Google Search is suppressing conservative sources of information and favoring negative news about the administration, President Donald Trump said in a series of tweets Tuesday. “[T]hey have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal?” Google denied Trump’s assertion. “Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology,” a spokesperson emailed. “Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users' queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”
As 25 percent tariffs took effect Thursday on a second tranche of Chinese imports worth about $16 billion, CTA, in its toughest words yet, urged the Trump administration to end its “failing” strategy of trying to use the higher duties to punish China. It's “not working” but instead is “damaging” American businesses and consumers, said CTA President Gary Shapiro. It's “failing to change China's behavior” on intellectual property theft, “putting extreme pressure on American innovation and businesses that invent, design and engineer their IP in the United States,” said Shapiro. Of the nearly five dozen line items that CTA asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer last month to remove from the second tranche, the final version deleted one: alginic acid and derivatives used for many commercial applications (see 1808080028). CTA and other tech interests are fighting administration efforts to impose a third tranche of 25 percent duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, including on IoT-critical connected devices (see 1808220056 or 1808170014). The administration by now "should know something it questioned several months ago: tariffs will not get China to change its unfair trade practices," testified Jonathan Gold, National Retail Federation vice president-supply chain and customer policy, at public hearings Thursday. "Instead, these tariffs threaten to increase costs for American families and destroy the livelihoods of U.S. workers, farmers, manufacturers and small-business owners. There is still time to prevent these harmful consequences. We hope this week’s discussions between the U.S. and China will pave the way for real action that will resolve these ongoing problems and end the trade war before it further escalates."
President Donald Trump signed the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act (HR-2345) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Small Business Cybersecurity Act (S-770) Tuesday. HR-2345, which the Senate passed earlier this month (see 1808020011), directs the FCC to work to designate a new national three-digit dialing code in the style of 911 for a mental health crisis and suicide prevention hotline. House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., lauded Trump's signoff on HR-2345, saying that "millions of Americans each year, particularly young people and veterans, struggle with depression and mental health issues. It is critical to connect those contemplating suicide with the support they need, and there’s more we can do to help." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the lead sponsor of Senate companion S-1015, said he's “hopeful because this legislation can turn the tide in the campaign against this epidemic” and “prevent countless tragedies and help thousands.” S-770, which the Senate also passed this month, directs NIST to facilitate a voluntary public-private partnership to develop best practices for reducing critical infrastructure small- and medium-sized businesses' cybersecurity risks (see 1704210038). The House agreed to the bill in July.
President Donald Trump signed the conference version of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5515) Monday, with language to bar U.S. agencies from using “risky” technology produced by ZTE or fellow Chinese telecom equipment firm Huawei. Conferees agreed to attach the Huawei/ZTE language originally included in the earlier House-passed HR-5515 instead of a harder-line anti-ZTE provision in the Senate-passed version (see 1807200053). The Senate approved the conference HR-5515 earlier this month, after the House cleared it (see 1807260049 and 1808010068). The conference HR-5515 also includes a modified version of the language from the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act that originally appeared in the Senate-passed NDAA (see 1807190064). That HR-4311/S-2098 language would expand the scope of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to probe more investments, including in "critical" technology or infrastructure companies (see 1804260029).
The Trump administration views development and deployment of 5G networks and other advanced communications and continued leadership in advancing cybersecurity and AI among its top research and development priorities for federal agencies to consider as they develop their FY 2020 budget proposals, said the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Science and Technology in a Tuesday memo. OMB and OSTP highlighted cybersecurity and quantum computing among the Trump administration's FY 2019 R&D priorities. The focus on deployment of 5G and other communications networks follows the January release of a leaked National Security Council draft memo that proposed nationalization (see 1801290034 and 1803210019). 5G and other advanced communications networks “will be critical to an increasingly connected society,” OMB and OSTP said. “Agencies should support the development and deployment of these networks, including by prioritizing R&D to manage spectrum, secure networks, and increase access to high-speed internet.” Autonomous vehicles, drones and other connected systems “rely heavily on robust and secure connectivity to provide novel, low-cost capabilities,” with additional R&D needed to “safely and efficiently” integrate them “onto our roadways and into the national airspace,” they said. “Agencies should prioritize R&D to lower barriers to the deployment of autonomous vehicles and to develop operating standards and a traffic management system” for drones. Agencies should invest in R&D on cybersecurity to protect U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including “prioritized investment” in AI, computing and cyber capabilities, OMB and OSTP said. “Advanced cyber capabilities at scale require investment in new computing and technology paradigms, including adaptive and automated defensive measures.”
President Donald Trump's executive order that moves responsibility for hiring federal administrative law judges to individual agencies won't affect the FCC, which already directly appoints its ALJ, a spokesman said Wednesday. Trump's Tuesday order made all ALJs “exempted service” employees, which means agencies will be “free to select from the best candidates who embody the appropriate temperament, legal acumen, impartiality and judgment required of an ALJ, and who meet the other needs of the agencies.” Trump signed the order in response to a June Supreme Court ruling that allowed a challenge to an SEC ALJ's authority to stand because the candidates for the role came from a centralized list of applicants approved by the Office of Personnel Management. ALJs qualify as “inferior officers” and thus only the president or an agency head can hire them, the high court ruled.
Small-business community representatives warned the House Small Business Committee Wednesday about what they feel is the threat Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer ZTE poses. President Donald Trump said he will support passage of the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (HR-4311/S-2098) to curb foreign companies' ability to violate U.S. companies' IP rights, instead of invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The additional ZTE criticism follows more than a month of congressional debate about the Trump-led push to lift a Department of Commerce-imposed ban on U.S. companies selling telecom software and equipment to ZTE (see 1806260031). The Senate voted 85-10 to pass a version of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5515) that would reinstate the ZTE ban (see 1806190051). “Small businesses have become top targets for nefarious state-backed actors because they tend to be the softest targets,” said House Small Business Chairman Steve Chabot, R-Ohio. “They have fewer resources to manage their IT systems and respond to cybersecurity incidents, and they often lack the technical knowledge needed to assess the ever-evolving threats.” The Chinese company is “seeking to disrupt manufacturing not only through the espionage” of IP “but also the destruction of the U.S. supply chain by crippling them both financially and through attacks,” said TechSolve CEO David Linger. “For those of us that work with small manufacturers who have teetered on the brink of closing their doors due to cyber-attacks, their cyber-crimes are personal, real, and distressing.” ZTE “has proven to be a particularly bad actor, flouting U.S. export control laws and deceiving regulators,” said IronNet Cybersecurity President Matthew Olsen. Small businesses can't effectively “compete against nation-state attacks, aggressive, unrelenting international espionage, and theft of trade secrets,” said George Mason University Law School National Security Institute Visiting Fellow Andy Keiser. “Those are exactly the challenges presented by ZTE and Huawei.” HR-4311/S-2098 “will enhance our ability to protect the United States from new and evolving threats posed by foreign investment while also sustaining the strong, open investment environment to which our country is committed and which benefits our economy and our people,” Trump said. It would expand the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' scope to probe more investments, including in "critical" technology or infrastructure companies (see 1804260029).
The U.S. government has the full backing of President Donald Trump as it moves forward on 5G, NTIA Administrator David Redl told the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences Monday in a speech in Stockholm. “The United States, through private industry activity and government policy, has made 5G development a priority goal,” Reld said. Trump is a “champion of the move to 5G, appreciating its importance to economic development and opportunity, and its importance to our national security strategy,” he said. Fifth-generation wireless will be “a true game changer, promising to enable entirely new and re-imagined services and devices that will take advantage of the technology’s high-speed, high capacity, and low latency attributes,” he said. Redl asked for support for Doreen Bogdan-Martin of the U.S. in her campaign to head ITU’s Development Sector: "Doreen would be the first woman to hold any of the ITU’s elected offices in the Union’s 153-year history.”
A Wednesday meeting of President Donald Trump, Republican lawmakers and other administration officials ended without any commitment to kill language in the Senate-passed version of the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5515) that would reinstate a recently lifted Department of Commerce ban on U.S. companies selling telecom software and equipment to ZTE, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, and others. The Senate voted 85-10 Monday to pass HR-5515 with the ZTE provision intact, despite Trump's push to weaken the language or kill it completely (see 1806190051). Trump “wanted to make sure the negotiation that [Secretary of Commerce Wilbur] Ross had with the Chinese over the ZTE matter was understood and it was respected, and particularly given the fact the president is negotiating with China over things like North Korea,” Cornyn told reporters. “I think there’s a path forward to address the president’s concerns as well as national security.” Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., a critic of the bid to reinstate the ban, said the meeting ended with participants making “serious strides in solving the ZTE issues.” Trump “should not have his hands tied as he engages in major negotiations dealing with trade and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Perdue said in a statement.
The White House said it's aiming to reshape Senate-proposed language for the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5515) that would retroactively restore a Department of Commerce-imposed seven-year ban on U.S. companies selling telecom software and equipment to ZTE that the department announced last week it planned to suspend in exchange for alternate concessions from the Chinese manufacturer. “The massive penalties imposed on ZTE are part of an historic enforcement action taken by” Commerce, a White House spokeswoman reportedly told the press pool Wednesday. “This will ensure ZTE pays for its violations and gives our government complete oversight of their future activity without undue harm to American suppliers and their workers. The Administration will work with Congress to ensure the final NDAA conference report respects the separation of powers.” Commerce said last week it reached a deal for ZTE to pay $1.4 billion, institute major leadership changes and let U.S. inspectors monitor compliance (see 1806070040). Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and others successfully included their ZTE language in a manager's amendment for HR-5515 this week (see 1806120001). An earlier House-passed version of the bill also included amendments aimed at countering Trump on ZTE (see 1805240064). Senate votes on the NDAA amendments were Wednesday evening.