On April 17, 2008, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held a public en banc hearing on broadband network management practices. Hosted by Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, the event was attended by five FCC Commissioners who heard from legal scholars, high-tech entrepreneurs, Web start-ups and an auditorium full of interested community members about whether and how the FCC should provide more oversight of phone and cable companies in order to ensure "net neutrality."

Stanford Law School Archivist Sarah Wilson has compiled a document with testimony, statements, press releases and news coverage related to the hearing. Her work, The FCC Hearing at Stanford, is available as part of the Robert Crown Law Library Legal Research Paper Series.

-Kate Wilko

Here is a welcome proposal that would make broadcasters more accountable by making them put online their "public-inspection" files, which are now usually in paper and available for inspection by the public during limited hours at the studio. The last time this was proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the broadcasting industry opposed the measure as too burdensome.

• Martin to Stations: Put Public Records Online, By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable, 4/16/2007.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants broadcasters to put their public files online, including public-affairs-programming logs, requests for political-ad time and the prices charged, according to FCC sources.

Some in the TV industry say the move could provide more ammunition for activist groups looking to challenge TV licenses and could add up to more expense and time for stations to convert drawers of papers to a searchable Web database.

According to the Associated Press (September 14, 2006), "the Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says."

This is despicable. The FCC under Michael Powell and now Kevin Martin has been trying to change the rules for media ownership for several years so that large media corporations could have monopolistic control over local TV/newspaper/radio markets. But, oops!, their own study, paid for at taxpayer expense, found that localism is beneficial to the public and that media concentration has detrimental effects on public access to news and information. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. is on the case and has said she will call for an investigation if answers are not forthcoming.

Read on at Fair and Crooks and liars. The document is attached as well. See this FGI post for more on suppressed FCC documents.