CES for the second straight year will use “advanced security measures” at the January show, including bag restrictions and the use of metal detectors at show entrances, CTA announced Wednesday. As show organizers, CTA has a “primary goal” of “maximizing the safety of all of our guests,” said President Gary Shapiro in a statement. “Our security efforts are designed to provide a safe and secure environment while ensuring our attendees have an efficient and productive experience." CTA again will bar CES attendees from bringing luggage onto the show floor, and rolling bags of any kind also will be prohibited to minimize bottlenecks at show entrances, CTA said. “While all attendees will be subject to metal detector screening upon entering show premises, CTA will conduct searches at specific points to ensure quick and easy access to exhibit halls and reduce the number of times attendees have to go through security.” On CES security, “we’re at the point where we have to do what’s right for the show,” while still having the ability to loosen or tighten restrictions to suit security needs, Karen Chupka, CTA senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy, told us at the recent CES Unveiled New York event (see 1611150050). CES opens in Las Vegas Jan. 5 for a four-day 50th anniversary run.

North American Portability Management blamed Neustar for the lack of information sharing on the local number portability administrator (LNPA) transition from that company to Telcordia/iconectiv. IT experts helping Neustar recently said NAPM and its transition oversight manager, PwC, aren't sharing information on transition governance, risk and scheduling, and, consequently, a May 2018 target date for completing the LNPA shift could be delayed into 2019 (see 1611210039). "Because the authors have not received this information, they claim that it is 'reasonable to conclude that the transition will not be completed until sometime in 2019,'" said an NAPM filing answering the IT experts Tuesday in docket 09-109. "It is not reasonable for Neustar to file a report concluding that the transition will not be completed until sometime in 2019 based on the fact that Neustar has not received certain information, particularly because Neustar itself is solely to blame for its lack of access to that information." NAPM said the company has been claiming a right to disclose confidential information it's receiving as the incumbent LNPA. "Having announced this position, it should be of no surprise to anyone that the other parties participating in the transition meetings have refused to share confidential information with Neustar, or sought to limit the sharing of confidential information with Neustar to the greatest extent possible, until Neustar agrees to an appropriate multi-party non-disclosure agreement ('NDA') that protects all parties’ interests, including Neustar’s," said NAPM. "It would be irresponsible to share confidential information about critical national infrastructure with any entity that refuses to recognize its legal and ethical obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the information." Neustar's unwillingness to protect confidential information and execute a "reasonable NDA" has prevented joint transition meetings, said NAPM, which added that it continues to seek to negotiate an NDA with Neustar. A Neustar spokesman said NAPM "fails to respond on the merits to the serious concerns of Neustar’s experts, with decades of IT transition experience, set forth in their status report regarding transition governance, risks and schedules." Instead, he emailed, NAPM "cites as an excuse a series of false and misleading statements about the negotiations of a non-disclosure agreement, when in reality, the NAPM can safely deliver confidential information to Neustar today under the protection of an existing confidentiality agreement between the parties, as they have done for years. Neustar suggests the NAPM carefully evaluate the merits of the report.”

With the nominations of businessmen Wilbur Ross as Commerce secretary and Todd Ricketts as deputy secretary, President-elect Donald Trump is building "a cabinet of winners," transition spokesman Jason Miller said Wednesday. Ross is head of investment firm WL Ross & Co. and formerly head of investment bank Rothschild. He was Trump's economic adviser on trade policy. Rickets is co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. They -- along with Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin, who previously was Goldman Sachs chief information officer -- were selected because of their firsthand knowledge of issues like tax codes and trade policies, Miller said. "When we talk about 'the art of the deal,' someone who has made good deals, that's someone like Wilbur Ross," he said. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said Ross "will bring exceptional real-world business experience to the Department of Commerce as part of an administration that emphasizes job creation and the economy. I ... expect the Senate Commerce Committee will expeditiously consider this nomination once the new Congress begins in January. There will be strong support for keeping a successful entrepreneur at the helm of an agency charged with keeping our nation competitive.” Thune also issued a statement backing Trump's nomination of Elaine Chao -- who was Labor secretary under President George W. Bush and deputy Transportation secretary under President George H.W. Bush -- as Transportation secretary. "Chao has a distinguished record of serving the nation, and has already shown she can work effectively with members on both sides of the aisle," Thune said. "Her leadership will benefit the Department of Transportation in guiding investment in our infrastructure and making transportation safer and better for the public.”

Consumers who buy a LeEco smartphone or 43-inch TV through Jan. 5 qualify for free access to AT&T's new streaming service (see 1611280058 and 1611290039) for three months, the new entrant to the U.S. announced Tuesday. The tie-in with DirecTV Now was the “truly disruptive” content partnership that LeEco had hoped to announce with the Nov. 2 debut of its products in the U.S. market, its representatives said. LeEco and Vizio, which it's buying, get exclusivity for DirecTV Now functionality until partnerships with Samsung and other smart TV makers kick in sometime in 2017. DirecTV Now also will be available through a wide array of Android, iOS and Amazon Fire devices from day one. “It's not very disruptive if it is only a short window of exclusivity, and in the end many devices will be able to stream the service,” Paul Gagnon, IHS Markit director-TV sets research, emailed us Tuesday.

The U.S. economy is poised to thrive under President-elect Donald Trump, CTA President Gary Shapiro said in an opinion piece posted by Fox News Tuesday. He pointed to the unified GOP government combined with an incoming Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “With this new combination, we’re likely to see legislation that helps businesses invest in growing and hiring,” said Shapiro, who criticized Trump harshly during the campaign season, but post-election said he sees "a lot of positive" in his presidency (see 1611090038). “By lowering corporate taxes; reforming patent, securities and class-action laws; and reducing regulatory burdens, businesses will have more money to invest in growth and job creation.” He also mentioned Trump’s infrastructure funding intentions and talk of rolling back burdensome regulations. The stock market will be a check on Trump’s impulses, Shapiro said: “Should he take positions that hurt tech, it would affect the broader stock market since tech stocks represent more than 20 percent of the S&P 500.”

After talking with congressional staff, Computer & Communications Industry Association Public Policy and Regulatory Counsel Bijan Madhani told us Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will likely seek Wednesday unanimous consent on the floor for Wyden's Stop Mass Hacking Act and Coons' Review the Rule Act. Those bills would delay changes made to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which are to take effect Thursday (see Ref:16112200130]). Many critics see it as expanding government hacking authority. Madhani said the "better prospect" is attaching the Review the Rule Act to an omnibus bill or a continuing resolution. CCIA, which includes members include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Sprint and Yahoo, is interested in having a new administration and Congress look closely at the issue, and it's important for the new administration to figure out what authority DOJ has and doesn't have, said Madhani. The technology industry agrees with civil society groups about discussing government hacking and its potential ancillary effects for international relations and the economic security of companies and U.S., he said. Also Monday, DOJ Criminal Division Chief Leslie Caldwell dismissed the argument that procedural changes allowing the government to get search warrants more easily to fight cybercrimes using anonymizing technology aren't legitimate because they were considered by an "obscure committee," not Congress. Her blog post said the Supreme Court, which approved the rules in May, is "not typically referred to as an 'obscure committee' -- after extensive public consideration by the federal judiciary. Moreover, the amendments were proposed to and vetted by the federal judiciary pursuant to the statutory mechanism that Congress itself created for consideration of amendments to the rules of procedure." Caldwell's post is the third over the past week explaining why DOJ needs these changes to fight child exploitation, botnets and other cyber crimes. For instance, she said that searches would be done only to investigate the extent of a botnet and assist in freeing victim computers. Some techniques used by the government, she acknowledged, "could arguably involve conduct that would constitute a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment." Caldwell said that may be question of substantive law. "It would be strange if the law forbade the searching the scene of a crime," but nothing in the amendments affect the law, she said.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., still holds out hope that his bevy of bipartisan telecom bills can clear the Senate this year alongside reconfirmation of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat who will have to leave the commission within weeks if Congress fails to act, he told reporters Tuesday. Congress is expected to remain in session for about two weeks. Thune said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s choice of whether and when to leave the agency is still a factor. He dubbed that concern, long judged a driving force for the GOP holds preventing Rosenworcel’s reconfirmation, an “extenuating circumstance that I think bears on that process” that he called complicated. But he declined to tell reporters whether Senate leadership was coordinating with Wheeler on a path forward. “I guess I don’t want to characterize discussions that might or might not be taking place,” Thune said. “But my hope is that that issue will get resolved before the end of the year. And we’ll probably have more to say on that at a later time.” Out of frustration over the Rosenworcel stall, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has blocked Thune’s Mobile Now spectrum bill (S-2555) and his aide told us in September he also would block the FCC Reauthorization Act (S-2644). Also pending on the floor is the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act (S-827) and Securing Access to Networks in Disasters Act (S-2997), as Thune’s office noted recently when two Democrats briefly also put holds on Rosenworcel’s renomination, which were both lifted within a day (see 1611170061). All of these are bipartisan bills that cleared the Commerce Committee with minimal objections. Senate Commerce released its formal 10-page report on S-827 Monday. The Democratic blocks are ongoing. “We’re still trying to hotline it,” Thune told us of Mobile Now. Spokespeople for Reid and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn’t comment Tuesday. Thune told reporters he expects his legislation will move once Rosenworcel does. “That would be nice,” he said. “They should. I mean, that’s been kind of the reason the Democrats have stated for holding up a lot of that agenda, much of which has broad and bipartisan support. … I’m hoping we’ll still be able to move some of our telecom agenda.” Of the measures pending before the Senate, Mobile Now and the FCC Reauthorization Act lack precise House companions. The House earlier this year approved companion measures to the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act and Securing Access to Networks in Disasters Act.

The transition team for President-elect Donald Trump added members Monday to its landing teams for the departments of Commerce and Justice. Ideagen CEO George Sifakis is a member of the Commerce group, and Hunton & Williams Managing Partner David Higbee is joining Justice’s. Higbee is "Vice-Chair of the firm’s Global Competition practice, based in Washington, DC, and works regularly on matters before the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice,” his firm’s website says. “David previously served at the Department of Justice as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief of Staff of the Antitrust Division.”

The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force estimates bidding in this stage's reverse auction will conclude by Thursday, the IATF said in an announcement on the auction's Public Reporting System Monday. "Under the current bidding schedule and decrement, the base clock price will reach $0 in round 52, which will be held Thursday, December 1st," the IATF said. Since it's possible that up to two additional bidding rounds could be needed beyond that if the final bidding status of some VHF stations hasn't yet been determined by then, the IATF is adjusting the Dec.1 bidding schedule to accommodate possible extra rounds. The current schedule of three rounds a day will proceed through Wednesday, but on Thursday the schedule will be: "Round 50. . . 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Eastern Time (ET) Round 51. . . . 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET Round 52. . . . 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM ET Round 53. . . . 4:00 PM - 4:30 PM ET Round 54. . . . 5:00 PM - 5:30 PM ET," assuming the extra rounds beyond 52 are needed, the IATF said. The day after bidding in Stage 3 of the reverse auction ends, the IATF will announce the start of Stage 3 of the forward auction, and it's expected to begin on Monday, Dec. 5, the IATF said.

Having Jeff Eisenach and Mark Jamison on the FCC transition team could portend "favorable regulatory backdrop" for industry, said Macquarie Research analyst Amy Yong in a note to investors Sunday. That could point to an FCC regulatory regime that opposes net neutrality and preserves broadband pricing power, she said. Eisenach and Jamison are seen as conservative voices advocating telecom deregulation (see 1611210045 and 1611250022 and 1611230014). Pointing to CenturyLink's planned buy of Level 3, Yong said "a more conservative and pro-business FCC will bode well." She said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will likely leave the position on or before the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. She said parties joining the DOJ transition team (see 1611210045 and 1611180043) -- such as McGuireWoods lawyer J. Patrick Rowan, Morgan Lewis lawyer Ronald Tenpas, Morrison & Foerster lawyer Jessie Liu, and Jones Day lawyers Gregory Katsas and James Burnham -- all have "conservative backgrounds that could lead to smoother deal approvals."