Europe and the U.S. should be thinking about a “transatlantic digital marketplace” instead of getting “hung up on our small differences,” U.S. Ambassador to the EU William Kennard, a former FCC chairman, said Monday at a Copenhagen EU Danish Presidency high level conference on the digital single market. He cited a book by Peter Baldwin, “The Narcissism of Minor Differences,” that describes the psychological tendency people have to seize on small differences and enlarge them, saying that although the EU and U.S. are the world’s largest trading partners, they get stuck on issues such as data privacy that are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. As Europe debates its digital single market and the U.S. updates its online rules, they should consider joining forces because China, Brazil, Russia and other countries aren’t going to wait for them to resolve their differences, he said on a webcast.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has issued a final rule, effective February 22, 2012, updating the Code of Federal Regulations legal authority citations for the Export Administration Regulations to replace citations to the President’s Notice of January 13, 2011 (Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process) with citations to the President’s Notice of January 19, 2012 continuation (of the same name), and add citations to the President’s Notice of September 21, 2011 (Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism).
On February 23, 2012, the President sent a letter to Congress announcing that the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13566 of February 25, 2011 with respect to Libya is to continue in effect for one year.
On February 23, 2012, the President sent a letter to Congress announcing that the national emergency declared with respect to Cuba and the emergency authority relating to the regulation of the anchorage and movement of vessels set out in Proclamation 6867 as amended by Proclamation 7757, is to continue in effect beyond March 1, 2012.
Verizon’s plan to buy AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox, and marketing agreements tied to the deal, are running into opposition similar to opposition that aimed at AT&T’s failed bid to buy T-Mobile. But this time around T-Mobile is leading the charge, with Sprint Nextel also emerging once again as a prominent opponent. Public interest groups and other competitors also filed petitions to deny.
The Department of Homeland Security has released a report on its accomplishments in 2011, in connection with a speech by Secretary Janet Napolitano on the progress DHS has made that year. Among other accomplishments, the report notes that (1) the Container Security Initiative is now active at more than 50 overseas ports, and (2) the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) has grown to more than 10,200 Certified Partners worldwide.
Spectrum legislation approved by Congress last week as part of the payroll tax cut extension bill offers $115 million to help defray the costs of a next generation 911 (NG911) network. That’s the good news for public safety. The bad news is that amount is less than one twentieth of the expected cost. But public safety officials said other provisions should be helpful in making NG911 a reality.
The NAB wants the FCC to reconsider a recent order’s approach that bars use of text-to-speech technology in emergency alert system warnings. “Contrary to the Commission’s stated concerns about the accuracy and consistency of TTS alerts, TTS is a mature technology as evidenced by its common use in various state EAS systems and in weather alerts issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” the association said. TTS helps automate alerts for stations that don’t have staff to read warnings on-air (CD Jan 26 p8). The NAB is concerned about so-called forced tuning, when a pay-TV provider interrupts regular programming during a warning to send all viewers to a “a common channel display of a simple EAS alert slide,” the group said. “Such ‘blue screen’ alerts carry rudimentary, non-specific material that is far less informative than local broadcast coverage,” it said. “Forced-tuning can be readily eliminated through existing technology, already deployed in many cable facilities, that allows cable operators to selectively exempt from forced-tuning any cable channels, such as those carrying local television stations, that provide emergency information.” That’s an issue the commission ought to “promptly explore procedural avenues for considering,” NAB executives reported telling officials in the Public Safety Bureau. Wednesday’s ex parte filing is in docket 04-296 (http://xrl.us/bmsgyp).
The push for greater U.S. cybersecurity got a boost from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Wednesday with the introduction of the Cyber Crime Protection Security Act. The legislation differs from the Senate Cybersecurity Act, S-2105 (WID Feb 15 p1), by updating the federal racketeering statute to include cybercrimes and enhancing the penalty structure under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
The FCC International Bureau proposed to block LightSquared from beginning terrestrial service (CD Feb 15 p1), severely dampening the company’s prospects and possibly increasing the likelihood of a bankruptcy filing in the near future. While the agency initiated Wednesday a proceeding on the proposals, many consider that process largely perfunctory, said industry observers.