House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., hammered home the need for the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act surveillance overhaul this year. “The House acted earlier this year to end the bulk collection of data by the government and provide American tech companies new ways to report data concerning government requests for customer information,” he said in a statement Thursday. “When the Senate returns in November, it must pass the USA Freedom Act in order to protect Americans’ civil liberties and to ensure that American tech companies can begin to rebuild trust with their customers and flourish in the global economy."
Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., laid out her technology vision Thursday. “To stay ahead of the curve, I've developed several principles that can help our country maintain its high tech edge -- a proposal called, ‘A Fresh Technology Agenda for Growth, Innovation, and Opportunity,'” Fischer said in an op-ed for The Hill (http://bit.ly/1ycZKjS). “It’s an effort to spur a real debate about the best federal policies to empower creators and consumers.” She posted a seven-page agenda on her website and attacked the FCC for certain policies. The FCC “sends businesses the wrong signals, meddles in local affairs, and fails to prioritize how best to improve rural citizens’ access to modern networks,” said Fischer (http://1.usa.gov/1oVb4bZ), slamming FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for proposing to pre-empt state laws restricting municipal broadband networks. Fischer’s document called for upping the focus on rural call completion problems and overhauling USF rules “so that providers have more of an incentive to bring broadband Internet service to consumers.” Her manifesto urged regulatory humility and attacked the FCC for its now-abandoned Critical Information Needs study: “I led the effort in the U.S. Senate to defeat this terrible proposal,” she said. She attacked FCC consideration of Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband and the FTC for its “unwarranted investigations and aggressive regulatory treatment toward American technology companies.” Fischer, a member of the Commerce Committee, is meeting with Silicon Valley tech companies, such as Apple, Facebook and Google, said her office. “A Communications Act reform would be one venue to push some proposals, although it may not be the best fit for all the reforms that Senator Fischer is proposing,” a Fischer spokesman told us. “While it remains to be seen just how some of these reforms would advance, Senator Fischer is happy that more in Congress are prepared to have the discussion.” Her spokesman said Capitol Hill’s “appetite for addressing needed changes to telecom policy” is “encouraging.” In the op-ed, Fischer dismissed Washington as “way behind” in its regulation of health IT “with old rules that predate the VCR,” and said “Congress must modernize outdated federal regulations,” pointing out concerns about how Food and Drug Administration rules affect mobile health applications. She touted efforts to require the FCC “to be more responsive to all individuals who apply for a new technology or license” and her backing of the E-Label Act.
Allowing the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) to expire could cost $14.7 billion annually in taxes, said research released Thursday by the American Action Forum (AAF) (http://bit.ly/1CYKmHK). The self-described center-right group, which does not take specific policy stances, calculated its number by applying state wireless tax rates to the Internet. “Sales taxes often hit the poorest the hardest and that is where the burden of new Internet access taxes would fall,” the organization said.
The government’s “broad regulatory approach” to health information technology (IT) is creating confusion about which regulations apply to various technologies, said Software and Information Industry Association Senior Director-Public Policy David LeDuc in a Thursday blog post (http://bit.ly/1pVYPMu). “There is significant confusion in the market about what technologies may be regulated, by which agencies, and to what standards,” LeDuc said. “This uncertainty is standing in the way of myriad promising technologies.” Earlier this week, a broad array of healthcare tech companies sent a letter to members of Congress (http://bit.ly/1neEgz5), urging Congress to take action following the Food and Drug Administration’s release of a risk-based framework for regulating health IT devices (CD April 4 p8). That framework was a start, but Congress needs to make categories and definitions more concrete through legislation, the organizations said in the letter. “It is now time for lawmakers to pass legislation that achieves the complementary goals of protecting patients, ensuring safe and effective care and fostering continued innovation in the rapidly-growing health IT field,” the letter said.
Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., praised the FCC for extending the comment period (CD Oct 6 p7) on Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. “By extending the comment period, the FCC clearly realizes that there are still voices that have legitimate concerns with the merger who still need to be heard,” Cardenas said in a statement Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1rhgs8X). “Because this new entity will have such broad control over media production, distribution, cable and broadband, there is a natural chilling effect for many of those voices.” Comcast has shown “a disregard for those who air legitimate concerns and far too often resorts to accusations of extortion and name calling rather than addressing the concerns raised,” Cardenas said. “I personally have concerns with how smaller, independently-owned companies will be affected by the merger, particularly minority-owned networks already struggling in the current media environment.” Comcast has defended the proposed deal as positive for consumers and pushed back against the notion that the acquisition would hurt the health of the overall market. It made this case in a letter to Cardenas and other lawmakers in August (CD Aug 5 p2).
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., formally announced Wednesday that committee staffers are engaging in bipartisan briefings from industry stakeholders this month, as expected (CD Oct 2 p6) and initiated last week (CD Oct 7 p6). The briefings are part of Walden’s initiative to overhaul the Communications Act. “Although Congress may not be in session this month, our work continues full speed ahead,” Walden said in a blog post (http://1.usa.gov/1vWwcm5), referring to “recently commenced” briefings he termed listening sessions. The first session was last Thursday and at least two were scheduled for this week. “These meetings provide our bipartisan staffs an opportunity to dive deeper on specific topics and better understand the issues facing the modern communications marketplace,” Walden said. “We are interested in pursuing pro-innovation policies that reflect our evolving economy. It is important to have a firm grip on how our laws impact consumers, job creators, and the market as a whole, and hear directly what ideas are worth pursuing as well as identifying potential landmines to avoid.” The sessions are intended to “round out the information” that the committee has acquired from white paper responses and hearings, he said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler assured lawmakers that he’s taking security into account in the agency’s selection of the local number portability administrator. “Security is at the forefront of the Commission’s mission in overseeing our nation’s communications infrastructure,” and the administrator “is of vital importance to the national security and the country’s communications networks, and we recognize the need to preserve the effective, reliable, and secure operation of the LNP system and protect it from rapidly evolving future cyber threats,” Wheeler said in a Sept. 30 letter released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1vWLXJu). “I can assure you that, throughout this [selection] process and thereafter, we will do whatever is necessary to ensure the LNP system meets highly rigorous standards for security and reliability for our Nation.”
The FCC has begun implementing recommendations from a July GAO report called FCC Should Review the Effects of Broadcaster Agreements on its Media Policy Goals (http://1.usa.gov/1xq2Eyl), Chairman Tom Wheeler told lawmakers in a Sept. 26 letter released Wednesday. He referred to an April Further NPRM that would kick off the 2014 quadrennial review of media ownership rules. “While the record for the 2014 Quadrennial Review is being developed, the FCC will continue to consider broadcaster agreements, in appropriate cases, in deciding whether approval of particular proposed transactions will serve the public interest,” Wheeler said (http://bit.ly/1t3eiRG).
Failing to address the overreach of U.S. government surveillance will create long-lasting damage for the digital economy, said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and tech executives from Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Facebook and Microsoft during a Wednesday discussion at Palo Alto High School, where Wyden went to high school in Palo Alto, California. “The cost,” said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, “is huge in terms of knowledge, discovery, science, growth, jobs.” Countries around the world will start implementing data localization requirements, said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith. In the last few months alone, 20 governments have either proposed or discussed such laws, said Dropbox General Counsel Ramsey Homsany. Cloud storage services like Dropbox rely on the ability to store data anywhere, the industry officials said. Requirements to keep individuals’ data stored locally would kill cloud-based storage, they said. In turn, the Internet slows down, becomes less personalized and costs are driven up as companies are required to put data centers in each country, said Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch. Data localization also is a threat to civil liberties, he said. Insisting on local data storage could “result in quite possibly more access by state sponsored surveillance,” he said. Governments have been able to sell data localization as a consumer protection measure, Schmidt said, when in fact localization erodes “the architecture that all these companies and all the startups really need to have.” Wyden touted his industry-supported Digital Trade Act (S-1788), which would prevent cross-border data flow restrictions and prohibit localization requirements, as a first step toward ensuring the continued health of the digital economy. But it’s no fix for the “reckless broad surveillance,” which “hampers our ability” to convince countries to accept the free flow of data, Wyden said.
The American Cable Association is expected to be among participants at Thursday’s House Commerce Committee staff briefing on video marketplace issues, an industry official told us. The private event is part of the House Republican effort to overhaul the Communications Act and is open to Democratic and Republican staffers from the Communications Subcommittee. The committee has held two other such briefings -- one on wireline issues and another on wireless (CD Oct 7 p6). Industry officials had previously told us the speakers expected at the Thursday briefing are DirecTV, Dish, NAB and NCTA.