The Rural Utilities Service telecom and broadband loan programs remain essential to a healthy and growing rural economy, and contribute to the provision of universal communications services comparable to those found in urban areas, USTelecom President Walter McCormick told the chairman and ranking member of the House Rural Development Subcommittee in a letter Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm4y2u). Detractors’ claims that a 2009 Department of Agriculture review provided justification for termination of the Broadband Loan program are unjustified because that report reviewed the program before congressionally mandated changes in the 2008 Farm Bill, McCormick said. Other critics “have deliberately conflated” separate RUS programs, such as the Broadband Initiatives Program created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with the Broadband Loan program required by Congress in the Farm Bill, he said. The Broadband Loan program complements the High-Cost Universal Service program, McCormick said, and each one is “an important element in deploying cutting edge communications services to rural America.” The subcommittee is scheduled to mark up the 2012 Farm Bill Wednesday.

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) set to be considered by the House this week “Big Brother writ large.” That’s as 18 Democratic lawmakers wrote the sponsors of the bill, asking them to “address real and serious privacy concerns voiced by Americans, privacy advocacy groups, and colleagues in Congress.” HR-3523 will put “the resources of the private industry to work for the nefarious purpose of spying on the American people,” Paul said (http://xrl.us/bm4xu3). Calling CISPA the “new SOPA,” the Stop Online Piracy Act that was derailed in the face of strong opposition, Paul said CISPA is the “latest assault” on Internet freedom, “an Internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight -- provided of course if they do so in the name ‘cybersecurity.'” He said people should call their lawmakers and “urge them to oppose CISPA and similar bills that attack Internet freedom.” Meanwhile, House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and 17 of his party colleagues wrote House Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., saying the manager’s amendment that they were developing should address the “real and serious” privacy concerns raised by lawmakers, privacy groups and others. Saying the bill lacks “necessary safeguards,” they said the “broad and ambiguous” language of CISPA raises “serious concerns” about what information relating to Internet activity would be shared, who in the federal government, including the intelligence community, would have access to the information, and the “purpose and manner in which that information will be used.” Without specific limitations, the measure would, for the first time, provide non-civilian federal agencies such as the National Security Agency “unfettered access to information about Americans’ Internet activities and allow those agencies to use that information for virtually any purpose,” the 18 lawmakers said (http://xrl.us/bm4xvh). Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., separately said he'd offer an amendment to CISPA that would add privacy language minimizing the “collection of publicly identifiable information.” Information sharing procedures would have to be reviewed and approved by the U.S. attorney general. The language also would limit the purposes for which a federal agency could use cybersecurity information. However, three industry groups urged passage of CISPA and three other bills, saying “cybersecurity policy needs to be flexible and adaptable, given the difficulty of predicting the manner and means by which network providers will have to respond to cybersecurity threats.” The NCTA, CTIA and USTelecom in a joint letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the government should rely on industry “best practices to establish appropriate cybersecurity measures rather than impose prescriptive rules.” The groups also urged passage of HR-3834, the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act; HR-2096, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act; and HR-4257, the Federal Information Security Amendments Act.

AT&T wants to include all the new mandatory consumer certifications on a single Lifeline application form, but needs to know what mandatory language to include, the company and USTelecom told an FCC Wireline Bureau official Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm4vgh). “The longer it takes for Lifeline providers to obtain this mandatory language from USAC or the FCC, the less likely it is that these providers will be able to use a single Lifeline application form on June 1,” they wrote. The company and association expressed concern that some states that currently perform Lifeline eligibility determination on behalf of providers in their states might not meet the June 1 deadline to bring their processes into compliance with the FCC’s new eligibility rules.

Google and Facebook more than doubled their lobbying spending in the first quarter of 2012 compared to a year earlier quarter, according to federal reports filed Friday. AT&T nearly doubled its lobbying spending from the fourth quarter of 2011 when its bid to purchase T-Mobile collapsed. Meanwhile, USTelecom, NCTA and CEA trimmed their Q1 lobbying spending by more than 20 percent compared to the previous quarter.

The one-per-household limit, commissioning biennial audits and verifying the residency of customers at temporary addresses were some of the new rules criticized in the eight petitions for reconsideration of the Lifeline order received by the FCC. Oppositions to the petitions are due May 7 in docket 11-42, replies May 15, said a notice in Friday’s Federal Register (http://xrl.us/bm4kwc).

House GOP leaders plan to consider four cybersecurity bills during their much-anticipated “cyberweek,” they said Friday. The four bills are: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) (HR-3523), the Federal Information Security Amendments Act (HR-4257), the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act (HR-2096), and the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Act (HR-3834).

The Ad Hoc Coalition of International Telecommunications Companies supports USTelecom’s call for long-term, comprehensive changes to the FCC USF contribution system, the group said in a letter to the agency Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm4ha3). The group, which includes several domestic and foreign long distance service providers, called out the “Carrier’s Carrier Rule” as “one of several irrational and inefficient processes in need of immediate reform.

BRUSSELS -- Talks on revising the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) should focus on the high-level principles needed to spur investment and boost network capacity to meet demands in the coming decades, executives told a workshop on talks to revise the ITU treaty later this year. Internet governance issues are on the front line, said an executive representing 45 operators in 25 countries.

More than a dozen technology groups urged House leaders in a letter sent Tuesday to “protect and promote, not stifle innovation” in the congressional push to increase national cybersecurity. “The House has an opportunity to take a positive, nonregulatory step forward on cybersecurity -- as regulations would divert businesses’ focus from security to compliance -- by removing legal roadblocks that prevent the private sector and government from sharing cyber threat information while protecting personal privacy,” said the letter written to Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Specifically the groups urged lawmakers to: improve private/public information sharing of cyberthreat information; enhance national cybersecurity research and development; reform the Federal Information Security Management Act; increase cybersecurity education and public awareness; and support greater public/private collaboration on cybersecurity issues. The groups also warned lawmakers not to “complicate or duplicate existing security-related industry standards with government-specific standards and bureaucracies.” The letter was signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Software Alliance, CTIA, the Information Technology Industry Council, the Internet Security Alliance, NCTA, the Software and Information Industry Association, TechAmerica, TechNet, Telecommunications Industry Association, and USTelecom, among others.

The FCC should “reconsider its decision to require broadband deployment to one location per $775” in Connect America Fund Phase I support, Frontier told an adviser to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn on Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bm322x). The telco and Windstream had originally made that request late last year in their petition for clarification/reconsideration of the USF/intercarrier compensation order. Frontier also expressed its support for a recent Windstream proposal for “additional flexibility” when installing broadband infrastructure in high-cost unserved area. In another meeting Wednesday with the Clyburn aide, USTelecom said it also expressed support for providing additional flexibility to “maximize investment of Phase I incremental support in modern broadband facilities in rural areas” (http://xrl.us/bm324a).