Native-American leaders push for spectrum sovereignty at Indian telecom meetingÂ
Speaking at a San Diego conference on Native American telecommunications, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein today urged Indian activists to participate in the Commissions renewed media ownership proceeding.
"Just last week we started a sweeping review of our media ownership rules," Adelstein told an audience of tribal leaders, broadcasters, and telecommunications entrepreneurs. "And Im really worried about where we may be headed."
On Friday June 21st, the Commission adopted a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that gives the public sixty days to comment on whether the FCC should relax its media ownership requirements, including its newspaper/TV station cross ownership ban and rule limiting a companys share of the national TV market to 35% of American households.
"Despite the fact that there are so many more media outlets in this country, people still get their news and information from broadcast TV primarily," Adelstein continued. "And these outlets are increasingly controlled by a handful of giant, multinational media conglomerates."
Adelstein praised the group—the Indian Telecommunications Initiatives Regional Workshop—for their efforts to build broadband systems in remote reservation regions, including a mountain area broadband station that runs on solar power. He also praised radio stations like KILI of South Dakota, the largest Indian owned public radio frequency in the United States.
"Nobody else is going to cover issues of concern to Native Americans the way KILI radio does," Adelstein said. "More communities need that. We have to think about that as we run through our media ownership review."
KILI recently went back on the air after a lightening bolt struck its antenna, silencing the station for months.
Yesterday Scott Deutschman, legal advisor to Commissioner Michael Copps, also told the conference attendants that they needed to participate in the media rules proceeding.
"If media ownership is not your number one issue, it has to be your number two issue, because the media is the medium through which all other issues are filtered," Deutschman said. "And with the increasing consolidation of the media in this country, you should all be concerned about the job that the media is doing in covering tribal citizens and the issues that you care about."
When the FCC first announced in June that it would launch a new media ownership comment cycle, Copps protested that the public had not been asked to comment on formal proposals to change the rules, just a set of general questions.
"I am deeply disappointed that this Notice does not contain a specific, up-front commitment to share proposed media concentration rules with the American people in advance of a final vote," he said in a partial dissent to the announcement. "I do not see how we can be transparent and comply with the dictates of the Third Circuit without letting the American people know about and comment on any new standards of measurement that we adopt in developing our ultimate decision."
In 2004 the Federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCCs media ownership proposals, calling flawed the logic upon which the Commission based its rule changes. The law requires the Commission to reconsider its media ownership regulations every four years.
Asked at the conference whether the public would eventually be permitted to comment on specific rule changes, Deutschman said he was not sure. He expressed hope that the Senate would require the FCC to take that step.
"I dont think that we have the answer," Deutschman said. "I know that weve raised it. I know that we think it is desperately important. I dont think that it is provided for at this point to do that."
Spectrum sovereignty questions
For participants in the Indian broadband conference, however, the number one telecommunications issue was being consulted by the FCC as sovereign nations, rather than as individuals.
"I really appreciate the fact that we tribal people have the ability to respond to FCC regulations as they are proposed," Vernon James, CEO of the San Carlos Apache Telecommunications Utility, told FCC officials in a roundtable discussion yesterday. "But my input is requested but it is not received as a part of a sovereign entity."
Native American leaders repeatedly told FCC staff at the conference that they wanted more control over who broadcast and provided telecommunications services on their reservations. They also want to negotiate with the FCC on a nation-to-nation level, rather than just comment on specific dockets.
In March of this year the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) asked the Senate to include language acknowledging tribal regulatory authority in an upcoming revision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
"Like water, minerals, and timber, spectrum is a valuable natural resource for tribal communities," NCAI President Joe Garcia told the Senate Commerce Committee on March 7th, "and the federal government should consult with tribes about spectrum management on tribal lands and ensure that tribal communities have access to this resource for purposes of tribal governance and economic development."
The latest version of the Senate bill includes language emphasizing the government-to-government nature of Native American/U.S. spectrum negotiations. At the San Diego gathering, the FCCs Deutschman pledged that the Commission would also do better.
"At the heart of the Federal trust relationship lies the concept of consultation. Tribes are governments," Deutschman said. "As a Federal agency we have a duty to treat tribes as the sovereigns they are. To be honest about it, weve in fact not done enough to honor the government-to-government relationship."
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