January 2014

Hyundai Motor will unveil a deal with Verizon Communications to provide wireless service in its US cars and trucks, signaling the importance of the connected auto as the must-have feature for drivers.

Verizon’s service will appear on 2015 Hyundai models, starting with the Genesis sedan arriving in showrooms in May 2014, Mark Bartolomeo, a vice president at Verizon Enterprise Solutions, said in an interview. Initially, cars will use 3G wireless service and eventually will feature faster 4G technology. The Verizon service will also appear in Kia vehicles, Seoul, South Korea-based Hyundai’s corporate sibling. Automakers are rushing to link their models to the Internet. In-car technology is the top selling point for 39 percent of auto buyers today, eclipsing performance measures such as horsepower, Accenture has said. General Motors, the biggest US automaker, was one of several carmakers to unveil similar deals, when it announced a pact with AT&T. to provide 4G LTE wireless service in its Chevrolet models.

Public opinion polling released by the Pew Research Center shows a majority of Americans disapprove of "the government's collection of telephone and Internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts."

Forty percent of those surveyed approved of the government's actions, down from 48 percent when leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed details of the program in June 2013. But that disapproval doesn't seem to indicate that reforming NSA surveillance is high on the agenda of everyone. In fact, the same Pew poll showed that half of Americans had heard "nothing at all" about the president's NSA speech. So even though only 21 percent of those who had heard about the changes announced in the speech thought they would increase privacy, many Americans were entirely unaware of what those changes were or were able to make informed decisions about their possible privacy implications.

Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) warned about the government’s collection of massive quantities about data about American citizens.

During a panel discussion titled “The Big Brother Problem" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sen Leahy said government officials “don’t make ourselves safer by wiretapping or investigating every single person.” “In the United States, which should be one of the freest countries to express yourself, we are collecting far too much information,” the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said. “It is not making us safer.” Sen Leahy also compared the dangers posed by the National Security Agency’s (NSA) collection of information to abuses conducted by former longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover or the Nixon administration during the Watergate scandal. “Just because we can do it in the United States doesn’t mean we should,” he told the panel. “I don’t think it makes us safer any more than the horrible excesses of Watergate and J. Edgar Hoover and all made us safer. It made us less safe.”

[Commentary] Since the DC Court threw out the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet rules last week, “network neutrality” is a glaring problem that demands prompt action. The good news is that the solution is pretty simple. It doesn’t require a new telecommunications statute replete with time-consuming years of legislative horse-trading and special interest lobbying. All it requires is an FCC big enough to own up to its previous mistakes and courageous enough to put our communications future back on track. The solution: reclassify broadband as “telecommunications” under Title II of the Communications Act. The time for action is now. Soon a coalition of citizens will deliver petitions to the FCC calling on the agency to take the obvious step of reclassifying broadband to protect consumers, innovation, and online free speech. Hundreds of thousands of everyday people from across the land have already signed on, and there is still time to add your name. Do it today -- then ask your friends to do the same.