The Bureau of Industry and Security recently posted its "Annual Report to the Congress for Fiscal Year 2008" which summarizes the activities of BIS in FY 2008. Excerpts of BIS' annual report include:
PASADENA, Calif. -- PBS CEO Paula Kerger indicated she’s hopeful that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting may get an increase in federal funding. Public broadcasters are “still working through our appropriation process … and it appears that we are advanced-funded,” Kerger said on the summer TV press tour. “So we know what our funding is for next year, which was a slight increase.” She said the funding is at $430 million. “We are hoping 450 million. Public radio and public television have gone to the Hill to make a request for some funds to go directly to the stations over the course of the fall to try to help stations stabilize.”
The White House has posted a statement by the President on the House passage of the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. In his statement, the President commends the House of Representatives for its passage and states that he looks forward to working with the Senate to enact food safety legislation. (Statement, dated 07/30/09, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-by-the-President-on-House-Passage-of-the-Food-Safety-Enhancement-Act-of-2009/.)
Legislation (S-251) allowing targeted jamming of cellphone signals in prisons is scheduled for markup at an Aug. 5 Senate Commerce Committee meeting. The bill has been revised several times to address concerns raised at a July 15 hearing (CED July 16 p5) over interference with emergency communications and commercial calls in locales that use jamming technology. The bill calls for a study not only to gauge interference likelihood, but also a review of other blocking technologies preventing inmates’ illegal use of phones inside prisons.
Legislation (S-251) allowing targeted jamming of cellphone signals in prisons is scheduled for markup at an Aug. 5 Senate Commerce Committee meeting. The bill has been revised several times to address concerns raised at a July 15 hearing (CD July 16 p2) over interference with emergency communications and commercial calls in an area that would use jamming technology. The bill calls for a study not only to gauge interference likelihood, but also a review of other blocking technologies preventing inmates’ illegal use of phones inside prisons.
P2P software is a grave threat to U.S. security, children and even criminal trials, lawmakers and most witnesses said at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday on inadvertent file-sharing. But federal regulators have been slacking off in holding the P2P industry accountable for software features that endanger sensitive information on users’ computers, they said. Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., said he would introduce a bill to prohibit the installation of P2P software on government and government-contractor computers, one of which was responsible for leaking blueprints for President Barack Obama’s Marine One helicopter. No one mentioned an existing Commerce Committee bill (HR-1319) by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., that would require finer-grained user controls in P2P software (WID May 6 p2).
The FCC should deny AT&T’s call for a Universal Service Fund contribution revamp, said the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. AT&T filed a petition this month seeking “immediate commission action” on a plan from the carrier and Verizon for a pure numbers-based mechanism, in light of this quarter’s all-time high 12.9 percent contribution factor (CD July 14 p5). In an ex parte notice Tuesday, the NTCA accused AT&T of “attempting to create a false emergency in an effort to apparently spur premature FCC action so that AT&T may reduce or eliminate its USF contribution obligations prospectively through future regulatory arbitrage.” The NTCA said a 12.9 percent contribution factor is nothing to complain about, because it produces a phone bill that’s “a tiny fraction of a consumer’s monthly budget.” Using phone numbers for contribution ignores the movement to broadband, it said. “The AT&T proposal is backwards-looking, technology-biased, and will dramatically shift the burden of paying for universal service onto incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers and wireless carriers … while relieving interexchange, broadband and other types of providers of the obligation of paying for universal service.” The FCC should keep its current revenue-based contribution mechanism and change it slightly to take new technologies into account, the NTCA said. The FCC could achieve widespread broadband deployment in five to 10 years if it added broadband as a supported USF service and expanded the contribution base to all broadband and special-access transport providers, it said.
“Vulnerabilities remain” and states have yet to take many recommended steps to deal with problems previously pointed out in emergency communications across the country, the GAO said. Meanwhile, a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee Monday called in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator, Joe Fugate, and other witnesses for a hearing on emergency alerts, FEMA and whether the agency should again be made independent from the Department of Homeland Security.
The Public Safety Spectrum Trust board unanimously voted to endorse long term evolution as the preferred technology for a nationwide 700 MHz public safety wireless broadband network. “The PSST believes that it is important to identify a single technology standard for the proposed network so that the necessary requirements for seamless nationwide interoperability and roaming can be developed,” the trust said. The PSST noted that APCO, the National Emergency Number Association and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council previously endorsed LTE for the proposed network.
The Department of Homeland Security said the country has made considerable progress in improving interoperable communications and taking other steps in response to the 9/11 Commission Report, released exactly five years ago. The department noted in a report released Wednesday that it had set up the Office of Emergency Communications in 2007 “to serve as a focal point for emergency communications programs across all levels of government” and published a National Emergency Communications Plan in 2008. The department awarded $968 million in 2007 through the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program and $97 million total in 2008 and 2009 through the Interoperable Emergency Communication Grant Program, the report said. This fall, the Science and Technology Directorate will run the final phase of testing of Multi-Band Radio, a system that allows emergency responders to communicate with other agencies regardless of radio band, the report said. The department also highlighted progress made by the Coast Guard. Secretary Janet Napolitano will meet Friday with the National Security Preparedness Group to discuss progress solving problems found by the 9/11 Commission. The preparedness group includes former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge and former 9/11 Commission Chair Thomas Kean and Vice Chair Lee Hamilton.