Cable bill up for hearing today

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez will present his cable measure to Senate policy committee this morning. The hearing is expected to be quite long, with a gaggle of consultanta and lobbying types surrounding the hearing room. Republican Sen. Dave Cox said yesterday that in the last 30 days he has had at least 100 advocates shuttle in and out of his office on the measure. In anycase, a new wrinkle in the cable debate is AT&T's new privacy policy. On Tuesday, the Senate utilities committee will consider legislation to drastically expand telephone companies' access to California's lucrative video- and Internet-services market. But AT&T, the state's leading phone company, recently overhauled its privacy policy--a move that may cast a long shadow over the hearing. Consumer advocates say AT&T's new privacy rules open the door for the company to share personal data--such as the Web sites that customers visit and the TV shows they watch--with government officials. The pending bill, AB 2987 by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, would create a state-issued franchise for phone companies wishing to enter the video-services market, the very service that AT&T announced privacy-policy amendments for last week. Under the new policy, AT&T declared that a customer's viewing information is the property of AT&T--not the customer. "While your Account Information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T," reads the policy. "As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process." Consumers and civil-liberties groups have blasted the new policy, arguing that it gives the company carte blanche to share private consumer data.