July, 26 2019, 12:00am EDT
DOJ Shirks Antitrust Enforcement Authority, Approves Anticompetitive T-Mobile-Sprint Merger
WASHINGTON
Today, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) approved the $26 billion merger of T-Mobile Inc. and Sprint Corporation. As part of the approval, T-Mobile and Sprint have agreed to sell assets to Dish Network including Sprint's prepaid services, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, and new spectrum licenses. Dish will also have the ability to operate on T-Mobile's network for a seven-year period while it builds out its own network. The proposed merger is still pending approval by the full Federal Communications Commission. Fourteen state attorneys general have filed suit to block the transaction.
If approved, the number of national wireless carriers would be reduced from four to three, leading to less competition and higher prices for consumers. Low-income and marginalized communities who disproportionately rely on T-Mobile and Sprint for more affordable services may also find themselves displaced from wireless access.
Last year, Common Cause filed a petition to deny with the Federal Communications Commission formally opposing the merger. California Common Cause also testified against the merger at a public hearing held by the California Public Utilities Commission.
Statement of Michael Copps, Former FCC Commissioner and Common Cause Special Advisor:
"Just a few months ago, reports indicated that the expert antitrust staff at the DOJ recommended the agency sue to block the T-Mobile-Sprint merger. But rather than take the reported advice of career staff, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim decided to approve a blatantly anticompetitive deal by bringing in Dish as a sham fourth competitor. Basic math tells you that replacing Sprint, a national carrier with 50 million subscribers, with Dish, a satellite company with zero wireless subscribers, is a recipe for competitive disaster. In addition, Dish has no wireless infrastructure of its own and has been sitting on spectrum for years without any clear plan to build a network. No type of network sharing arrangement with T-Mobile will lower wireless prices or actually force Dish to build out its own network.
"The commitments the companies have made and the behavioral conditions associated with this deal are unenforceable and riddled with loopholes that do nothing to address the competitive harms. Neither the DOJ nor FCC have the ability to enforce Dish as a viable fourth competitor.
"Despite the addition of Dish, this is still a four-to-three merger where Verizon, AT&T, and a post-transaction T-Mobile will call all of the shots. Consumers can expect to see higher prices, fewer choices, and less innovative offerings across the board. Low-income and marginalized communities who rely on prepaid services from T-Mobile and Sprint will face significant consequences and potentially get priced out of wireless service.
"Our democracy functions best when all Americans have access to robust and affordable broadband services. There are no benefits to a three-firm marketplace that can price out millions of low-income customers and widen the digital divide. Fortunately, fourteen state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit to block this merger. We look forward to supporting their legal effort and continuing to mobilize opposition against this merger, which poses a significant danger to our democracy."
To read Common Cause's FCC petition to deny, click here.
To read Common Cause's testimony before the California Public Utilities Commission, click here.
To view this release online, click here.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
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Rights Advocates Demand Probe Into Reports That Israel Uses WhatsApp to Target Palestinians
"The Israeli Lavender system, supported by artificial intelligence, identifies Palestinians by tracking their communications via WhatsApp or the groups they join," said a Palestinian digital rights group.
May 18, 2024
The Palestinian digital rights group Sada Social on Saturday called for an investigation into Israel's alleged use of WhatsApp user data to target Palestinians with its AI system, Lavender.
The group, which is affiliated with the Al Jazeera Media Institute and Access Now, accused Meta, which owns WhatsApp, of fueling "the 'Lavender' artificial intelligence system used by the Israeli military to kill Palestinian individuals within the Gaza enclave."
As Common Dreamsreported in April, the Israel Defense Forces has relied on AI systems including Lavender to target people Israel believes to be Hamas members.
At +972 Magazine, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham wrote that a current commander of an elite Israeli intelligence unit pushed for the use of AI to choose targets in Gaza. The commander wrote in a guide book to create the system that "hundreds and thousands" of features can be used to select targets, "such as being in a WhatsApp group with a known militant, changing cell phone every few months, and changing addresses frequently."
Sada Social asserted that it had found the Lavender system uses WhatsApp data to select targets.
"The reports monitored by the Sada Social Center indicate that one of the inputs to the 'Lavender' system relies on data collected from WhatsApp groups containing names of Palestinians or activists who are wanted by 'Israel,'" said the group in a press release. "The Israeli Lavender system, supported by artificial intelligence, identifies Palestinians by tracking their communications via WhatsApp or the groups they join."
The mention of Israel's use of WhatsApp data in Abraham's reporting also caught the attention last month of Paul Biggar, founder of Tech for Palestine.
"There's a lot wrong with this—I'm in plenty of WhatsApp groups with strangers, neighbors, and in the carnage in Gaza you bet people are making groups to connect," wrote Biggar. "But the part I want to focus on is whether they get this information from Meta. Meta has been promoting WhatsApp as a 'private' social network, including 'end-to-end' encryption of messages."
"Providing this data as input for Lavender undermines their claim that WhatsApp is a private messaging app," he wrote. "It is beyond obscene and makes Meta complicit in Israel's killings of 'pre-crime' targets and their families, in violation of international humanitarian law and Meta's publicly stated commitment to human rights. No social network should be providing this sort of information about its users to countries engaging in 'pre-crime.'"
Others have pointed out that Israel may have acquired WhatsApp data through means other than a leak by Meta.
Journalist Marc Owen Jones said the question of "Meta's potential role in this is important," but noted that informants, captured devices, and spyware could be used by Israel to gain Palestinian users' WhatsApp data.
Bahraini activist Esra'a Al Shafei, founder of Majal.org, told the Middle East Monitor that the reports that WhatsApp user data has been used by the IDF's AI machine demonstrate why privacy advocates warn against the collection and storage of metadata, "particularly for apps like WhatsApp, which falsely advertise their product as fully private."
"Even though WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, and claims to not have any backdoors to any government, the metadata alone is sufficient to expose detailed information about users, especially if the user's phone number is attached to other Meta products and related activities," Al Shafei said. "This is why the IDF could plausibly utilize metadata to track and locate WhatsApp users."
While Meta and WhatsApp may not necessarily be collaborating with Israel, she said, "by the very act of collecting this information, they're making themselves vulnerable to abuse and intrusive external surveillance."
In turn, "by using WhatsApp, people are risking their lives," she added.
A WhatsApp spokesperson told Anadolu last month that "WhatsApp has no backdoors and we do not provide bulk information to any government," adding that "Meta has provided consistent transparency reports and those include the limited circumstances when WhatsApp information has been requested."
Al Shafei said Meta must "fully investigate" how WhatsApp's metadata may be used "to track, harm, or kill its users throughout Palestine."
"WhatsApp is used by billions of people and these users have a right to know what the dangers are in using the app," she said, "or what WhatsApp and Meta will do to proactively protect them from such misuse."
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"We need to take a broad approach to control sources that release PFAS into the atmosphere and into bodies of water," said one researcher, "since they eventually all end up in the lakes."
May 18, 2024
A first-of-its-kind study published this week shows that levels of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are now so ubiquitous in the environmental that they have begun building up in the Great Lakes Basin after entering it through rainwater and the air, contaminating 95% of the United States' fresh surface water supply.
Researchers at Indiana University, Bloomington and Environment and Climate Change Canada published the study Thursday, revealing that "background levels" of PFAS, also called "forever chemicals," are so high that atmospheric counts were consistent throughout the basin.
"The PFAS in rain could be carried from local sources, or have traveled long distances from other regions. Regardless, it is a major source of pollution that contributes to the lakes' levels," reported The Guardian on Saturday.
The levels of PFAS in precipitation did not correlate with whether or not an area in the Great Lakes Basin was heavily industrialized, lead author Chunjie Xia, a postdoctoral associate at Indiana University, told The Hill.
"The levels in precipitation don't depend on the population," said Xia. "They are similar in Chicago, which is heavily populated, and at Eagle Harbor, Michigan, where there's maybe 500 people living in a 25-kilometer radius."
"That tells us the levels are ubiquitous," he said. "This is the first time we've seen that. We've never seen that for other pollutants before."
Within the basin, however, levels of PFAS were higher near urban areas.
Twenty percent of the world's freshwater is held in the Great Lakes Basin, while 10% of the U.S. population and 35% of Canadians live in the region.
In 2023, Duke University and the Environmental Working Group analyzed fish samples collected from the Environmental Protection Agency's monitoring program for the Great Lakes, and found that eating just one locally caught freshwater fish could be the equivalent of drinking PFAS-contaminated water for a month.
Forever chemicals have earned their nickname because they do not naturally break down and can continuously remain in and move through the environment. PFAS are used by dozens of industries to make products heat-, water-, and stain-resistant.
European lawmakers have proposed a ban that could go into effect as early as 2026, but Reutersreported Wednesday that the law could include exemptions for certain industries.
Last month, the Biden administration finalized a rule setting limits on PFAS in drinking water.
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"We must build and maintain a public education system that serves all children," said one Democratic lawmaker.
May 18, 2024
After an aggressive push by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, the Louisiana Senate advanced a bill this week that would allow public funds to be used for private school tuition—sending what one Democrat called an "abandonment" of the state's public schools to the state House, where it is expected to pass.
The state Senate approved the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise (LA GATOR) Scholarship Program in a vote of 25-15 on Thursday, with just four Republicans joining the Democratic Party in opposing the bill.
The program would allow the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to create "education savings accounts" (ESAs), which would give families state tax dollars to pay for private school tuition, uniforms, and other expenses.
The grants would first be available to low-income families and special education students, but in the program's third year the ESAs are set to be available to all Louisiana families.
The legislation was briefly shelved this week over concerns about its cost, but Landry, backed by right-wing groups and donors, used television ads to push his party to support the ESAs.
Landry went as far as suggesting lawmakers could revise the state constitution to end a restriction mandating that certain public funds are set aside for K-12 public schools. He called on the state Senate to hold a special convention to do so, in order to unlock funding for the $520 million yearly cost of the LA GATOR program.
Moments before the Senate voted on Thursday, state Sen. Royce Duplessis (D-5) said the bill was "nothing short of an abandonment of public education."
"We as a state are making the decision and taking the step to say that it's too hard, it's too complex" to fund public schools, said Duplessis.
Landry told the Louisiana Illuminator that the success of the bill was "a big win for the kids of Louisiana," but local school board members, teachers, and superintendents lobbied Republicans ahead of the vote to protect funding for public schools, where a majority of students in the state are educated.
"These universal voucher bills are a step in the wrong direction," Larry Carter, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, toldPublic News Service earlier this month. "We've seen in other states around the country, like Arizona and Ohio, where these bills have been passed, [schools are] now facing a budget crisis, and we're hoping that we cannot go down that same road."
"If we're cutting that funding stream, Louisiana students will have fewer nurses and counselors, less options for after school programs, and certainly limited access to field trips and AP courses that help prepare them for their next step in life," he added.
Louisiana-based journalist Dayne Sherman said the LA Gator program will provide a lesson in "how to starve your local Louisiana public school, Clownfish-style."
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