With so much attention focused on online censorship in highly restrictive countries such as China, Iran and Syria, the discussion of global Internet freedom often has tended to exclude the large class of more moderate nations with rapidly growing online populations with only a rudimentary set of laws and policies for the Web.

To the extent that the issue has received coverage in the mainstream press, the banner headlines have generally been reserved for the higher-profile flare-ups, recently seen in various Internet crackdowns amid the Arab spring uprisings or Google’s 2010 standoff with China over online censorship.

But for Bob Boorstin, Google’s director of corporate and policy communications, the greater uncertainty, both for U.S. businesses looking to new markets overseas and global Internet users, is found in the countries that have neither made forceful affirmations of online freedom nor implemented rigid, state-sanctioned censorship frameworks.

“The countries that I’m most concerned with in the next couple of years and that I think are most worth looking at are those in the middle — the Brazils and the Indias and Argentinas and the Chiles and the North African countries and Southeast Asian [countries], like Indonesia, the Philippines. And the question I want to put on the table is which way are they going to go?” Boorstin said here at an event hosted by the Media Access Project, a nonprofit public-interest law firm and advocacy group. “That’s the question that I’m focused on at the moment.”

Clinton Shines Light on Internet Freedom

Shortly after Google went public with the revelations that it had been targeted by a series of cyber attacks emanating from China and announced that it would no longer comply with that country’s Internet censorship rules, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made Internet freedom the subject of a major policy speech in January 2010, an issue she has revisited in subsequent remarks.

Clinton cast the issue in terms of human rights and freedom of expression, and signaled that Internet freedom would become an integral part of U.S. foreign policy and diplomatic strategy.

Ben Scott, policy advisor for innovation at Clinton’s office, called that speech a “sea change” that served to elevate Internet issues to a first-tier item on the global policy agenda.

“Virtually everyone has woken up to the fact that the Internet matters to foreign policy,” Scott said on Tuesday. “This is an issue that no one can ignore anymore.”

But that broad acceptance that the Internet matters is not to be mistaken for anything close to consensus on the subject, Scott said.

He acknowledged that there is a rudimentary understanding that “technology is a catalyst for economic growth” throughout the international community, but added that he regularly meets with senior government, academic and business leaders around the world who do not believe that the Internet represents a net good, a starting point that is bound to prescribe a policy framework very different from that found in the United States and other countries where the Web is a generally open platform for expression.

“I think we have an erroneous tendency to project our own assumptions and our own familiarities in this debate on other capital cities. And we forget the fact that in most of these middle countries it’s really only in the last two years — thanks to the smartphone — that significant percentages of their populations are online,” Scott said. “These are new questions in a lot of these countries.”

In India, for instance, the percentage of residents using the Internet still numbers in the single digits, according to Scott. Yet that country, with the world’s second largest population and a thriving tech economy in cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore, represents a hive of opportunities for U.S. tech firms. At the same time, it has exhibited some worrisome signs of heavy-handed oversight that could mute the enthusiasm with which businesses eye the market.

Google and Facebook ComplyJust this week, word surfaced that Google and Facebook had each taken down certain content on their domains in India to comply with a court ruling that upheld a lawsuit against a larger group of Internet companies seeking mechanisms to block sensitive religious material.

“That’s the kind of thing that we’re going to run up against all the time. The question is will they come out in the defense of an open Internet,” Boorstin said of his company’s situation in India.

He explained that he is hopeful that countries still developing the building blocks of their Internet policy will ultimately land on the side of openness. Even if they are not compelled by a philosophical allegiance to free expression, the pragmatic understanding that a cross-border flow of communication through social media and cloud computing technologies will be an essential piece of the 21st century economy should be motivation enough to loosen their Internet policies.

“They will recognize that without that free flow of information they’re going to stifle if not strangle their growth,” he said.

Kenneth Corbin is a Washington, D.C.-based writer who covers government and regulatory issues for CIO.com.

WASHINGTON — If you think China and Iran are where the fight for Internet freedom are centered, you may want to reconsider.

According to Bob Boorstin, Google’s Director of Corporate and Policy Communications, the crucial battles today are elsewhere.

“India is number one,” he said, when I asked which country was at the top of his list. Another is Russia, where he said the problem is the corrupt private individuals who may soon hold the Internet for ransom.

“You may soon be paying large fees to mysterious figures,” he predicted, for Internet access there.

Those countries, along with Indonesia, the Philippines and others described as worrisome, are issuing new laws and regulations that may limit free expression online and free access to information. Boorstin singled out two large, industrialized democracies for special attention.

“It has gone past the critical point in Korea; it gives me nightmares,” he said. “Brazil always worries me because there are a lot of prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves, and foreign companies are an easy target.”

Boorstin described all of these as the countries “in the middle.” He explained those are the countries between the very free – he named the U.S. and the Netherlands – and those at the other extreme, such as China and Iran.

“Which way are they going to go?” he asked. “That’s the question I’m focused on for the moment.”

Ben Scott, Policy Advisor for Innovation in Secretary of State Clinton’s office, was another participant at this morning’s forum sponsored by the Media Access Project. Scott agreed with Boorstin, mostly, but articulated a different set of criteria for the front lines of Internet freedom.

“Countries with rapid growth rates in Internet connectivity will deal with these questions more rapidly,” he said.

According to Scott, some of the most senior, educated people in foreign governments still do not understand the Internet.

“They see it as a problem that needs to be controlled,” said Scott, “not a net benefit to humanity.”

Asked what would drive the major developments on the Internet over the next 12-18 months, Boorstin and Scott both pointed to 3G- and 4G-equipped mobile telephones.

“The key development is smart phones,” said Scott. “More people are connecting to the Internet for the first time, and that will up the stakes. There will be a whole lot more money on the table.” And that money, he predicted, would be “pushing for business opportunities.”

“Whatever we see in the next 12-18 months will be in the mobile sphere,” agreed Boorstin. “Anybody who is looking at what’s next on the Internet will have to look toward the hand-held device and what it will allow people to do in everyday commerce, in organizing for political change, and free expression.”

Boorstin said he had good news, too, pointing to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, which “got the essence of the open Internet right.”

“Anyone interested in where the Internet should go,” he said, should look at the OECD, which last month issued a call to “promote and protect the global free flow of information.”

“After a long process,” he said, “they decided government should not be in charge. When was the last time 35 governments came together on anything and decided they should not be in charge?”

But what about China?

“The Chinese definition of innovation,” said Boorstin, “might be interpreted as stealing from other countries.”

In the desperate hours of early January, with chatter spreading that the White House was poised to make a devastating statement opposing parts of proposed anti-piracy legislation that Hollywood studios considered key to the industry’s very survival, MPAA president Christopher Dodd made a phone call to DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

PHOTOS: 10 Most Pirated Movies of All Time

Katzenberg’s company is not an MPAA member, but a list of the top 10 fund-raisers bundling money for President Obama would include not only Katzenberg but also his political adviser, Andy Spahn. It would not include any of the chiefs whose studios belong to the MPAA. So the former U.S. senator reached out, he says, to find out about the thinking inside the White House.

“The rumors were running rampant,” says Dodd. “I was trying to use all the information points I could to find out what was going on.”

Dodd says that at the time of his call, he had been assured no major actions were imminent. Then, on Jan. 14, the administration said it would not support legislation “that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

“They just made up their mind to do it,” says Dodd. “I raised issues about it, but they were going to march ahead.”

So it was that Silicon Valley trampled Hollywood with a simple — and, to the studios, absurd — argument: that the anti-piracy bills would somehow “break the Internet.” Seemingly overnight, the country had made up its mind — the mere mention of “Hollywood” elicited boos from the audience during a debate among GOP candidates. MPAA members, who believed they had carefully laid the groundwork with the White House and Congress and that they had already made major concessions to placate their adversaries in the tech community, felt bitterly betrayed.

PHOTOS: 10 Hollywood Players That Will Make a Difference in the 2012 Elections

The legislation is in limbo now, though a source says there is movement — however incremental — toward a compromise. The MPAA says it’s in the midst of a major reset on how to approach the issue. And the blame game has begun, with many wondering how Hollywood allowed itself to be beaten so decisively.

In the days after the controversial House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was derailed, Dodd belittled those who opposed it and threatened Democrats who had fled when the bill became radioactive. Perhaps his worst post-defeat move came Jan. 19 when he told Fox News that “those who count on, quote, ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake.” There was an instant outcry, including a petition on the White House website calling on the administration to investigate Dodd for “bribery.” (In less than a week, it had attracted more than 21,000 signatures.)

Dodd, who says he was simply stating facts on Fox News, seemed to have done a thorough job making himself the face of those who would, according to critics, trample Internet freedom. Within days, however, he altered his tone. At a Jan. 23 Sundance panel, he acknowledged the defeat as “a watershed event.” But even as Dodd dialed back his message, certain studio chiefs are continuing to rattle their sabres, letting it be known that their support for Obama has cooled because of the administration’s opposition to elements of the bill.

Such threats seem to be part of the disconnect that doomed the SOPA legislation. “They didn’t understand the politics of the Internet, the power of the Internet, the perception people had of the things they were proposing,” says an aide to a congressman who opposed the legislation. “The MPAA and the different lobbying organizations are trying to do it old-school and by the book. They ran into new technologies, new strategies, new techniques. I imagine they’re sitting around discussing how they got beat.”

Not so long ago, says Andrew Schwartzman, senior vp of the D.C. public-interest organization Media Access Project, such a defeat would have seemed impossible. For years, the MPAA used a combination of “sophisticated effort and a lot of money” to win battles over issues like copyright protection. It used to be that the industry’s bill “passed with huge margins and the opposition just got crushed.” For a time, it looked like that would happen with the anti-piracy legislation, too. And the studios went for the gold, not so much in the Senate but in the House with the broader SOPA. “They teed up what many people thought were needlessly draconian measures, going for the best possible version of what they wanted,” says Schwartzman.

Michael O’Leary, the MPAA’s senior executive vp global policy and external affairs, acknowledges that some of the House bill’s “sharp edges finally could have been softened” but adds, “That assumes the opposition wanted to make some kind of accommodation.” And the MPAA says the enemy (aka Google) wasn’t interested in that. Instead, the studios believe Google’s real agenda was protecting revenue from advertising on illegal sites.

But there was little effort to make it appear, at least, that the studios and their supporters tried to negotiate with Google. When the House Judiciary Committee held a Nov. 16 hearing on SOPA, there was only one witness on the list testifying in opposition: Google’s policy counsel, Katherine Oyama. “It was a stacked hearing,” says Sherwin Siy of the Washington nonprofit Public Knowledge. (The committee chairman, Republican Lamar Smith of Texas, declined comment.)

ANALYSIS: SOPA Defeat Is Not the End Of Hollywood’s Ramped-Up Fight Against Piracy

By the time the committee met Dec. 15-16 to mark up the bill, the battle was no longer so one-sided. Various opponents tried to amend the bill and were voted down. The markup turned into something of a circus, with some members conceding that they didn’t fully understand provisions of the bill, says Siy, who adds, “I was incredulously tweeting a lot of it.” The mark-up “really drove home a lot of the problem to the broader grassroots,” he says.

With SOPA stuck in committee, Congress went on recess until Jan. 17, allowing more time for the bill’s enemies to rally the troops. By early January, the MPAA had started to pick up signals that the Obama administration was unhappy with certain elements. Of course, the White House had little interest in antagonizing its wealthy Hollywood supporters in an election year — but it had even less interest in upsetting young Internet users or big tech companies, employees of which have given $52 million to the Democratic party since 2007, up $12 million from the 2001-06 period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

A few days after the White House posted its Jan. 14 statement, protest blackouts by popular websites such as Wikipedia sealed the deal. Support for the legislation collapsed — most strikingly on the Senate side, where four of the bill’s original backers withdrew, including longtime industry friend Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Schwartzman says he can’t remember when so many co-sponsors bailed on a bill.

The MPAA’s O’Leary concedes that the industry was outmanned and outgunned in cyberspace. He says the MPAA “is [undergoing] a process of education, a process of getting a much, much greater presence in the online environment. This was a fight on a platform we’re not at this point comfortable with, and we were going up against an opponent that controls that platform.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had tried to broker a high-level meeting of the antagonists as recently as the week of Jan. 9, but Disney CEO Bob Iger — contacted because Feinstein is unable to talk to Dodd due to lobbying restrictions — declined the invitation. Dodd says he doubts the issue will be addressed again in the heat of an election year.

It now may be hard to win grassroots support for even a compromise bill, given the general distrust aroused by any attempt to legislate around the Internet. As for the industry’s relationship with Obama, Schwartzman figures that will improve with time because Hollywood has no place else to go.

And what about Dodd? Given the degree to which he’s been demonized during this fight, it’s unclear how effective he can be in seeking a solution. “I can’t figure out how such a seasoned and prestigious legislator blew it,” says one Hollywood political operative. But the studios say they aren’t blaming him. “He didn’t design this legislation,” says one high-level insider. “He played the cards he was dealt.”

♦♦♦♦♦

A FRESH SELL FOR HOLLYWOOD

To help change the public’s perception of protecting intellectual property, THR solicited the input of Sara Arnell, CEO of brand strategy and marketing firm Arnell Group, whose clients have included Mercedes-Benz and McDonald’s. She says Hollywood must broaden its messaging in the piracy debate and suggests a campaign that puts the focus on the people who make and enjoy the product. ”Our cultural and political landscape is being challenged and defined by populist sentiments,” she says. “It’s strategically imperative to establish an argument with populist appeal. Be universal and inclusive. This isn’t just about Hollywood. Make the dialogue about everyone who works or plays creatively.” Arnell offers two examples:

DTCs (Digitally Transmitted Content): Killing Creativity

• Slogan: Protect Your Creativity
• Ideas: Keep ideas safe. Piracy is not sharing. Respect the singer of your new favorite song.
• Focus: “Break through the clutter of uninformed opinion by leveraging the visual shorthand and familiar language of the fight against STDs,” says Arnell. “Everybody knows smart people always take the necessary precautions to protect themselves against DTCs.”

Occupy Creativity

• Slogan: We Are the 30%
• Idea: A campaign to generate respect for the creative class.
• Focus: “The argument must focus on protecting the rights of people as a way of neutralizing the position that these bills are simply for the benefit of studios,” says Arnell. “The creative class represents about 30 percent of the working population, and they need PIPA and SOPA to ensure their economic viability. Creative thinking is a key driver of new businesses and economic growth.”

Please join us on Tuesday, February 7th, 9:30 am-12:30 pm for part two of  MAP’s fifth annual Forum Series.

The entire series is free and open to the public. Continental breakfast will be available.

Please RSVP to Mera Szendro Bok at mera@mediaaccess.org

The Global Internet and the Free Flow of Information:

Events throughout the world have highlighted the role that the Internet plays in influencing the civil engagement, revolutions and the political process. The creation and deployment of free social technologies has reduced the barriers for individuals and groups who create and distribute their own content and those using technologies to organize groups or movements. As a result, some governments see the Internet as a threat to stability and seek to minimize its influence. Others seek to create a domestic Internet environment by placing barriers to content from other countries. Still other countries see their role as facilitating the creation of an unrestrained Internet marketplace of ideas, even as they try to impose restrictions on commercial uses in order to protect trade and intellectual property.

This forum will bring together diplomats, technologists, human rights advocates, and industry to discuss the freedom of expression opportunities and challenges presented to a variety of stakeholders by the Internet and new technologies.

9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

Freedom of expression threats and challenges that online stakeholders face:

This panel will bring together technologists, diplomats, human rights advocates and industry experts. The panel will focus on the variety of challenges online freedom stakeholders face moving forward in 2012. Relevant issues to be discussed include freedom of expression issues, cyber security issues and surveillance tech issues in the context of how they affect online users free speech rights. Participants will also discuss the future role of innovation on how people will gain access to information.

11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Protecting online freedoms through effective public policy:

This panel will bring a variety of expert stakeholders together from government, industry and civil society to discuss the public policy forums and issues that are shaping freedom of expression online and internet governance. Currently, there are many discussions and actions being taken by international and public institutions that have the potential to shape the future of the Internet. Issues discussed will include, by whom and how the Internet should be governed, the challenges and importance of a multi-stakeholder approach, the role that network management plays and the creation of Internet Policy Principles.

Location:

Twitter hashtag: #MAPForum

This event will not be live streamed, so please plan on attending.

Falls Church, Virginia (CNN) — It’s a Tuesday night at Nell and Matt Dillard’s suburban Washington home, and the family of four is watching “Glee,” a scripted Fox television program.

Ninety seconds into the comedy, one of the teenage female characters makes mention of Asian men and their sexual prowess. Nell Dillard immediately looks over at her 13- and 11-year-old boys watching next to her, but she sees no immediate reaction they have gotten the veiled sexually suggestive “joke.”

“What’s up with that,” says father Matt Dillard, shaking his head at what he’s just heard. “Why throw that in this show?”

Such are challenges many families face when trying to control the video material their children receive from a range of content providers: TV, radio, Internet, mobile devices, and interactive video games.

Now the Supreme Court is poised to take a fresh look at a key aspect of multimedia regulation — so-called “indecent” material aired on the broadcast networks during the supposedly “family friendly” prime-time hours of 8 to 10 p.m. Oral arguments in this key free-speech dispute will be held Tuesday.

At issue is whether the Federal Communications Commission may constitutionally enforce its policies on “fleeting expletives” and scenes of nudity on prime-time television programs, both live and scripted. The agency had imposed hefty fines on broadcasters for separate incidents. An expected ruling by summer could establish important First Amendment guidelines over expressive content on the airwaves.

A range of competing interests are at stake: Free speech versus censorship; regulation versus responsibility; art versus indecency.

For the Dillards, the specific questions raised by this appeal are just the tip of digital iceberg.

“It’s not (like) when we were kids, when there was three networks and PBS,” Matt Dillard told CNN one recent evening. “We’ve had to do the controlling over anything coming over a screen — a TV screen, computer screen, telephone screen — anything where there is video content or streaming. We lump all that together. …

“It feels like the Wild West out there, where there is no rating system. We’re not asking for a clampdown on free speech. They (media) have every right to that. We’re just looking for the tools to help us make the best decisions for our kids.”

The Case

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are all parties in the case challenging the FCC regulations. A federal appeals court in 2010 for a second time struck down the government’s policies, concluding they were vague and inconsistently applied. Pending fines against the broadcasters were dismissed. The government then appealed to the high court.

Controversial words and images have been aired in scripted and unscripted instances on all the major over-the-air networks during the past decade, when the FCC began considering a stronger, no-tolerance policy.

The changes became known as the Golden Globes rule, for singer Bono’s 2003 acceptance speech at the live awards show on NBC, where he uttered the phrase “Really, really, f—ing brilliant.”

The commission specifically cited celebrities Cher and Nicole Richie for potty-mouth language in the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards, which aired live on Fox. Richie, in an apparent scripted moment said, “Have you ever tried to get cow s–t out of a Prada purse? It’s not so f—ing simple.”

The complaint against ABC involved “NYPD Blue,” a scripted police drama, and the CBS complaint involved “The Early Show,” a news and interview program.

The high court two years ago ruled in favor of the FCC on the issue of “fleeting expletives,” concluding federal regulators have the authority to clamp down on broadcast TV networks airing isolated cases of profanity.

The court, however, refused at the time to decide whether the commission’s policy violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, ruling only on its enforcement power. The justices ordered the free-speech aspect to be reviewed again by a New York-based federal appeals court, which subsequently ruled in favor of the broadcasters.

The nine-member bench is now ready to take a broader look at the questions presented. In fact, the government helpfully sent to each justice a DVD copy of the “NYPD Blue” nudity scene. There has been no word on whether they have watched it.

The Justice Department, in its new appeal, lumped both the expletives and nudity cases together, saying the court should decide the free speech questions as one.

Explicit language is heard with greater, albeit varying, frequency on cable television, the Internet, and satellite radio, which do not use public airwaves. But the federal government is charged with responding to viewer complaints when “indecent” language and images reach broadcast television and radio, which is subject to greater regulation.

That is especially relevant during daytime and early evening hours, when larger numbers of families and younger viewers may be watching.

The FCC formally reversed its policy in March 2004 to declare even a single use of an expletive could be illegal. In response, a voluntary rating system used by all television networks was revised to warn viewers when material that might be offensive will be aired.

The Arguments

Family rights groups say the TV networks and their cable cousins need to be sent a strong message.

“You turn on television today, and the amount of bleeps of profane words, almost sounds like a Morse code signal. There hardly are any safe harbors today, on broadcast television, for children and families,” said Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, which helps families make “informed television viewing decisions.”

“How does more shock, more f-bombs, more indecency serve the public interest, especially when they know children are watching,” he said.

But the networks and their programming partners worry the FCC policies are “chilling” their speech, forcing them to make creative compromises, for fear of sanction.

“When preparing scripts or song lyrics, they now have to concern themselves with whether something can get airplay, whether their best lines can make it on the screen. That inhibits artistic creativity,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, who heads the Media Access Project, a law firm representing actors, producers, writers and musicians. “The FCC’s attempt to broaden its scope has created uncertainty, has created circumstances that force broadcasters to censor themselves needlessly and at the expense of the First Amendment.

Time Warner — the parent company of CNN — filed a supporting amicus brief in the high court dispute two years ago. The company is part owner of the CW broadcast network and operates several cable networks.

The Stakes

For families like the Dillards, there are no easy answers. Nell and Matt admit they sometimes disagree on what their boys should be watching.

“He as a typical guy may think it’s OK — some of the potty humor and guy humor — that I think they don’t need to be exposed to quite yet,” Nell said about certain shows.

Matt adds, “We do have blockers in place that prevent the worst cases, but there are ways to get around that, from the kids’ perspective and by the content providers.” The couple says parental controls and program ratings are not tools that are comfortably reliable and dependable.

The Dillards say they maintain ultimate responsibility, but appreciate the fact the government maintains some regulatory control over broadcasts, supplementing their own monitoring.

“It’s a business and they (broadcast networks) want advertisers and viewers. They have these cable stations they’re competing with, so I think they’re are going to push it as far as they can,” Nell said. “If you expect a show is going to be rated TV-14, you want to know there is an institution standing there to make sure the network will provide that kind of show, and if they don’t, then the FCC can come in and do what they do.”

But, she admits, “It’s hard for us sometimes, and you find you’re sort of giving in a little bit with each time you let them (the children) watch something a little different.”

The case is Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations Inc. (10-1293).

Zachary Katz, chief counsel to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, has been named chief of staff, succeeding Eddie Lazarus.  Sherrese Smith, currently senior counsel and legal advisor for media issues, will succeed Katz as chief counsel.

That was the lead on a number of changes to the chairman’s staff announced Thursday.

“As I know from working closely with Zac on many important initiatives,” said the chairman, “he has exceptionally good judgment, tremendous aptitude, and the strong leadership qualities to serve as Chief of Staff. The agency is fortunate to have an extraordinarily accomplished senior team to lead an ambitious policy agenda as we start the new year. Building on the successes of the past few years, this team will be focused on unleashing the benefits of broadband, driving economic growth, and opportunity for all Americans.”

Before being named chief counsel, Katz had been deputy chief of the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. He joined the FCC from the White House Counsel’s Office.

He is said to have been instrumental in helping produce the FCC’s open Internet rules and USF reform proposals.

Rick Kaplan, who was said to have been a candidate for the post, elected to remain atop the FCC’s Wireless Bureau, which is currently a hot spot given the FCC’s, and Obama administration, focus on wireless broadband.

Lazarus announced his exit Dec. 14. He had been the chief policy gatekeeper — that chief policy being broadband deployment and adoption — and top adviser to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski since June 2009. Before that, he was an attorney with Akin Gump in L.A.

The chairman seemed to signal with the series of announcements about increased responsibilities for his staffers that he would be spreading those responsibilities around a bit.

He also announced Thursday that Josh Gottheimer, senior counsel, will spearhead a new FCC team focusing on public-private initiatives like the Connect to Compete broadband adoption program and others associated with the national broadband plan’s focus on jobs, health care, energy, education and public safety applications of broadband.

Amy Levine, special counsel and legal advisor, will become senior counsel, continuing to focus on wireless, public safety and homeland security issues, while Michael Steffen will join the chairman’s office as legal adviser, focusing on wireline, international and internet issues, including the ongoing Universal Service Fund reform and open Internet issues. He has been special counsel in the office of general counsel.

“This is a splendid choice,” said Media Access Project’s Andrew Schwartzman. “Zac is a smart and steady presence in the Chariman’s office. Since he is close to the Chairman and has been working in the Chairman’s office, MAP looks forward to a seamless transition.”

“”We congratulate Zach Katz on his appointment as chief of staff to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski,” said Public Knowledge legal director Harold Feld. “Zach is a diligent and dedicated defender of the public interest, and we look forward to working with him on a variety of challenging issues. We also congratulate Sherrese Smith, Josh Gottheimer, Amy Levine and Michael Steffen on their new roles and duties.”

This is a splendid choice.  Zack is a smart and steady presence in the Chairman’s office. Since he is close to the Chairman and has been working in the Chairman’s office, MAP looks forward to a seamless transition.

With Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blocking President Obama’s two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the five-member board is set to begin the new year with the bare minimum of members needed to take official action.

The FCC has been operating with four commissioners since Meredith Attwell Baker resigned in May to join Comcast. Another slot opens up at the end of the month, when Commissioner Michael Copps retires.

In October, Obama nominated Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel to serve on the commission, but Grassley has promised to place a hold on their nominations if they come up for a vote in the Senate.

The FCC, which regulates television, radio, phones and the Internet, needs the presence of three members for official agency business.

“So if one of the members is out of town or disabled, the commission is unable to act,” Andrew Schwartzman, policy director for public interest law firm the Media Access Project, said.

Any one of the commissioners could block a vote by refusing to show up, but Schwartzman noted that would be an extreme action that he doesn’t believe has ever happened at the FCC.

FCC staffers report to the chairman, so the two vacancies are unlikely to prevent the agency from going about its daily work.

“If anything, things might operate a little more quickly because there are fewer offices to check off on things,” Schwartzman said.

The agency does not compile data on the number of commissioners serving at any given time, but Schwartzman said he believes the last time the commission had only three members was for a several-month period in the early 1990s.

Harold Feld, legal director of advocacy group Public Knowledge, said the political dynamic on the commission would remain the same with or without Obama’s nominees.

The commission is made up of two Democrats, Chairman Julius Genachowski and Mignon Clyburn, and one Republican, Robert McDowell. By law, only three commissioners can be from the same party, and President Obama has nominated one Democrat and one Republican.

Feld also said the vacancies will mean “less room for the backroom negotiating.”

With only three commissioners, Chairman Genachowski would only need to win the support of one of the other members to push through a policy.

The FCC is not expected to take up any particularly contentious or partisan issues in the next several months. Pending issues include Verizon’s spectrum deal with a group of cable companies and an update of media ownership rules.

Obama’s FCC nominees are considered uncontroversial, but Grassley has said he will block their nominations until the agency releases internal documents related to its review of wireless company LightSquared.

Tests have shown the wireless broadband company’s network could interfere with GPS devices, and Grassley questions whether the FCC has shown inappropriate favoritism to the company.

FCC officials say they will not give LightSquared final approval to launch its network until it resolves the interference problem.

Proposal codifies newspaper-TV combos held by Tribune and News Corp.

Once again, the Federal Communications Commission decided to move forward a major regulatory rule just before holidays. Last year at this time, Chairman Julius Genachowski annoyed GOP lawmakers and even some of his fellow commissioners with the vote to pass net neutrality.

This year, to give outgoing commissioner Michael Copps one last chance to rail against media consolidation, the FCC circulated and voted on a notice of proposed rule making on broadcast media ownership rules. One communications attorney said the timing of the release was “consistent with their past practices when wanting to bury an item.”

As expected, the proposed rule changes released by the FCC on Thursday left everyone unsated; the changes were just enough to disappoint media owners and leave public interest groups (and Copps) unsatisfied. The proposed rules would keep in place the loosening of the ban on cross-ownership proposed by former Chairman Kevin Martin, allowing companies to own both a newspaper and TV station in the top 20 markets.

The proposal would essentially codify newspaper-TV combos held by companies such as Tribune and News Corp. The FCC is proposing no change to the current TV duopoly rules, which permit companies to own only two stations in a market as long as both stations are among the top four, or the radio ownership rules.

Public interest groups, which have challenged loosening the ban on cross ownership in court came out swinging. “It appears that the FCC is proposing to adopt the same loophole-ridden scheme that the Bush Administration FCC had tried to push through. The public understands that excessive concentration of media ownership is bad for democracy, so we expect to convince the FCC to take a stronger position in the end,” said Andy Schwartzman, svp, Media Access Project.

The one thing public interest groups were happy about was the one thing broadcasters were not: keeping the TV duopoly rules in place. “NAB supports elimination of the broadcast/newspaper cross-ownership rules because we believe journalism jobs could be saved under that scenario. We also support relief from TV duopoly rules to help sustain news and public affairs programming at struggling TV stations. Given the explosion of media outlets, we believe nearly 40-year-old ownership rules that restrict free and local broadcasting ought to be reformed to reflect today’s hypercompetitive marketplace,” said Gordon Smith, the CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters.

The FCC is already way behind in taking up the 2010 quadrennial review of the rules required by Congress. Ever controversial, the FCC has been in and of court defending media ownership rules and various changes to them for several years. In part, the notice of proposed rule making released Thursday was in response to the ruling this summer by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

Call it deja vu of Martin FCC and ‘loophole-ridden scheme.’ But FCC does get props for looking into SSA’s

Reaction was swift to the FCC’s announcement it had voted the media ownership item Thursday, in part because those responses had been teed up for hours, with the FCC initially trying to announce the item earlier in the afternoon and folks.

The move got a thumbs down from a couple of anti-consolidation activists historically opposed to any loosening of ownership regs.

“It appears that the FCC is proposing to adopt the same loophole-ridden scheme that the Bush Administration FCC had tried to push through,” said Andrew Schwartzman of Media Access Project, the public interest law firm that has repeatedly challenged FCC deregulatory moves. “The public understands that excessive concentration of media ownership is bad for democracy, so we expect to convince the FCC to take a stronger position in the end,” he said. But his words were not all discouraging. “That said, I certainly agree that there is no need to tamper with the local TV and radio ownership rules, and I’m pleased that the Commission appears to have resisted pressure to loosen those rules as well.”

Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, borrowed–with credit–from Yogi Berra, saying it was “déjà vu all over again”–the FCC’s latest shot at getting rules to pass legal muster includes loosening the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rules in manner similar to that proposed by then FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in 2007.

“Those failed policies were resoundingly rejected by the public, Congress, and the courts. The FCC should be working to remedy the mistakes of past administrations – not repeating them,” said Aaron. “This action not only flies in the face of promises made by the president on the campaign trail, but it will make it much harder for local and diverse owners to secure a piece of the public airwaves.”

While the FCC is seeking comment on ways to better encourage minority media ownership, Aaron says loosening the rules runs counter to that goal.”Especially appalling is the FCC’s failure – once again – to meaningfully address the issue of ownership diversity…The evidence overwhelmingly shows that media consolidation hinders opportunities for women and people of color to create and sustain broadcast businesses. If the FCC is serious about addressing the diversity problem, it needs to tighten its rules, not relax them.”

But Aaron gave the FCC props for looking into whether shared services agreements should count against local ownership caps. “The FCC must address the proliferation of secret deals to combine local newsroom operations in violation of the agency’s rules.” He also said that since the FCC has simply voted on a proposal, not a final order, there is still time to turn back and “refocus on policies that will benefit the public instead of just boosting bottom line of a few giant media conglomerates.”