US Senate

SensTom Cotton (R-AR) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), along with Sens Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mark Warner (D-VA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Mitt Romney (R-UT), introduced legislation to reinforce the Trump administration's efforts to prevent the Chinese-owned telecommunication company Huawei from threatening America's national security. The Defending America's 5G Future Act would codify President Donald Trump's recent Executive Order and would prohibit the removal of Huawei from the Commerce Department Entity List without an act of Congress.

Sens Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Brian Schatz (D- HI), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Jon Tester (D-MT) urged the Federal Communications Commission to take specific, concrete steps to improve the accuracy of broadband coverage maps. Their letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai encourages the FCC to look at legislative proposals introduced recently in Congress that include reforms requiring wired, fixed wireless, and satellite broadband providers to submit data like “shapefiles” that is more granular and precise to the commission.

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA.) led eight of his Democratic colleagues in calling on the Federal Communications Commission to maintain essential elements of the “Kid Vid” rules, which ensure access to children’s education programming on over-the-air broadcast television, in accordance with the Children’s Television Act. The letter, a response to the Commission’s recently-released draft order, urges FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to preserve existing rules requiring broadcasters to air three hours of regularly scheduled educational children’s programming a week on their primary stations.

Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent a letter to Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, requesting information on how algorithms and artificial intelligence suggest content and users to engage with on their platforms. “After conducting a number of algorithm-related studies, Pew Research Center concluded, ‘Americans express broad concerns over the fairness and effectiveness of computer programs making important decisions in people’s lives.’ As we become aware of the society-wide significance of this influence, the lack of transparency regarding human bias and the use of algo

Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, requesting more information about reports that the FCC's Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) may be inappropriately dominated by industry insiders.

Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Doug Jones (D-AL) introduced the American Broadband Buildout Act of 2019 (ABBA), a bipartisan bill to ensure that rural Americans have access to broadband services at speeds they need to fully participate in the modern society and economy by directing the Federal Communications Commission to provide up to $5 billion in matching grants to help states improve broadband infrastructure. The American Broadband Buildout Act of 2019 would:

Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to Facebook urging the company to institute policy changes in light of evidence that third party game developers manipulated children into spending their parents’ money. Previous reporting by the Center for Investigative Reporting demonstrated that Facebook personnel had direct knowledge that children were spending large sums of their parents’ money on in-app purchases without parental knowledge or permission. New evidence now reveals that Facebook has still not instituted key policy changes to address this issue.