On October 6, 2011, Senators Akaka (D-HI) and Feinstein (D-CA) introduced the Safeguarding American Agriculture Act of 2011. The bill would raise the priority of the agriculture mission within U.S. Customs and Border Protection by establishing an Office of Agriculture Inspection with its own Assistant Commissioner and requiring CBP to develop plans to improve agriculture specialist recruitment and retention.

On October 12, 2011, both the House and Senate passed legislation to implement the free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. The bills will now go to the President, who is expected to sign them into law.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is “not optimistic” Democratic senators will support Republicans’ Congressional Review Act effort to kill FCC net neutrality rules, the ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee said Wednesday. Until the election, DeMint hopes to “minimize the damage” of the Democratic-controlled Senate and executive branch, he said. In other speeches also at a Free State Foundation event, Reps. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., also railed against regulation. Stearns supported the FCC effort to revamp the Universal Service Fund, but said Congress should take the next steps of revamping USF contribution rules and updating the 1996 Telecom Act.

In the October 5, 2011 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 45, No. 41), CBP published two notices that propose to revoke a ruling and similar treatment regarding the classification of homeopathic remedies and a terracotta grill.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement raises crucial questions about Internet users’ rights and the development of the digital economy, French advocacy group La Quadrature du Net said in letters to the European Parliament Industry (ITRE) and Civil Liberties (LIBE) Committees Monday. With lawmakers about to be asked to consent to the accord, La Quadrature asked the panels to weigh in. To LIBE, La Quadrature argued that ACTA’s digital provisions open the door for “yet another attack” on users’ rights “in the name of an obsolete copyright regime.” It told ITRE that ACTA goes beyond current EU law on border measures, damages and criminal sanctions, provisions that will create legal uncertainty for businesses operating in the EU and undermine goals such as development of the digital economy and deployment of green technologies. ISPs and other stakeholders, including civil society and consumer organizations, “continue to raise awareness” about concerns they have with some ACTA provisions, said European Internet Services Providers’ Association Head of Policy Andrea D'Incecco. One key ISP concern is that ACTA introduces criminal penalties for intellectual property rights enforcement although there’s no similar legislation in the EU, which will limit democratic decision-making to what’s in the agreement, he said. Another worry is that the accord promotes cooperative efforts within the business community to address copyright infringements, he said. That could be an attempt to create a system where private entities such as ISPs are forced to monitor and police the content of users’ communications, he said. A third concern is that ACTA introduces a new body, the ACTA Committee, that can amend the agreement, but without specifying under which obligations (such as openness and transparency) it would act or if public scrutiny would be permitted, he said. European Parliament approval means it agrees that the ACTA committee can, in the future, bring in stringent provisions or additional obligations, even if not in line with the EU body of law, without any further say-so from lawmakers, he said. If ACTA is referred to Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee for an opinion on whether it aligns with EU Community Law, any further action could depend on this opinion, an Internet industry source said.

The FCC should focus on “covert consolidation” in its ongoing quadrennial review of media ownership rules, several nonprofit panelists said Tuesday. They called deals where two or more TV stations in a market join forces, without combining all assets as in a typical merger or acquisition, a critical issue for industry M&A foes. Municipal and public, educational and governmental channel officials also spoke at the Alliance for Community Media event on how PEG channels can educate members of Congress on many telecom issues.

Lawyers for the two Executive Recycling officials charged with federal crimes for dumping lead-laden CRTs in China (CED Sept 20 p7) need more time to pore through the massive volume of evidence that government prosecutors plan to enter in the case, they said in a continuance motion filed in the U.S. District Court in Denver. The motion, which prosecutors didn’t oppose, asks U.S. District Judge William Martinez for a 60-day deadline extension to Dec. 13 for defendants’ pretrial motions and to vacate the court’s Nov. 28 trial date, the lawyers said. They also cited the “unusual nature and complexity of this case.” Under a Sept. 27 scheduling order signed by Martinez, prosecutors have until Oct. 13 to disclose their evidence and defendants’ pretrial motions are due only five days later, the motion said. “The government has advised that the materials subject to disclosure are voluminous, consisting of approximately 70,000 pages and two terabytes of digital information,” the motion said. “The defense cannot reasonably be expected to digest that amount of material and prepare pretrial motions within the time allotted,” it said. The allegations that the Executive Recycling officials, CEO Brandon Richter and Vice President of Operations Tor Olson, violated the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act also make for “a rather novel prosecution,” it said. They're charged with exporting hazardous waste and smuggling goods out of the U.S. under new laws enacted under the 2005 Patriot Act, it said. “The government’s theories raise complicated legal issues, which will contribute to the time required by all parties to adequately prepare pretrial motions."

Sprint Nextel and C Spire asked the U.S. District Court in Washington to deny an AT&T motion to exclude them from the lawsuit the government filed against the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. Each previously filed an antitrust complaint against the merger. Judge Ellen Huvelle has indicated she will rule promptly on whether she will allow the two competitors to join the Department of Justice’s case following oral arguments later this month.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski offered reassurance Thursday, in a speech at FCC headquarters as he prepared to circulate the FCC’s version of Universal Service Fund and intercarrier comp overhaul, most likely late Thursday evening. Genachowski’s speech was short on details on how his proposal differs from plans already before the commission, particularly the ABC plan. Instead, he reassured consumers they have nothing to fear and that the proposed reforms will, in the long run, drive down the size of their monthly phone bills.

Cybersecurity is a jobs issue and thus deserves congressional attention, the House Republican Cybersecurity Task Force said in recommendations released Wednesday. “It is not just national security information that is being stolen from databases in the U.S.,” but intellectual property of all kinds, the report said: “Information stolen from U.S. databases equals jobs stolen from the U.S. economy,” including small businesses that are hacked and then find copies of their new products “flooding the market at cutrate prices from China within a few months.” That echoes accusations of Chinese hacking made at a House Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday. The task force, composed of members of nine House committees and led by House Intelligence member Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, recommended Congress provide “voluntary incentives” for companies to improve cybersecurity, such as rewards for participating in cybersecurity standards development. Rewards could include “varying degrees of liability protections afforded to companies that voluntarily implement the enhanced security practices.” Congress and the White House should give companies subject to information-security regulations in multiple sectors, such as financial services and healthcare, one standard to meet that covers them all. Congress should consider extending tax credits to cyber investments, require minimum cybersecurity protection for federal grant eligibility, and evaluate the cybersecurity insurance market. The government should work with each sector to identify the truly “critical functions or facilities” and not impose regulation on “entire organizations,” and grant liability protection when computers of companies that follow standards are breached, the report said. The Department of Homeland Security should work with other regulators to coordinate standards across and within sectors subject to multiple regulators. The report recommends that Congress “facilitate” an external organization to “act as a clearing house of information and intelligence sharing” between government and critical infrastructure, so as to “detect and mitigate cyber attacks in real time before they reach their target.” The organization would take the government’s knowledge of “classified threat signatures” and combine it with threats known to businesses, so ISPs and other networks could block attacks, and information would be scrubbed of individuals’ “sensitive personally identifiable information” before the government gets it back. Congress would have to change some laws, give “narrowly targeted exceptions” and add lawsuit-liability protection, and possibly give an antitrust exemption, to let carriers share and act on cyber information, the report said. The task force recommended several actions on existing laws: (1) The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) should focus on “secure, continuous, automated monitoring of IT systems rather than the current checklist exercise.” (2) Extend the definition of “protected computers” in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to critical infrastructures, “with attached criminal penalties.” (3) Various electronic communications laws need exemptions for sharing cybersecurity information, as well as “some sort of anonymous reporting mechanism” for companies to use so a cyber insurance market can function. (4) Computer fraud should be added to the definition of racketeering in federal law, and criminal penalties instituted for “intentional failures” to provide breach notification for sensitive personally identifiable information. The government needs to answer “difficult questions,” such as its responsibility or authority to defend a private business from cyberattack, how to deter “bad actors” online, the parameters for using intelligence-community information, and the military’s role. The task force raised several other issues that don’t fit neatly into its mandate, including encouraging U.S. ISPs to create a voluntary code of conduct as ISPs in Australia have done with its national “icode.” The report drew applause from USTelecom, CTIA, the Software and Information Industry Association, Information Technology Industry Council and others. Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, called the report “the most detailed and pragmatic public policy blueprint on cybersecurity any government entity has produced,” and largely consistent with the White House’s own cyber proposal. House Republican proposals on data breach notification, FISMA reform, liability protection and information sharing “provide momentum for much-needed legislation that should happen this year,” said Liesyl Franz, TechAmerica vice president of cybersecurity and global public policy.