When I was invited to join you today, and learned more about this gathering and its goals, I immediately thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to lay down a marker about what I think is one of the most important issues facing America – and I will say it plain, that is getting the internet everywhere.
On May 23, Republican members of the House Commerce Committee published a letter led by Reps Josh Gottheimer (D–NJ) and Scott Peters (D–CA) proposing a so-called net neutrality working group to reconsider the Save the Internet Act, which passed the House in April with 232 votes. The letter mirrors a bid by Sen Kyrsten Sinema (D–AZ) and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R–MS) to undermine the legislation before it receives a vote in the upper chamber.
The Federal Election Commission gave the go-ahead to a nonprofit organization seeking to offer free cybersecurity services to political campaigns, upending rules that typically consider such free services illegal campaign contributions. The FEC’s reasoning, in a nutshell, was that it ordinarily bans such services due to the possibility people might try to cash in on political favors later. But in this case, the risk of Russian and Chinese hackers running roughshod over the 2020 elections is far worse.
SpaceX has launched 60 little satellites, the first of thousands that founder Elon Musk plans to put in orbit for global internet coverage. Musk said that all 60 flat-panel satellites were deployed and were online a few hundred miles above Earth. Musk says 12 launches of 60 satellites each will provide high-speed internet coverage throughout the US. Twenty-four launches will serve most of the populated world, and 30 launches the entire world. That will be 1,800 satellites in total, with more planned after that.
Facebook says it will continue to host a video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that has been edited to give the impression that the she is drunk or unwell, in the latest incident highlighting its struggle to deal with disinformation. The video has been slowed down to give the impression she is slurring her words. President Trump's personal lawyer, the former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, was among the Trump supporters who promoted the story. He tweeted – then deleted – a link to a copy of the video on Facebook with the caption: “What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi?
House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR), Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH), and Consumer Protection Ranking Member Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) released the following statement after 47 Democratic representatives – led by Reps Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Scott Peters (D-CA) – signed a letter to Democratic leadership looking to form a bipartisan working group to solve network neutrality.
Sen Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Government Spectrum Valuation Act, a bill designed to estimate the value of electromagnetic spectrum assigned to each federal agency as a first step towards meeting the nations spectrum needs.
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