The U.S. is working with a coalition of countries and private sector organizations to ensure that proposals at the ITU to extend traditional telecom regulations to the Internet are defeated, said Daniel Weitzner, White House deputy chief technology officer. Some of those proposals are aimed at dealing with cybersecurity issues, while others would have the ITU get more involved in setting technical standards or in “administrative arrangements,” he said at an event at the Hudson Institute Tuesday.
Congress should move forward with extreme care as it examines possible changes to banking regulations to take into account mobile payments, said Sarah Hughes, professor of law at Indiana University, during a Senate Banking Committee hearing. Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said the committee plans more hearings on the topic as it tries to get a bead on whether regulatory changes are necessary. Tuesday’s hearing was the second examining mobile banking, and more are on the way, Johnson said.
It’s possible to protect civil liberties and privacy while ensuring cybersecurity, said Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute Monday, he said it was important for the U.S. to have cybersecurity “legislation.” He made clear he is not backing any specific piece of legislation now before Congress. “We as a nation need to look at this” and decide on “what we need as country,” he said.
More transparency and oversight must govern the way law enforcement agencies acquire personal information from wireless companies, lawmakers and privacy groups said Monday. The reactions came after nine wireless carriers, in responses made public Monday, said they had received more than 1.3 million federal, state and local law enforcement requests for cellphone records in 2011. The carriers emphasized that they are legally required to respond to police warrants, court orders and subpoenas and sought to reassure lawmakers that they do not sell their customers’ personal information to law enforcement agencies.
A report on the state of pay-TV competition is among the several media items FCC members may soon vote on, agency officials said. They said the report will put an end to the agency’s attempt with a past multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) competition report to Congress to see if the so-called 70/70 threshold was reached where cable operators passed 70 percent of U.S. households with at least 36 channels and 70 percent of residences subscribed. An order on the Tennis Channel’s program carriage complaint against Comcast is among other media-related items that may be acted on soon, agency officials said. Not on the eighth floor’s front burner is a further rulemaking notice on a radio and TV station biennial ownership form and an order on TV captioning waiver standards, commission officials said.
About 200,000 rural Americans could get broadband for the first time as Frontier announced Monday it would accept nearly $72 million from the FCC’s Connect America Fund. The commission announced the funding in April, allocating a total of $300 million to ten carriers if they agreed to deploy broadband to unserved areas (CD April 26 p1). Frontier is the first carrier to say it will accept the funding.
It’s feasible for Multi-Line Telephone System manufacturers to provide precise 911 location information, but groups that commented Friday differed on the proper role of the FCC in encouraging that capability. Some thought the FCC should pass rules explicitly extending location service requirements to MLTS manufacturers and operators, while others said the FCC was better positioned as an agency to guide the development of voluntary industry standards.
President Barack Obama Friday established a new National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) Executive Committee as a “forum” on communications issues of importance to national security. The new committee will have a high-profile membership and is to make recommendations directly to the president.
The FCC granted several complaints about “slamming” -- unauthorized changes to a customer’s telecom service provider -- in a series of orders released Friday. In response to complaints against 14 telecom providers, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau granted nine, denied three, and declared the remainder “resolved.” Most of the granted complaints were against small rural providers, but Frontier was among the telcos accused of insufficiently responding to FCC requests for information, and subsequently found in violation of the rules. A Frontier spokeswoman told us the company “takes all complaints seriously. As such we are investigating the complaint and subsequent ruling."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled last week that the appointment of the judges of the Copyright Royalty Board “as currently constituted” violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. To correct the violation, the court said it is invalidating and severing a portion of the law that restricts the ability of the Librarian of Congress to remove the judges.