September 2010

Lawmakers seeking to craft a comprehensive cybersecurity bill are growing increasingly frustrated with characterizations of their legislative efforts as providing the president with a "kill switch" for the Internet.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee approved a comprehensive cybersecurity bill in June, only to have it repeatedly criticized in the media as providing the president with the authority to shut down portions of the Internet in the event of an emergency. At the time, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of the bill's sponsors, said she was frustrated by what she views as a mischaracterization of the bill. At the heart of the issue is whether the president already has the authority to intervene in private-sector networks in the event of such an emergency. Sen Collins and other supporters of the bill contend the president has had that authority for some time under a little-known provision of the Communications Act passed one month after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Federal Communications Commission released translations of the National Broadband Plan's Executive Summary in six Asian and Pacific Islander languages -- Chinese (Simplified), Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Tagalog, and Samoan.

These translations represent an early step ­ but not our last step ­ in our efforts to reach out to AAPI populations about the power of broadband. Yesterday, the two of us were in Los Angeles, holding an outreach event in partnership with the California Public Utilities Commission, the Office of the California CIO, and the Asian-Pacific Chamber of Commerce, and talking to a crowd of community based organizations, small business owners, and consumers about what they can do to help bring broadband to all members of the Los Angeles community. We look forward to working with the Asian American community to make broadband access a reality for all Americans.

The National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship will have its first meeting at the Commerce Department Thursday hosted by Secretary Locke. The Council advises Sec Locke and the administration on key innovation and entrepreneurship issues and supports President Obama's innovation strategy by helping to develop policies that foster entrepreneurship and identify new ways to take great ideas from the lab to the marketplace to drive economic growth and job creation. Council members include successful entrepreneurs, investors, and university and non-profit leaders. Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution and co-founder of AOL; Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan; and Desh Deshpande, chairman of Sparta Group, A123 Systems and Sycamore Networks, among others, serve as the advisory council's co-chairs.

Text message campaigns involving short codes are considered one of the most basic forms of mobile marketing in the U.S., but until now they haven't been so simple to launch in Latin America.

Using short codes has required negotiating and coordinating text campaigns with multiple wireless carriers across different countries in a time-consuming, costly process. But a new initiative led by the U.S.-based CTIA and participating wireless operators including America Movil and Telefonica promises to streamline that process by providing marketers a centralized short code registry to obtain a single six-digit code that can be used for running a unified text campaign across the continent. The registry will be managed by CTIA, which will be responsible for all aspects of securing a short code including application, receipt, assignment and renewal or expiration.