The Obama administration believes it’s “critical to find a smart innovation-leaning balance” to cybersecurity legislation, said Danny Weitzner, White House deputy chief technology officer for Internet policy. And part of the balance is for the government to have authority to ensure that companies that have “our critical infrastructure are engaging in adequate security practices,” he said at the Computer & Communications Industry Association’s Washington caucus.
ISP’s and their clients should consider the existing leading concepts in terms of privacy and intermediate liability in light of the phenomena of cloud computing, said U.S. State Department Coordinator of International Communications and Information Policy Philip Verveer after a Media Institute speech. Verveer told us cloud computing presents many advantages with respect to more extensive and less expensive services. During his speech Verveer said occasions -- such as the thirtieth anniversary of OECD’s Guidelines and the fifteenth anniversary of EU’s Data Protection Directive -- are sufficient to make a point: the privacy-related implications of cloud computing have been recognized and beginning to be addressed. However, it’s desirable to find an appropriate balance between the values associated with privacy and the opportunities for increased economic efficiency in the cloud concept, Verveer told us: “The closer we can come to an understanding with respect to privacy, jurisdiction, and intermediary liability, the better off we will be, particularly if we take care not to diminish the efficient operation of cloud computing beyond whatever may be necessary to protect other values deemed to be of superseding importance.” Regarding Internet intermediaries and their social and economic role, Verveer said that to the extent that the Internet’s various intermediaries, transmission companies, Internet service providers and application vendors are subject to liability for content provided by third parties, there inevitably will be less diverse content available. “Some of that will be a function of the risks of consequential damages,” Verveer said. “This is a matter where the United States has something very useful to offer the world.” Section 230 of the Communications Act, was passed in 1996 as part of the Communications Decency Act, itself a part of the Telecommunications Act amendments,” he said. The provision, which was introduced as a floor amendment by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., and former Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been integral to the development of the Internet as we know it today, Verveer said, and it provides “a federal immunity” to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service.
The three appeals judges who heard FCC v. Comcast expressed skepticism that the commission had ancillary authority to find the company had violated net neutrality principles in blocking peer-to-peer file transfers (CD Aug 4/08 p1). Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit pressed FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick Friday to cite a statute that gave the regulator direct authority over an ISP’s network management. Comcast’s lawyer was challenged to show how the company was harmed by the commission’s order against it, since no fine was imposed.
Comcast and Free Press continue feuding at the FCC (CD July 21 p11) over whether the agency has authority to find that the cable operator violated commission net neutrality principles, as Free Press claimed in a filing on Comcast’s network management. In a Monday letter to the FCC Comcast said it meant its communique to “re-emphasize the fundamental legal flaw in Free Press’ demand” that the FCC act: “There is simply no law, and no lawful basis to promulgate any new legal standard to be enforced.” Section 230(b) of the Communications Act and 706(a) of the Telecom Act, both of which Free Press “now focuses” on, “confer no rights or enforceable duties on subscribers or broadband providers, and do not expand the agency’s statutory authority in any way,” said Comcast. “The absence of any potentially applicable law prevents the Commission from taking any action on the Complaint.” If it did act, the FCC could violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the due process clause of the Constitution, Comcast suggested. Friday, officials from Free Press and other network neutrality proponents met with Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to discuss “the strongest jurisdictional bases for the Commission to issue a show-cause Order,” said an ex parte. “We also discussed several of the meritless arguments that Comcast and its allies have raised in its attempt to delay the Commission’s action.” Another letter from Comcast to the FCC said the cable operator’s network management, similar to that of other ISPs in the U.S. and other countries, isn’t discriminatory. Comcast broadband customers “can and do access any content, run any application, and use any service that they wish,” said the cable company.