Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers questioned the government’s phone surveillance program due to revelations in recent weeks about how few calls the program clocks. During a Wednesday hearing with the five members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the idea that the government collects perhaps only 30 percent of all call metadata information “contradicts representations made to the court in justification of the program itself” and by President Barack Obama. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was not present but also expressed concern in a written opening statement. “The intelligence community has defended its unprecedented, massive, and indiscriminate bulk collection by arguing that it needs the entire ‘haystack’ in order for it to have an effective counterterrorism tool -- and yet the American public now hears that the intelligence really only has 20 to 30 percent of that haystack,” Leahy said (http://1.usa.gov/1j3NMi2). “That calls even further into question the effectiveness of this program.” Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., expressed disappointment that over half a year since surveillance revelations, it’s still unclear how much bulk collection is happening and pressed for more transparency and disclosure related to surveillance requests. A recent Justice Department announcement on a partnership with such companies “didn’t address the bulk collection question,” said PCLOB member Jim Dempsey, vice president-public policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Franken argued that companies want this surveillance request information to be more public, but Dempsey countered that it may depend. “Honestly I think there may be a split between what the telephone companies want to do and the Internet companies want to do,” Dempsey said. “I'm not sure about that."

The House Homeland Security Committee delayed a hearing with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, previously scheduled for Wednesday. The hearing on “The Secretary’s Vision for the Future” is now scheduled for Feb. 26 at 10 a.m., the committee said in a news release Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/NCYB0N).

Ford Motor isn’t giving “clear consent” to consumers when collecting data, said Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., in a Wednesday statement. Franken had sent the automaker a letter asking for information on its data collection practices. Franken found Ford’s Feb. 3 response lacking (http://1.usa.gov/1j5Farb), he said Wednesday. “I wrote Ford to clarify some of their data collection practices, and I'm glad that they responded,” Franken said. “But consumers in Minnesota and across the country still deserve to get basic information about who’s collecting their location and when it’s being collected.” Ford was getting consent through the fine print of website and mobile app user agreements, said Franken. “This is sensitive information -- and notices to consumers about this sensitive data shouldn’t get lost in fine print.” Franken said he would be reintroducing a location privacy bill requiring consumers give “clear consent before their information is collected or shared.” Ford did not comment.

Three members of the House Judiciary Committee asked Deputy Attorney General James Cole for clarification on his remarks before the committee at a hearing last week. “You indicated that the Administration would look only at call records from a Member of Congress if it had a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the number was related to terrorism,” wrote Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in a letter to Cole Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1fhi6lx). “That is not accurate. The NSA looks at individual numbers when it has low level, particularized suspicion, but it looks at millions more with no suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever, some of whom may well be Members of Congress.” The members said the government looks at a wide network based off of contacts of contacts and suggested a wide swath of records that could be collected. Such surveillance may raise separation-of-powers concerns, with the executive branch collecting information on the legislative, they said. Cole must clarify his testimony and “fully disclose all of the ways in which the government conducts or may possibly conduct surveillance on Members of Congress,” they said.

Five House members signed on as co-sponsors to the Local Radio Freedom Act, which opposes new performance royalties, said an NAB news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1nscqts). Reps. Susan Brooks, R-Ind.; Andy Harris, R-Md.; Steven Horsford, D-Nev.; Walter Jones, R-N.C.; and Steve Scalise, R-La., are the most recent sponsors of the bill, which now claims 193 House and 12 Senate sponsors, it said.

Empowering tech firms requires “a fine balance of the government helping and the government staying out of the way,” BigBelly Solar Vice President-Engineering Michael Feldman told the House Small Business Committee Tuesday during questioning at a hearing. Network access is important, said Leo McCloskey, senior vice president-technical programs at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. There has been little real work in how spectrum sharing would work in practice, McCloskey said, advising letting sharing services mature and advancing any sharing efforts slowly. There should be more “clarity” on data policies, he said. Darrell West, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Tech Innovation, stressed improving consumers’ access to the Internet. The wireless sphere is great at attracting unconventional firms, West said, identifying the importance of people from diverse backgrounds having access to capital.

House Republicans intend to move the FCC Process Reform Act for a full vote before the House “probably toward the end of the month,” Ray Baum, senior policy director to Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told NARUC during a Tuesday panel. “We expect pretty bipartisan support, perhaps unanimous support, across the House,” Baum said, saying he hopes the Senate takes up the bill as well. The House Commerce Committee cleared the bill in December. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced a version of the bill in the Senate this month. The FCC “needs a legislative backstop” despite FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s own move toward process reform, Baum said. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., prefers to wait for the FCC’s process reforms before legislative action, said committee Democratic Senior Counsel John Branscome during the NARUC panel. “It really becomes ‘what reforms will actually help the FCC actually protect consumers and competition?'” Branscome said. He commended the bipartisan nature of the House bill, which he said has “significant improvements” and positive aspects.

The office of Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., questioned as “legal hair-splitting” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s reasoning on Wheeler’s lack of obligation to consult with Congress on forming any new net neutrality rules. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the FCC’s net neutrality rules in a mid-January decision but affirmed the agency’s authority over broadband. At issue was a commitment Wheeler made to Thune, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, during Wheeler’s confirmation process last year. Thune had asked Wheeler, in a question for the record (http://1.usa.gov/1eRqgVg): “Please answer yes or no -- if you are confirmed and if the FCC’s Open Internet order is struck down in the courts, will you come to Congress for more direction before attempting another iteration of network neutrality rules?” Wheeler replied yes. But Wheeler told The New York Times in an interview last week that he felt no obligation to return to Congress because the court decision affirmed the FCC’s Communications Act Section 706 authority over broadband, despite vacating the net neutrality rules. “What I said was if the Open Internet Order was thrown out by the court, of course I would talk to Congress,” Wheeler told the newspaper (http://nyti.ms/1bSpdDg). “But the Open Internet Order was not thrown out by the court. In fact, the court affirmed our authority.” The FCC confirmed to us the accuracy of the quote in the newspaper. But Thune’s office did not buy the argument, saying the question was never one of authority but one of new rules. “Senator Thune certainly believes the Chairman needs to abide by his commitment to return to Congress for more direction before trying to impose net neutrality restrictions again,” a spokeswoman for Thune told us this week. “Considering The New York Times itself has reported that the court ’threw out’ and ‘invalidated’ the net neutrality parts of the Open Internet Order, as has nearly every media outlet and commentator who has written about the case, the Chairman’s parsing of the decision sounds like legal hair-splitting. Senator Thune hopes the Chairman will avail himself of this opportunity to work with Congress and key stakeholders, rather than repeating the mistakes of the past on this issue.” Senate and House Democrats introduced legislation last month to restore net neutrality rules, and the bill, while not seen as likely to move, is seen as a signal pushing the FCC to act. “We would really like to see Chairman Wheeler come consult with Congress before engaging in any action in regard to this court order,” said Jason Van Beek, Senate Commerce Republican deputy general counsel, Tuesday during a NARUC panel. The FCC has an Office of Legislative Affairs and regularly interacts with Congress with varying levels of formality.

The House Transportation Committee easily cleared by voice vote a bill that would ban in-flight cellphone conversation. Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., authored HR-3676 and introduced it Dec. 10 after the FCC said it would begin a proceeding to examine whether it was technically wise to allow cellphone voice use on planes aloft. The bill has 29 cosponsors, 18 Republicans and 11 Democrats. “It’s not the FCC’s place,” Shuster said during the Tuesday markup. “Tap, don’t talk.” Such in-flight conversation “would have a negative impact on social discourse,” Shuster said, though said his bill exempts the flight crew and law enforcement from the talking prohibition. Shuster said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expressed a desire to avoid such calls and also cited polls showing popular concern with allowing them. Committee ranking member Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., backs the bill, he said, though he’s not listed as a cosponsor. Rahall said a “chill went through the flying public” when the prospect of in-flight cellphone conversation rose up last year.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., plans to talk to NARUC about broadband deployment, the consumer protection implications of data breaches and 911 wireless location accuracy issues pegged to public safety, a spokeswoman for the senator told us. Pryor is scheduled to speak Tuesday morning at NARUC’s winter meeting in Washington at about 8:35 a.m., according to a NARUC spokesman. Pryor recently held a hearing on 911 wireless location issues, where he pushed the FCC to develop standards.