EU-U.S. talks on Prism and National Security Agency spying are taking place Monday and Tuesday in Brussels, a press officer for European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding told us. The first meeting of the high-level group of U.S. and EU data protection and security experts “is the beginning of a process” agreed upon by Reding, Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, Attorney General Eric Holder and acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Rand Beers during a June 14 meeting in Dublin (CD June 20 p10), she said. The European Commission will report to the European Parliament and Council in October on the outcome of the discussion, she said.

The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council’s Broadband Working Group Friday sought public safety and industry volunteers to work on a new task group “to help determine the requirements and definition for the phrase ‘Public Safety Grade,'” with an eye on the new FirstNet. “The phrase ‘public safety grade’ has been used in several Statement of Requirements (SoR) documents relating to broadband systems and services,” the group said. “The intent of the PSG terminology is to convey the need for design choices that support a greater overall network reliability and resiliency to network disruptions compared to commercial networks. The goal is for the [public safety broadband network] to be equivalent to public safety land mobile radio (LMR) systems that support law, fire, and emergency medical service (EMS) operations and are commonly referred to as ‘mission critical systems.'"

Tracfone Wireless executives met with FCC officials Thursday to discuss the carrier’s “coordinated efforts with various private and public health care providers” through its SafeLink Wireless Lifeline service, said an ex parte filing. “We described how TracFone has entered into agreements with several health maintenance organizations (HMOs) as well as with a state government to enable TracFone to access the HMOs’ and the state’s databases of enrolled Medicaid recipients,” the filing said (http://bit.ly/12BWlrb). “We also discussed a program which enables qualified Medicaid enrollees to utilize their wireless devices to communicate with their health care providers, including the HMOs and how this program has improved health care to consumers, and reduced the health care costs borne by HMOs and state governments.”

It’s critically important for the FCC to offer prices to broadcasters in the spectrum incentive auction that are high enough “to attract a sufficient number of volunteers.” So said Preston Padden, executive director of the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, in a meeting Tuesday with aides to acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, according to an ex parte filing. “The FCC’s ability to transfer at least 120 MHz of broadcast spectrum for mobile broadband use while also generating billions of dollars to fund a national broadband public safety network depends upon the participation of broadcasters.” The auction design will automatically lead to higher payments to the stations “with the greatest preclusion/clearing effect” obviating the need for a scoring system, said Padden, former Disney government relations executive. The FCC should also provide “timely information to broadcasters about the mechanics of the incentive auction so broadcasters can make reasoned decisions about whether and how to participate,” said the filing.

Nearly 60 House lawmakers urged the FCC not to reclaim more broadcast spectrum in rural areas than in urban areas in the upcoming incentive auction. The request was in a letter sent last week to FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn. The bipartisan group of lawmakers encouraged the FCC to “do all it can to ensure viewers do not lose access to important broadcast programming through rural translators and low power television stations,” said the letter. NAB commended the letter in a press release, saying: “Rural broadcasters often provide the only lifeline to local news, weather and emergency information for millions of Americans in isolated communities.”

The Texas Public Utility Commission granted Valley Telephone Cooperative’s request for state USF money to offset losses due to FCC USF reform. The order released Friday (http://bit.ly/13TASAm) outlined that the co-op telco “will recover a total of $613,903.50 in reimbursement from the TUSF in the Company’s net reduction of FUSF revenues for 2012 and 2013.” Valley Telephone has sought to raise its rates and offset its own losses. The November 2011 FCC USF order is “reasonably projected to reduce the amount that VTCI receives in FUSF revenue by $444,933 in 2012 and $388,955 in 2013,” said the PUC. It granted similar relief requests earlier this year regarding national USF losses.

The commission should “expeditiously” grant TiVo’s petition for an analog tuner waiver for the company’s “next generation digital video recorders”, representatives of TiVo told FCC staff in a meeting Wednesday, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/15S8Q66). TiVo also talked with the agency about its petition (CD July 18 p14) filed last week asking for the CableCARD rules stripped away by the EchoStar decision to be reinstated.

The city of Baltimore granted TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. a two-year, $20 million contract to provide city information technology services, the company said Friday (http://yhoo.it/13TyqKh). The contract lets the company staff certain agencies, such as the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology, the Baltimore City Police Department and others “to provide key Web-based and database development, implement network security and support the City of Baltimore’s local and wide area networks,” it said. “These network services are critical to the City of Baltimore’s IT and network infrastructures.”

Warrantless cellphone tracking violates an individual’s privacy, the New Jersey Supreme Court said Thursday. “Under the plain view doctrine, the State cannot show that the officers were lawfully in the motel room because their presence flowed directly from a warrantless search of T-Mobile’s records,” Chief Justice C.J. Rabner wrote for a unanimous court in State v. Thomas W. Earls (http://bit.ly/18t5Kcx). The case goes back to a January 2006 police case regarding robberies in Middletown. “Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution protects an individual’s privacy interest in the location of his or her cell phone,” the court said. “Police must obtain a warrant based on a showing of probable cause, or qualify for an exception to the warrant requirement, to obtain tracking information through the use of a cell phone.” No one buys a cellphone expecting to be tracked, the court said. The court did not rule retroactively because it may disrupt legal proceedings, it said, applying the ruling to the case in question as well as future cases. The ruling creates “a new rule of law,” it added: “As to future cases, the warrant requirement will take effect thirty days from today to allow the Attorney General adequate time to circulate guidance to all state and local law enforcement officials.” The issue has faced recent legal and political debate, with Maine and Montana recently enacting laws forbidding warrantless cellphone tracking and the American Legislative Exchange Council considering draft model legislation for other states on the issue (CD July 15 p7).

A bipartisan group of Senate Commerce Committee members asked NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling what plans he has to “maximize spectrum efficiency” and “relinquish portions of federal spectrum,” in a letter sent last week (http://1.usa.gov/1243Oo4). “Given the positive impact the U.S. wireless industry has on our economy and expected growth in mobile data traffic, now is the time for the federal government to effectively manage spectrum, ensure valuable spectrum is used as efficiently as possible, and relinquish spectrum where possible,” the letter said. The senators asked Strickling detailed questions about how the agency plans to implement the requirements of President Barack Obama’s June 14 wireless memo (CD June 17 p1). The president’s memo said the administration would commit $100 million to spectrum sharing and gave NTIA a role in facilitating cooperation between federal agencies and wireless carriers. Specifically, the senators asked what steps the agency will take over the next six to 12 months to carry out the memo’s directives, how NTIA will assess federal spectrum usage, how will NTIA ensure agencies use their spectrum efficiently, what incentives could help increase federal spectrum efficiency, and would it be helpful for NTIA to designate a trusted agent structure to facilitate public/private sector collaboration with classified federal spectrum usage, among other questions. “If the United States is going to continue leading the world in wireless innovation, freeing up more spectrum for commercial users is essential,” the letter said. “This requires an effective NTIA that is fulfilling its responsibilities to manage federal spectrum,” it said. The letter was signed by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; Ron Johnson, R-Wis.; Dean Heller, R-Nev.; Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Mark Begich, D-Alaska; Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; Tim Scott, R-S.C.; John Thune, R-S.D.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Min.,; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Mark Pryor, D-Ark.; and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.