The Obama administration asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to dismiss a case on the constitutionality of warrantless collection of data by the National Security Agency, arguing that a trial threatens national security. White is overseeing a case brought in San Francisco by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and others, Jewel v. NSA. Among the documents released by the government Friday was one that acknowledged that President George W. Bush authorized NSA’s bulk data collection on phones calls and the Internet in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (http://bit.ly/1gSAOFR). “President Bush issued authorizations approximately every 30-60 days,” wrote James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, in a post on the DNI’s Tumblr page. “Although the precise terms changed over time, each presidential authorization required the minimization of information collected concerning American citizens to the extent consistent with the effective accomplishment of the mission of detection and prevention of acts of terrorism within the United States. NSA also applied additional internal constraints on the presidentially authorized activities.” EFF criticized the administration’s claims. “Surprisingly, in these documents and in the brief filed with them, the government continues to claim that plaintiffs cannot prove they were surveilled without state secrets and that therefore, a court cannot rule on the legality or constitutionality of the surveillance,” EFF said in response (http://bit.ly/1jBE22C). “For example, despite the fact that these activities are discussed every day in news outlets around the world and even in the president’s recent press conference, the government states broadly that information that may relate to Plaintiffs’ claims that the ‘NSA indiscriminately intercepts the content of communications, and their claims regarding the NSA’s bulk collection of ... metadata’ is still a state secret."

Meredith Corp. signed a definitive agreement to buy the broadcast assets of TV stations in Phoenix and St. Louis from Gannett and Sander Media. Gannett also completed its acquisition of Belo. The agreement with Meredith stems from a Department of Justice consent decree, which required Gannett to divest a St. Louis station to get approval for its Belo acquisition (CD Dec 17 p6). The stations -- KTVK Phoenix, KASW Phoenix, and KMOV St. Louis -- will be sold for $407.5 million, Meredith said in a press release (http://bit.ly/1hzeX3R). “At the closing, Meredith will simultaneously convey KASW-TV to Sagamore Hill of Phoenix, LLC, which, through its affiliates, owns and operates two television stations in two markets,” Gannett said in a separate press release (http://ganne.tt/1c2USgP). The purchase of Belo “nearly doubles Gannett’s broadcast portfolio and creates the largest independent station group of major network affiliates in the top 25 markets,” it said (http://bit.ly/1cNF4zr).

Verizon Wireless federal regulatory executives touted during a meeting with FCC staff Wednesday the carrier’s improvement in delivering timely location information for public safety answering points. The executives told an aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and staff from the Public Safety Bureau that the carrier is “part of the solution” and was taking steps to continue improving the location information it sends to PSAPs, Verizon Wireless said in a filing. Those steps include making caller location information available within an average of 12-15 seconds, and within 25 seconds for 99 percent of all 911 calls where info is available. Verizon Wireless said it’s also working with E911 vendors to improve chipset sensitivity to GPS signals and working on enhancements to its A-GPS location accuracy solution for voice over LTE. Verizon Wireless also “remains on track” to make text-to-911 available to PSAPs by a voluntary May 15 deadline. The carrier will offer PSAPs three text-to-911 options, including two that are already available. The third option will be ready in Q1, Verizon Wireless said. Each of the options will include bounceback message capability (http://bit.ly/1lamshL).

Neustar added area code 854 for portions of South Carolina served by the existing 843 code, the North American Numbering Plan Administrator said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1ienhsG). Neustar had forecast that numbers in the 843 area code would be exhausted by the end of 2015, it said.

Sony agreed to sell Gracenote to Tribune Co., ending a five-year effort to broadly deploy the music database service and position its automatic content recognition (ACR) software as part of a proposed Internet-based alternative to cable TV. Sony also had planned to use Gracenote to “enhance and accelerate” its digital content. The agreement is for $170 million, less than the $260 million Sony paid for Gracenote in 2008. The Gracenote sale will result in a gain of about $60 million to Sony’s operating income, Sony said. The Gracenote deal is expected to close in Q1, Tribune said. ACR software was designed to enable hardware to recognize the channel, program and advertisement that was playing on a screen. It was developed around an audio technology that was originally created to compare a song’s characteristics, or waveform “fingerprints,” with an archive of music fingerprints. Gracenote also developed the eyeQ interactive program guide (IPG), which it once positioned to compete with Rovi’s TotalGuide IPG. The eyeQ could well play into Tribune’s base of TV and movie metadata, which will be expanded with the addition of Gracenote’s base of 180 million music tracks. “This transaction extends and complements” Tribune’s metadata business while also “deepening” its “slate of subscription services,” said Tribune CEO Peter Liguori in a statement. The acquisition includes Gracenote’s portfolio of 90 patents as well as a business that provides data and information on 1 million TV programs and movies to 30 countries and is installed in 50 million vehicles. Gracenote counts Apple iTunes, MTV and Amazon among its customers.

NAB bought the assets of the Content and Communications World and the Satellite Communications Conference and Expo (SATCON) New York-based events from JDEvents. The conferences will complement NAB’s existing trade shows and events, NAB said in a press release (http://bit.ly/1fBJI76). The association’s goal is to grow both the attendee and exhibitor base “of what has emerged as an important East Coast venue for the content community,” it said.

The Senate Commerce Committee sent S.Res. 157 to the full Senate Thursday. The bill, which the committee cleared in late July, would express the sense of the Senate that phone service must be improved in rural areas and that no entity may unreasonably discriminate against users in those areas. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who introduced S.Res. 157 with Sens. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Tim Johnson, D-S.D., has expressed concerns that call completion issues persist despite FCC action (CD July 31 p1).

Members of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 14 on the group’s recommendations for changing U.S. surveillance law, committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Sunday. The group’s set of 46 recommendations, released last week, included recommending that the government no longer store phone metadata on U.S. citizens (CD Dec 19 p4). The group’s recommendations “make clear that it is time to recalibrate our government’s surveillance programs,” Leahy said in a statement. “Momentum is building for real reform.” Several of the group’s recommendations align with Leahy’s USA Freedom Act (S-1599), the committee said.

FilmOn, free TV streaming platform and live TV app, launched ShockMasters, a channel dedicated to the some of the more obscure movies, TV shows and documentaries of Alfred Hitchcock, it said Friday. The channel will include the complete TV series Suspicion and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, plus Hitchcock movies such as Murder, Manxmen, Number 17 and a “vast selection” of his early British films, it said. The channel also features Hitchcock’s “best documentary works” from the end of World War II, “when the director traveled to Europe to film the horrors of the Holocaust that were revealed during the liberation of Dachau, Buchenwald, and six other camps,” it said.

Verizon has fewer than one million customers remaining on copper facilities in areas where Verizon fiber is available, the telco told aides to FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday and Wednesday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/18DERmF). Verizon discussed its work to “facilitate IP VoIP interconnection through voluntary commercial agreements,” citing its agreement with Vonage to exchange voice traffic in IP format (see related story in this issue). Verizon’s agreement with Vonage is its “second voluntarily negotiated commercial IP interconnection agreement for VoIP,” and the telco expects other agreements will follow, it said.