June 21, 2018

Honorable Mayor Jesse Arrequin and Members of the Berkeley City Council:  Ben Bartlett,  Cheryl Davila, Lori Droste, Sophie Hahn, Kate Harrison, Linda Maio, Susan Wengraf,  Kriss Worthington

cc: City of Berkeley City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley, City of Berkeley City Attorney Farimah Brown, City of Berkeley City Clerk

City of Berkeley  2180 Milvia Street  Berkeley, CA 94709

In Re: Council Subcommittee Urban Shield Vote

On behalf of Media Alliance’s constituency in your city, I am writing to you with regard to Mayor Arreguin’s statment on June 19, 2018.

The purpose of this letter is to do two things:

1. To identify the language in the Berkeley City Charter and municipal code that addresses agreements with other law enforcement agencies, including the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department.
2. To provide documentation of two previous Council votes in December of 2015 and June of 2017 in which the council purported to direct the Berkeley Police Department  and the Berkeley City Manager in whether or not to participate in the Urban Shield SWAT competition.

Continue reading An Open Letter To The Berkeley City Council →

They could restore it but…..

At a time when it is difficult to pay attention to much besides the disaster that is the Trump adminstration’s”family separation policy”, the CA Legislature is rushing through an evisceration of online privacy, in a shameful ending to AB 375. The bill was  introduced with much fanfare in 2017 by Assembly privacy chair Ed Chau to replace FCC broadband privacy regulations repealed by Congress. Continue reading The Online Privacy Quickie Sell-Out Deal →

One of the things Media Alliance does on your behalf is participate as a party in some merger proceedings for big telecom companies before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

We do this without accessing the state intervenor compensation program, so we rely on your support to make this possible, as we have participated in the AT&T/TMobile proceeding (2011), Comcast/Time Warner proceeding (2014), Charter/Time Warner proceeding (2015) and now TMobile/Sprint (2018).  We do it because we believe that important as lawyers are, there need to be other voices at the table in these proceedings.

Here is how to take action on the merger and to put enough pressure on federal and state regulators so they will look out for your interests.

1.  You can make an FCC comment until December 4th supporting a denial of the merger at the FCC.  Click here and then select  proceeding # 18-197. (See below for MA’s comments)
2. Attend the Bay Area hearing (THE ONLY ONE) on December 10 at 1pm at the CPUC auditorium at 505 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. There will be a section for public comment.
3. Help us organize for Mid-January public participation hearings in Fresno, Los Angeles and San Diego.

Continue reading Sprint-Mobile Merger: Can You Afford It? →