The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA1) "tracking label" requirement for children's products2 and packaging is expected to take effect as mandated by the Act on August 14, 2009.
An FCC report on rural broadband prescribes government intervention to spur availability and demand. The report, released publicly on Wednesday, was required by Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill and did not require sign off by all commissioners. Instead, writing in the first-person, acting Chairman Michael Copps highlighted common problems affecting rural broadband, including technological challenges, lack of data and high network costs. Copps also urged a revamp of the Universal Service Fund, new rules on network openness and an audit of all spectrum that the FCC has licensed, with an eye on where it is being used effectively or could see more use on a secondary basis.
The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council told the FCC it had no objections to giving Business/Industrial/Land Transportation (B/ILT) licensees the same benefits that public safety seeks through proposed changes in rules for the 470-512 MHz band. That puts the NPSTC at odds with the Association for Maximum Service TV and NAB, which oppose changing the land mobile/TV rules for anyone other than public safety.
Government is becoming more open in fits and starts, a sampling of activists’ opinions shows. The much-anticipated Data.gov and a plan to overhaul the much-derided Regulations.gov are a good start, as is the comments process for open government ideas in general, the activists said. The sites are hardly perfect, they said, saying they don’t expect perfection. They do expect some basics, though, and at least one critic thinks the Obama administration is letting the bells and whistles get ahead of simple ideas like providing information that can be found easily.
GENEVA -- Countries are in talks to join a multilateral initiative aimed at fighting global cyberterrorism, cyberwarfare and other online threats by better linking experts, governments and Computer Emergency Response Teams, officials said at a technical demonstration last week at the ITU. The International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Threats aims “to build a value proposition for countries to our services,” said IMPACT Chairman Mohd Noor Amin.
On May 20, 2009, the National Foreign Trade Council and six other business groups1, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee urging its members to begin work on the miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB).
Public safety network interoperability is “an issue that we just have to solve, and we have to solve it quickly,” said Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano. She spoke Thursday at the 2009 meeting of the president’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Meanwhile, NSTAC approved reports on cybersecurity and identity management, and received an update on an upcoming report on satellites.
On May 20, 2009, the Federal Maritime Commission was scheduled to begin posting on its website new statistics detailing the number and types of filings made to the Commission's automated Service Contract Filing System, used by common carriers to confidentially file service contracts, service arrangements, and associated amendments. Beginning with January 2008 data, the newly available filing statistics will include monthly data by the type of filing, i.e., service contract or Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier (NVOCC) Service Arrangement (NSA), and by category, i.e., original contract or amendment. (Notice, dated 05/20/09, available at http://www.fmc.gov/speeches/newsrelease.asp?SPEECH_ID=278)
The president’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee approved reports on cybersecurity and identity management at a meeting Thursday. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in her first meeting with the committee since taking office, said cybersecurity is a critical issue that DHS has “been thinking a lot about.” She said it’s “one of the deep and emerging areas where we need to make more robust our systems, our protections and our private-public collaborations.” The department has been “actively engaged” in President Barack Obama’s 60-day review of cybersecurity, she said. The FCC will take up cybersecurity in its national broadband plan, which is due to Congress next February, said David Furth, acting Public Safety Bureau chief. Much more work is needed on cybersecurity, he said, saying the FCC has established a council to work on the subject. The NSTAC’s cybersecurity report concludes that “an adequate operational capability to respond to the current growing cyber threat does not exist,” said Juniper Networks CEO Kevin Johnson. Future attacks on the U.S. could be “severe or catastrophic,” he said. The report recommended that the president direct the creation of a “joint, integrated public-private 24/7 operational cyber incident detection, prevention, mitigation and response capability to address cyber events and incidents of national consequence,” he said. The report on identity management issues urged the president to charter a national identity management office under the executive office, said Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski. It urges Obama to use his bully pulpit to “positively influence the national culture, attitudes and opinions toward identity management,” said Zafirovski. NSTAC’s satellite task force plans to have a draft report on the industry ready by August, said Kay Sears, president of Intelsat General. The report will tackle capacity availability issues resulting from cyberattacks, as well as interference and the migration of systems from bent-pipe design to IP-based networks, Sears said.
Canada and Spain found themselves the targets of especially harsh criticism from the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus at a Hill event Wednesday. Familiar countries on its new “watch list” of nations with lax copyright enforcement include China and Russia, and Mexico was praised for improving enforcement but criticized for lacking “deterrent-level penalties.” Previous caucus reports have criticized Canada’s failure to ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet treaties, and the U.S. Trade Representative this year put Canada on the government’s “priority” piracy list for the first time (WID May 4 p3).