TechFreedom and a “coalition of privacy advocates” announced the launch of Fight215.org Wednesday. The development was expected (see 1504080043). Fight215 “lets Americans urge their representatives in Congress to end the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance based on Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” a TechFreedom news release said. President Barack Obama "has the power to end bulk collection of our records at any time, but has -- thus far -- chosen not to," said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka. "Where the White House has failed to protect our Constitutional rights, Congress must step into the void. We cannot afford to rubber-stamp the Patriot Act -- yet again -- without significant reforms.”
President Barack Obama touted his TechHire initiative (see 1503090029) Thursday during a stop in Louisville. “Right now, America has more open jobs than at any point since 2001,” Obama said. “And more than half a million openings are in tech -- nearly 2,000 here in Louisville alone. Tech jobs pay one-and-a-half times the average private sector wage.” He said the jobs are part of the road to the middle class and crucial for global competitiveness. TechHire “brings employers and local governments together to support innovative job training programs -- like online classes, coding boot camps, community college courses designed by local employers,” Obama said. He praised the participation in the initiative from eastern Kentucky and Louisville, with upwards of 20 employers involved.
The White House is “taking steps to improve” privacy and is now using encryption by default HTTPS on its website WhiteHouse.gov, the site’s Twitter account tweeted Wednesday morning. Last week the FTC became the first government agency to use encryption by default on its site (see 1503060055).
President Barack Obama launched his TechHire initiative Monday, focusing on increasing technology industry jobs throughout the U.S. More than 20 communities have joined the effort, and the administration has committed $100 million in investment for training and job connection work through H-1B grants from the Department of Labor, the White House said in a fact sheet. “What TechHire is going to do is to help local leaders connect the job openings to the training programs to the jobs,” Obama told the National League of Cities Monday. “And if you’re not already involved in this, you’ve got to get involved, because your community needs this just like everybody else does.”
“Big data will continue to contribute to and shape our society, and the Obama Administration will continue working to ensure that government and civil society strive to harness the power of these technologies while protecting privacy and preventing harmful outcomes,” wrote John Podesta, counselor to President Barack Obama, in a blog post Thursday announcing the White House’s release of an interim progress report on big data and privacy legislative efforts. The report’s release comes about a year after Podesta released a report on data collection in the U.S. “One novel finding of the working group report was the potential for big data technologies to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections and enable new forms of discrimination in housing, employment, and access to credit, among other areas,” Podesta said. The new report said the Obama administration has made progress on ensuring “student educational data is used only for educational purposes” and that “in the big-data era,” technologies aren't used “inadvertently or deliberately” to discriminate. The report includes six priority policy recommendations and “a host of smaller initiatives to further the conversation about big data and privacy,” such as creating a national standard for companies to notify customers in the event of a data breach, investing in big data research and technologies, and extending Privacy Act protections to non-U.S. persons. “Big data technologies raise serious concerns about how we protect personal privacy and our other values,” Podesta said. “As more data is collected, analyzed, and stored on both public and private systems, we must be vigilant in ensuring the balance of power is retained between government and citizens and between businesses and consumers.”
Congressional Republicans told President Barack Obama they want to work with him on their net neutrality legislation. “There is an opportunity to work together to provide legislative certainty to the net neutrality goals you articulated" Nov. 10, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a Monday letter to Obama. “We have put forward legislation that seeks to codify the principles you highlighted in your statement, including prohibiting blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. This legislation places these principles into law, without the uncertainty of litigation that [FCC] action would entail.” They pointed to Obama’s State of the Union pledge to work with Republicans. The White House previously told Thune it backs the FCC moving forward with its own net neutrality order (see 1501200056).
The White House is “pleased” and “particularly encouraged” to see Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., leading the charge on municipal broadband legislation, Senior Adviser for Technology and Economic Policy David Edelman said in a blog post Monday. That Community Broadband Act legislation (S-240) would let Congress pre-empt state laws restricting municipal broadband networks, as President Barack Obama has asked the FCC to do. The Commerce Department has a “wealth” of new resources for those seeking information about the administration’s broadband efforts, Edelman said. The Broadband Opportunity Council will meet next month for the first time, “bringing together over a dozen agencies in the federal government with a single purpose: to slash unnecessary barriers that could keep companies from investing, entering new markets, or building fast broadband infrastructure,” he said. The Agriculture Department also has “officially opened its Community Connect program for the next round of loans, and eligible providers can begin applying today,” he added. Commerce’s BroadbandUSA initiative will hold a webinar Wednesday at 2 p.m. and a regional workshop Feb. 4 in Jackson, Mississippi, he said. Republicans control both chambers on Capitol Hill and have not typically favored pre-empting state laws on this front in the last year.
U.S. telecom companies are “ready to install broadband connections to give communities reliable access to the Internet and to help build the smart cities that [India’s] Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi has called for,” President Barack Obama said Monday at the U.S.-India Business Council Summit in New Delhi. “We can work together to develop new technologies that help India leap forward,” Obama said. He cited India’s plans of “fast-tracking American investments” in the country: “We need to be fostering a business environment that’s more transparent and more consistent, and more predictable. In knowledge-based economies, entrepreneurs and innovators need to feel confident that their hard work and, in particular, their intellectual property will be protected.” Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker is accompanying Obama on the trip. Disney CEO Bob Iger was also present for a CEO roundtable on the visit, a pool news report said Monday. Obama said a lack of effective IP protection has caused U.S. industry to limit investment in India, hurting India's software development, according to a different pool report.
CEA is “disappointed” that President Barack Obama “missed the opportunity” in his State of the Union address “to push for strategic immigration reform,” said CEA President Gary Shapiro Wednesday in a statement. Immigration reform for the high-skilled is needed “to keep the world’s best and brightest here in the U.S. to build companies and create jobs, a key policy component necessary to maintain our leadership in innovation,” Shapiro said. “We also would have appreciated the recognition he provided in the 2014 State of the Union speech that patent trolls are hurting America's job creators.” Shapiro hailed Obama’s promise to “proactively seek bipartisan support” of trade promotion authority (TPA), “especially with the opportunity we have this year to pass trade agreements that help our manufacturing sector.” To compete in the global marketplace, “U.S. manufacturers have to be able to effectively supply the world with their products,” Shapiro said. “Passing TPA legislation that reflects the realities of the digital age would not only improve U.S. trade, but also strengthen job creation and bolster our economic recovery.” CEA agrees with the need to preserve an open Internet, Shapiro said. But “the best way to do so is through a measured and common-sense approach that encourages competition” among ISPs and investment in the Internet, he said. That’s “a solution that balances the desire for open access with the need to continue encouraging innovation,” he said. CEA also backs Obama’s call “to reform unfair and outdated tax laws that allow more than $2 trillion in U.S. corporate earnings to be held overseas, and use those funds to help upgrade our nation’s infrastructure,” Shapiro said.
President Barack Obama framed broadband as one of his “bread-and-butter issues,” previewing his State of the Union address slated for Tuesday night. “We’re working with the private sector to increase Internet access for communities that feel left out, to increase competition and to protect our privacy and security -- and that’s just been in the last month,” Obama said in a video released Monday. Obama has outlined major goals in this space, pressing the FCC to develop strong net neutrality rules and to pre-empt state laws restricting municipal broadband.