The Biden administration’s upcoming outbound investment screening rules should restrict both private and public investments, starting with “five to six priority sectors” but eventually expanding to more, said Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the House Select Committee on China. Gallagher said the rules should stop Americans from investing in Chinese entities connected to the country’s military, human rights abuses or “technological rise,” should require Chinese companies to meet the same due diligence standards as U.S. firms, and shouldn't be adjudicated through a case-by-case process, which would cause uncertainty for American investors.
The FCC agreed Thursday to a Federal Emergency Management Agency request (see 2308020047) for a waiver to do a national test of the wireless emergency alert system Oct. 4. FEMA will also do a nationwide emergency alert system test the same day. All commercial mobile service (CMS) providers that participate in the WEA program are required to participate, said a notice from the Public Safety Bureau. “FEMA will initiate the test of WEA at 2:18 pm EDT ... using the National Alert classification of Alert Message,” the bureau said: “Members of the public with mobile device service from a CMS provider that participates in WEA in their areas will receive the test message, which will read ‘THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.’ The WEA alert will be transmitted in both English and Spanish in both 90 and 360 character sets.” The nationwide test of the EAS starts at 2:20 p.m. EDT. The test will use the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System and “be disseminated in English and Spanish as a Common Alerting Protocol message using the Nationwide Test of the Emergency Alert System code," the bureau said. If conditions on that date require rescheduling of the tests, they will be done Oct. 11, the bureau said.
A suspected June cyberattack on Livingston International highlighted the need for customs brokers to prepare for a potential breach, which could disrupt their operations and cut off communication with CBP and clients, industry experts said in interviews. They said brokers should formulate a detailed plan for how to respond, which may include hiring subcontractors, notifying customers and quickly reporting to federal agencies.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency asked the FCC for a limited waiver of the agency's wireless emergency alert rules, allowing a national test Oct. 4. The test would start at 2:18 p.m. EDT and “involve sending a WEA message to the entire United States and U.S. territories,” FEMA said: “The 87-character test message to be displayed on cellular handsets will read: THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” FEMA said it would be the third national WEA test and “is necessary because it will determine if carrier WEA configuration, systems, and networks can and will process a National Level WEA delivering the message via all WEA enabled cell sites with minimal latency.” The FEMA letter is dated July 21 but was posted Tuesday in docket 15-91.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Consumer advocates and industry disagreed on whether it's necessary to codify FCC rules to ensure callers may revoke prior express consent through any reasonable means under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, in comments posted Tuesday in docket 02-278. Some carriers warned it could inhibit certain important information being provided to consumers. Commissioners adopted the item in June (see 2306080043).
Cybersecurity officials and industry experts urged widespread implementation of best practices to improve border gateway protocol (BGP) security, speaking during a hybrid FCC event Monday on securing internet routing (see 2306160050). Many agreed more collaboration between the public and private sector is needed to strengthen BGP security.
The Senate Commerce Committee easily advanced the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (S-1669) Thursday, but the measure still faces hurdles to enactment, especially in the House. Congress was on track to not act on two other communications policy matters seen as potentially ripe for action before lawmakers were expected to depart Thursday night for the month-plus August recess (see 2307200071): a push for Senate confirmation of Democratic FCC nominee Anna Gomez and House consideration of the Commerce Committee-approved Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565).
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty granted Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Children’s Health Defense’s April motion (see 2304050007) to consolidate their freedom of speech lawsuit with Missouri v. Biden, said his Monday order (docket 3:22-cv-01213) in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Monroe. Biden defendants didn't oppose the motion to consolidate provided standing is established by the plaintiffs in Kennedy v. Biden, but four individual Missouri plaintiffs objected, filing an opposition last week (see 2307210011) saying they “have no desire to have their legal claims tainted by political wrangling or the tabloid atmosphere that has come to accompany national elections.” The individual plaintiffs also alleged consolidation would likely result in disagreements among counsel for plaintiffs. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) and Louisiana AG Jeff Landry (R) didn't oppose consolidation. Both lawsuits, against nearly 70 individuals and agencies of the federal government, allege First Amendment violations involving suppression of speech about COVID-19, vaccine information and mask mandates. In his order Monday, Doughty noted consolidation doesn’t merge the two cases into one, but the primary factor is “the existence of common questions of law or fact.” The purpose of consolidation is to promote “convenience and economy while avoiding waste and inefficiency,” he said. In Missouri v. Biden, government defendants filed an emergency motion to stay Doughty’s July 4 preliminary injunction in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked dozens of Biden administration officials from conversing with social media companies about content moderation. Oral arguments are scheduled for Aug. 10 in the appeals court; no trial date has been set. In Kennedy v. Biden, a motion for preliminary injunction has been filed and briefed, but no ruling has been made and no trial date set. The two cases should be consolidated because most of the factors “weigh in favor of consolidation,” Doughty said. “The issue of suppression of free speech by the government by coercing and/or significantly encouraging social media platforms is the same,” he said, and both cases involve the exact same defendants and are pending in the same district before the same judge. Doughty won’t rule on the preliminary injunction in Kennedy v. Biden until after a ruling by the 5th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court on the preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden, he said: “That will keep the consolidation from complicating the matter on appeal and will likely result in a more streamlined resolution of the preliminary injunction in Kennedy v. Biden.” Commenting on the individual plaintiffs’ concerns about politics-related prejudice, Doughty said, “This court does not decide cases based on politics, but based on the United States Constitution."
Attorneys general from states led by New York raised concerns about how the FCC addresses wireless emergency alerts in multiple languages, in a filing at the FCC in docket 15-91 (see 2307240045). “We are concerned that relying on machine translation to translate WEAs from English to other languages may result in inaccurate alerts,” the AGs said in a filing posted Monday: “It is critical that alerts be accurate. We therefore urge the Commission to adopt the alternative approach of requiring installation on cell phones of translated alert templates prepared for the National Weather Service and other federal alert originators by human translators.” The AGs also questioned whether the 13 languages, other than English, proposed by the FCC are enough. AGs from Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and New York City also signed the filing. The National Weather Service said with dedicated funding it could create templates in different languages for alerts. The "long-term goal is to automatically translate all alerts and forecasts into other languages,” the service said: “Experience with Spanish translation has shown that if NWS alerts use a limited set of words and phrases, the AI/[machine learning] process can automatically provide translated products with an accuracy exceeding 97%.”