The FCC shouldn’t give China-based Dahua the confidential treatment it seeks for its compliance plan with FCC rules, Motorola Solutions said. Dahua, which is on the FCC’s covered list of companies deemed to pose a security risk, filed the plan with the FCC in April to show how its gear won’t affect public safety or other secure communications. The plan “contains sensitive business information regarding a privately-held company’s day-to-day operation,” Dahua said in an April filing. “Dahua’s request that its compliance plan be shielded in its entirety from public inspection should be denied because it runs afoul of Commission rules, which prohibit such blanket and overbroad claims of confidentiality,” Motorola said, posting Monday in docket 21-232: “Dahua has not made the substantive demonstration for confidential treatment as required by the Commission’s rules, doing little more than parroting the criteria for confidential treatment under those rules.”
Exports to China
China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom joined the GSMA's “Open Gateway” initiative designed to provide universal access to operator networks for developers, GSMA said Monday, ahead of this week’s Mobile World Congress Shanghai. The initiative was unveiled in February (see 2302270069) and now is supported by 29 mobile network operators. “China represents the largest 5G market in the world, so having China’s three largest operators committed to this initiative demonstrates its global significance and the strong business case it offers,” said Mats Granryd, GSMA director general.
An upcoming Supreme Court decision in Biden v. Nebraska, which concerns the White House’s student loan forgiveness program, could clarify to what degree the court’s major questions doctrine (see 2302080064) could be used to challenge the actions of federal agencies such as the FCC, said HWG's Chris Wright and FCC Deputy General Counsel Jacob Lewis Thursday on a virtual FCBA panel.
Without intervention, China will repeat the strategy that let it largely erode the West's once-unassailable advantage in telecommunications technology, but this time China will focus on AI, cloud computing and other vital core technologies, said Nate Fick, State Department's inaugural ambassador-at-large-cyberspace and digital policy, Wednesday at a Hudson Institute event. He was confirmed in September (see 2209150049). Citing China's subsidization of domestic companies and its financing of internet architecture deployments in developing nations, Fick said that "we are not going to match them dollar for dollar." Instead, the U.S. needs to identify specific technologies and geographies that matter most and build coalitions around them, he said.
Thierry Breton, EU commissioner for the internal market, urged member states to do more to ban high-risk suppliers like Huawei and ZTE from their telecom networks. “The security of 5G networks is essential,” Breton said last week: “They are critical infrastructures in their own right and for other sectors that depend on them, such as energy, transport, health and finance.” To date, only 10 EU members have acted to restrict or exclude high-risk vendors, he said. Breton called that pace “too slow” and said it “poses a major security risk and exposes the Union's collective security, since it creates a major dependency for the EU and serious vulnerabilities.” The EU will work with member states and telecom providers, he said. “I can only emphasize the importance of speeding up decisions to replace high-risk suppliers from their 5G networks,” he said. “Huawei will make the road ahead difficult and will attempt to sabotage the European Commission’s efforts” and nations and providers “should prepare for pushback,” John Strand of Strand Consult blogged. “The foundation of any economy, be it the EU, the US or China, is national security,” he said: “Some may find the EU approach tough, but it pales in comparison the blockade that China has imposed on foreign technology providers for years.” A Huawei spokesperson disputed the EU statement. “This is clearly not based on a verified, transparent, objective and technical assessment of 5G networks,” the spokesperson emailed: “Huawei understands the European Commission’s concern to protect cybersecurity within the EU. However, restrictions or exclusions based on discriminatory judgments will pose serious economic and social risks. It would hamper innovation and distort the EU market. An Oxford Economics report states that excluding Huawei could increase 5G investment costs by up to tens of billions of euros, and it will have to be paid by European consumers.”
The goal of this summer’s Senate briefings on artificial intelligence is to reach agreement on legislation that allows technological innovation and protects individual privacy, Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told us Tuesday.
Artificial intelligence “should be treated with the same urgency as national security, job creation and civil liberties,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday during the first of three Senate briefings on AI (see 2306090046). Two more briefings will follow in July. Tuesday’s briefing focused on the technology’s capabilities, applications, limitations and challenges, said Schumer. The briefing included discussion from Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Antonio Torralba, who focuses on machine learning and AI decision-making. July’s briefings will focus on the near future for AI and national security implications. Schumer thanked Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; and Todd Young, R-Ind., for their collaboration on the briefings. The Senate Human Rights Subcommittee held a hearing Tuesday on AI. Regulating the technology “out of existence” would guarantee that China wins the AI race, said ranking member Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.: At the same time, Congress should be careful about how AI technology is deployed in the absence of a federal privacy law.
Expect legislation for regulating artificial intelligence from Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to be introduced “soon,” Hawley told us Thursday.
None of the five shareholder proposals up for a vote at the company's annual meeting last week -- including a recommendation that it prepare a report on its dependence on China (see 304260032) -- passed, Comcast said Friday.
Bipartisan legislation announced Thursday would set certain federal funding and operational bans for drones made in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. Introduced by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., the Stemming the Operation of Pernicious and Illicit (STOP Illicit) Drones Act would prohibit the FAA from providing federal funds to companies based in the listed countries. The bill would also bar the FAA and its contractors from “procuring or operating drones produced” in those countries. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has drawn agency attention to the issue in the past (see [RefL2110190051]).