Business officials plan to press the Senate Commerce Committee to overhaul the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to address liability issues they say exist. Those exerting pressure include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has a witness testifying at the Wednesday hearing on the topic and is a signatory to a letter sent ahead of the hearing.
BOSTON -- Regardless of how the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rules on the challenge to the FCC order on net neutrality, that ruling could spur Congress to work on a legislative solution, congressional staffers said Monday at INTX 2016. "This issue is not going to be settled" until Congress acts, Senate Commerce Committee GOP telecom policy director David Quinalty said during a panel Monday on congressional communications policy.
Supporters of a federal law that authorizes the CIA, the FBI and the NSA to spy on the electronic communications of foreigners located outside the U.S. even when they communicate with Americans told Senate Judiciary Committee members Tuesday at an oversight hearing that the 2008 law has helped identify terrorist plots and needs to be reauthorized before it sunsets at the end of 2017. But privacy advocate Elizabeth Goitein said Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act in its current form isn't safeguarding the privacy of Americans who may get swept up in the surveillance and may become subject to search without a warrant.
Fourteen members of the House Judiciary Committee are pressing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for the number of Americans whose phone calls and electronic communications are being monitored every year, to ensure that privacy protections are working as designed. The lawmakers, including ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., said in a four-page letter sent Friday to Clapper that the information is necessary to perform oversight of the Prism and upstream surveillance programs conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act, which is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2017. "We note that we are not the first to ask you for this basic information," they wrote in the letter obtained and published by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. The law and policy group is part of a coalition that has been pushing Clapper since October for information about how Section 702 affects Americans (see 1601130044). The House lawmakers said people are concerned the programs may not be adequately protecting people's privacy or civil liberties even though intelligence community leaders said the government minimizes collection of information on Americans. "Even a rough estimate of the number of U.S. persons impacted by these programs will help us to evaluate these claims," wrote the lawmakers, saying Clapper previously said an estimate is feasible. The lawmakers said they're willing to work with Clapper's office to determine a rough estimate and to implement safeguards to minimize privacy concerns that might come up in reviewing actual acquired communications when producing an estimate. Lawmakers are asking Clapper for a plan to provide the information by May 6. Eight Democrats and six Republicans on the committee made the request.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler offered a bevy of defenses and explanations to Capitol Hill on his Lifeline program overhaul and broadband privacy regulation NPRM, both set for votes Thursday at the FCC’s meeting. The agency released Wheeler’s responses to multiple lawmakers Wednesday on the items, as governors slammed the Lifeline overhaul plan and Charter Communications defended it.
FCC Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Mignon Clyburn told us they still expect Chairman Tom Wheeler, in light of last year’s net neutrality order, to circulate an NPRM on the agency's oversight of privacy. FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said at CES last week she would welcome FCC oversight. A third official confirmed the NPRM is likely in coming months.
A three-judge panel pressed attorneys from all sides at oral argument Friday on petitioner challenges to the FCC’s net neutrality order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (USTelecom v. FCC, No. 15-1063). Judges heavily questioned USTelecom arguments that the FCC’s broadband reclassification under Title II of the Communications Act violated the law, with Judge David Tatel suggesting the 2005 Supreme Court Brand X ruling gave the agency broadband classification much deference. But the judges also pushed FCC attorneys hard to defend the commission’s reasons for reclassifying, extending Title II to mobile broadband and IP Interconnection but not edge traffic, and banning paid prioritization. The complicated oral argument was scheduled for two hours but ran three hours. A two-part audio recording is available here.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is proposing ILECs receive significant forbearance relief, a senior agency official said Tuesday. Wheeler circulated a draft order granting several aspects of a USTelecom petition in docket 14-192 asking the commission to stop applying various regulations to the regional Bells and other local incumbents, the staffer said. Included is relief from certain wholesale obligations that Granite Telecommunications has said are key for competitors serving multioffice businesses in many areas (see 1511120031). The petition is due for a decision by Jan. 4. Wheeler is putting the draft order on the tentative agenda for the FCC’s Dec. 17 meeting, the staffer said.
CTIA got support from others, including USTelecom, on its petition for reconsideration asking the FCC to rethink the data security requirements imposed on carriers in its latest Lifeline overhaul order. CTIA responded to various public interest groups that said in the initial comment round that the FCC should reject the petition. The American Cable Association earlier filed in support of CTIA. Comments were posted in docket 11-42.
There is no doubt the digital revolution has transformed people's lives, but the technologies also created significant privacy risks that will likely become only more complex, said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez during an FCBA luncheon Thursday. A key part in addressing the global privacy challenges associated with the digital economy, the IoT and big data is consumer trust, Ramirez said. Consumers must have control and companies must address privacy challenges head on, she said.