Groups advocating wireless safety say they plan to protest Thursday outside FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s scheduled speeches in California’s Mountain View and Oakland. The groups, which include the California Brain Tumor Association and Stop Smart Meters!, are rallying to highlight perceived health risks related to wireless technology, as well as what they believe is a conflict of interest between Wheeler’s past as an industry lobbyist and his current role at the FCC. The groups claim Wheeler “has a long history of sabotaging and burying research unfavorable to the industry,” particularly research that claims cellphone use causes brain tumors. The groups seek Wheeler’s resignation from the FCC, health warnings on wireless devices and a ban on wireless radiation in public schools. The FCC declined to comment.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere, wearing a magenta T-Mobile shirt, was kicked out of AT&T’s CES party at the Rain nightclub in Las Vegas Monday night, and later tweeted about it. Hip-hop star Macklemore performed. AT&T was slated to buy T-Mobile in 2012, though the deal fell apart when it faced resistance from federal regulators. AT&T couldn’t be reached for comment by our deadline, and a T-Mobile spokesman didn’t have additional comment.

Ex-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will become a partner in Carlyle Group’s U.S. buyout team, said the private equity firm in a news release Monday. He will be a managing partner and will focus on investments in global technology, media and telecom, the firm said. Genachowski joined the firm Monday, and will be based in its D.C. office. Genachowski’s “deep industry specialization” and experience in the telecom sector will be “invaluable” to the firm, said Pete Clare, co-head of the U.S. buyout team. Genachowski follows in the footsteps of former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, who was managing director at Carlyle before becoming U.S. ambassador to the EU.

The Commerce Department Inspector General has tracked multiple problem activities, it said. It submitted its semiannual report to Congress in September and posted the report Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1iKMRWw). It included updates on an engineering consultant who pleaded guilty to stealing the bulk of a $322,000 grant for construction and operation of a New Mexico radio station. “OIG traced the stolen grant funds and seized over $130,000, which was returned to the U.S. Treasury,” the report said. “In April 2013, the engineering consultant was sentenced to time served and 3 years’ probation. He was also ordered to pay restitution of over $240,000 and forfeit the 2010 Infiniti G37 sedan he purchased with proceeds of the theft.” That consultant is barred from working with the government, it said. The report also cited a case begun in June 2012 against an Arizona recipient of a $39.3 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grant. “The alleged scheme involved using grant funds to pay for unauthorized and unreasonable expenses unrelated to the purposes of the grant, such as chartering a helicopter and private aircraft to fly to destination spots for personal purposes,” the report said. The Justice Department declined to take criminal or civil action against the recipient in April, the report said. “NTIA’s administrative action included suspending the award for nearly a year and declaring a portion of the award as unallowable costs under the grant,” it added. “Additionally, NTIA required the grantee to restructure its organization and make significant improvements to its grant oversight and internal control policies.” The report also provided updates about the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and what it called “several internal control weaknesses that could adversely affect the integrity of operations,” such as limited ethics training for certain patent examiners.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signed off yet again on the government’s phone surveillance program, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Friday in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1dhDnug). “Consistent with his prior declassification decisions and in light of the significant and continuing public interest in the telephony metadata collection program, [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper has decided to declassify and disclose publicly that the government filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and that the court renewed that authority on January 3, 2014,” a spokesman for the government wrote. The spokesman said the office believes the bulk collection of phone metadata is lawful. “Nevertheless, the Intelligence Community continues to be open to modifications to this program that would provide additional privacy and civil liberty protections while still maintaining its operational benefits,” the spokesman said. “To that end, the Administration is carefully evaluating the recommendation of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies regarding transitioning the program to one in which the data is held by telecommunications companies or a third party.” The latest FISC order authorizing the program is undergoing declassification review now, the office said.

The Center for Constitutional Rights petitioned the Supreme Court last week to reverse or change its ruling in Clapper v. Amnesty International, the rationale from which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had used to reject the center’s concerns about government surveillance in a separate case, Center for Constitutional Rights v. Obama (http://bit.ly/1a6JsMW). “We have always been confident that our communications -- including privileged attorney-client phone calls -- were being unlawfully monitored by the NSA, but Edward Snowden’s revelations of a massive, indiscriminate NSA spying program changes the picture,” Senior Attorney Shayana Kadidal said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1lFpJ8Q). “Federal courts have dismissed surveillance cases, including ours, based on criteria established before Snowden’s documents proved that such concerns are obviously well-founded.” The center considers U.S. surveillance practices unconstitutional, it said. “Eight years after the initial disclosures that spawned this litigation, the seeming futility of attempts to debate the legality of broad surveillance in the courts has led to that debate being removed to the only remaining open forum available -- the press -- through the intervention of whistleblowers,” the attorneys said in the 108-page filing for a writ of certiorari. “The current vitality of that debate demonstrates the exceptional importance of the questions before this Court.”

The U.S. government appealed the Klayman v. Obama decision that questioned the constitutionality of government bulk metadata phone surveillance, it said in a notice Friday. In that December decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Richard Leon called such surveillance “almost Orwellian” and said it likely violates the Fourth Amendment. Another federal court issued a contrary ruling in ACLU v. Clapper days later, one that upheld such surveillance and resulted in an appeal from the ACLU on Thursday. Leon had expected the government to appeal and issued a stay on his ruling with that expectation.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will participate in an Oakland, Calif., town hall discussion with local community members Jan. 9, said Free Press in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1arsy8c). The event, “A Town Hall on Our Right to Communicate,” is hosted by Voices for Internet Freedom with partners Free Press, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Center for Media Justice, and ColorOfChange. “This is a chance to tell Wheeler face to face about the kind of media system that best meets our needs -- and to advocate for the health and well-being of our families and our communities,” said the release. Along with Wheeler, the event will feature Center for Media Justice Executive Director Malkia Cyril, National Hispanic Media Coalition Executive Vice President Jessica Gonzalez, California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine J.K. Sandoval and others. The town hall will be at Preservation Park, Nile Hall, 1233 Preservation Park Way from 7 to 9 p.m.

The American Civil Liberties Union appealed the recent federal court decision upholding the legality of government phone surveillance in ACLU v. Clapper, as the group said it would do Dec. 27 when the ruling came down. The ACLU filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. District Court in New York Thursday (http://bit.ly/1bCrj5N). “We believe that the NSA’s call-tracking program violates both statutory law and the Constitution,” said ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer in a news release (http://bit.ly/1g3VeYV). The group anticipates that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “will set an expedited briefing schedule and that it will hear oral argument in the spring,” it said.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to compel the government to disclose more information about executive order 12333, which authorizes surveillance activities. The ACLU filed its suit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (http://bit.ly/1isjo3t). The executive order, signed in 1981, authorizes government surveillance activities outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The ACLU said knowledge of how the surveillance transpires is “of great public significance and concern” and criticized the limited information available. It filed Freedom of Information Act requests of agencies earlier this year but hasn’t received sufficient response, it said. Violations of the executive order on surveillance are not reported to Congress, as FISA surveillance violations are, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., told us last week (CD Dec 30 p4). A member of Intelligence Committee, Himes introduced a bill in mid-December that would change that.