The Senate Commerce Consumer Protection Subcommittee plans a hearing on data breach notification legislation Thursday at 10 a.m. in Russell 253, a Commerce committee news release said Friday. “In light of recent data breaches, consumers and companies have called for policy changes in this area,” Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said. “This hearing will help the Committee gain a better understanding of how to develop a clear and consistent national data breach notification standard that will help both companies and consumers when they face data security challenges.” Witnesses weren't announced.
The Senate Commerce Committee will examine the private sector’s experience using the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework, during a hearing Wednesday. The hearing also will focus on potential next steps for the government and private sector on cybersecurity, Senate Commerce said Thursday. “Real progress can be made by continuing to enhance public-private cooperation and improving cyber-threat information sharing,” Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said in a news release. The hearing is to begin at 10 a.m. in Russell 253. The committee hadn’t announced the witnesses for the hearing by our deadline. Thune and then-committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., sponsored the 2013 Cybersecurity Act, which eventually passed in mid-December as the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act (see 1412120066). That bill codified NIST’s authority to develop the Cybersecurity Framework, which the agency released in February. NIST will lead a technical workshop on the framework with Stanford University Feb. 12, the day before a planned White House-sponsored summit on cybersecurity issues. President Barack Obama is expected to speak at that event.
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., is expected to introduce patent reform legislation “very soon,” a House Judiciary aide said Friday. The legislation is a “top priority” for Goodlatte, who has been meeting with “all interested parties and stakeholders,” she said. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Tom Marino, R-Pa., is expected to be a co-sponsor of the bill, a spokesman said. The bill is expected to be “virtually the same” as the Innovation Act (HR-3309), which the House passed in December 2013, he said.
Two House Democrats are preparing a letter to send to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler next week to press the agency to reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II telecom service, a House staffer told us. The two frame it as important for closing the digital divide. “Only 64 percent of African American households have adopted broadband services at home. Adoption is even lower in Hispanic households where only slightly more than half (53 percent) have broadband,” said the letter still being circulated this week, led by Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ex-Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman. “In contrast, the national average is 70 percent, with broadband in 74 percent of White households.” They said wireless is an important way of closing the divide and urge strong rules applied to wired and wireless. “Strong rules that guarantee an Open Internet are important to minority-owned businesses,” the unreleased circulating draft of the letter said. “An Open Internet lowers barriers to entry and allows businesses of all sizes to compete on a global scale. Major mobile broadband providers have already blocked or hindered popular business tools such as mobile payments, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, and streaming video. ISP providers set up tolls and slower lanes.” The FCC is expected to circulate a net neutrality order Feb. 5 and vote on it Feb. 26. House Democrats are in Philadelphia for a retreat.
Proposed GOP net neutrality legislation drew the ire of Susan Crawford, a former Obama administration adviser and now a Harvard Law School visiting professor. She tore into the draft bill, which Republicans have said they want to make a bipartisan compromise, and criticized the broader efforts from Republicans in both chambers to overhaul the Communications Act. “Although calculated to address concerns about online fairness, its real thrust is to remove or constrain the FCC’s authority in a host of areas,” Crawford wrote in a blog post Wednesday for Medium. “The bill will draw a swift presidential veto.” She said the legislation has a “host of problems” and said it “so transparently shackles” FCC authority. Crawford doesn’t think the bill is “real,” she said: “What’s actually going on is that the net neutrality issue is being thrown under the bus by the carriers and the GOP in favor of a much more important goal: getting rid of the existing Telecommunications Act entirely.” She praised the “sensible” current statute and doubted the public interest would fare well in any telecom rewrite. Industry heavyweights will “use the occasion of an Obama veto” of net neutrality legislation “and a hymn to bipartisanship to press as hard as they can to get an act they do like passed -- before there’s a risk of losing GOP control of Congress again,” Crawford said. “My prediction: Such an act will not require carriers to serve everyone in every community with world-class, reasonably priced Internet access. It will allow a flawed system to get even worse, all to make the rich carriers even richer.”
A coalition of pro-free speech organizations, trade groups and law professors asked Congress to prohibit proposed federal laws that could undermine liability protections for publishers, the Center for Democracy & Technology said in a news release Thursday. “With the passage of the Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation (SAVE) Act [HR-285] in the House and counterpart bills anticipated in the Senate, lawmakers are considering major changes to the legal protections that support free expression online, with laws that would hold Internet intermediaries liable for third-party content hosted on their sites,” the release said. "When faced with potential federal criminal liability for their users' content, online platforms will censor as a self-defense mechanism," Emma Llanso, CDT Free Expression Project director, said. "Wholly innocent operators of smaller sites and publications could be driven out of business if they are hauled into court to defend themselves on federal criminal charges.” The Computer and Communications Industry Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation, NetChoice, TechFreedom and Derek Bambauer, University of Arizona law professor, were among the coalition’s signatories.
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., again supported “strong net neutrality protections,” writing Thursday in a Facebook posting. “If we had the technology, if we had the internet during the [civil rights] movement, we could have done more, much more, to bring people together from all around the country, to organize and work together to build the beloved community,” the senior House Democrat and civil rights activist said. “That is why it is so important for us to protect the Internet. … I am deeply grateful that President Obama has called on the FCC to pass rules that will protect the internet for generations yet unborn.”
The Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee roster will include Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; James Lankford, R-Okla.; and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., a subcommittee member in the last Congress, the Appropriations Committee said Thursday. That’s in addition to the subcommittee leadership, already announced: Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., and ranking member Chris Coons, D-Del. The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee announced its seven GOP members and four Democratic members earlier this month. The subcommittees oversee the budget process for the FCC and FTC.
Questions on telecom and tech policy were raised at the confirmation hearing of Loretta Lynch, nominee to be U.S. attorney general, Wednesday. Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pressed Lynch about the parts of surveillance law set to expire June 1. Leahy called the next A.G. an “essential” part of his quest to overhaul surveillance law, as in his bill from the last Congress known as the USA Freedom Act. Intelligence Committee ranking member Feinstein asked Lynch to talk about the importance of the expiring provisions. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, cited the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and said he intends to reintroduce the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad (Leads) Act. Lynch committed to working with Hatch on this “important” legislation and called electronic privacy “central” in an era of changing technology. Lynch also touted her cybersecurity goals, in an opening statement. “If confirmed, I intend to expand and enhance our capabilities in order to effectively prevent ever-evolving attacks in cyberspace, expose wrongdoers, and bring perpetrators to justice,” said Lynch, now the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “In my current position, I am proud to lead an office that has significant experience prosecuting complex, international cybercrime, including high-tech intrusions at key financial and public sector institutions. If I am confirmed, I will continue to use the combined skills and experience of our law enforcement partners, the Department’s Criminal and National Security Divisions, and the United States Attorney community to defeat and to hold accountable those who would imperil the safety and security of our citizens through cybercrime.”
Congress should take up Local Choice again this Congress, the Computer & Communications Industry Association told House lawmakers in its Communications Act overhaul recommendations. Comments were due to House Commerce Committee Republicans Friday but haven't been publicly released by the committee. The broadcast a la carte proposal of Local Choice, circulated in the Senate last fall and quickly abandoned (see 1409110036), “would enhance localism because the local station that foregoes must-carry and elects retransmission consent will need to compete with the other stations and provide compelling content that entices subscribers to keep the channel,” CCIA said. “Congress should fix the broken and outdated retransmission consent regime that is harming consumers with broadcast blackouts and rising fees.” CCIA said “online TV distributors lack enough subscribers to yield the market negotiating power necessary to obtain volume discounts,” amounting to a “significant barrier” in the market. Don’t let “regulatory creep” overwhelm Internet TV distribution, CCIA said. Congress could authorize the FCC to impose standstill requirements or allow multichannel video programming distributors to import distant network signals during retransmission consent disputes, CCIA said, and it could clarify FCC authority to grant interim carriage rights during broadcaster blackouts. The Alliance for Community Media, in its comments, urged several changes to telecom law to avoid “adverse” effects for PEG (public, educational and governmental access) channels. Congress should allow PEG access programming to have a statutory right to carriage on satellite TV systems and kill any distinction between operating and capital support for PEG programming, the alliance said. It wants that programming to be carried in both standard and high definition.