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CPSR Joins the California Policy Roundtable

by Jeff Johnson and Chris Mays

CPSR News Volume 15, Number 2: Spring 1997

The TPR meetings were organized by the Center for Media Education. Member organizations include CPSR, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the ACLU, and the Consumer Project on Technology, among others.

Modeled after the Washington TPR, Telecommunications Policy Roundtables have been formed in other parts of the country to deal with state and regional telecommunications issues. A TPR-Northeast was convened in the Boston area and met for a while, but apparently has now dissolved.

In January, NetAction, Media Alliance, and the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), all progressive Bay Area nonprofit organizations involved in technology activism and advocacy, convened a California Telecommunications Policy Roundtable (Cal-TPR) and invited CPSR to participate. The purpose of the Cal-TPR, as stated by the founding organizations, is: ". . . . to bring together California-based public-interest organizations working on technology, telecommunications, and/or media issues...The Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996. . . . is having a significant impact on national, state, and local policy. . . . Our interest in convening this Roundtable is to enable public-interest organizations working on these issues to network, share information, explore opportunities for collaborative action, and develop closer working relationships with public-interest groups in Washington, DC"

The authors of this article volunteered to represent CPSR at the monthly Cal-TPR meetings. What follows is a summary of those meetings, and plans for the future.

The first meeting, held on January 29 at the Media Alliance offices in San Francisco, was purely organizational. Representatives of participating organizations introduced themselves and their organizations, and stated their hopes for Cal-TPR. The organizers announced the formation of two listservers for the group, hosted by IGC: one for announcements and one for discussion.

Organizations represented at the first meetings included: Media Alliance, Latino Issues Forum, National Writers' Union, San Francisco Community TV Corporation., San Francisco Public Library, CPSR, HandsNet, Digital Queers, NetAction, Berkeley Community Media, National Lawyers' Guild Committee for Democratic Community, Progressive Communications, SF NeighborNet, and Z Publications. Also present were several individuals involved in technology advocacy or activism.

Many of those present at the first meeting felt that the Cal-TPR should emphasize coordinated action and advocacy rather than just information-sharing. Someone pointed out that there might have to be limits to Cal-TPR's advocacy if it takes the form of political lobbying, since some of the member-organizations are allowed to lobby and others are not.

To foster the development of united positions on issues, it was suggested that each meeting consist mainly of a discussion of some important issue (selected in advance by the group) with intent to formulate a position. This procedure contrasts with that of some TPRs, in which the bulk of each month's meeting consists of status reports from member-organizations. In Cal-TPR, status reports were deemed necessary, but will be assigned secondary importance in the meetings.

At the February meeting, Laura Stuchinsky of Valdez & Associates presented a white paper concerning the PacBell/Southwestern Bell Merger. The paper, "Staking Out the Public Interest," can be found on the Utility Consumers' Action Network web site at http://www.ucan.org/ucan/news/.

Laura said that there are concerns about the impact of the merger, and questions about whether the merged company will attempt to serve the more lucrative market niches while leaving out poor communities. A decision by the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is expected to approve the merger, possibly as early as mid-March. The PUC hearing officer estimates that the value of the merger is $1 billion and has recommended that $590 million be refunded to customers.

Valdez & Associates requests that public interest organizations sign a petition requesting that $I billion be returned to customers, of which $500 million would be immediately refunded to customers and $500 million would be dedicated to various community programs, including wiring of low-income school districts and setting up community technology centers.

After Laura's report, participants discussed other current issues, including:

• The need to create a task-force to watch media issues pending before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
• Noted that March 25 is the deadline for organizations to send comments to the FCC regarding whether Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should be required to pay access charges to local exchange carriers like PacBell. NetAction is prepared to file comments and has asked other organizations to be cosigners.
• Discussed the impending arrival of digital high-definition TV, and that regulators need to decide whether to give broadcasters the bandwidth, sell it, or rent it. The estimated value of the bandwidth is 5 billion dollars, if sold.
• Reported that Jamie Love of the Consumer Project on Technology is asking organizations to sign onto a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting that individuals and organizations have the option of commenting by email on proposed corporate mergers. Organizations interested in signing on should contact Jamie at: love@ap.org
• Noted that the San Jose Mercury News hosted a Cyber Resource Fair on Saturday, April 5. Nonprofit organizations participated and showed visitors how individuals and groups can use online technology to benefit their communities.

TPRCAL-ANN
A moderated announcement list that will be used to announce Cal-TPR meetings and other events, and to distribute meeting agendas. To subscribe, send email to majordomo@igc.org with the text "subscribe tprcal-ann" in the body of the message. To submit an announcement for posting to TPRCAL-ANN, contact Audrie Krause, akrause@igc.org, or Erika Wudtke, ewudtke@igc.org.

TPRCAL-DISC
An unmoderated discussion list for collaborative planning and/or discussion of policy issues. To subscribe to the discussion list, send email to majordomo@igc.or with the text "subscribe tprcal-disc" in the body of the message. Anyone who subscribes to TPRCAL-DISC can post directly to this list.

Jeff Johnson is President and Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consulting firm. Since 1983, Johnson has been an active member of CPSR. He was co-founder of CPSR's "Computers in the Workplace" project, founder and Chair of CPSR's Denver-Boulder chapter, and Co-chair of the first U.S. conference on Participatory Design of Computer Systems: PDC'90. In the late eighties, Johnson joined CPSR's Executive Committee, and in 1991 was elected to a term as Chair of CPSR's Board of Directors. He is currently on the Advisory Board of NetAction, a public-interest organization that fosters online skills among political activists.

Chris Mays is a Library and Information Science Student at San Jose State University. He is currently Secretary of CPSR's Berkeley Chapter, and maintains the California Electronic Government Information web pages (http://www.cpsr.org/cegi.html), for which he won the James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

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