Several Massachusetts lawmakers supported passing privacy legislation Wednesday. However, at a lengthy livestreamed hearing, members of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology said little about how they might coalesce around a plethora of comprehensive and narrower privacy bills that came up for discussion.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau on Monday delayed for a year some of the requirements of the agency's February 2024 Telephone Consumer Protection Act consent order (see 2402160048). Originally set to take effect Friday, the requirements were delayed until April 11, 2026.

Encryption must be preserved as an important method for security, trust, and technological control, especially in the wake of increased cybercrime, said Charlotte Le Roux and other Hogan Lovells lawyers in a blog post Monday.

Momentum is building for a bill that would prevent President Donald Trump from imposing tariffs on lumber, semiconductors or medicines without congressional approval -- if the bill could overcome a presidential veto before those tariffs are imposed.

The White House's firing of two Democratic FTC commissioners (see 2503190057) raises significant questions about whether regulatory agencies "can function effectively without the trappings of independence," American Enterprise Institute nonresident Senior Fellow Mark Jamison wrote Friday. A former member of President Donald Trump’s transition team, Jamison said independent regulatory agencies were never meant to be fully outside government reach, as their leadership is appointed and decisions subject to judicial review. But their design is to try to ensure that businesses and consumers see a consistent and fair legal environment, he said, adding that regulatory legitimacy relies on business and consumers seeing agency decisions that follow the law and evidence, not political favoritism. Investors believing regulators are making politically motivated decisions will move their capital elsewhere, he said. Even if the White House prevails in legal challenges to the FTC firings, "that does not mean that regulatory leaders should act like partisan operatives," he said. "Fair, consistent, and transparent decision-making should remain the priority, regardless of how this legal battle ends."

The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit on behalf of paper importer Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified, on April 3 challenging President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose 20% tariffs on all goods from China. Filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Simplified laid out three constitutional and statutory claims against the use of IEEPA to impose tariffs and one claim that the tariffs violate the Administrative Procedure Act for unlawfully modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified v. Donald J. Trump, N.D. Fla. # 3:25-00464).

A Project Rise Partners purchase of Paramount Global would mean fair and balanced news coverage, representatives told FCC acting Media Bureau Chief Erin Boone and other staffers, according to a docket 24-275 filing posted Thursday. It recapped a meeting at which PRP -- chaired by Daphna Edwards Ziman, head of independent network Cinemoi, and Moses Gross, managing trustee of Malka Investment Trust -- reiterated its arguments that Tencent's investment in Skydance Media raises national security concerns and that Skydance Media buying Paramount could mean higher consumer prices (see 2503060035). PRP told the FCC it "will seek a return to the vision and practice of CBS’s -- the Tiffany Network’s -- formative titans, Bill Paley and Walter Cronkite, free from bias, dedicated to excellence and presenting the news in the way that it is." It said it would return "to the principles underlying the dormant Fairness Doctrine [and] provide an organizational structure that allows and considers public input to capture all viewpoints and prevent news coverage distortion."

The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit on behalf of paper importer Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified, on April 3 challenging President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose 20% tariffs on all goods from China. Filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Simplified laid out three constitutional and statutory claims against the use of IEEPA to impose tariffs and one claim that the tariffs violate the Administrative Procedure Act for unlawfully modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified v. Donald J. Trump, N.D. Fla. # 3:25-00464).

Multiple countries this week objected to President Donald Trump’s April 2 announcement of new reciprocal tariffs against trading partners (see 2504020072), saying they either plan to retaliate or are assessing how to respond.

While FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has indicated that the agency envisions more steps to retire copper networks, beyond a series of orders issued in March, we're told it's unclear what big regulatory burdens remain. The agency last month called its steps "initial" and promised additional action (see 2503200056). Carr used similar language at last week's FCC meeting (see 2503270042). His office didn't comment further.