House Republican leaders plan to bring several cybersecurity bills to the floor on the third week of April, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., confirmed Wednesday. During a so-called “cyberweek,” House lawmakers will look at six or more Republican cybersecurity bills with the goal of sending a comprehensive cybersecurity package to the Senate. But Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) warned that some of the bills could have “significant” implications on civil liberties, during a press briefing Wednesday.
House Republican leaders plan to bring several cybersecurity bills to the floor on the third week of April, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., confirmed Wednesday. During a so-called “cyberweek,” House lawmakers will look at six or more Republican cybersecurity bills with the goal of sending a comprehensive cybersecurity package to the Senate. But Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), warned that some of the bills could have “significant” implications on civil liberties, during a press briefing Wednesday.
The cable industry has faced privacy rules for longer than other sectors, with the 1984 Cable Act the first U.S. statute to mandate fair information practices, executives said Thursday. As this Congress and administration are focused on the issue of privacy across communications platforms, cable lawyer Paul Glist of Davis Wright suggested the Cable Act got much of the balance right between protecting information and allowing operators to aggregate and otherwise use data. “It speaks to the requirements according to pertinent uses,” he said at an International Association of Privacy Professionals conference in Washington. Speakers from Comcast and Canoe Ventures, an interactive ad venture of that company and the five next-largest U.S. operators, also addressed how they think the act is still relevant.
Lawmakers said online privacy legislation is needed to support the voluntary consumer privacy proposal touted by the Obama administration Thursday. Their comments came shortly after the White House unveiled its proposal for baseline consumer privacy protections on the Internet, called the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. The voluntary code of conduct aims to protect privacy rights of online consumers while giving them more control over how their information is handled, the White House said.
Lawmakers said online privacy legislation is needed to support the voluntary consumer privacy proposal touted by the Obama administration Thursday. Their comments came shortly after the White House unveiled its proposal for baseline consumer privacy protections online. The Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights is a voluntary code of conduct that aims to protect privacy rights of online consumers while giving them more control over how their information is handled, the White House said.
U.S. Internet players will abide by the spirit of net neutrality for the foreseeable future, regardless of the outcome of appeals against the FCC’s 2010 rules, the agency’s recently departed chief of staff predicted. Net neutrality has become the “norm” in the U.S., Eddie Lazarus told an Information Technology & Innovation Foundation event Thursday. The type of heated rhetoric that occurred over net neutrality and this year over legislation that’s now being debated on intellectual property rights could be the harbinger of future debates, Lazarus said. He voiced hope there will be more wireless competitors, and that LightSquared’s spectrum will eventually be put to more use, and has no regrets about how the commission handled the company’s waiver.
U.S. Internet players will abide by the spirit of net neutrality for the foreseeable future, regardless of the outcome of appeals against the FCC’s 2010 rules, the agency’s recently departed chief of staff predicted. Net neutrality has become the “norm” in the U.S., Eddie Lazarus told an Information Technology & Innovation Foundation event Thursday. The type of heated rhetoric that occurred over net neutrality and this year over legislation that’s now being debated on intellectual property rights could be the harbinger of future debates, Lazarus said. He voiced hope there will be more wireless competitors, and that LightSquared’s spectrum will eventually be put to more use, and has no regrets about how the commission handled the company’s waiver.
European intellectual property rights groups are upping the pressure on EU bodies to ignore the “hysterical misinformation” coming from digital rights activists and approve the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. In Friday letters to European Parliament members, government officials and the European Commission, 44 organizations urged “a calm and reasoned assessment of the facts” in the face of opponents’ “coordinated attacks on democratic institutions.” But ACTA’s future isn’t certain, as Germany joins several other EU countries in declining to sign it now, public protests take place in many European cities, and some EU lawmakers balk at green-lighting it.
Coordinated website blackouts had a resounding impact Wednesday on both public and congressional support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). At our deadline at least five of the bill’s original 30 co-sponsors said they had either withdrawn or reconsidered their support for the bill. The bipartisan defections came after thousands of websites including Wikipedia, Reddit, Craigslist and others blacked out their pages and urged users to contact their representatives in protest of the legislation.
Coordinated website blackouts appeared to have had a resounding impact Wednesday on public and congressional support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). At our deadline, at least five of the bill’s original 30 cosponsors said they had either withdrawn or reconsidered their support for the bill. The bipartisan defections came after thousands of websites including Wikipedia, Reddit and Craigslist blacked out their home pages and urged users to contact their representatives in protest of the legislation.