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A host of news outlets and privacy rights groups are urging a federal appeals court to keep the anti-Muslim video “Innocence of Muslims” on the Internet.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy and Technology and other groups filed a brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking it to reverse a decision to take down the contested video, which was partially blamed for the 2012 attack at a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

“Whatever may be said about the merits of ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ it has unquestionably become part of the historical record,” the groups wrote. If the current ruling is left to stand, they added, it “is likely to harm online expression.”

The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times and other news companies filed a similar friend-of-the-court brief, arguing that the decision to take down the disputed video “failed to adequately consider the impact its decision could have on core First Amendment rights” and “could empower putative plaintiffs to bypass well-established constitutional protections against restraints on speech...”

The groups are protesting the court’s 2-1 February decision ordering Google, which owns YouTube, to take the video offline. They are looking for a new decision from a slate of 11 judges on the panel, known as an en banc review.

The head of the House Judiciary Committee is asserting his panel’s jurisdiction over any legislation to reform surveillance programs at the National Security Agency (NSA) and elsewhere.

“This is the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee,” Rep Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said. “Obviously the Intelligence Committee has an interest in how intelligence is gathered, but because of the civil liberties entailed that must be protected under our Bill of Rights, this is very clearly the jurisdiction of our committee,” he added.

Analysts have raised questions about which of the two panels would be given primary jurisdiction over the issue, a decision that could determine how far reform legislation will go. Rep Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), a member of the Judiciary Committee and fierce critic of the NSA programs, said he was “deeply concerned” about the decision. Rep Goodlatte declined to back any specific piece of legislation to rein in the NSA.

The United States is pushing for a United Nations resolution in support of international bans on texting while driving.

UN Ambassador Samantha Power said in a speech the push to outlaw texting while driving in many US states should be replicated in other nations.

“Worldwide, six out of seven people have access to cell phones and more than a billion cars are on the road,” Power said. “In crowded conditions, with narrow roads and poor infrastructure, bicyclists and pedestrians are at particular risk. Too many drivers simply don’t understand the danger of taking their eyes, even briefly, from the road. And while drinking is episodic, the use of hand-held devices is chronic. No one should die -- or kill -- because of a text message.”

Forty-three US states have passed bans on texting while driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Privacy and civil liberties advocates are pushing regulators and the Obama Administration to support an end to warrantless searches of people’s emails.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Heritage Action for America, Americans for Tax Reform and the Center for Democracy and Technology called out the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for making “contradictory or misleading statements” about its work to oppose an overhaul of current law. The SEC has been one of the most vocal opponents of an update to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which allows law enforcement officials to get emails and other documents without a warrant once they have been stored online for more than 180 days.

Legislation to overhaul the law has gained momentum in both chambers of Congress, but the SEC has feared that an update would interfere with the way it conducts investigations. In a letter to the commission, the groups said the agency was trying to confuse people about its investigation processes. They also agreed to a proposed amendment meant to satisfy SEC concerns, developed with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT). That measure, they said, would make sure that "ECPA cannot be used to shield data in the cloud from ordinary discovery techniques" by allowing the SEC and other regulators to use a subpoena to obtain information held by third-party service providers during the course of an investigation.

Comcast has hired a new team of high-powered lobbyists as it fights for approval of its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable.

The company added The Normandy Group to its advocacy roster, according to recently filed lobbying disclosure forms, and will have former Rep Henry Bonilla (R-TX) working on its behalf. It’s the second lobby shop Comcast has hired since announcing its intention to merge with Time Warner in February, and it brings the company’s total tally of lobby firms to 35, forms filed with the Senate indicate.

The Normandy Group will “work on Comcast's pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable and related Congressional hearing on the transaction,” according to the paperwork. Also on the account are Krista Stark, who served as legislative director to Rep James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), when he was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Louis Dupart, a veteran of Capitol Hill, the Defense Department and the CIA.

Sen Mike Lee (R-UT) said he is worried that the proposed $45 billion merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable could lead to a clampdown on conservative media.

The deal would put one massive cable and Internet provider in 27 of the top 30 markets in the country. But perhaps more importantly, that resulting cable giant would also own NBC Universal and its slew of subsidiary channels, which Comcast has owned since 2011. That could lead to unfair treatment of some content, Sen Lee warned, including shows appealing to the conservative right.

“I’ve heard some concerns expressed that the emerging Comcast, the post-merger Comcast, might have the incentive or even the predilection but certainly an enhanced capacity, due to its larger size, to discriminate against certain types of content, including political content,” he said at a hearing with Comcast and Time Warner Cable executives.

The House Commerce Privacy Working Group met with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials as part of an ongoing series of meetings to examine online privacy that began last fall.

The group, led by co-chairmen Reps Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Peter Welch (D-VT), met with Democratic Commissioner Julie Brill and Republican Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen to discuss the agency's role in protecting online privacy.

In a prepared statement for the group, Commissioner Brill outlined the ways in which the FTC gets involved in the online privacy space, including bringing charges against companies that fail to adequately protect consumer data from data breaches and companies that mislead consumers about their data collection and sharing practices. Speaking before the afternoon meeting with Commissioners Brill and Ohlhausen, Rep Welch said the meetings with tech companies and privacy advocates thus far have been educational for members.

The Obama Administration is promising to come back to Congress with additional reforms of government spying operations.

Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers in the House Judiciary Committee that the White House’s recent legislative proposal to end the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk collection of phone records would not be its last word on the surveillance. Additional reforms, he said, would be on their way to Congress once he and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper decide how to move forward, as President Barack Obama directed in a January speech.

“We have begun the process that the president gave us in that regard. We are not finished with the work that we are doing,” Attorney General Holder said.

Critics of the NSA’s surveillance have said that the White House’s plans to end the phone records program, unveiled in March, seemed too limited. “They focus on one program used to access one database collected under one legal authority,” said Rep John Conyers (D-MI), the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel. “To me the problem is far more complicated than that narrow lens implies.”

The prime subject under review before the administration is Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the NSA to collect information about “non-US persons” who are “reasonably believed” to be outside American borders.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said that he is hopeful his committee will consider his patent reform bill.

“As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I am committed to ensuring we move forward with meaningful legislation to support businesses and combat abuses in the patent system,” he said, adding that he “hopes” to begin consideration of a compromise patent reform bill. Negotiations continued, and no manager’s amendment was published by the close of business day.

“Weekend negotiations on this complex issue were positive, and I am confident we are closer to solidifying a bipartisan agreement that incorporates the ideas of many members,” Chairman Leahy said. He added that he scheduled the upcoming markup so that “all members [will] have the opportunity to debate this legislation.”

A former lawmaker involved in the sweeping rewrite of communications laws in 1996 says he regrets giving too much discretion to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Former Rep Jack Fields (R-TX), who served as chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance back when the 1996 Telecommunications Act was passed, said that Congress should have been more prescriptive.

“We gave the Federal Communications Commission too much latitude and too much flexibility,” he said at a Capitol Hill event sponsored by the Internet Innovation Alliance, a group that advocates for universal broadband networks. “I think we should’ve been much more prescriptive in terms of legislative intent.”