Union Square Ventures endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Tuesday, the first time the firm has made an endorsement. “As investors in technology companies, we believe that technology and innovation create broad opportunity and improve lives,” the firm said in a blog post. “The benefits of technology and globalization have not been evenly distributed.” Clinton is the “clear choice,” Union Square Ventures said. Its current investments include CloudFlare and Twilio. Managing Partner Brad Burnham signed onto an earlier letter blasting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (see 1607140086).
The White House touted “$7.7 million in new grants to bring broadband to 6 unserved communities,” outlined in a fact sheet Tuesday pegged to a White House Rural Forum meeting scheduled for Wednesday. “USDA’s Community Connect program provides funding for broadband deployment into unserved areas,” the administration said. “Since 2009, USDA Rural Development broadband programs have helped bring high-speed Internet access to nearly 6 million rural residents and businesses.” President Barack Obama also wrote an opinion piece on the topic, which the Department of Agriculture posted. “Over the last eight years, my Administration has worked hand-in-hand with rural communities to build more opportunity,” Obama said, which included efforts in “deploying high speed internet and wireless.” The White House Rural Council released a memo titled “Rural Strategies that Work,” which said “geographic isolation” is a key challenge for many rural communities: “Remote rural towns often do not have access to vital resources, such as high speed broadband or educational institutions.” USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack wrote a Medium blog post highlighting a focus on telehealth. The Rural Council includes Vilsack, who is its chairman.
The Republican and Democratic vice presidential candidates “undermine tech” with their recent criticism of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, CTA President Gary Shapiro said in a blog post for The Hill Tuesday. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the Democratic vice presidential nominee, and Republican Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, the GOP vice presidential nominee, were scheduled to debate Tuesday night. Congressional “passage of TPP has the potential to provide significant benefits to the tech sector and the entire U.S. economy,” Shapiro said. “U.S. technology companies alone exported $10 billion in goods and services to TPP markets in 2014. The TPP will open or expand access to these key markets for the products, services and applications made by the companies CTA represents, and facilitate market access for the wide array of industries that rely on these technologies to conduct their own business.” Kaine and Pence “must return to their more welcoming attitude to free trade -- and correct the opinions of the presidential candidates they serve -- if the U.S. is to survive and thrive in this global economy,” Shapiro said. Both presidential nominees have criticized the TPP and congressional leaders said no consideration is likely during the lame duck session, despite the Obama administration lobbying for such a vote.
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump promised Monday he will make cybersecurity an “immediate and top priority for my administration” if he wins the November election. “To truly make America safe, we truly have to make cybersecurity a major priority for both the government and the private sector,” Trump said during a Retired American Warriors event in Herndon, Virginia. He promised a “thorough review of our cyber defenses and weaknesses, including all vital infrastructure” soon after he takes office. The cyber review team “will proceed with the most sensitive systems first, but ultimately all systems will be analyzed and made as secure as modern technology permits,” Trump said. “The review will include providing exact recommendations for the best combination of defensive technologies tailored to specific agencies. This will include the various methods of internal monitoring, attack and penetration, investigation of suspected hackers or rogue employees, and identity protection for government employees.” Trump said he will direct DOJ to create joint task forces throughout the U.S. to coordinate local, state, federal and international cybercrime responses “to crush this still-developing area of crime.” Trump said he will direct his secretary of defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff to make recommendations for “strengthening and augmenting” U.S. Cyber Command. He proposed giving the U.S. “the unquestioned capacity to launch crippling cyber counterattacks,” as “America’s dominance in this arena must be unquestioned.” The U.S. “must develop the ability -- no matter how difficult -- to track down and incapacitate” non-state actors that launch cyberattacks, Trump said. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said he believed Trump didn’t “follow through” enough on cybersecurity issues during last week’s debate with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (see 1609270056). Clinton’s campaign vowed in September to take a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity issues that would build on a White House Cybersecurity National Action Plan (see 1602090068 and 1609060060). Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., praised Trump’s cybersecurity plan in a statement on the Trump campaign’s website. The plan “is exactly what is required for these dangerous times -- bold, serious, and innovative,” Hoekstra said: Trump “understands that we must tackle the cyber threat comprehensively, and that includes being willing to take the offensive. And it means government and the private sector working together.”
Telecom and cable representatives are expected to be a part of a Trump campaign transition team meeting in Washington Thursday, a communications industry official told us. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has rarely weighed in on tech and telecom policy, and unlike his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, he has released no agenda on the topics. The Trump for America transition team scheduled an hourlong “information session” promising “an inside look on the work underway on planning for the transition” at the Baker Hostetler law firm’s offices and featuring transition team leader Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, said an invite to the tech sector. Transition team member Andrew Bremberg, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and a policy director for the Republican National Committee platform committee this year, sent the invite. Likely attendees include CTA, the Internet Association, MPAA, Information Technology Industry Council and CTIA, plus people representing individual companies, said officials. Officials said this is the first big formal outreach from the GOP national election forces since a summer RNC meeting with tech and telecom stakeholders (see 1606060035). One suspected this Thursday meeting will be as large as in that earlier meeting, which featured at least 75 or so people. An official confirmed that room size range of about 75-100 people for the earlier RNC meeting and said that during it, attendees all offered their key policy goals. The Trump campaign didn’t confirm the event, nor did spokespeople for certain trade organizations in these areas.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., would have preferred some additional policy items discussed during the first presidential debate Monday between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, he told reporters Tuesday. “A lot of issues didn’t get covered last night that are pretty big issues,” Thune said. “Issues that have been talked about in the campaign -- immigration, of course, was one. I think there were some opportunities for Trump on the cyber issue that he didn’t probably follow through on enough. If they’re talking about the economy and national security and the courts and things like that, I think those are things the American people care a lot about. And I don’t think there was probably as fulsome a discussion as there could have been.” Trump agrees with Clinton that “we should be better than anybody else” on cybersecurity, he said Monday. “The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly do-able. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that’s true throughout our whole governmental society.” Clinton, who has a detailed tech and telecom agenda, also touted her infrastructure plans, which she wants to kick-start at the beginning of her administration, and cited jobs in technology. Thune initially predicted Trump would come up with his own tech agenda by the time of the debates (see 1606290073).
Moderators of the presidential and vice presidential debates should ask the candidates what they would do to promote increased access to affordable high-speed broadband, several groups urged the moderators Monday. The groups said they want the moderators to pose this question: “Home broadband internet access has become an essential tool for education, employment, civic engagement, and even healthcare. Yet 34 million people still lack access to affordable high-speed internet. What will you do as president to help expand access to affordable high-speed internet for everyone in America?” The groups include Common Cause, the Communications Workers of America, Demand Progress, Engine and Public Knowledge. Voters must understand the candidates’ plans for low-cost broadband access, they said in a letter to the five moderators. "Both candidates have promised major investments in infrastructure development, and broadband internet should be a part of these plans,” they said. Lawmakers told us Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's broadband infrastructure plan has bipartisan potential but raises questions about the funding source (see 1609230040). Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump hasn't mentioned broadband when discussing infrastructure investment. The three topics for Monday's debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, were to be: America's Direction; Achieving Prosperity; and Securing America. CTA President Gary Shapiro also detailed what he would like to see from the debate. "Unfortunately, some of her proposals, such as 'free' Wi-Fi, carry staggering price tags that go unmentioned in her tech agenda," Shapiro said of Clinton's plans in a Monday blog post. "Trump promises to push 'pause' on all new rules and review all previous rules -- a tall order, though it certainly sounds attractive. Unfortunately, Trump remains as vague as ever, saying only that excessive regulation costs our country upwards of $2 trillion a year." Shapiro hopes for attention on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the sharing economy, the deficit and immigration, he said. The candidates should talk about how to overhaul agencies, including the FCC, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance said in a blog post. The FCC “continues to assert more power (even after being rebuked by the courts) on net neutrality, expansion of government broadband, and privacy,” the group said. “TPA wants to hear from both candidates how they would fix our agencies and how they would reduce the rules and regulations being promulgated at a rate that is costing the economy more than a trillion dollars in economic activity each year.”
The Rural Utilities Service “will aim to double its annual investment in telecom broadband loans in Indian Country -- to $50 million in FY17 -- and dedicate staff to providing tribes with technical assistance to help unlock existing resources,” the White House said in its fact sheet for Monday’s Tribal Nations Conference in Washington, saying the administration is "prioritizing tribal connectivity." The White House-proposed budget also “proposed significant investments in education information IT to enhance broadband and digital access for students at [Bureau of Indian Education]-funded schools,” the fact sheet said. It said the administration already has, “as part of ConnectED, an initiative designed to connect schools and libraries to the digital age, the [FCC] E-rate program provided broadband, Wi-Fi, and telecommunications funding to 245 tribal schools serving over 60,000 students and 31 tribal libraries last funding year." Starting Dec. 1, it said, "the enhanced Lifeline program subsidy, which is available to low-income people living on Tribal lands, can be used to help cover the cost of broadband service.”
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's regulatory policy “seeks to reduce the current regulatory burden by a minimum of 10% or $200 billion annually,” two advisers said in a white paper the campaign released Monday before the first presidential debate. Peter Navarro, a business professor at the University of California-Irvine, and private equity investor Wilbur Ross wrote the paper and are listed as senior policy advisers to Trump. “Many new rules never are adequately quantified -- or quantified at all,” the paper said of current regulations, citing the “woefully understaffed” White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. They cite the planned moratorium on new regulations a Trump administration intends to impose and the list of regulations ready for scrapping that all federal agencies would be mandated to produce. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “has promised to continue Obama’s regulatory agenda,” the Trump campaign white paper said. It didn’t mention telecom policy specifically. The Clinton campaign slammed Trump’s economic policy ideas Monday, saying in a news release “economists and business leaders across the political spectrum agree that his economic plan would plunge our country back into recession.”
CBS News streaming news service CBSN will incorporate Instagram Stories content into its live-streaming coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates, CBS said in a news release Friday. CBS said Instagram Stories content from CBSN anchors and CBS News staffers will be part of CBSN's coverage book-ending the debates.