A New America Foundation paper released Monday argued that government phone and email surveillance has not substantially aided officials in many terrorism cases, as intelligence officials have argued in defending the government programs. “Our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA ‘bulk’ surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading,” the 32-page New America Foundation paper said (http://bit.ly/KfyRFa). “An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal.” Of those cases examined, bulk phone surveillance played an “identifiable role” in, “at most, 1.8 percent of the terrorism cases,” it said. The paper’s lead author is Peter Bergen, who directs the foundation’s National Security Program. A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stood by the program. “As intelligence officials and congressional intelligence overseers have said, the bulk metadata program is a valuable tool for discovering potential links between terrorists abroad and those in the U.S. with whom they collaborate,” the spokesman told us in a statement when asked about the report. “But it’s important to keep the program in perspective. This is one of many programs the Intelligence Community uses to identify, track, and disrupt the activities of our adversaries, including terrorists. Neither this nor any other singular intelligence program can, by itself, ensure our national security.” The spokesman said President Barack Obama is reviewing recommendations to the bulk phone surveillance program and the intelligence community has said it’s open to “modifications to the program that maintain the capability it provides, strengthens oversight and addresses concerns about civil liberties and privacy.”

The FCC will meet Friday with Internet-based Telecommunications Relay Service (iTRS) stakeholders on the creation of an iTRS National Outreach Program for video relay service and Internet protocol relay service. The FCC is creating the program to fulfill a requirement in the commission’s VRS revamp order that sought the establishment of a two- to three-year pilot program to educate the public on telecommunication relay services. Only one person per organization or company may participate in the meeting, though others may attend, the FCC said. The meeting will begin at 2 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room. It will also be webcast (http://fcc.us/1ewpgTW).

FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said Congress shouldn’t wait for the commission to complete its study of patent assertion entities before proceeding with its work on legislation meant to curb alleged patent litigation abuse from PAEs. The FTC voted in late September to begin working on the study into PAE business practices using its authority under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act (CD Sept 30 p15). Some critics of legislation including the House-passed Innovation Act (HR-3309) and the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) have argued that Congress should delay the bills until the FTC completes its 6(b) study to provide more empirical evidence on the extent of patent litigation abuse. Brill believes the study when completed “will be put to good use by Congress and others who examine closely the activities of PAEs,” she said in Las Vegas at CES Wednesday. Congress should also “act with deliberate speed to implement those proposed reforms that will further these goals,” Brill said in remarks prepared for delivery. “If, after our PAE 6(b) study is completed, it appears that additional reforms are warranted, Congress can consider further action at that time.” The FTC, Department of Justice and state law enforcement agencies shouldn’t wait for the FTC study’s completion to take enforcement action if they “uncover PAE activity that is in violation of current law,” Brill said (http://1.usa.gov/1euM86a).

Today’s telecom policy debates rely on faulty premises repeatedly used to make flawed arguments, Free State Foundation’s Justin Hurwitz said in a paper released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1fgsYpD). “The five faulty premises are: that everyone needs low-cost access to high speed broadband service; that high-speed broadband is necessary for education, health, government, and other social services; that wireless can’t compete with cable; that an open Internet is necessary for innovation and benefits consumers; and that the grass is greener in other countries,” wrote Hurwitz, a law professor at the University of Nebraska. Little reason exists for many Internet services to require such rich multimedia; the push for a “resource-intensive user experience” is often driven by the existence of the technology, not by the needs of the users, Hurwitz said. High-speed broadband is not necessary for education, healthcare and other various social services, Hurwitz said; “the focus should be on ensuring access to sufficiently high-performance Internet services to realize basic social commitments.” The idea that innovation requires open access is a “beautiful premise” whose “beauty is skin deep,” Hurwitz said. Although open access can facilitate some innovation, it makes some forms of innovation more expensive or difficult to implement, he said. “Hopefully, identifying these faulty premises here will help us move beyond them in the debates to occur over the next year."

Customer management service provider Convergys said it’s acquiring rival Stream Global in an effort to expand its client base and geographic footprint. Convergys will pay $820 million in cash for Stream, said the acquirer in a Tuesday news release (http://bit.ly/1cNWyLC). “We believe this combination will strengthen Convergys by diversifying our client base and enabling us to offer a wider range of customer transactions in a more cost effective manner from multiple geographies, at scale,” said Convergys CEO Andrea Ayers.

The General Services Administration (GSA) could have saved hundreds of millions of dollars if it had been better able to manage a telecom transition, the GAO said in a report released Monday (http://1.usa.gov/19NtNEy). It focused on the Networx transition -- a series of contracts signed in 2007 and covering transport, Internet Protocol, wireless and management and application services -- and said the savings could have been $329 million if the transition had happened on time. “The extent to which GSA is documenting and applying lessons learned in preparation for the next telecommunications transition varies,” the GAO report said. “GSA has fully or partially satisfied five of six key practices necessary for a robust lessons learned process.” But it “has not fully shared these lessons with its customer agencies or prioritized them to ensure that resources are applied to areas with the greatest return on investment,” said the GAO. The GSA needs to share and prioritize lessons from this transition, it said. “GSA plans to finalize its next telecommunications acquisition strategy in December 2013 and begin the next transition when it awards new contracts in February 2017,” the GAO said. “Fully addressing key lessons learned practices should help GSA and agencies."

Members of an international coalition of about 250 academics co-signed a letter released Friday urging governments to curb their “unprecedented level of surveillance” (http://bit.ly/1atMQ11). “This has to stop,” the letter says, citing the surveillance methods revealed through Edward Snowden’s leaked documents. “The right to privacy is a fundamental right. It is protected by international treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights,” the letter said. Without giving specific policy prescriptions, “the signatories of this declaration call upon nation states to take action. ... Intelligence agencies must be subjected to transparency and accountability,” it said.

Recent court opinions on National Security Agency phone surveillance indicate that understanding of the Fourth Amendment may need to change, argued Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. She pointed to two federal court decisions from December, one calling phone metadata bulk collection likely to be in violation of the Fourth Amendment and another upholding the practice. She favored the reasoning of the former and examined the broader legal context. “A consensus seems to be emerging that the Fourth Amendment must evolve along with technology and government surveillance capabilities, and that it is the job of the lower courts to investigate and to rule accordingly,” she wrote in a Just Security blog post Tuesday (http://bit.ly/KmNnv5). “If lower courts slavishly follow the closest analogous Supreme Court case on hand, rather than seriously consider whether facts, policies and practices on the ground have changed, higher courts will not benefit from the best fact-finding and the best legal reasoning incubated in the lower federal courts.” She predicted courts will ultimately find the Fourth Amendment prohibits such bulk surveillance, which she called an “unprecedented power” of the government.

Puerto Rico Telephone Co., which operates as Claro, wants to discontinue its PhoneMax interconnected VoIP services Jan. 31, the FCC said Tuesday. Claro said it will continue to offer alternative voice services, including traditional wireline and wireless services. Other telcos in Puerto Rico offer comparable VoIP services as well, the FCC said. The commission is seeking comment on Claro’s proposal through Jan. 15.