Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is expected to back legislation that would maintain the status quo for the intelligence community’s surveillance authorities, civil liberties advocates said Tuesday (see 2404050049). The House is expected to vote Thursday on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which would reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the controversial Section 702. The House Rules Committee was scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday about the legislation and what provisions to consider on the floor. Johnson supports the House Intelligence Committee’s approach, which omits the House Judiciary Committee’s warrant requirement, New America Open Technology Institute Policy Director Prem Trivedi said in a statement Tuesday. Privacy advocates seek a warrant requirement when intelligence agencies search for American citizens' data in the FISA database. In addition, they want a warrant requirement when agencies purchase U.S. citizens’ information through data brokers. Johnson is backtracking on proposals he supported as a rank-and-file member, Demand Progress said. The House Intelligence Committee wants an expansion of FISA authorities and to subject additional network-connected businesses to gag orders that facilitate warrantless FISA surveillance, said Policy Director Sean Vitka. Johnson’s office didn’t comment Tuesday. House Republican leadership previously abandoned a proposal to consider FISA provisions from both committees on the floor (see 2312120073).

A key privacy negotiator for House Republicans said Tuesday he’s “optimistic” privacy legislation can be expedited and signed into law “very soon.” House Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., said in a statement Tuesday he was “glad” to see House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., release “historic draft legislation” (see 2404080062). Bilirakis lauded the lawmakers for including a state preemption provision and data minimization measures: “The end result is a product that will help safeguard all Americans' sensitive data, maximize transparency, and empower users to control how their personal information is collected, used, and stored.” Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., an original member of the Senate Commerce Committee’s privacy working group (see 1906270053), said Tuesday he expects the panel will hold hearings and “produce a bill that protects consumers and fosters an environment which promotes innovators and job creators.” A comprehensive federal privacy law would help solve issues related to children’s online data collection and foreign access to U.S. user information, he said.

Requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok is constitutional and would help block Chinese efforts to control U.S. communications networks, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Monday on the Senate floor. Similarly, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., last week said the upper chamber has an opportunity to make progress on bipartisan TikTok-related legislation (see 2404050050). In his speech, McConnell rejected First Amendment arguments against the House-passed divestment proposal. McConnell quoted FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr: “You can use a pen to write salacious anti-American propaganda, and the government can’t censor that content. Nor can it stop Americans from seeking such messages out. But if you use the same pen to pick a lock to steal someone else’s property, the government could prosecute you for illegal conduct.” China “has spent years trying to pick the lock of America’s communications infrastructure,” said McConnell: “This is a matter that deserves Congress’ urgent attention. And I’ll support commonsense, bipartisan steps to take one of Beijing’s favorite tools of coercion and espionage off the table.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Monday released draft legislation that would set mandatory cybersecurity standards for federal agencies using collaboration software like Zoom, Teams and Slack. Wyden cited multiple hacks of government systems using “poor cybersecurity practices" related to tech company services. He drew attention to a recent incident where Chinese hackers breached federal email systems after Microsoft committed what the Department of Homeland Security called a “cascade” of errors. The bill would direct that the National Institute of Standards and Technology set “interoperable standards, requirements, and guidance” for agencies using collaboration software.

The Senate has an opportunity in the coming “weeks and months” to “make progress” on bipartisan bills related to kids’ online safety and TikTok, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote Friday in a Dear Colleague letter. He mentioned key priorities at the top of the letter, including nominees, impeachment proceedings, foreign intelligence surveillance, the national security supplemental and FAA authorization. He included the kids’ safety and TikTok items with several other legislative proposals. “There are many important, bipartisan issues this Congress could address this year, and I hope our Senate Republican colleagues don’t allow the ultra-right wing of their party to derail progress on these bipartisan bills,” he wrote.

The House Commerce Health Subcommittee plans a Wednesday hearing on the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies for Health Act (HR-4189) and 14 other telehealth bills. HR-4189 and Senate companion S-2016 would make permanent a waiver of geographic restrictions on access to telehealth services, plus several temporary rules changes allowing expanded use of the technology Congress enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic (see 2006150032). “The pandemic opened our eyes to the many benefits telehealth services provide to patients,” said House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Health Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. “We want to ensure patients continue to have the choice whether to go to a doctor in person or use telehealth when appropriate and more convenient for them. At the same time, we must also be vigilant that technological innovations provide value for both patients and the Medicare program as a whole.” Also on the agenda: HR-134, Knowing the Efficiency and Efficacy of Permanent Telehealth Options Act (HR-1110), Telemental Health Care Access Act (HR-3432), Expanded Telehealth Access Act (HR-3875), Temporary Reciprocity to Ensure Access to Treatment Act (HR-5541), Helping Ensure Access to Local TeleHealth Act (HR-5611), Supporting Patient Education And Knowledge Act (HR-6033), Equal Access to Specialty Care Everywhere Act (HR-7149), Telehealth Modernization Act (HR-7623), HR-7711, Promoting Responsible and Effective Virtual Experiences through Novel Technology to Deliver Improved Access and Better Engagement with Tested and Evidence-based Strategies Act (HR-7856), Telehealth Enhancement for Mental Health Act (HR-7858), HR-7863 and draft Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel re-emphasized the potential impact of affordable connectivity program funding exhaustion in letters Tuesday to Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and other congressional leaders. Cantwell and other lawmakers are eyeing ways they can allocate stopgap funding that would keep ACP running through the rest of FY 2024. Congress approved the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act minibus spending bill last month without that money (see 2403280001). Rosenworcel warned lawmakers Tuesday that notices from the Universal Service Administrative Co. and ISPs warning participants that April would be the last month of a full ACP subsidy may be sent when many committee members "are at home in their districts and hearing from their constituents about the benefits of the ACP.” She attached data to each letter outlining “the number of enrolled ACP households in each state, territory, and congressional district.” Press reports about ACP participants’ reactions to the program’s potential end “echo" what the commission has heard "from ACP households directly, with many writing the agency to express their distress and fear that ending this program could lead them to lose access to the internet at home,” Rosenworcel said. “In what is perverse, both rural and Tribal communities will likely see new broadband deployment in remote areas” via funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, “but persistent challenges with cost -- absent the ACP -- may limit the ability of this investment to close the digital divide.” The FCC “remains ready to keep this program running, should Congress provide additional funding,” she said: “We have come too far to allow this successful effort to promote internet access for all to end.”

House Communications Subcommittee member Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., said Wednesday she’s not running for reelection in November. “I always said I was not going to stay in Congress forever,” said Kuster, who chairs the centrist New Democrat Coalition. “I will continue serving the people of New Hampshire until the end of my term in January 2025. In the months ahead, I will use my time to help Congress build on the progress we have made and finish the job for the American people.” The six-term legislator is one of four House Communications members not seeking reelection. The others are John Curtis, R-Utah, and California Democrats Tony Cardenas and Anna Eshoo. Other House Commerce Committee members retiring after this Congress include panel Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. (see 2402080063), and Vice Chairman Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D.

House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (N.J.), Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui (Calif.) and 10 other subpanel Democrats urged NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson Tuesday "to continue to prioritize affordability in your administration of" the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program as the agency reviews states' plans for the money. The Democrats wrote Davidson days after Congress approved the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package without hoped-for stopgap money for the FCC's affordable connectivity program or Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2403210067). "Access to internet service is meaningless to consumers if the cost of signing up is a barrier,” the lawmakers said in their letter. “Studies show that nearly half of all broadband non-adopters cited cost as the primary reason they did not have home internet service." The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which created ACP and BEAD, "includes separate affordability provisions that are specific to the BEAD program," the lawmakers said: "Congress decided to allocate BEAD funds to states and territories since they are best situated to determine the needs of their communities, but it did not change any existing authority to oversee broadband or pricing." NTIA has "administrative oversight and programmatic support responsibilities to ensure the funds would be spent consistent with Congressional intent, including the review and approval of proposals after significant consultation between the state or territory and NTIA," the Democrats said. "These are critical procedures for NTIA to follow in determining whether low-cost plans are in fact affordable for the areas and markets where they are proposed." It "would be a significant missed opportunity in the administration of BEAD if these affordability provisions are not exercised to their fullest to help middle-class and low-income Americans afford the cost of internet service, consistent with the statute," the lawmakers said. Congressional Republicans have criticized NTIA's reviews of state plans' affordability provisions as a form of rate regulation (see 2312180063).

Meta should increase transparency so the public can better understand how it’s censoring pro-Palestinian content on its platforms, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday. They claimed Meta lowered its threshold for removing content that violates policy from users in Palestinian territories after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook remove content when automated systems are 80% “certain a violation has occurred,” but Meta lowered the threshold to 25% for Palestinian users after the attack, the lawmakers wrote. In addition, Meta didn’t provide requested information in a December letter, they said: “It is imperative that Meta provide this information so the American people and their elected representatives can understand the impact of Meta’s policies on those communities and public debate.” Meta didn’t comment.