawley submitted a 9,000-word amicus brief in November on why the FCC’s Connect America Fund order is an over-expansive interpretation of 1996 Telecom Act (CD Nov 30/12 p10). “The reforms from the order will slowly starve out the companies who receive USF funds in Pennsylvania,” he said. “These companies need these funds to survive, and I do appreciate this becoming part of the motion.”
The resolution on government surveillance was initially written based on several news clips from The New York Times, ProPublica and The Wall Street Journal to provide context for the commissioners (CD Nov 8 p2). The staff subcommittee took out these news references at its Saturday meeting, and said many consumers have expectations that “privacy protections apply to emails, phone calls, and other communications information.” They added language about CPNI, which the FCC affirmed in a declaratory ruling at its June meeting (CD June 28 p4).
The NARUC resolution asks the FCC to investigate whether telecom carriers subject to its jurisdiction have acted in compliance with the FCC’s CPNI rules in relation to the materials they gave to the NSA. The FCC needs to reexamine its CPNI rules and other rules related to the privacy of consumer data, said the resolution. It said the agency should consider whether carriers should be obligated to regularly “notify consumers that CPNI data, call and/or text records, Internet data, voice communications, correspondence and materials by those providers may be released."
Nebraska Public Service Commissioner Anne Boyle and Philip Jones, NARUC outgoing president and Washington Utilities and Transportation commissioner, said the surveillance resolution “makes a good point that combating acts of terrorism and the right to privacy are both important."
The Telecom Committee decided to table its resolution on slamming, cramming and unfair marketing practices at its Monday meeting until February. (See a separate report in this issue.) After substantial revisions Sunday by the staff to the resolution, the resolution has “no teeth” for substantial regulations for wireless and VoIP providers, said Nelson of South Dakota. “We should table this until we can create more specific regulations and ideas that we can agree on.”