Tag Archives: at&t
AT&T supports stricter standards for police cellphone tracking
AT&T has filed a federal court brief arguing that courts must account for people’s Fourth Amendment rights before authorizing law enforcement to get phone location histories from their cell service companies.
The ACLU characterized this as “a landmark move in the battle over privacy rights and new technologies.”
The company’s filing is a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeal of a criminal case, U.S. v. Davis, in which the government obtained four people’s cellphone location records over a 67-day period for a robbery investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has also filed a brief supporting the defendant, praised AT&T’s entrance into the case.
“We have a right to expect that companies that hold great volumes of our sensitive data will protect our privacy,” said Christopher Soghoian, ACLU principal technologist. “AT&T is doing a real service to its customers by adding its voice to the chorus seeking more robust legal protections for cell phone location information, which can reveal deeply private details of our lives.”
In this case in June, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that police need to get a warrant to get the location information, a first for a federal appeals court. The government has appealed that decision to the full 11th Circuit, and oral argument is scheduled for February 2015.
“Use of mobile devices, as well as other devices or location based services, has become integral to most individuals’ participation in the new digital economy: those devices are a nearly ever-present feature of their most basic social, political, economic, and personal relationships,” AT&T wrote in its brief. “Nothing in [past cases] requires that individuals must choose between participating in the new digital world through use of their mobile devices and retaining the Fourth Amendment’s protections.”
To get the information, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami got what is known as a “D-order” from a federal magistrate judge, named for the applicable section of the federal Stored Communications Act. However, the standard for getting a D-order is that it be “relevant and material” to an investigation, which is lower than the probable cause standard required by the Fourth Amendment. Although getting D-orders for location information has been a common law enforcement practice, the appeals court rejected it.
For one suspect, Quartavious Davis, police got 11,606 location records — an average of one location point every 8 minutes. Davis was convicted based largely on the cellphone location evidence, and he appealed.
Despite the court’s June ruling that the government should have gotten a warrant, the court allowed the conviction to stand because law enforcement had relied in good faith on the decision of the magistrate judge to issue a D-order.
The full 11th Circuit may also consider this “good-faith exception” in the appeal.
A similar case, U.S. v. Graham, is currently awaiting decision in the Fourth Circuit.
Angering Republicans, president embraces ‘net neutrality’
President Barack Obama on Nov. 10 embraced a radical change in how the government treats Internet service, coming down on the side of consumer activists who fear slower download speeds and higher costs but angering Republicans and the nation’s cable giants who say the plan would kill jobs.
Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to more heavily regulate Internet providers and treat broadband much as it would any other public utility. He said the FCC should explicitly prohibit Internet providers like Verizon and AT&T from charging data hogs like Netflix extra to move their content more quickly. The announcement sent cable stocks tumbling.
The FCC, an independent regulatory body led by political appointees, is nearing a decision on whether broadband providers should be allowed to cut deals with the content providers but is stumbling over the legal complexities.
“We are stunned the president would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme” regulation, said Michael Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the primary lobbying arm of the cable industry, which supplies much of the nation’s Internet access.
This “tectonic shift in national policy, should it be adopted, would create devastating results,” Powell added.
Netflix swung behind Obama, posting to its Facebook page that “consumers should pick winners and losers on the Internet, not broadband gatekeepers.”
“Net neutrality” is the idea that Internet service providers shouldn’t block, slow or manipulate data moving across its networks. As long as content isn’t against the law, such as child pornography or pirated music, a file or video posted on one site will load generally at the same speed as a similarly sized file or video on another site.
In 2010, the FCC embraced the concept in a rule. But last January, a federal appeals court struck down the regulation because the court said the FCC didn’t technically have the legal authority to tell broadband providers how to manage their networks.
The uncertainty has prompted the public to file some 3.7 million comments with the FCC – more than double the number filed after Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl.
On Nov. 10, Obama waded into the fray and gave a major boost to Internet activists by saying the FCC should explicitly ban any “paid prioritization” on the Internet. Obama also suggested that the FCC reclassify consumer broadband as a public utility under the 1934 Communications Act. That would mean the Internet would be regulated more heavily in the way phone service is.
“It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information – whether a phone call, or a packet of data,” Obama said.
This approach is exactly what industry lobbyists have spent months fighting against. AT&T on Monday threatened legal action if the FCC adopted Obama’s plan, while Comcast Corp. said reclassifying broadband regulation would be “a radical reversal that would harm investment and innovation, as today’s immediate stock market reaction demonstrates.” Similar statements were released by Time Warner Cable Inc. and several industry groups including CTIA-The Wireless Association, USTelecom, the Telecommunications Industry Association and Broadband for America.
Many Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sided with industry in denouncing the plan as government overreach.
“`Net Neutrality’ is Obamacare for the Internet,” declared Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a tea party favorite, on Twitter. “The Internet should not operate at the speed of government.”
The Internet Association, which represents many content providers like Netflix, Twitter, eBay and Google, applauded Obama’s proposal.
On Monday, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged up slightly, big cable companies slid. Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision and Charter Communications dropped 2 percent to 4 percent in the hours immediately after the announcement.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said he is open to using a “hybrid” approach that would draw from both Title II of the 1934 law and the 1996 Telecommunications Act. On Monday, Wheeler said he welcomed the president’s comments, but suggested that his proposal was easier said than done.
“The more deeply we examined the issues around the various legal options, the more it has become plain that there is more work to do,” Wheeler said. “The reclassification and hybrid approaches before us raise substantive legal questions. We found we would need more time to examine these to ensure that whatever approach is taken, it can withstand any legal challenges it may face.”
The FCC isn’t under a deadline to make a decision.
The president’s statement all but guarantees that the major cable companies will spend the next few months trying to encourage Congress to step in to protect their interests. Still, Internet activists are hoping that Obama’s position will go a long way, even as his popularity among his party has waned.
“When the leader of the free world says the Internet should remain free, that’s a game changer,” said Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.
Editor’s note: This story will be updated.
On the Web
http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality
AT&T condemns anti-LGBT Russian law
AT&T became the first major U.S. corporation to make a public statement condemning the anti-LGBT Russian law outlawing “homosexual propaganda.”
The company, in a blog post, said, “AT&T has a long and proud history of support for the LGBT community in the United States and everywhere around the world where we do business. We support LGBT equality globally and we condemn violence, discrimination and harassment targeted against LGBT individuals everywhere. Russia’s law is harmful to LGBT individuals and families, and it’s harmful to a diverse society.”
Last week, 40 human rights and civil rights groups around the world called on Olympic sponsors to condemn Russia’s passage of a law banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations.” The law, signed by President Vladimir Putin, allows for fines and jail time for those who disseminate information that may cause a “distorted understanding” that LGBT and heterosexual relationships are “socially equivalent.” The law applies to citizens in Russia, but also foreigners, such as visitors for the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.
AT&T is not an Olympic sponsor but the company, which has a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s LGBT equality index for corporations, responded to the human rights call. Chad Griffin of HRC reacted: “Today, AT&T courageously recommitted itself to fairness, equality and basic human rights. AT&T should be recognized for showing true leadership in opposing this hateful Russian law, and other sponsors that have failed to lead should take corrective action immediately. A company that claims to support LGBT equality should do so wherever it operates, not just in the United States, and we call on all Olympic Sponsors to follow AT&T’s lead and publicly denounce Russia’s anti-LGBT law.”
Study: Big companies pay CEOs more than they pay in taxes
Twenty-six big U.S. companies paid their CEOs more last year than they paid the federal government in tax, according to a study by a liberal-leaning think tank.
The study, by the Institute for Policy Studies, said the companies, including AT&T, Boeing and Citigroup, paid their CEOs an average of $20.4 million last year while paying little or no federal tax on ample profits, according to regulatory filings.
Some companies cited in the study said it was misleading. They also said they took advantage of tax deductions and credits designed to free up money for companies to spend in ways that stimulate the economy.
On average, the 26 companies generated pretax net income of more than $1 billion in the U.S., the study said.
The study blasted tax rules allowing unlimited deductions for CEO “performance-based” pay, like many stock options. It said the five biggest performance payers among the 26 companies took $232 million of these deductions last year.
Among the “kingpins” it criticized was CEO James McNerney Jr. of Boeing. It said he got $18.4 million in pay last year while his company received a tax refund of $605 million.
The study also laid into Citigroup for paying CEO Vikram Pandit $14.9 million while the bank received a net $144 million in tax benefits.
Eighteen of the 26 companies received cash back or credits to apply against tax in the future, according to the report.
The study, a 45-page attack on the corporate tax code, said deductions and credits are allowing companies to lavish big pay packages on executives so they can cut their tax bills while Washington gets less money in a time of trillion-plus deficits.
“Our nation’s tax code has become a powerful enabler of bloated CEO pay,” the study said.
To calculate tax, the study used companies’ own math based on accounting rules. Regulators require companies to estimate their tax bill and disclose it in public documents for investors.
The tax filings the companies make to the government, typically in September, are private and can differ from the estimate.
Another problem is that the study doesn’t count tax the company plans to pay but has deferred to future years. The authors argue that deferred tax can be put off indefinitely.
Charles Bickers, a Boeing spokesman, said that the company’s federal tax bill, including deferred tax, was $1.3 billion last year, not a net credit, as the think tank’s study found.
Boeing did lower its tax, in part by using a popular tax credit encouraging companies to spend more on research and development. Bickers said that helped the company hire 11,000 people in the U.S. last year.
“Boeing supports a simpler, more competitive tax code. At the same time, we have put the R&D tax credit to exactly the use it was designed – creating U.S. jobs in a high-value, advanced technology industry,” he said in a statement.
The Institute for Policy Studies said Boeing would have had to spend the money on R&D without the credit.
In addition to performance-pay deductions and R&D credits, the report criticized the use of tax havens that allow technology companies, for instance, to assign intellectual-property rights to shell companies in the Cayman Islands, so they can run profits through them and avoid taxes. It noted that 26 companies have a combined 537 subsidiaries in tax-haven countries.
The study also cited accelerated depreciation on investments, which allows a company to take deductions for big-ticket purchases in one year, as opposed to over several years. That cuts taxes in the first year.
The study said AT&T used accelerated depreciation to save $5.2 billion on its 2011 taxes while paying CEO Randall Stephenson $18.7 million last year.
Sarah Lubman, an AT&T spokeswoman, said the point of accelerated depreciation is to encourage companies to make investments. She said AT&T made $20 billion in investments last year, helping to “drive the economy and support good-paying jobs.”
She also said that the deductions won’t be available to take in future years, which should increase taxes.
A Citigroup spokeswoman noted that the company lost money in 2008 and 2009 and used the losses to offset taxes on profits this year.
AT&T exec, Boy Scout board member opposes gay scouting ban
Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T and an executive board member with the Boy Scouts of America, wants the nonprofit to lift its ban against gay members and leaders.
The Dallas Voice reports that Stephenson is joining Ernst & Young CEO James Turley, also a BSA board member, in opposing the controversial policy.
But just today the BSA executive office announced it had concluded a secret two-year review and decided to affirm the ban. A spokesman for the BSA told The Associated Press that an 11-member confidential review board had concluded that the anti-gay policy is the best policy for the scouting organization.
“This is a missed opportunity of colossal proportions,” said Chad Griffin of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights group. “With the country moving toward inclusion, the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have instead sent a message to young people that only some of them are valued. These adults could have taught the next generation of leaders the value of respect, yet they’ve chosen to teach division and intolerance.”
“The Boy Scouts of America decision to continue to exclude gays from membership is extremely disappointing and sends the message that gay youth are not fit to serve God and country,” said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans and an eagle scout who served in his youth in Troop 23 in Tallahassee, Fla. “This is absolutely the wrong policy for the Boy Scouts.”
The news of the BSA decision comes as Jennifer Tyrrell, a lesbian mom from Bridgeport, Ohio, prepared to deliver petitions challenging the ban to the BSA headquarters in Dallas on July 18.
The BSA ousted Tyrrell as a den leader because of the ban, which has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court but opposed by scouts, parents, educators, politicians, executives and legal experts. The anti-gay ban has led a number of public entities to evict or remove the BSA for violating non-discrimination policies.
Tyrrell, after her ouster, launched a petition on Change.org that now has more than 300,000 signatures.
Her petition led Turley to announce his opposition to the ban in June and encouraged Stephenson’s stand this month.
“ This is a huge new development and could mean that the Boy Scouts are preparing to end this anti-gay policy sooner rather than later,” Tyrrell said through Change.org before the BSA affirmed the ban. “I’m very impressed with Mr. Stephenson’s leadership and his new commitment to helping the Boy Scouts stop discriminating, a position that is totally consistent with AT&T’s record as a champion of fairness and equality in the workplace.”
Tyrrell also has received support from celebrities, including Julianne Moore, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Hutcherson and Ricky Martin.
Earlier this year, she received an award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
On the Web: http://www.change.org/petitions/boy-scouts-of-america-reinstate-cub-scout-leader-who-was-removed-for-being-gay
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Boy Scouts board member opposes gay ban
A prominent member of the Boy Scouts of America’s national board is calling for an end to the group’s ban on gay scouts and leaders.
James Turley, BSA board member and CEO of Ernst & Young, this week endorsed a resolution calling for repeal of the ban.
Turley, in a statement first reported by CNBC, said, “As CEO, I know that having an inclusive culture produces the best results, is the right thing for our people and makes us a better organization. My experience has led me to believe that an inclusive environment is important throughout our society and I am proud to be a leader on this issue. I support the meaningful work of the Boy Scouts in preparing young people for adventure, leadership, learning and service, however the membership policy is not one I would personally endorse. As I have done in leading Ernst & Young to being a most inclusive organization, I intend to continue to work from within the BSA Board to actively encourage dialogue and sustainable progress.”
The resolution calling for an end to the ban was launched by Jennifer Tyrrell, an Ohio mom ousted this spring from her post as the leader of her 7-year-old son’s Cub Scout pack because she’s a lesbian.
Despite the fact that I was a good den leader and parents in the community supported me and urged me to take on the role, the Boy Scouts of America now say that I do not ‘meet the high standards of membership’ that the BSA seeks, and will no longer allow me to participate in scouting,” Tyrrell said.
In her resolution, she noted that the BSA board consisted of representatives from two companies ranked among the best for LGBT benefits and policies – Ernst & Young and AT&T.
With the announcement from Turley, activists and petitioners are now focusing on Randall Stephenson at AT&T.
The petition is on Change.org.
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