A draft version of long-awaited privacy legislation by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., would require more notification of consumers before collection of personal information. The bill would also expand FTC authority over online advertising practices. Boucher and Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., worked together on the draft and unveiled it Tuesday. Industry groups may raise concerns about the burden to comply, said Kristen Mathews, a privacy attorney with Proskauer.
Adam Bender
Adam Bender, Senior Editor, is the state and local telecommunications reporter for Communications Daily, where he also has covered Congress and the Federal Communications Commission. He has won awards for his Warren Communications News reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, Specialized Information Publishers Association and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Bender studied print journalism at American University and is the author of dystopian science-fiction novels. You can follow Bender at WatchAdam.blog and @WatchAdam on Twitter.
The House Communications Subcommittee may hold a broadband adoption hearing on May 13, industry officials said Monday. The hearing would be the latest in a series on the National Broadband Plan. A subcommittee spokeswoman didn’t comment.
A discussion draft of privacy legislation by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., will be circulated for comment Tuesday, Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said in a written statement Monday. The draft “most likely” will surface Tuesday morning, agreed a separate House staffer. Stearns said he worked with Boucher on the long-awaited bill. “Although I do not support all of the provisions in the draft, I look forward to getting back comments to improve the bill and then hopefully advance it through the committee process,” he said. Stearns said the draft bill was “based upon earlier privacy legislation” that he developed in the 109th (2005-07) Congress -- the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, which was introduced but never passed.
The House is thinking about letting its members use Skype to connect with constituents. But the VoIP service will have to pass a security test first. At Republican leaders’ urging, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., this week asked the House Administration Committee and the chamber’s chief administrative officer to look into the matter. “The Speaker wants Members to be able to use the latest technologies to communicate with their constituents,” said a spokesman. Pelosi asked the committee and the administrative officer “to further explore whether Skype can be utilized in a manner that will not compromise the House information security infrastructure and policies that were implemented in 2006.” Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio was one of six top House Republicans who signed a letter to Pelosi and Administration Committee Chairman Robert Brady, D-Pa., on the subject April 19. “Under current House rules … lawmakers wishing to communicate with their constituents by video are forced to spend considerable taxpayer funds to rent teleconferencing equipment that employs older technology because they are barred from using Skype and similar state-of-the-art tools, which are virtually free,” he said. “As many businesses have discovered, Skype can be used safely on enterprise networks, such as those used by the Members of Congress,” said Christopher Libertelli, Skype’s senior director of government and regulatory affairs.
A Universal Service Fund revamp and additional public funding are needed to bring broadband to small businesses and encourage adoption, top government and broadband industry officials said Tuesday. At a hearing of the Senate Small Business Committee, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said high prices, sparse availability and low digital literacy are the largest barriers keeping broadband from small businesses. And NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling called continued funding in fiscal 2011 critical to ensuring a successful broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., is “making progress” on introducing his universal service fund bill and marking it up in the subcommittee, he said. The bill still has “a ways to go,” the House Communications Subcommittee chairman told us Monday. “We're looking for ways to control” the cost and size of the USF, while maintaining sufficient funding for rural carriers that depend on fund payments, he said. The bill is to be co-sponsored by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.
A recent lobbying push by free conference call providers is set on getting “the truth out” to Washington policymakers about how consumers benefit from a business practice that long-distance carriers decry as “traffic pumping,” Free Conferencing Corp. CEO Dave Erickson said in an interview. But House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., who’s working on a bill banning such arrangements, told us his views have changed “not at all.” Congress and the FCC are both mulling curbs on the practice, which involves revenue-sharing agreements under which rural local exchange carriers pay conferencing companies to send traffic to their exchanges.
Congress and the FCC should encourage e-care technologies by deploying “significant public resources to deliver broadband” to unserved areas, said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., at a Senate Special Aging Committee hearing Thursday. And rural healthcare providers should receive assistance to buy broadband services if they're not affordable in their area, said Wyden, who guest-chaired the hearing on the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. The senator later talked net neutrality, asking if health care should get a priority lane on wireless broadband.
The Senate Small Business Committee plans a broadband hearing Tuesday at 10 a.m., a committee spokesman said. Confirmed witnesses include FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling and RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein, he said. Meanwhile, April 29 may be the new date for a set-top box hearing of the House Communications Subcommittee, industry officials said. A National Broadband Plan hearing on set-top boxes had been planned for last week, but a House Commerce Committee markup forced its postponement.
It’s “somewhat optimistic” to say 95 percent of the U.S. is served by broadband, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va. Boucher said at a hearing Wednesday he had “serious concerns about the accuracy of that number” in the National Broadband Plan “and the methodology that was employed in order to derive it.” Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said the figure may show the U.S. can get ubiquitous broadband without government intervention. FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett cautioned that availability estimates in the plan may paint a rosier-than-reality portrait of broadband access.