The Justice Department ended a three-year hiring freeze, which led to 4,000 positions being unfilled, said the agency in a news release Monday night (http://1.usa.gov/1gqtw8O). It said “critical vacancies” will be filled “after years of uncertainty,” because Congress recently passed and President Barack Obama signed into law a budget deal restoring the department’s funding to pre-sequestration levels plus extra money “for key priorities."

The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force Feb. 21 workshop will be on feasibility checking during the repacking process. Topics will include the role of feasibility checking and the need for speed and certainty, and the different types of mathematical solvers and approaches to using them in an auction, the FCC said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1ogTgdd). The workshop will be 10 a.m. to noon in the Commission Meeting Room, it said. Another workshop also will be Feb. 21, 1-3:30 p.m., the FCC said in a separate public notice (http://bit.ly/MJ80Tk). It will focus on methodology for predicting potential interference between broadcast TV and licensed wireless services, it said. It also is open to the public and will be in the Commission Meeting Room.

The requirement of a compulsory music license would have a “chilling effect” on music releases, said Dina LaPolt, attorney at LaPolt Law and her client, Steven Tyler of the band Aerosmith, in comments for a Commerce Department green paper Monday (http://bit.ly/1bG1HWT). Artists and songwriters “deserve approval” over the use of their work, said LaPolt. The present system allows “both sides of a negotiation [to] come away satisfied -- as opposed to a compulsory license, which would often leave the rights holder frustrated,” she said. Pop star Britney Spears signed a letter supporting LaPolt’s comments, LaPolt said. Commerce released the green paper to ensure that “copyright policy provides strong incentives for creativity, while promoting innovation in the digital economy,” it said (http://1.usa.gov/1bySZcG) (CD Nov 29 p11).

The common carrier exemption in the FTC Act should be eliminated, FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said Monday at a University of Colorado Law School Silicon Flatirons event. “Absolutely,” Ramirez said when asked about eliminating the exemption. “Given where we are today, it’s an exemption that no longer makes sense. I would support getting rid of that.” The three other FTC commissioners -- Republicans Maureen Ohlhausen and Joshua Wright and Democrat Julie Brill -- have all said the FTC would be capable of bringing enforcement action against common carriers to ensure net neutrality, with Wright saying the FTC would be better equipped than the FCC to handle such actions (CD Feb 3 p12). Ramirez has not been as vocal on the issue to this point. While still a commissioner in 2010, she did issue a concurring statement with Brill (http://1.usa.gov/1eiZb8W) in which they said, “An exemption from the Federal Trade Commission Act for ‘common carriers’ has impeded the FTC’s ability to take action against telecommunications service providers involved in unlawful practices. As a consequence, such companies -- which may profit handsomely from deceptive conduct -- have evaded FTC prosecution.” But before Monday, Ramirez had not commented on the issue since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision vacating the FCC’s authority to impose net neutrality rules on broadband ISPs, which some argued might lead to the FTC playing an enhanced role in overseeing ISPs (CD Jan 15 p1).

Correction: The group that Director Blake Reid of the University of Colorado’s Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic is representing on IP captions is Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Inc. (CD Feb 6 p5).

The U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, striking down FCC net neutrality rules last month may have ramifications beyond the current focus of many stakeholders on whether ISPs will slow or block Web traffic, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. By drawing the distinction that Title II telecom regulation for neutrality could not be applied to broadband service, classified by the FCC as a Title I information service, Feld said it raises the question of what other telecom rules couldn’t be applied to VoIP. The FCC’s ability to apply its rural call completion order for VoIP may also be in jeopardy, Feld told NARUC staff at the association’s meeting in Washington Sunday. The order required phone companies to collect and report data on whether rural calls are connected.

The FCC should encourage opportunities for minority ownership in the media, telecommunications and broadband industries, the Minority Media and Telecom Council (MMTC) told Chairman Tom Wheeler, commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O'Rielly, an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai, and Enforcement Bureau staff in a series of meetings Friday, according to an ex parte filing released Monday. To encourage minority ownership, the commission should revise its designated-entity rules to “take into consideration the scale that is needed to participate as a competitor in the spectrum auctions” and encourage major telecom carriers to conduct secondary transactions with minority-owned businesses, the MMTC filing said. The commission should also relax cross-ownership rules “except in smaller and some medium markets where relaxation might result in excessive concentration of the media and, therefore, harm minority ownership,” the filing said. The commission should also tighten the rules governing sharing arrangements, MMTC said. On the open Internet, the commission should institute “light touch regulation premised on transparency and vigilant oversight and monitoring to discourage abusive practices,” MMTC said. The commission should also “give credence” to the FCC Diversity Advisory Committee’s recommendations, MMTC said.

The White House should issue a request for information on the “concerns and opinions of those whose data may be collected in bulk as a result of their engagement with technology,” said 25 civil society groups Monday in an open letter to the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) (http://bit.ly/1eKDpRH). The letter coincided with a Monday meeting between privacy groups and the White House team reviewing the privacy concerns arising from big data (CD Feb 10 p15). The 25 groups -- including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Center for Democracy and Technology, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog and Electronic Frontier Foundation -- called on OSTP to seek answers to some privacy-related questions: What are the harms arising from big data collection? Is the current legal frame adequate to govern big data? What technical measures might minimize privacy risks? And, how can the private and public sector be more transparent in their use of big data? The privacy groups urged the White House Monday to open the public comment period as soon as possible. “Through big data, government agencies could covertly make decisions about individuals, while denying due process rights such as information access and correction,” they said in the letter. “Today similar concerns arise about the use of personal data by large commercial entities."

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission should “take prompt action against abusive patent trolls,” the American Antitrust Institute said Thursday in letters to the agencies. AAI urged DOJ to reopen its investigations into large patent portfolio transfers to Rockstar and Conversant Intellectual Property Management, two patent assertion entities AAI referred to as “trolls.” The two PAEs have used those patent portfolios to launch “an aggressive patent enforcement campaign” against Google at its competitors’ behests, AAI said. DOJ and FTC should also urge standards-setting organizations to adopt AAI-proposed patent policies that would “diminish the ability of patent trolls and others to enforce patents essential to technical standards -- such as 4G and Blu-Ray -- in an anticompetitive manner,” AAI said. The group said the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), which the Senate Judiciary Committee is considering, would empower the FTC to take action against PAEs that send out deceptive demand letters. “More transparent patent enforcement would encourage defensive measures by users and manufacturers of high-tech products and discourage offensive misuses of patents by trolls,” AAI said (http://bit.ly/LFlejp).

C Spire said it completed its buy of cloud provider Callis Communications. The purchase of Callis is C Spire’s latest business deal aimed at growing its footprint in the Southeast, which has also included expanded 4G LTE coverage in southern Alabama and plans for 1 Gbps fiber service in nine Mississippi cities, C Spire said (http://bit.ly/MyeBzY).