With Hogan Lovells under new CEO Miguel Zaldivar (see this section, Dec. 20), it's promoting as planned communications attorney Michele Farquhar to Washington office managing partner (see this section, April 9); law firm says now Ari Fitzgerald takes over from Farquhar as head, Communications practice group and Mark Brennan does likewise at Technology, Media and Telecoms sector group, which itself has Technology led by John Brockland and Telecoms led by Angus Coulter.
Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance names telecom industry executive Anita Dohler CEO-board member, taking over from Peter Meissner, retiring and will "remain active" as senior adviser, NGMN board ... U.S. Chief Information Officer Suzette Kent reportedly departing next month; White House doesn't comment ... Booz Allen adds cybersecurity experts Kevin Richards, ex-Marsh, as executive vice president, leading Strategic Cyber Readiness and Response teams, and Tony Sharp, ex-FedEx, as senior vice president, running Security Architecture and Engineering team.
California’s privacy law sequel qualified for the Nov. 3 election, with more than 623,212 signatures validated, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) said Wednesday, one day before the deadline to approve ballot initiatives. “We’ve come a long way in the two years since passing the landmark California Consumer Privacy Act, but during these times of unprecedented uncertainty, we need to ensure that the laws keep pace with the ever-changing ways corporations and other entities are using our data,” said Alastair Mactaggart, author of CCPA and the new California Privacy Rights Act. CPRA is “the important next step in ensuring that privacy rights are sustained now and well into the future,” said California Senate Majority Leader Robert Hertzberg (D). Mactaggart sued Padilla over a deadline snafu that could have kept CPRA off the ballot (see 2006120060). In a Friday ruling on that suit, the California Superior Court in Sacramento supported Mactaggart and listed possible remedies. CCPA enforcement starts Wednesday, but it’s unclear if the Office of Administrative Law will approve by then the final rules, submitted earlier this month by Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D), said Wiley privacy attorney Duane Pozza on a Thursday webinar. If not, enforcement would be based solely on the text of the CCPA law, he said. “We’ll have to see what the attorney general does” on the first day of enforcement, he said: Becerra could focus on a few cases, announce broader investigations or send warning letters to businesses that would be “made public and put people on notice about the kinds of things they’re looking at.”
Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International hires Michael Robbins -- who remains chief operating officer at Moak Group -- as a consultant in newly created role at the association: executive vice president-advocacy and government affairs ... CPB promotes Jacquie Gales Webb to vice president-radio ... Kelly Miller, ex-Banner Public Affairs, joins FTI Consulting Telecom, Media & Technology team as senior director ... XR Association hires from Booz Allen Joan O’Hara for senior director-public policy.
Utilities Technology Council board promotes Sheryl Riggs to president-CEO, from interim since January; directors extend officers' terms for another year due to postponement of UTC’s annual conference, which will now be held virtually ... Lerman Senter promotes David Burns to member and hires Art Harding, ex-Foster Garvey, as counsel ... FeganScott adds Melissa Ryan Clark, ex-Tadler Law and a lawyer with experience with privacy and data breaches, as of counsel.
Wiley will move to a newly constructed building at 2050 M St. NW in Washington, D.C., said real estate developer Tishman Speyer. Wiley, currently at 1776 K St. NW, is leasing 166,000 square feet on floors three through seven of the new location, an 11-story, 340,000-square-foot building that also houses CBS’ Washington bureau. The move is “the DC market’s largest relocation deal so far in 2020,” said Tishman Speyer.
The FCC is expected to approve a draft declaratory ruling and NPRM on rules for ATSC 3.0 “broadcast internet” (see 2005180066) at Tuesday’s meeting with few changes. Commissioners already voted to approve a separate order that largely won't allow broadcasters to use vacant TV bands for the 3.0 transition but permits waivers of simulcast rules.
Internet Archive should be blocked from scanning and sharing millions of literary works, the Association of American Publishers said Monday in a lawsuit at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. AAP accused IA of sharing “some 1.3 million bootleg scans of print books” through public-facing online libraries. Plaintiffs are Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House. The lawsuit “condemns the fact that IA solicits and collects truckloads of in-copyright books in order to copy and make them available without permission,” AAP said, arguing there are no exceptions for this activity under fair use, the first sale doctrine or in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. IA founder Brewster Kahle called the lawsuit “disappointing.” IA “acquires books and lends them, as libraries have always done,” which supports the publishing industry, he emailed. “Publishers suing libraries for lending books, in this case, protected digitized versions, and while schools and libraries are closed, is not in anyone's interest.” For too long, "IA has brazenly scanned and distributed published works while refusing to abide by the traditional contours of copyright law,” Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid said. Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer wrote in support of IA, saying controlled digital lending is fair use under copyright law: "The National Emergency Library, which expands on CDL, is justified under the circumstances of the pandemic, when so many print books paid for by the public are inaccessible." He urged Congress to support legislation "clarifying the right of libraries to make print books available to patrons electronically, and to serve their constituencies during times of emergency.”
California’s Justice Department hasn’t submitted final rules implementing the California Consumer Privacy Act to the Office of Administrative Law, an OAL spokesperson emailed hours before a possible Monday deadline to get rules out to the public by July 1 when CCPA enforcement begins. Section 11343.4(b)(3) of California government code says how to request an earlier effective date, noted the agency’s representative. Privacy lawyers said the department would have had to submit rules by Sunday, but because that wasn't a business day, OAL would probably take them Monday. Missing the deadline might mean final rules wait until Oct. 1, three months after Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) says he will enforce them (see 2005210054). However, some attorneys said the statute section referenced by OLA provides potential ways to get rules out by July 1. “The AG could submit the final CCPA regulations late and ask for the July 1 effective date based on ‘good cause,’” Pepper Hamilton’s Sharon Klein emailed Monday. OAL “already has a long list of 55 regulations slated for review, and it is unclear how receptive OAL would be to expediting regulations that (as of the last draft) are nearly 30 pages long,” she said. BakerHostetler attorneys blogged Friday that California law might allow the AG to argue that CCPA is exempt from normal deadline rules because the privacy statute specifies July 1 is the effective date. Wiley’s Joan Stewart emailed us Friday that she doesn’t see how the AG can stay on schedule and expect “enforcement in a vacuum come July 1.” CCPA, which took effect Jan. 1, doesn’t require the AG to adopt rules before enforcement begins, said Media Alliance Executive Director Tracy Rosenberg. A delay’s practical effect is “to prevent AG enforcement of the specific areas of CCPA tied into their rule-making until they complete that rule-making,” she emailed. “While it is unlikely businesses would be reprimanded for highly technical CCPA violations until the rules are finalized, lack of a good faith effort to comply with the CCPA at all will probably be actionable as of July 1 regardless.” Becerra’s office didn’t comment.
Since it began holding commissioners’ gatherings via teleconference March 31, the FCC reduced news briefings it holds after monthly meetings. Eighth-floor officials suggested logistical and technical concerns could be factors. Republican commissioners have held all of the few post-meeting media briefings, while Democratic commissioners and bureaus held none. Chairman Ajit Pai held one.