Low-power FM advocates are working to inform organizations preparing applications for new LPFM licenses to be submitted in the Oct. 15-29 filing window. Groups like Prometheus Radio Project and the LPFM Store told us they're reaching out to potential applicants in areas that may benefit from community radio stations. The filing window unveiled last month by the Media Bureau is a “unique opportunity,” said acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn at the time (CD June 18 p6).

The top Democrats on the Senate Commerce, Intelligence, and Homeland Security committees are working behind the scenes to craft cybersecurity legislation aimed at shoring up President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order, they said in interviews last week. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., appears to be leading the charge with a narrowly focused bill aimed at making the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) the lead agency in developing cybersecurity guidelines for U.S. businesses. The Commerce Committee plans a hearing to examine NIST’s role in increasing private sector cybersecurity protections on Thursday, at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell. Witnesses haven’t been announced.

Legislators and regulators are sticking mostly to the sidelines so far in a brewing dispute over how much CBS is paid for carriage of 14 stations by two cable operators, said agency and industry officials in interviews Friday. They said commission officials are starting to pay more attention to the possibility of a blackout of the CBS-owned stations affiliated with its namesake network and the CW, plus two cable channels. Interest on Capitol Hill was largely dormant, though that will change quickly if CBS can’t agree with Time Warner Cable on a new deal that would also cover Bright House Networks, said FCC and industry officials.

CTIA and the National Emergency Number Association raised objections to a key idea for fighting contraband cellphones in prisons, proposed in a May rulemaking notice(CD May 1 p1). The NPRM asks a battery of questions about what the FCC concedes is a growing problem. A top focus of the NPRM is speeding up the licensing process for managed access systems -- systems that use wireless base stations located within the prison itself to capture and block transmissions to or from unauthorized devices. The proposal was based in part on a rule change requested in September 2011 by CellAntenna, a company that builds systems for combating the use of contraband cellphones by prisoners.

Changing dynamics in Washington may influence the balance of federalism, multiple state utility commissioners told us. Commissioners from around the country will gather in Denver Sunday through Wednesday for NARUC’s summer meeting and will address questions of state-federal relations as part of NARUC’s Task Force on Telecom and Federalism and in policy debates. The state role remains critical, said the commissioners, stressing evolving technologies and consumer protections after years of what some consider federal and industry overreach. The five draft telecom resolutions being considered also speak to these changes, they said.

App developers have much more flexibility for how they communicate to users what data are and aren’t being collected, as well as with which entities those data are being shared, Dixon said. One of the persistent outstanding issues between stakeholders is how apps must display their data collection and sharing practices. Privacy advocates want apps to use a uniform set of words to describe the entities with which it shares user data and the eight types of data categories -- biometrics, browser history, phone/text log, contacts, financial information, health/medical/therapy, location and user files -- in its entirety and then elaborate with more specific language. Industry representatives want apps to be able to list only the specific data they collect and entities with which they share to avoid giving users the impression an app is collecting and sharing more data than it actually is. At the last meeting, Future of Privacy Forum Executive Director Jules Polonetsky presented a short-form prototype that featured the specific type of data more prominently than the data category. Dixon said the drafters revised the code to make user interfaces like that permissible.

Speech-impaired individuals will be able to communicate more effectively using the Speech-to-Speech (STS) Relay Service, FCC officials said, as commissioners voted unanimously to adopt an order and FNPRM adopting several enhancements to the program. The changes are designed to enhance “functional equivalency” for its users, an official said. Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn called the item “another step toward fulfilling the promise of Title IV of the [Americans with Disabilities Act].”

The House Science Committee did not complete its markup Thursday of the NASA Authorization Act of 2013. Members, mostly from the Democratic minority, offered 34 amendments. A manager’s amendment introduced by Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, passed, and votes on many other amendments had not been tallied by our deadline. Republicans and Democrats were divided on raising funding levels for NASA programs higher than what is proposed in the bill.

An FCC rulemaking on potential changes to the federal E-rate program has touched a political nerve in a Washington, where the debate takes place against the backdrop of a bigger fight between Republicans and Democrats over entitlement reform. The NPRM, teed up for a vote Friday, builds on a June speech by President Barack Obama urging the commission to make high-speed Internet available to enough schools and libraries to connect 99 percent of American students (CD June 7 p7).

The National Institute of Standards and Technology believes President Barack Obama’s executive order on cybersecurity was “quite explicit” in emphasizing that the Cybersecurity Framework the agency is developing in consultation with critical infrastructure industries needs to be voluntary, Charles Romine, NIST director-Information Technology Laboratory, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee Thursday. Chairman Pat Meehan, R-Pa., had said he was concerned that some language in the executive order could be interpreted to give agencies the authority to impose regulations via the framework. NIST has a long history of developing frameworks that have governed industry practices in a purely voluntary way, and the agency believes that approach will be effective in developing the framework this time, Romine said. “I'm not concerned about this being a hidden way of getting regulatory authority.”