Report on past event

The Senate Commerce Committee held an oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission. Some highlights:

Despite strong opposition from the majority of the Federal Communications Commission, Republican lawmakers, and President Donald Trump, network neutrality advocates remain doggedly optimistic about the future of net neutrality in the United States. On a recent panel on the subject, Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) said, “Advocates need to lean in. The Congress is not a proactive institution.

Can Congress prevent the disproportionate harm inflicted on marginalized communities from at times irresponsible commercial data practices? As our lives increasingly shift online, so, too, have methods of discrimination—using individual data profiles—and our laws have been slow to keep up.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) raised concern at the Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing about the agency’s response to “major consumer problems,” suggesting the commission had been deferring to corporate interests when it comes to fixing things like “robocalls or widespread communications failures after disasters like Hurricanes Maria and Michael.” The criticism came days after the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau issued a report detailing “the unac

The Federal Trade Commission testified before the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce about its efforts to effectively protect consumers and promote competition, while anticipating and responding to changes in the marketplace.

Republicans led by Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) pilloried Facebook, Google and Twitter over allegations they censor conservative users and news sites online, threatening federal regulation in response to claims that Democrats long have described as a hoax.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere told the House Judiciary Committee that his network does not now include technology from Chinese Telecom Huawei, that a new T-Mobile-Sprint 5G network would not contain such tech, and that he would even help others try to clear their networks of the technology. That was just one of many pledges he was making to help sell lawmakers on his plan to buy Sprint.

The week of Feb 25 featured back-to-back privacy hearings on Capitol Hill to discuss principles for federal privacy legislation. Industry players that have fiercely lobbied against federal privacy legislation in years past are now suddenly calling on Congress to pass a comprehensive privacy bill. Here’s a quick look at what happened in each hearing and a few key takeaways. 

The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing a federal data privacy law -- and displayed the same political divide that appeared in a House hearing earlier in the week. Republicans and industry witnesses warned against a "patchwork" of potentially conflicting state privacy regimes, perhaps most notably the California privacy law that takes effect in 2020. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and various witnesses from the telecommunications and computer industries talked throughout about needing strong federal regulation, addressing concern that stronger state regulations

The House Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing on privacy showcased both the bipartisan call for federal legislation and the reason a bipartisan bill will be no slam dunk. Republican representatives talked about privacy, but also about the need to protect small businesses, the targeted-ad based internet economy, and talked up the wisdom of preempting state attempts to regulate privacy that veer into the feds lane.