The Food and Drug Administration should clarify its policy on medical mobile apps, said six senators in a Wednesday letter to the FDA (http://1.usa.gov/OAUDGe). “It is important for the FDA to be well-equipped with the proper tools to be able to advance public health while taking care that innovation is not stifled through uncertainty or over-regulation,” said Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; and Richard Burr, R-N.C. The FDA uses a “risk-based approach” to define medical mobile devices, they said. “Given that a large number of medical mobile applications could be actively regulated under the statute using this definition, we appreciate the FDA’s decision to use a risk-based approach to regulation.” Despite “clarity on the agency’s approach to regulation of mobile medical applications, we believe more transparency is needed to avoid stakeholder confusion over how a wider range of medical software might be appropriately regulated,” wrote the senators. Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) Executive Director Morgan Reed said transparency will aid industry. “It is important that government and industry become better informed about health apps that are improving patient outcomes,” Reed said in a statement. ACT works with small- and medium-size app developers to help them comply with government regulation. “We are already seeing remarkable results in chronic disease care through the use of smartphones and tablets,” said Reed. “The regulatory environment will be a critical factor in determining how patients may best use mobile devices to monitor their health and communicate with healthcare providers.” The FDA and FTC share jurisdiction over healthcare data security, which some believe creates industry-stifling uncertainty. Consumer advocates have proposed granting the FTC sole jurisdiction in this area because of what they call the commission’s superior technical expertise, while other industry officials have pushed for the FDA to receive sole oversight due to its sector-specific expertise. FDA had no comment.

The controversy about government surveillance programs means “there almost certainly will be legislation,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Wednesday. “Certain key elements” of the Patriot Act will expire in June 2015, “and we have an opportunity and an obligation to address these issues.” Blumenthal spoke in Philadelphia at an event hosted by the National Constitution Center and The Constitution Project, which posted video of the event online (http://bit.ly/1gD4jWs). Blumenthal slammed the secrecy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and cited a need to change it, as he has proposed in legislation calling for what some call a “constitutional advocate” for the court. “How much unchecked and unmonitored intelligence activity can be consistent with the rule of law?” Blumenthal asked. “The advocate can be made more effective if we give it a certain form,” he said, saying it should be able to proactively engage the court. The court should not be the body choosing when to invite this permanent, staffed advocate, he added. All government branches are now reexamining how these programs should operate.

The current retransmission consent regime is broken and in need of congressional fixing, USTelecom told Senate Commerce Committee Democratic and Republican leaders in comments submitted about the reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act. STELA reauthorization “presents a unique opportunity for Congress to address acute problems in the legal framework governing the retransmission consent process,” USTelecom said (http://bit.ly/1l7SCiB). It criticized broadcasters for their negotiating strategy and urged Congress to “eliminate broadcaster preferences and take government’s thumbs off the scale in the retransmission consent process by moving instead to true and free negotiations between broadcasters and” multichannel video programming distributors, and also criticized the rules surrounding must-buy and basic tier placement, suggesting they bring “imbalance” to retrans negotiations. It urged Congress to forbid joint broadcaster negotiation, to allow distant-signal importation and to adjust or kill the sweeps week rule. NAB has defended its retrans negotiations and in its own comments backed clean reauthorization of STELA that doesn’t include provisions on retrans. Coalitions of broadcast and pay-TV stakeholders, meanwhile, continued to pummel each other in blog posts about what provisions should or shouldn’t go into STELA. “If pay-TV is granted its ‘wish-list’ of regulatory add-ons as part of the STELA reauthorization process, it would ultimately tilt the regulatory playing field in their favor over TV broadcasters in retransmission consent negotiations,” a spokesman for TVFreedom, a coalition of broadcast interests, wrote in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1duhnNT) Thursday, calling for a clean STELA reauthorization. “What will the excuse be to consumers if pay-TV operators get the legislative add-ons and lopsided policy changes they are seeking on retransmission consent and no longer have the luxury of blaming broadcast TV for rising monthly bills?” The American Television Alliance, which represents many pay-TV industry interests, is planning to post another blog post soon, its spokesman told us. That post attacks broadcaster claims about the basic tier, bundling and sidecar agreements as illustrative of what ATVA calls dishonesty. “Broadcasters are lobbying to keep negotiations heavily in their favor,” the ATVA post will say. “When they lobby to keep ‘basic tier’ mandates, protect bundling, and prevent any rules that would prohibit ’sidecar’ ownership arrangements, their hypocrisy is exposed. They don’t want a free market; their business depends on decades-old government regulations in their favor.” Both NAB and NCTA have endorsed the one STELA draft bill that has been introduced so far in the House.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., blasted Comcast’s planned buy of Time Warner Cable, citing net neutrality fears, in a letter to the Justice Department Wednesday. The approximately $45 billion deal requires the approval of U.S. antitrust authorities and the FCC. “I am very concerned that Comcast could use its clout in the broadband market to dictate the content consumers receive and the prices they pay, and these concerns are only intensified by Comcast’s proposal to acquire Time Warner Cable,” Franken wrote. “With more than 20 million customers, Comcast already is the nation’s dominant Internet service provider, controlling about a quarter of the national broadband market and a much higher percentage of the market in many of the local areas in which it operates. By acquiring Time Warner Cable, Comcast would extend its reach substantially, covering millions of additional customers. This would give Comcast even more leverage to manipulate Internet traffic to serve its own corporate interests.” Franken emphasized the importance of net neutrality and that the acquisition “could disrupt this balance of power, resulting in higher costs and fewer choices for consumers” when it comes to the open Internet. Franken is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which plans a hearing on the proposed deal April 2 at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Comcast has said the transaction would be good for consumers and merits approval. The deal “will bring millions more Americans under the Open Internet rules as soon as our deal closes,” a Comcast spokeswoman said. “We fully expect that the FCC will have in place Open Internet rules that will apply to all companies by the time our current condition from the NBCUniversal deal expires in 2018. That condition was always meant as a bridge to enforceable rules that would be applicable to all companies in the industry.” Comcast always backed the net neutrality rules since they were proposed, the spokeswoman added.

Spectrum policy may need to be more “inclusive,” said a Congressional Research Service report (http://bit.ly/1a1gcUy). “Many policy makers and Members of Congress are concerned, for example, that the current structure of auctions to assign spectrum licenses does not provide enough opportunities for competition or new entrants into mobile communications markets,” said the report, by telecom policy specialist Linda Moore. She also wrote a CRS report on FirstNet and the relevant issues it poses for Congress. “In addition to monitoring progress in building the new broadband network for public safety, Congress may want to consider reviewing the role of commercial networks in emergency response and recovery,” CRS said (http://bit.ly/1hCsUxc). “Once commercial communications lines are compromised because of infrastructure failures, interdependent public safety networks are threatened and the ability to communicate vital information to the public is diminished. New policy initiatives may be needed to identify critical gaps in communications infrastructure and the means to fund the investments needed to close these gaps.” CRS questioned the governance of FirstNet and the manner in which it’s housed within NTIA. Both reports, which CRS doesn’t publicly release, are dated March 12.

Independent TV network Veria Living has begun to air significant concerns about the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable deal, CEO Eric Sherman told us. He met in Washington with Justice Department officials March 10 and Democratic and Republican staff from the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday. “This was not a courtesy meeting,” Sherman said of the hour-long Justice conversation, a sentiment he repeated about his meeting in the Dirksen building with congressional staff that lasted about as long. Justice had several lawyers at the table and “a long list of questions,” he added. “They were very serious.” Sherman advocated for the position of independent networks that provide original content, with grave concerns laid out about any Comcast/TWC deal and the resulting market power concentration that would follow. He urged against the deal unless there are “carefully worded conditions” applied to it, protecting independent networks, he said. “It’s a very scary situation.” Comcast has defended the proposed deal as good for consumers and argued it merits approval from Justice and the FCC. Congressional staff asked Sherman what a consent decree in the Comcast/TWC deal should look like, he said: “They asked us to suggest language.” Sherman has offered to testify at Senate Judiciary’s April 2 oversight hearing on the deal, slated for 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen, whether just for Veria or potentially on behalf of independent networks overall. He also recounted a “chance meeting” with Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., on the first train ride into Washington. Franken, a Senate Judiciary member and critic of the deal, warned of Comcast’s lobbying power and influence in Washington and “was sympathetic” to Veria Living’s concerns, Sherman said. “We're definitely fighting an uphill battle here, but one we need to be fighting.” Both Justice and Senate Judiciary gave the impression of welcoming other meetings on these issues, Sherman said: “They were very anxious, ‘Send all your friends our way.'”

Comments on Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization were still coming in to the Senate Commerce Committee Tuesday. That committee’s Democratic and Republican leaders had last month asked for answers to several questions on STELA reauthorization, initially setting a deadline of Monday for responses. But snow in Washington caused the committee to postpone the deadline by one day, industry and committee officials said, and several filed Tuesday. Dish and DirecTV filed and released joint comments Monday (CD March 18 p8); other commenters include the American Cable Association, TiVo, the Washington Technology Project and Public Knowledge. Those comments have not been publicly posted. STELA will expire at the end of the year unless Congress reauthorizes it.

The House Small Business Subcommittee on Health and Technology plans a field hearing on “Expanding Broadband Access and Capabilities to Small Businesses in Rural New York.” The hearing will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Orleans County Legislature, 3 South Main St., in Albion, N.Y. The hearing will “examine access to broadband in rural communities and the role of the federal government in expanding these capabilities to small businesses,” the subcommittee said. Witnesses are NTCA Assistant General Counsel Jill Canfield; Kendra Lamb, owner of Lamb Farms, testifying for the New York Farm Bureau; Mark Meyerhofer, Time Warner Cable director-government relations for northeast and western New York; and Frontier Communications New York Manager-Government Relations Craig Miller. Subcommittee Chairman Chris Collins, R-N.Y., is leading the hearing. It won’t be streamed online, his spokesman told us.

Senators should file campaign finance reports electronically, just as House members already do, said several McClatchy newspapers and the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) in editorials Sunday and a Monday news release (http://bit.ly/1gvyPS3). “It’s so easy,” said CRP. “It’s so effective. And, thanks to a bipartisan bill that’s been introduced in the Senate, it could easily become law.” CRP referred to the Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, which Sen. John Tester, D-Mont., introduced more than a year ago (http://bit.ly/OwjmuY). The bill has 30 Democratic cosponsors, six Republican cosponsors and two independent cosponsors.

Congress must establish a new Church Committee to tackle questions about government surveillance, said 16 former staffers associated with the first Church Committee established in the 1970s and named for its chairman Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, signing a Monday letter (http://bit.ly/OpaFmz) directed at Congress. It should “create a Church Committee for the 21st Century -- a special investigatory committee to undertake a thorough, and public, examination of current intelligence community practices affecting the rights of Americans and to make specific recommendations for future oversight and reform,” the letter said. “Such a committee would work in good faith with the president, hold public and private hearings, and be empowered to obtain documents.” Surveillance now “dwarfs” that of the ‘70s, they said. Signatories included former chief counsel Frederick Schwarz. At the start of last month, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced a resolution calling for such a select committee (http://bit.ly/1dh2gao).