The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued an opinion and primary order renewing NSA's Section 215 bulk telephony program to ensure an orderly transition to the surveillance program authorized by the USA Freedom Act to the phone providers themselves, said the Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a joint statement Tuesday. Per Monday's order, NSA’s bulk program will continue for a 180-day transition period to the phone companies, said DOJ and the DNI. “The court’s new primary order requires that during the transition period, absent a true emergency, telephony metadata can only be queried after a judicial finding that there is a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the selection term is associated with an approved international terrorist organization." Query results are limited to data within two hops of the selection term instead of three, it said. The administration is “undertaking a declassification review of this most recent primary order, and when complete, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will post the document to its website,” it said.

AOL will assume management and sales responsibility for all Microsoft display, mobile and video advertising inventory in nine markets -- the U.S., Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the U.K., said a joint news release Tuesday. AOL will represent Microsoft’s online brands like the MSN homepage, Outlook mail, Skype, Xbox and ads in apps, they said. The success of AOL’s One, the first cross-screen programmatic advertising platform with integrated multitouch attribution optimizing campaigns from Web to TV, which launched in April, let AOL take on additional demand and inventory, they said. Under the agreement covering AOL’s expanded partnership with Microsoft, AOL will transition to using the Bing-powered search engine beginning Jan. 1, said the companies. Verizon last week bought AOL (see 1506230044).

Friday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage “not only is a step forward for equality and humanity, it allows American businesses to attract the best employees without regard to the marriage laws of their state,” CEA President Gary Shapiro said in a statement. That’s why “a progressive and inclusive view of marriage is pro-business, pro-innovation policy,” Shapiro said. Diversity is served because “my nation's highest court recognizes that a person should not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexuality,” he said. Other tech leaders reacting to the decision included Apple CEO Tim Cook, who tweeted: “Today marks a victory for equality, perseverance and love.” For Verizon, "when you’re in the business of connecting people across the planet, diversity needs to be a part of your DNA and your blueprint for success," wrote Senior Vice President-Public Policy and Government Affairs Mike Glover on the carrier's blog Friday.

Many Americans, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, are still struggling to find jobs, but broadband offers some hope, said Ralph Everett, senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Business and Public Policy, in a white paper. Everett said the USF Lifeline program can help. “The FCC’s Lifeline program, if updated to cover broadband, can help ensure that young students and other lower income Americans can fully participate in the 21st century economy,” he said. But changes are needed. Lifeline “needs to be revised so that consumers are empowered to decide for themselves what communications services best meet their needs, and are provided the financial assistance to take advantage of this right to choose,” he wrote. “In addition, and this is critical to success, the program must be reformed to wring out waste, fraud, and abuse in order to maximize the dollars available to those who qualify for assistance.”

Frontier Secure is knocking $150 off the price of a Nest thermostat to $99 for subscribers who update the speed of their Internet service, the company said Tuesday. “The Internet has become so much more than smartphones, tablets and computers,” said Kelly Morgan, general manager. The connected Nest thermostat helps consumers save 10-15 percent on energy usage, said Frontier.

The FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture holds its third meeting July 27, the FCC said in notice in the Federal Register Tuesday. The task force is to vote on the recommendations and report of Working Group 3, “Optimal Approach to Next-Generation 911 Resource Allocation for PSAPs,” the FCC said. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room at FCC headquarters in Washington.

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was among those attending a Democratic National Committee fundraiser featuring President Barack Obama in Beverly Hills, California, Thursday at the home of filmmaker Tyler Perry, said White House pool reports. About 250 supporters paid $2,500 to $33,400 each to attend, the reports said. Netflix has been a vocal lobbying force in the net neutrality debates for more than a year and strongly pressured the FCC to reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, as Obama himself did in November.

The FCC set the comment deadlines on a March NPRM on Part 4 outage reporting rules (see 1503300066). The NPRM is aimed at improving “the reliability and resiliency of the Nation’s communication system, in particular to strengthen the Nation’s 911 system,” said a Wednesday notice. Comments are due July 16, replies July 31.

The FCC will ask the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) to work on additional cybersecurity issues when the rechartered CSRIC V convenes June 24 for its first public meeting, Homeland Security Bureau Chief David Simpson said in a Monday blog post. CSRIC voted in March to adopt recommendations on adapting the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework for communications sector use (see 1503180056). The CSRIC report drew wide praise from industry stakeholders, including in comments published earlier this month (see 1506010055). That report was one of CSRIC IV’s “biggest achievements” and “I expect the new CSRIC to build on these efforts by developing recommendations on how communications companies can improve information sharing about cyber risks within the private sector,” Simpson said. The FCC also expects CSRIC V to develop recommendations on reducing the frequency and impact of “misrouted” 911 calls, improving Next-Generation 911 and emergency alert systems, and enhancing communications infrastructure reliability, Simpson said. “I also expect that members will examine the challenges associated with prioritizing emergency communications during disaster-related infrastructure outages,” he said. The CSRIC meeting is set to begin at 1 p.m. at FCC headquarters.

USTelecom voiced concerns about proposed increases in the Telecom Relay Service fund and industry contribution factor, in reply comments posted Friday in docket 10-51, after initial comments were submitted the week before (see 1506090027). The proposals of TRS administrator Rolka Loube Saltzer Associates "would undo much of the good work the Commission has undertaken in recent years to effectively manage the TRS program, promote efficiency, and control costs," USTelecom said. Rolka Loube proposed an "alarming increase of nearly 40% in the TRS contribution factor" for telecom carriers paying into the fund, USTelecom said, saying proposed funding was projected to rise from $793 million to $1.05 billion, a 32 percent increase. "The Commission must be cognizant of the fact that adopting the proposed projection will impose significant and potentially unnecessary costs on consumers," the group said. USTelecom agreed with Comptel's initial comments that the timing of the proposed contribution factor raised problems because both the FCC order announcing the rate increases and its effective date would likely occur on or around July 1, when the new TRS funding year starts. "In addition to providing limited time for a complete assessment and analysis of the significant increase in the contribution factor, carriers will essentially be forced to either substantially increase their customers’ fees, or 'eat the cost of the increase where their contracts or other billing arrangements preclude raising interstate service rates,'" USTelecom said, citing Comptel. USTelecom urged the FCC to move up the adoption of the TRS contribution factor "well in advance" of annual access tariff filings due in mid-June. Ultratec filed replies that supported keeping the multistate average rate structure methodology for IP captioned telephone service. Neither USTelecom nor Ultratec filed initial comments, while other parties that did, such as video relay service providers seeking to head off further rate cuts in their compensation, submitted replies that were consistent with their initial comments, with some elaborating on their arguments.