EU lawmakers extended the term of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) for another seven years, the European Parliament said Tuesday. The cyber watchdog will be given more funding and resources to cope with a beefed-up role, it said. ENISA now has a clear mandate to help support the setup and functions of a full-scale EU computer emergency response team and to counter cyberattacks at the EU level, it said. National bodies and EU institutions can ask for expertise and advice from the agency in cases of significant security breaches, it said. ENISA is headquartered in Heraklion, Crete, and will now have a branch office in Athens to improve its efficiency. Lawmakers also agreed to establish an executive board to allow managers to focus on strategic issues, Parliament said. The European Commission said the vote marked the end of lengthy political talks between Parliament and the Council of Ministers, which backed the seven-year extension in February. The legislation “offers a new start for a new Enisa,” said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a written statement. It will help secure European networks and information systems, in line with EU cybersecurity strategy, she said.
House Commerce Committee members formed a bipartisan working group to consider rural telecom issues like call completion, spectrum, broadband access and broadband speed, said a news release Tuesday. The 18-member group will be led by Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Bob Latta, R-Ohio. The group will “serve as a forum to educate committee Members on rural issues to ensure that rural priorities are understood and addressed in the important work of this Committee,” Latta and Welch said in a joint statement. Other members are: John Barrow, D-Ga.; Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.; Bruce Braley, D-Iowa; Lee Terry, R-Neb.; G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.; Morgan Griffith, R-Va.; Lois Capps, D-Calif.; Billy Long, R-Mo.; Ben Lujan, D-N.M.; Cory Gardner, R-Colo.; Doris Matsui, D-Calif.; Renee Ellmers, R-N.C.; Jerry McNerney, D-Calif.; Brett Guthrie, R-Ky.; Paul Tonko, D-N.Y.; and Bill Cassidy, R-La. NTCA commended the working group’s focus on broadband deployment, rural call completion and spectrum allocation, in a news release. “These and other issues weigh heavily on the minds of rural consumers, and we appreciate the committee members’ willingness to devote more of their attention to seeking smart policy solutions,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield.
The House Commerce Committee plans to mark up legislation aimed at codifying the U.S. policy “to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet,” at 9 a.m. Wednesday in 2123 Rayburn (http://1.usa.gov/14sCVuQ). The revised bill lacks a provision in an earlier draft that would have made it U.S. policy to “promote a global Internet free from government control” (http://1.usa.gov/10FeUsK). The legislation was changed following its passage during last week’s House Communications Subcommittee markup, when Democratic members said the bill could be used to challenge the FCC’s net neutrality order (CD April 12 p3).
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will start his life after the agency as a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute, the group said Monday. The last four FCC chairmen have done time at Aspen after leaving public service. Already at the institute is Blair Levin, who became a fellow there in 2010 after leaving the FCC, where he managed the National Broadband Plan under Genachowski. “Why do we offer this fellowship?” said Charlie Firestone, executive director of the group’s Communications and Society Program. “Other than helping the program think through the issues, we believe it offers these senior leaders in our field an opportunity to think through their tenure on the Commission and, reflecting on their accomplishments, formulate agendas and issues for the future. Freed of the possibility of moving markets by the mere intonation of their comments, these leaders can frame the issues going forward in new and important ways.”
The FCC granted petitions to be excluded from municipal rate-setting for basic video and some other prices for Cebridge Acquisition in Fortuna, Calif., and for Time Warner Cable in seven communities in Ohio, said Media Bureau orders released Monday. Cebridge -- doing business as Suddenlink Communications -- and TWC both cited competition from DirecTV and Dish Network. The order granting TWC’s petition will affect close to 12,000 households in the Ohio communities of Cortland, Mecca Township, Ontario, Warren Township, Erie Township, Granger Township and Munson Township. The order granting Cebridge’s petition will affect 4,600 households in Fortuna.
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p.Default, li.Default, div.Default { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; color: black; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }If wireless carriers are furnishing service on an unsubsidized basis in a service area, incumbent price-cap carriers shouldn’t be able to get Connect America Fund Phase II support for the area, U.S. Cellular said in FCC comments (http://bit.ly/17f2mMe). “This rule would advance the interests of consumers and protect and enhance competition,” the carrier said. “Such a rule would be consistent with other policies the Commission has proposed for disbursing CAF Phase II support. ... As the Commission has previously determined, a rule enabling mobile wireless carriers to be treated as unsubsidized competitors would advance the interests of consumers and protect and enhance competition by ensuring that the unsubsidized carriers will not face competitors whose services in the same area are subsidized by CAF Phase II support.”
Four House Democrats opposed the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in a “Dear Colleague” letter ahead of the House’s planned vote on the cybersecurity bill. “CISPA has major shortcomings and would undermine the interests of citizens and their privacy,” the letter said. “The bill has improved from earlier versions, but even with the amendments adopted, CISPA unacceptably and unnecessarily compromises the privacy interests of Americans online.” The letter was signed by House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, of California and Reps. Adam Schiff of California, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Rush Holt of New Jersey. The Democrats said there are three “significant deficiencies” in the bill: It does not require companies to strip personally identifiable information from any data that are shared with the government, it would permit companies to share data directly with the National Security Agency, and the bill provides a “sweeping limitation” on liability for sharing information, the letter said. The lawmakers urged the Rules Committee to allow consideration of amendments to “fix the bill,” according to the letter. “Without changes to ameliorate these concerns, we intend to oppose the legislation, and urge Members concerned about civil liberties and privacy to do the same,” they said. The House will consider the bill beginning at noon Wednesday and continuing at 9 a.m. Thursday.
The FTC should postpone the July 1 implementation of the agency’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule, the Application Developers Alliance (ADA) told the FTC Monday. App developers need more time and guidance before the updated rule takes affect, the ADA said. The rule requires “apps to make extensive engineering and user interface changes,” said Jon Potter, the group’s president. “With only eleven weeks until the effective date, many developers -- particularly small developers -- are simply not ready.” FTC Commissioner Julie Brill told us she doesn’t want to postpone the implementation if it means “sacrificing the other provisions in that rule” over concerns about specific provisions, including new provisions that affect plugins. “A lot of the provisions that are in the updated rule are very important to get in place as soon as possible,” she said. Brill said the FTC will continue to work with industry members to get them prepared for the July 1 implementation. The FTC will add FAQ pages to its website, which are “very helpful to industry to get educated,” she said. The FTC had no comment.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., said the federal government must obtain a search warrant to access citizens’ private emails. “I am concerned about the growing and unwelcome intrusions into our private lives in cyberspace,” said Leahy in a news release Monday. “I have long believed that our government should obtain a search warrant -- issued by a court -- before gaining access to our email and other private communications.” The committee marks up Thursday at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act. Introduced by Leahy and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, S-607 seeks to update privacy laws to improve protections for electronic communications stored or maintained by third-party service providers (CD March 20 p3).
Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and a coalition of other advocacy groups for the deaf and hard of hearing told the FCC in a filing released Monday that the agency should authorize Progeny to deploy its E-911 locator service on the 902-928 MHz Multilateration Location and Monitoring Service band. The coalition encouraged the FCC to complete its review of Progeny’s request and encourage wireless carriers to incorporate Progeny’s service and related locator technologies into their networks. Ensuring reliable access to emergency services is a “major concern” for the advocacy groups and Gallaudet University’s Technology Access Program, which also supports the Progeny service, the coalition said. “Accurate location information is a critical element in 9-1-1 response, and the need to locate 911 callers is even more acute in the case of TTY and text-to-911 ‘callers’ who may be unable to provide their location with the speed or accuracy of traditional voice callers,” the coalition said. Progeny’s service will answer the “limitations of existing location identification technologies,” which often cannot accurately locate callers indoors -- and particularly in multi-story structures, the coalition said (http://bit.ly/ZlIyq0).