Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain, R-Ariz., was displeased that Gen. Keith Alexander, National Security Agency director and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, said the Department of Homeland Security should have the “lead role” in securing the nation’s domestic infrastructure from cyberattacks. At a Senate Armed Services Committee appropriations hearing Tuesday, McCain said that industry members do not need additional regulations from “the most inefficient bureaucracy” he has ever encountered.

New carrier obligations in the Lifeline order show that the FCC has “not taken seriously” its Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) obligations, lawyers for General Communication Inc. wrote the Office of Management and Budget (http://xrl.us/bmzhgs). The FCC told OMB the new regulations will increase the annual time burden from 60,000 hours to over 1.5 million, excluding the commission’s new estimate of 22 million hours to account for an increase in the estimated number of Lifeline subscribers (http://xrl.us/bmzi68). Chris Nierman, director-federal regulatory affairs at GCI, said that others feel similarly to the telco and are likely filing their own comments.

Verizon’s proposed purchase of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox, and associated market agreements, are raising objections from various civic leaders in Albany, N.Y., Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo and Syracuse who made their displeasure known in a series of filings at the FCC. The letters charge that to date Verizon has made no major investments in broadband in any of the five cities. The FCC Wireless Bureau is closely examining the proposed transactions, which were announced in December (CD Dec 5 p1).

TiVo fired back at Motorola Mobility, claiming the set-top box supplier along with its customer Time Warner Cable infringed three patents, including the so-called time-warp patent that’s been at the heart of recent multimillion-dollar settlements. Google has agreed to buy Motorola. TiVo on Monday filed counterclaims in U.S. District Court, Tyler, Texas, in response to a patent infringement suit Motorola filed against it in February 2011. TiVo also asked to have Motorola’s three DVR-related patents found invalid. Motorola sued TiVo alleging it infringed three patents, including those covering a DVR with archival storage and a method for implementing playback features for compressed video that were originally issued in 2001 and 1999 to Imedia Corp.

T-Mobile won a victory in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which held that the Newport News, Va., Planning Department violated the Communications Act in denying the carrier’s application to construct a cell tower at an elementary school. The Richmond-based court upheld a lower court decision in the company’s favor.

FCC process reform legislation could be dead on arrival in the Senate, even with House passage seen likely. The House plans to vote Tuesday on HR-3309 by Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. But the Senate Commerce Committee majority said it has no plans to take up the bill. Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, a Democrat, said the bill “appears likely to [inflict] upon the FCC the unfortunate obstacles to sensible bipartisan decision-making that plague the Congress.”

The FTC unveiled its much-anticipated privacy report Monday, urging data companies to give consumers more choice and transparency over their information, and spurring lawmakers to pass laws that hold data companies to account (http://xrl.us/bmzh4v). FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz made good on his promise not to impose any regulatory rules but he demanded that industry offer “more and better protections for consumers."

The scope of proposed waivers for videogames and Web-enabled TVs and DVRs is too broad, say some advocates for people with hearing problems who plan to oppose the advanced communications services (ACS) exemption requests when the FCC takes comments. National Association of the Deaf, and Telecom for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Inc. officials said they're among the groups concerned about what the CEA and Entertainment Software Association seek. Exempting the wide array of consumer electronics from ACS disabilities’ access rules the commission is implementing under a 2010 law would hurt the deaf too much to warrant OK, and they're not specific enough about the need, NAD and TDI lawyers said. The CEA said the waiver it wants for Internet Protocol-enabled TVs and DVRs isn’t broad.

TV stations and cable operators have differing views on whether an FCC rulemaking notice asking whether to extend viewability rules for another three years signals that the commission’s stance has long been settled. The 1992 Cable Act’s viewability provisions are at stake, the NAB said, in the agency’s forthcoming order on whether operators must continue to carry HD and standard definition versions of broadcasters guaranteed cable carriage in systems not all digital. Bright House Networks was among NCTA members that voluntarily committed to three years of what the industry terms dual carriage, and the association noted that period has ended. They said the NAB is trying to force the industry to treat that commitment as if it has no expiration.

House Democrats and the FCC are targeting cellphone theft, using efforts revealed Friday. Leading Democrats on the Commerce Committee sent letters Friday to wireless carriers, device and operating system makers, asking how they protect their customers after their cellphones are stolen. Separately, committee member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., proposed a law requiring carriers to track stolen devices. And FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the commission is working with industry and public safety officials to address the issue. CTIA promised to cooperate with the FCC and law enforcement. But the possibility that Congress could take on legislation raised red flags for groups that don’t often agree with each other.