O'Rielly Notes FTC's 'Challenging Opportunity' Amid Broad Purview
Amid the FTC's "huge portfolio that’s much different" from his agency's, FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said, are "a bunch of things that are unrelated. It makes it a very challenging opportunity for them." He was answering a question about the two agencies' coordination on net neutrality, during an episode of C-SPAN's The Communicators to be online Friday and televised this weekend. He repeated that net neutrality is a federal, not state, issue and raised national security concerns about Chinese 5G gear.
The FCC and FTC have a "good working relationship" and the trade commission has "a full slate, a new slate" of five members, O'Rielly said. "I’m getting to know them and understand what their priorities are." On the court challenge to FCC net neutrality deregulation, which returned some authority over ISP marketing practices to the FTC, he would "like to believe that we have a strong position and it's unnecessary" to have the rules sent back to the agency. Oral argument on Mozilla v. FCC was two weeks ago, and some think the FCC may at least partly lose (see 1902060036). The FTC declined to comment Thursday.
With a "libertarian streak," O'Rielly said "privacy is important." He's more concerned about collection of personal data by government than by companies and understands why people "would like to prevent their information from being shared." Data is the "lifeblood of the tech industry" and consumers get free services, he said. "I'm really concerned about trying to shut [that] off." He's concerned about potentially insufficient separation between data that government gets for one purpose and uses in other areas such as the military and law enforcement. This might be an area where "Congress eventually has to weigh in," he said.
The FCC's investigating data use of bounty hunters, who can have a "quasi-legal" function, O'Rielly said. Bail bonds people may get consent to track people's information, he noted. "It's a thorny issue, and it's not as clear-cut, but we have an open investigation on that. So that's probably as much as I should talk about." Some in Congress want hearings on whether bounty hunters use geolocation data on wireless subscribers (see 1901220030). The FCC and some privacy groups declined to comment right away.
Administration "guidance" would be "helpful" on national security and 5G, O'Rielly said. He mentioned the FCC proceeding on carriers using USF funds to buy gear from companies that may threaten national security (see 1812210032). Some Chinese companies are "trying to corner the marketplace" with the lower prices for 5G gear sold to U.S. carriers, he said. The White House didn't comment.
On rolling out 5G, "it may take a little bit of time to develop" and might start in cities and then spread to "suburbia and then eventually you'll get to rural America," O'Rielly said. "I want everyone to have 5G eventually. But it's not something that's going to happen ubiquitously all at once nationwide."
O'Rielly criticized states like California that passed net neutrality laws despite FCC pre-emption. States lack authority, he said: "It's incredibly harmful that they would go along this path." The internet is an interstate service "by nature, and that I think is defensible and sound," he added: "We can't have 50 different states setting rules" here. He has called for federal legislation, and absent that, the commission "took the right action." California agreed not to enforce its law pending appeal of the FCC’s order rescinding the 2015 national rules (see 1810260045). The state's attorney general's office didn't comment.
The commissioner's "goal is to push those states and if necessary litigate it out to make sure they’re not deciding bad policy because they have a particular peculiar viewpoint on what technology should be. They have very little infrastructure" to enforce such rules, O'Rielly continued: "Those states that decide they want to thumb their nose at the Congress" and the authority given to FCC "will have to face the consequences."