Tag: fcc

Court Gives FCC 30 Days to Respond to CHD Petition on Wireless Harms

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has 30 days to explain why it hasn’t complied with a 2021 court order requiring the agency to reveal how it determined that current wireless radiation exposure limits — which haven’t been updated in 30 years — adequately protect people and the environment, a federal appeals court ruled today.

Within a month, the FCC must respond to a petition filed earlier this year by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) requesting the information.

“This is a huge deal, and we are very pleased with the court’s order,” said Miriam Eckenfels, director of CHD’s Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Program.

Today’s order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit represents a big step toward holding the FCC accountable for its ongoing refusal to protect people and the environment from wireless radiation, Eckenfels said.

“The FCC’s inaction to address the mountain of science on the health impacts of wireless radiation is nothing short of reckless,” she said.

‘This signals that the court is interested in the issue’

In 2019, the FCC chose not to update its 1996 radiofrequency (RF) radiation exposure safety limits and to terminate a legal inquiry into scientific evidence of adverse biological effects of RF radiation.

In response, CHD and other petitioners, including the Environmental Health Trust, sued the FCC. The groups filed 11,000 pages of evidence of harm from 5G and wireless technology — evidence that they alleged the FCC ignored in 2019, when it decided not to update its safety limits.

In 2021, after CHD and the other petitioners’ cases were consolidated into EHT et al. v. FCC, the District of Columbia Circuit sided with CHD.

The 2021 ruling called the FCC’s 2019 decision “arbitrary and capricious” because it failed to consider the non-cancer evidence of adverse health effects caused by wireless technology.

According to the 2021 ruling:

“In addition to the Commission’s inadequate response to the non-cancer-related effects of RF radiation on human health, the Commission also completely failed even to acknowledge, let alone respond to, comments concerning the impact of RF radiation on the environment.

“That utter lack of a response does not meet the Commission’s obligation to provide a reasoned explanation for terminating the notice of inquiry.”

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Trump Targets NBC Host For FCC ‘Rebuke Or Punishment’

President Donald Trump took a run at NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday, accusing the Meet the Press moderator of misrepresenting his endorsement record ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Trump, who boasts a 100% success rate with endorsed candidates in 2026 Senate primaries and a 98% success rate in House races, took issue with a comment Welker made not on the Sunday broadcast of Meet the Press itself, but during a pre-show appearance on WRC-TV, NBC’s local Washington station, to promote the program — where she said he’d had “mixed results” with his endorsements.

“Kristen Welker, the Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of the once great Meet the Press, now considered Meet the Fake Press, just stated that Donald Trump has ‘mixed results’ on his Endorsements of Candidates, when the recent WINS of Darline Graham and Mike Mazzei, stand at 100% for the U.S. Senate, and 98% for the U.S. House, recently and over the longterm,” Trump posted via Truth Social.

“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given Public Airwaves?” the president asked, sharing data showing the actual data on his endorsements. “Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment. Unfortunately, she is not the only one.”

Trump turned then to address media more broadly, saying that there were many others who went out of their way to broadcast only the bad things — even if that meant reframing good things to make them appear bad.

“The Radical Left News is going out of their way to harass, demean, and libel anything ‘TRUMP.’ Their new weapon is to say that my 99% SUCCESS Rate on Endorsements, 100% on Senatorial Endorsements (Many of whom were not even given a shot of winning until I Endorsed!), is either a mixed result, or not very good,” he wrote. “In actuality, it is, without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics. If it were not, I would be the first to admit it.”

Trump referenced Senator Darline Graham (R-SC), whose name had barely been on the radar prior to Trump’s endorsement, as a prime example. Graham was his first choice to fill the vacancy left by her brother, the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

“Darline Graham’s run for the Senate was the biggest story in all of Politics, because she wasn’t expected to win, and then, when I Endorsed her, and she easily won, the story of her Victory was hardly covered by anybody. Likewise, the future Governor of Oklahoma, who was behind in every Poll, I Endorsed him, he won, and the story was barely covered!” Trump complained. “The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously. Thank you for your attention to this very important matter of Fake Polls and Commentary!”

HBO host and comedian Bill Maher admitted defeat on the same issue during his Friday night broadcast of “Real Time,” where he conceded that he’d been wrong about the impact and success Trump’s endorsements in 2026 primary races. He also joked that it had been the president himself who had texted him to make the correction.

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FCC Deals Blow to Montana Residents Fighting 260-Foot Cell Tower

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday ruled against a group of Montana residents seeking to prevent construction of a 260-foot cell tower that they say would harm nearby wildlife, including nesting eagles, and the environment.

The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau sided with Harmoni Towers, concluding the company isn’t required to do any further research on how the proposed tower might negatively impact the local environment — even though the company’s “environmental assessment” contained errors and overlooked key information, according to W. Scott McCollough, lead attorney for Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless cases.

Members of the nonprofit Stewards of the Swan Valley, who opposed the tower, allege that if built, the tower would harm a host of non-human species, including mammals, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles and flora.

The proposed tower site is near Condon, Montana, in the state’s Swan Valley, prized for its spectacular wilderness views.

“This is a horrible place for a cell tower with a strobe light on it,” resident Peter Guynn told The Defender. “It announces to the world that this is no longer a natural place.” Guynn called the FCC’s decision “egregious.”

In February, opponents of the tower filed comments, pointing out that Harmoni Towers failed to consider the published evidence on how the radiofrequency (RF) radiation emitted by cell towers affects non-human species.

The FCC said the company’s environmental assessment wasn’t required to address the effect on non-human species, arguing that the agency’s RF radiation exposure limits pertain only to the human environment.

“We find that the tower will not have a significant impact on the quality of the human environment,” the FCC wrote.

McCollough told The Defender, “Essentially, the FCC covered both its eyes so that it couldn’t see an impact.”

The residents are considering next steps, McCollough said. The FCC’s decision becomes final in 30 days, unless the residents submit an application asking for it to be reviewed.

Miriam Eckenfels, director of CHD’s EMR & Wireless Program, said that the FCC’s decision shows yet again that communities dealing with unwanted cell towers cannot rely on the FCC to help them.

“The FCC is the poster child of a captured government agency. It serves industry alone, and people are left to fend for themselves,” Eckenfels said. “This decision also highlights the importance of CHD’s 704NoMore initiative and its goal to change the federal framework towards consideration of health effects of RF radiation.”

The 704NoMore campaign is raising money to legally challenge Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which prohibits local and state governments from considering possible health impacts from RF radiation when making cell tower decisions.

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Disney Sues FCC for ‘Retaliatory’ Investigation of ABC

The broadcast network ABC, parent company Disney, and eight ABC affiliates filed a lawsuit today against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

ABC alleges the government is targeting the network for its speech, and it makes a convincing argument.

“Government censorship is deeply un-American,” the lawsuit begins. “That fundamental principle predates the Republic, with our Founders recognizing that ‘the freedom of the press is one of the great[est] bulwarks of liberty.'”

The filing cites NRA v. Vullo, a 2024 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the state of New York’s efforts to prevent banks and insurance companies from doing business with the National Rifle Association.

The government, wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, cannot “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.” According to ABC’s lawsuit, “This case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that. Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.”

Plaintiffs typically face a difficult task proving selective or vindictive treatment by the government. But this is not a typical situation: The lawsuit catalogues dozens of times that President Donald Trump suggested broadcast networks, including ABC, should be taken off the air for displeasing him.

“ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97% BAD STORIES,” he wrote last year in a characteristic Truth Social post. “IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC.”

“If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party,” he complained in another, “shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!”

Trump has said this for years, even though it’s not how it works: Networks create content, but the local affiliates that air it have broadcast licenses. Disney only owns eight of ABC’s hundreds of affiliates, meaning the vast majority are owned by third parties.

Just last month, Trump threatened to revoke ABC’s and NBC’s broadcast licenses for not airing one of his speeches.

But Trump is not the only example cited in the lawsuit. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has also repeatedly threatened Disney and ABC with reprisal over what largely amounts to hurting the president’s feelings.

In September 2025, when Jimmy Kimmel suggested in his late-night show’s monologue that slain conservative activist was killed by a member of “the MAGA gang,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr called on ABC’s affiliates to “step up” and reject the network’s programming; otherwise, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he warned. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Numerous affiliates preempted Kimmel’s show, and ABC suspended production until the following week.

This year, Carr threatened ABC’s daytime chat show The View for not following the federal “equal time” rule that says when a candidate for public office appears on a broadcast network, their opponents must be offered equal time. The FCC had exempted shows like The View from the rule for decades before Carr reversed course.

Carr also opened an investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies; while Disney had already rolled back its DEI programs, “significant concerns remain,” Carr claimed.

ABC’s lawsuit calls the investigation “pretextual.” Indeed, it formed the basis of an action earlier this year, when the FCC called in the broadcast licenses of all eight Disney-owned ABC affiliates for “early renewal,” years before any of them were set to expire. Notably, though, it came just days after Kimmel made another intemperate comment at Trump’s expense.

“Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” Trump wrote on Truth Social the day before the FCC announced it was calling in the licenses.

ABC’s lawsuit seeks relief from the review, which it characterizes as completely unprecedented. The FCC “had not called for a renewal application ahead of schedule in more than half a century,” the filing claims. “Nor had it ever demanded simultaneous early renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned by a single broadcast network.”

Carr apparently agrees: “It’s probably been 50, 60 years or longer since the FCC has used this tool,” he told the Financial Times. “If you didn’t take us seriously, now you should.”

And last month, Carr suggested that ABC’s decision not to air Trump’s speech would factor into the FCC’s review.

ABC’s lawsuit says the network faces “irreparable harm” from the government, but it also suggests dire potential consequences for the entire broadcast industry. “If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government,” it warns. “In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free.”

“The current FCC has repeatedly used its power over broadcast speech to jawbone, punish, and threaten censorship of its political opponents,” David Inserra, a fellow for free speech and technology at the Cato Institute, said in an emailed statement. “Today’s lawsuit by ABC Disney against the FCC directly challenges the broad and abusive powers that Congress and prior court decisions gave the FCC. No government agency should ever be empowered to restrict free expression based on what it thinks is fair, equal, or in the best interest of the public. In a world where the American people and press can speak through print, broadcast, cable, satellite, internet, and other forms of media, there is no justification for the FCC to continue to wield such significant power over broadcast speech.”

“Disney is entirely justified in asking a court to stop the FCC’s attempt to coerce its broadcast stations’ programming through an unlawful campaign of regulatory scrutiny,” added Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The lawsuit makes clear that this campaign has already chilled ABC’s speech. The First Amendment prohibits the government from using regulatory threats to chill speech that the government doesn’t like, which is exactly what the FCC is doing here.”

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A California startup won approval to launch a 59-foot mirror into orbit that beams sunlight to a chosen spot on Earth, helping crews work after dark

ight falls, solar panels stop producing, and emergency crews often turn to fuel-powered generators and floodlights. A California startup now wants to offer another option by redirecting sunlight from orbit to a chosen place on Earth for a few minutes.

On July 9, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission authorized Reflect Orbital to deploy and operate Earendil-1, one experimental satellite carrying a reflector about 59 feet by 59 feet. From an orbit roughly 388 miles above Earth, the spacecraft is intended to create a moonlike patch of light about 3.1 miles wide while testing whether that footprint can be aimed and controlled accurately.

A mirror that follows the Sun

Earendil-1 will not make electricity or store solar energy. Its thin reflective film will act like a giant heliostat in space, turning so it can intercept sunlight while the satellite remains sunlit and redirect that light toward a location that has already entered darkness.

Because it moves quickly through low Earth orbit, a single pass would illuminate a target only briefly. Reflect Orbital says its planned 2026 demonstration is designed to provide around 0.1 lux for up to five minutes, equal to roughly 0.009 foot-candles and comparable to a clear night under a full moon.

The light can be removed from the ground by changing the spacecraft’s orientation. That steering ability is at the heart of the mission, since the test must show that the reflector can unfold, point accurately, hold its footprint, and turn away when service ends.

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FCC Chair Brendan Carr Exposes ‘The View’ by Posting Video Montage of the Hosts Basically Campaigning for the Democrats

For months now, a battle has been raging between Trump’s FCC and ABC News/Disney, the owners of the daytime talk show ‘The View.’

ABC News claims that ‘The View’ is a legitimate news show, a claim that is preposterous at best, while the FCC argues that it’s not a news show.

The argument is important because the decision ultimately governs what the show is and is not allowed to do.

In a way, it’s amazing that this debate is even taking place. The View is easily the most anti-Trump and anti-Republican show on network television.

Anyone who watches the show even once knows this if they possess average intelligence.

Now, Trump’s FCC chief Brendan Carr has posted a video to Twitter/X which shows the hosts of The View basically campaigning for the Democrats.

Breitbart News reports:

Federal Communications chief Brendan Carr posted a montage video to social media of some of ABC daytime talk show The View’s most biased, left-wing chatter and electioneering for Democrats as the agency considers whether the show has broken federal equal time rules.

Carr posted the video on Thursday and wrote that, “Disney is arguing to the FCC that its ABC show The View is a ‘bona fide news program.’”

“Disney claims that its decisions are based on “newsworthiness”—rather than partisan purposes—and thus exempt from political equal time rules,” he added to the video post.

“The FCC will make its decision based on all relevant evidence and precedents,” he concluded on his July 30 X post.

The video shows various members of The View’s panel advocating exclusively for the Democrat Party and denigrating Republicans.

Still, in other comments Carr also said that he does not view the FCC as the “speech police.”

Appearing recently on The Conversation podcast, hosted by POLITICO’s Dasha Burns, Carr said that his job is to apply the laws Congress has passed.

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JAWBONE Act: FCC Democrat Backs Cruz Anti-Censorship Bill

FCC member Anna Gomez has been describing what happens when a federal regulator leans on broadcasters over programming it dislikes.

This month, she endorsed the JAWBONE Act, a Ted Cruz bill that would let the broadcasters and platforms on the receiving end of that pressure haul federal officials into court and collect money from them.

Punchbowl News reported the endorsement on July 14. The bill Gomez is backing, S. 4749, carries the name Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression, which nobody will ever say out loud, and it was introduced on June 11 by Cruz and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden.

It would make it unlawful for any federal agency, or any officer or employee acting “under color or pretense of office or employment,” to coerce or attempt to coerce a broadcaster, an online platform or an AI provider into taking what the text calls a content action, meaning adding, altering or deleting speech.

Coercion is defined broadly as “to take a harmful, hostile, or unfavorable action, to imply the possibility of taking such action, or to threaten such action.”

The prohibition reaches conduct undertaken “for the purpose of, or if a reasonable person would understand the coercion or attempted coercion to be for the purpose of, incentivizing the broadcaster or provider to take a content action.”

The bill then lists eight factors a court should weigh in deciding whether something counts as coercion. Read them against the record built in Missouri v. Biden and the fit is almost exact.

Courts are told to consider the word choice and tone of the communication, whether the official had regulatory or enforcement authority over the recipient, whether the communication referred to adverse consequences, whether it was public or private, whether it carried a disclaimer saying it lacked legal force, and whether it led the recipient to act contrary to its own policies.

Two of the eight cut the government’s way, asking whether the communication carried “a factual statement without legal force that could be useful to the decision-making of the recipient” and whether it “was for the purpose of aiding compliance with existing law.”

The findings concede the point: “not all government communication to a private speech platform is coercive.” The government does not need a license over Facebook to have leverage over it. It has Section 230 and it has the antitrust division.

Consider what that leverage produced in the summer of 2021. Rob Flaherty, the White House director of digital strategy, ran a sustained campaign of emails and meetings aimed at Facebook’s moderation of COVID content.

The Fifth Circuit found he had demanded internal policy details at least twelve times, pressing the company on what content was being demoted, what interventions it was making, and what measurable impact any of it had.

He told the company the White House was “gravely concerned” that Facebook was “one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy,” accused it of running a “shell game,” and, when an answer was slow, wrote: “Are you guys fucking serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.”

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US Government Approves Satellite That Turns Night Into Day

A California startup has received FCC approval for a mirrored satellite that will reflect the sun’s rays onto Earth’s dark side, providing light on demand across an area roughly three miles wide. The company, Reflect Orbital, paints a picture of a futuristic utopia, promising enhanced safety for search and rescue operations, extended hours for agricultural and solar panel productivity, and a world where the shadows of night are banished at the flip of a switch.

However, the project has sparked a firestorm of controversy, drawing the scrutiny of both regulators and the scientific community. These critics warn that the intense, concentrated beams could pose serious hazards to drivers, potentially causing flash-blindness, and wreak havoc on sensitive astronomical observations. The reaction online has been equally sharp, with one Reddit user sarcastically quipping, “Yay!!! More wildfires!!!”

For now, the FCC’s decision covers only a single demonstration satellite, not the company’s much larger long-term vision of 50,000 similar devices. Nevertheless, the debate illuminates a bigger question: if we can engineer artificial daylight, should we?

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FCC Probe into ‘The View’ Heats Up: Media Research Center Submits 2,473 Separate Pieces of Evidence Documenting ‘Pervasive Bias’

In January, The Gateway Pundit reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a crackdown on partisan talk shows in both daytime and late-night in an effort to provide equal treatment for political candidates.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at the time, “For years, legacy TV networks assumed that their late night & daytime talk shows qualify as “bona fide news” programs – even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes.”

In February, the FCC is launched an investigation into ABC’s “The View” following an appearance by Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, the first political candidate to appear on the program following the announcement in January.

At the time, Talarico was facing other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), in the Democrat primary. Republicans Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), state Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) faced off in the GOP primary.

Yet, as Fox News reported at the time, ABC’s parent company, Disney, never made an equal-time filing to the FCC regarding Talarico’s recent appearance, which would implicitly indicate to the FCC that Disney believes “The View” is bona fide news and would be exempt from the policy.

The equal opportunity requirement applies to all legally filed candidates on a ballot regardless of political party, meaning all eligible Democratic primary candidates would require equal time. Notably, Talarico received roughly nine minutes of airtime in one segment while his top primary rival, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, had roughly 17 minutes of airtime across three segments during her appearance on “The View” last month.

The source noted that not only would ABC require equal airtime for Republican candidates on the ballot like incumbent Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn and his primary rivals. It would also apply to Ahmad Hassan, the little-known candidate running against Talarico and Crockett in the Democratic primary.

In a letter to FCC division chief Maria Mullarkey, Media Research Center (MRC) President David Bozell wrote, “For nearly four decades, the Media Research Center (MRC) has been an unrelenting media watchdog and a counterforce to activism in America’s newsrooms, broadcast networks, and Big Tech platforms. As such, the MRC is uniquely qualified to respond to the Commission’s request for comment on Disney/ABC’s petition to declare that the daytime television program The View qualifies as a bona fide news interview program.”

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FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones—a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase—which would impact privacy-conscious people, to domestic abuse survivors, to journalists, and many more. The FCC plans to do this by legally forcing the country’s telecoms to store a wealth of personal information about essentially all phone customers, including a government issued identification number and their physical address, alarming privacy advocates and civil rights activists who compare the measures to those from authoritarian countries where it can be difficult to buy a mobile phone plan without giving up your identity.

The proposed change would drastically shake up how people obtain phone plans in the U.S., and have all sorts of privacy and cybersecurity knock-on effects. The FCC is proposing the data collection partly as a way to combat scammers, with telecoms being required to collect other information on business and foreign customers like the intended use case of their bulk phone plan purchase and their IP address. But the changes would mean telecoms collect data on all new and renewing customers, and the FCC provides a long list of other things that the collected data could help authorities with.

“For decades, civil libertarians have looked overseas at authoritarian countries where the government requires people to register to get a mobile phone to ensure they can be tracked. We never thought that would happen here,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project told 404 Media in an email. “But make no mistake: with this rulemaking, the government is contemplating taking away people’s ability to get a burner phone, which will hurt low-income people, domestic violence victims, and anyone else who cares about their privacy.”

In a synopsis of the proposed changes, the FCC writes, “Specifically, we seek comment on requiring originating providers to, at a minimum, obtain and retain the name, physical address, government issued identification number, and an alternate telephone number of any new and renewing customer before granting access to its services.” The goal of collecting this data, the FCC writes, is to deter some scammers from getting onto a telecom network in the first place, and so “enforcers will be better able to identify the scammers when they do.” The FCC compares the changes to the sort of data collected by banks to prevent money laundering.

One section stresses that the newly collected data would help “law enforcement to more easily identify callers that use the network to perpetuate crimes by ensuring that voice providers have accurate and complete customer information.” It goes on to ask if the data would help identify people buying and selling illicit goods; the investigation of “fraud, espionage, or influence operations that undermine national security”, and “address abuse in text messaging networks.”

“Criminals continue to leverage the anonymity provided by phone calls and texts to defraud Americans and exploit communications networks to further other crimes,” one section reads.

At the moment, the FCC is seeking comments about its proposed changes, with interested or concerned parties—think telecom companies, law enforcement, or privacy advocates—able to weigh in. But the intention of the FCC is clear: the agency wants telecoms to be legally obligated to collect much more personally identifying information on new and returning customers, linking them directly to their phone number and phone usage data. The FCC also asks whether the amount of data collected should change depending on whether a customer is seeking a prepaid or a postpaid service plan.

Multiple privacy and technology experts strongly pushed back against the proposed changes. “This proposal by the FCC will do little to combat scams and robocalls, since most people doing that will have no trouble creating fake documentation or identities,” Cooper Quintin, security researcher and senior public interest technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told 404 Media. “Given this administration’s crackdown on free expression, protest, immigrants, and women’s health we have trouble seeing this as a bold attack on freedom of communication. They want to take away our ability to make an anonymous phone call.”

Eric Null, the director of the Privacy & Data Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told 404 Media in an emailed statement “To address the scourge of illegal robocalls, the FCC has unfortunately proposed to force every wireless subscriber in the nation to sacrifice their privacy and give up significant personal details before receiving or renewing a wireless line. While some carriers already collect such details, there are specific circumstances where a person may need privacy and anonymity when seeking a cell phone, including if that person is a victim of domestic violence, or is a journalist or whistleblower. This proposal represents a loss of privacy across the board, and from an agency whose remit includes protecting privacy. The FCC might let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.”

Cape is a privacy-focused telecom company that limits the amount of data it collects on its customers. John Doyle, the company’s CEO, told 404 Media in an emailed statement “We hate robocalls and support eliminating them, but entrusting telecom carriers to effectively create a nationwide ID registry for every American with a phone is not the solution. Mobile carriers have been breached time and again because the incentives to secure trillions of dollars of legacy architecture aren’t there. Further enriching compromised telecom datasets with government ID, physical addresses, and alternate phone numbers harms our security rather than improving it.”

Given this proposal is in the comments stage, the FCC has many questions it is hoping to receive information on, such as whether “renewing” customers should be only those new to the provider, or those switching plans with their current telecom; or whether they should not allow the use of P.O. boxes or shared office locations as the required “physical address.”

The FCC did not respond to 404 Media’s request for comment. The proposal is open to comments until June 25.

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