The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments and Caveat
• Preface From LCEF
• Preface From MIT's CRCP
• Introduction: Off Course on a Long Dark Road

Part One

• Section 254
• Section 255
• Section 706
• The Impact on Rural America

Part Two

• Section 202
• Media Mergers (1995-2001)
• A Brief Note on Mergers
• Telecom Mergers (1996-2001) 
• Section 336

Part Three

• Section 257
• Section 714

Afterword

• Does the Digital Divide Still Exist?

Appendix

• The Authors
• About CRFCP
• About LCEF
• About MIT's CRCP

The Authors

Mark N. Cooper

Dr. Cooper holds a Ph. D. from Yale University and is a former Yale University and Fulbright Fellow. He is Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America where he has responsibility for energy, telecommunications, and economic policy analysis. He is also Director of the Digital Society Project, a Ford Foundation funded effort to analyze and explain the impact of ongoing technological changes in American society to consumer, low income, and civil rights activists and organizations.

During 2002, Dr. Cooper is a Fellow at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society and an Associated Fellow at the Columbia University Institute on Tele-Information.

He has published numerous articles in trade and scholarly journals including recent law review articles on digital society issues (" Open Communications Platforms: Cornerstone Of Innovation And Democratic Discourse In The Internet Age, The Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law, forthcoming; "Inequality in Digital Society," Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, 2002; "The Digital Divide Confronts the Telecommunications Act of 1996: Econmic Reality versus Public Policy," in B. M. Compaine (Ed.). The Digital Divide Cambridge: MIT); "Antitrust as Consumer Protection in the New Economy: Lessons From the Microsoft Case," Hasting Law Journal, April 2001; and "Open Access to the Broadband Internet," University of Colorado Law Review, Fall 2000). He is the author of two books -- The Transformation of Egypt (Johns Hopkins, 1982) and Equity and Energy (Westview, 1983).

He has provided expert testimony in over 250 cases for public interest clients including Attorneys General, People's Counsels, and citizen interveners before state and federal agencies, courts and legislators in almost four dozen jurisdictions in the U. S. and Canada.

Allen S. Hammond, IV

(B. A. Grinnell College; M. A. University of Pennsylvania; J. D. Pennsylvania School of Law.) Professor Hammond teaches at the Santa Clara University School of Law and is the Director of the Broadband Institute at SCU. His prior work includes appointments as faculty at the New York Law School and Director of the NYLS Communications Media Center; attorney and program manager at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; General Counsel, WJLA-TV; and Assoc. General Counsel MCI Communications Corporation. He has published widely on access to mass media technology and information, and is the co-author of Communications Law, Media, Entertainment and Regulation.

Davi D Honig

(M. S. University of Rochester, l974; J. D. Georgetown University Law Center, l983) David Honig is Executive Director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC), based in Washington, D. C. MMTC represents virtually all of the nation's civil rights organizations before the FCC.

Janine Jaquet

Janine Jaquet is freelance writer and independent producer. She previously worked as the Research Director for the Project on Media Ownership. She contributes frequently to the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, The Nation, and other publications. She is currently teaching media studies at New York University.

Moushumi Khan

(J. D. University of Michigan, l996) Ms. Khan practices commercial law in New York City and is an MMTC participating attorney. Previously, Ms. Khan served as the Secretary of the Board of the Grameen Foundation.

Bennett Z. Kobb

(B. S., University of Texas; M. S. University of Colorado.) Mr. Kobb is the Technology Analyst for the Civil Rights Forum, where he concentrates on telecommunications and networking policy. He is the author of Wireless Spectrum Finder, the handbook of U. S. radio frequency allocations published by McGraw-Hill. His consulting practice has helped numerous private and non-profit clients to understand FCC processes and identify business opportunities. With Apple Computer, he co-founded and served as executive director of the Wireless Information Networks Forum. WINForum successfully lobbied the FCC to obtain scarce radio spectrum for new types of telephone and data products.

Previously, he was the wireless editor at Telecommunications Reports; founder and publisher of Federal Communications TechNews; and editor of Cellular Radio News and Personal Communications Magazine, the first periodicals for the cellular industry. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Mark Lloyd

(B. A., University of Michigan; J. D. Georgetown University Law Center.) Mr. Lloyd is the Executive Director of the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy. Previously, Mr. Lloyd worked as General Counsel to the Benton Foundation, and as a communications attorney at Dow, Lohnes & Albertson in Washington, D. C. representing both commercial and non-commercial companies. He also has nearly twenty years of experience as a print and broadcast journalist, including work as a reporter and producer at NBC and CNN.

Bruce Maxwell

Bruce Maxwell is a freelance writer, and a frequent contributor to the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy. He has written sev-eral books on the Internet, including How to Find Health Information on the Internet, and How to Track Politics on the Internet. He is a graduate of the Master's Program at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Lynne Montgomery

Lynne Montgomery is the Associate Director of Community Programs for the Civil Rights Forum. The Community Programs area of the Civil Rights Forum works toward identifying communications policies with an impact on urban and rural communities. We also encourage community groups to have a voice in creating communications policy, and connect them to policy makers. Ms. Montgomery oversees the Managing Information in Rural America (MIRA) project, sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation. Ms. Montgomery received her Bachelor's Degree from Oberlin College in 1997. Prior to working for the Civil Rights Forum, she worked as the Government Relations Assistant with the Washington Health Advocates and then as a Telecommunications Legal Assistant with Wiley, Rein and Fielding in Washington, DC.

Sean O'sullivan

Sean O'Sullivan is a freelance writer and marketing communications consultant based in Washington, DC. Mr. Sullivan is a frequent contributor to the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy and the youth website DrDrew. com. In addition to writing on healthcare and new media topics, his work includes consulting for corporations in the healthcare and pharmaceutical fields. He received his BA in Journalism in 1992 at New York University.

Karen Peltz Strauss

Karen Peltz Strauss has been a leading advocate on legal and policy issues concerning the rights of people with disabilities for approximately twenty years. Most recently, she served as Deputy Bureau Chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Consumer Information Bureau, where she managed the Commission's consumer and disability access programs. In that position, she oversaw the development of the Commission's first Disabilities Rights Office, as well as its first federal advisory committee dedicated to consumer and disability-related telecommunications issues. At present, Ms. Peltz Strauss is consulting for both the public and private sectors.

S. Jenell Trigg

(B. S. Speech, Northwestern University, J. D., magna cum laude, The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law and Certification, The Institute for Communications Law Studies) Ms. Trigg is Of Counsel with Leventhal, Senter & Lerman P. L. L. C. in Washington, D. C. She was previously Assistant Chief Counsel for Telecommunications, Office of Advocacy, U. S. Small Business Administration, and a Senior Telecommunications Policy Analyst for the FCC's Office of Communications Business Opportunities during the FCC's initial implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Ms. Trigg is a member of the National Association of Investment Companies.