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DBS and the Structure of US Policy Making 125

8 On general executive branch powers in foreign communication policy,
see Alan Pearce, 'Telecom Policy and the White House,' Telecommuni-
cations (November 1980) 16.
9 See Mark Freiman, 'Consumer Sovereignty and National Sovereignty in
Domestic and International Broadcasting' in Canadian-US Conference on
Communications Policy, Cultures in Collision (New York: Praeger, 1984)
pp. 111-13; and Robert Horwitz, 'The First Amendment Meets Some New
Technologies,' Theory and Society, 20(1) (February 1991)21-72.
10 Jeremy Tunstall, Communications Deregulation (Oxford: Basil Black-
well, 1986) pp. 198-9.
11 On the efforts of Ted Turner's Cable Network News to overcome these
obstacles, see United States Congress. House. Committee on Energy
and Commerce. Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Consumer Pro-
tection, and Finance. Hearings on 'International Satellite Issues'. 98th
Cong., 2nd sess., l3 June; 25 and 26 July 1984, pp. 372-5.
12 The FCC also is responsible for regulating the common carrier activities
ofComsat.
13 Personal interview with John McKee, President DirecTV Canada, 21
June 1993, Toronto.
14 Current FCC regulations prohibit foreign nationals from controlling
domestic DBS services. Moreover, DBS applicants must satisfy an
annual 'due diligence' requirement involving the contracting/construc-
tion of the satellite within one year of receiving an FCC license. Only
then does the FCC make GSO and frequency assignments.
15 Federal Communications Commission, 'Policies for Regulation of
Direct Broadcast Satellites.' Staff Report (unpublished: FCC Office of
Plans and Policy, 1980). Also, personal interview with Mark Bykowsky,
Senior EConomist, National. Telecommunications and Information
Administration, US Department of Commerce, I September 1992,
Washington, DC. The FCC has not yet determined how to classify a
DBS system in regulatory terms: is DBS a 'common carrier' or a 'broad-
casting entity'? In practice, the FCC employs. elements of both classifi-
cations. The DBS uplink generally is considered to be the activity of a
'common carrier.' The downlink, however, generally is understood as
the action taken by a 'broadcaster.' Rather than selecting one of the
two, or re-writing its regulatory classifications altogether, the Commis-
sion maintains that DBS constitutes a unique hybrid form of telecom-
munication.
16 Put another way, DBS constitutes an inconvenient anomaly to tradi-
tional classifications and as such the FCC has opted not to classify it
using established definitions.
17 Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Admin-
istration, The United States Government Manua/1991192 (London, MD:
Beman Press, 1991), p. 737.
18 Ibid. Also see Allen C. Hansen, USIA, Diplomacy in the Computer Age
(New York: Praeger Publishers, 1984).
19 Robert E. Elder, The Information Machine, the United States Informa-
tion Agency and American Foreign Policy (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Uni-
versity Press, 1968) p. 42.