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Responding to a Pentagon report, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) said the White House should put China's alleged cyberattacks against U.S. government computer systems first on the list of issues to discuss in its next bilateral meeting with Beijing.
"We should make this a bilateral issue between us and China, and in any discussion moving forward we should have three issues we talk about with them before we talk the first trade issue: [It] should be cyber, cyber, and cyber and that's where we need to go," Chairman Rogers said. "If we don't elevate this problem, they're going to continue their bad behavior because to date there's been no consequence." He said the Pentagon report's findings "may be the biggest open secret in the world, but it clearly shows the aggressiveness and sophistication of nation-state hackers and it is concerning."
House Intel chairman urges White House to elevate cyber talks with China
Sen. John McCain (R-AR) introduced legislation, the Television Consumer Freedom Act, aimed at pressuring cable and satellite TV providers to allow their customers to pick and choose the channels they pay for.
Cable companies usually require customers to purchase a tier or bundle of channels. The system means that consumers often have to pay for dozens of channels just to gain access to the few they watch. “This is unfair and wrong — especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of industry and against the American consumer," Sen McCain said. The legislation would void a copyright benefit for cable providers that insist on bundling their channels. The punishment would create legal headaches for cable companies when they try to offer local broadcast stations. The bill would also put regulatory pressure on media companies to grant cable providers the right to offer their programming "a la carte." McCain's legislation would repeal the sports blackout rule for events that take place in publicly financed stadiums. Leagues use the rule to block viewers from watching their local team on TV to encourage them to buy tickets to see the game live. His bill would pull the broadcast licenses of TV stations that move their programming to cable channels.
Sen McCain takes aim at 'unfair' cable TV bundles Sources: A La Carte Bill Includes Aereo-Friendly Provision (B&C) Congress eyes rising cable TV prices (The Hill)
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), the Ranking member of the House Communications Subcommittee, has asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of usage-based wired and wireless broadband pricing.
Rep Eshoo wants to know how widespread usage-based pricing is, the rationale behind imposing data caps, how tier prices are determined, how they change in response to Internet usage, how much data the average wired and wireline customer uses monthly, how they are notified about usage, whether prices vary according to competition, the cost difference between the amount of downloads and what complaints the FCC and FTC have received about usage-based pricing.
Rep Eshoo Seeks GAO Study of Usage-Based Pricing
Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen said he could end up putting the entire satellite TV company up for sale if he lost his battle with Japan's SoftBank Corp to buy Sprint Nextel Corp. Or he could take on a bidding partner or even sell some non-core Dish assets to pay down debt if a bidding war with Softbank became too pricey.
Ergen could end up selling Dish if he doesn't win Sprint
Charlie Ergen, the mercurial chairman of satellite TV provider Dish Network, said that he would prefer to work with incumbent televisions players to continue a dual-stream revenue model rather than striking up a new partnership with upstart mobile-TV company Aereo.
“We admire what [Aereo is] doing. We indirectly get a benefit as it puts downward pressure on retransmission consent fees. But all things being equal, we’d prefer to work with the broadcasters,” he said. “The broadcasters are equipped to do something themselves. We’re more likely to work with existing partners.” The rhetoric is part of a complicated dance between pay TV providers, including Dish, and content owners over the spiraling cost of programming; in this struggle, services like the Hopper and Aereo have become a source of leverage for Dish. Ergen repeated his call for smaller cable “bundles” and more a la carte offerings.
Dish’s Ergen: we prefer working with broadcasters over Aereo
Reps Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Jared Polis (D-CO) have introduced the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, a bill that would explicitly legalize cell phone unlocking as well as modify the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to clarify that unlocking copy-protected content is only illegal if it's done in order to "facilitate the infringement of a copyright." If a circumvention technology is "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of facilitating noninfringing uses," that would not be a violation of copyright. Lofgren's bill attracted enthusiastic support from activists and advocacy groups.
Members of Congress finally introduce serious DMCA reform
While tech gadgets have been touted to make the workforce more flexible and collaborative, they also may be contributing to a decline in workplace etiquette, a new survey suggests.
A survey of more than 2,300 CIOs in the United States by Robert Half Technology found that 64 percent believe the greater use of mobile tools such as cell phones and tablets has led to more breaches in workplace etiquette over the last three years. That’s up from 51 percent from 2010, the last time Robert Half conducted the survey.
Are Tech Gadgets Killing Workplace Etiquette?
[Commentary] Today, the U.S. labor movement is at a critical crossroads, presented with opportunities to elevate local and national workers' fights. In several recent moments of struggle in the United States, collaborations between the labor movement and the media justice movement - independent journalists, policy advocates, and grassroots organizers have begun to emerge. But recent experiences have made clear that these collaborations need to deepen for both movements to grow stronger.
On a teleconference panel hosted by Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) and the Media Mobilizing Project this past February labor organizers in union and nonunion workplaces, media producers, and media policy experts shared recent organizing experiences like Wisconsin with each other. A conclusion from the call we could not ignore is that the larger labor movement is facing an unprecedented attack to roll back the gains and victories that have improved the lives of working people in exchange for deeper corporate profits. To fight back this corporate agenda, which has used the U.S. media system as a central pillar, the labor movement can and must challenge, transform and wield the media system and media policy to advance the struggle for working-class people's dignity and rights. This includes building community-owned media alternatives, such community broadband networks, low power FM radio stations, or public access TV stations. Outlets such as these allow organized labor to bypass the corporate media system, allowing their rank-and-file members to communicate directly with the community and build real solidarity through deepening communications strategy. Beyond this, organized labor has an immediate stake in winning media policies that close the digital divide, keep the Internet open and broaden access to the communication platforms that allow workers to organize and exchange ideas.
Toward a New Front of Labor Struggle: Media Rights and Access for a 21st Century Labor Movement
The Obama Administration took groundbreaking new steps to make information generated and stored by the Federal Government more open and accessible to innovators and the public, to fuel entrepreneurship and economic growth while increasing government transparency and efficiency. The actions—including an Executive Order signed by the President and an Open Data Policy released by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy—declare that information is a valuable national asset whose value is multiplied when it is made easily accessible to the public. The Executive Order requires that, going forward, data generated by the government be made available in open, machine-readable formats, while appropriately safeguarding privacy, confidentiality, and security. The move will make troves of previously inaccessible or unmanageable data easily available to entrepreneurs, researchers, and others who can use those files to generate new products and services, build businesses, and create jobs.
Along with the Executive Order and Open Data Policy, the Administration announced a series of complementary actions:
- A new Data.Gov. In the months ahead, Data.gov, the powerful central hub for open government data, will launch new services that include improved visualization, mapping tools, better context to help locate and understand these data, and robust Application Programming Interface (API) access for developers.
- New open source tools to make data more open and accessible. The US Chief Information Officer and the US Chief Technology Officer are releasing free, open source tools on Github, a site that allows communities of developers to collaboratively develop solutions. This effort, known as Project Open Data, can accelerate the adoption of open data practices by providing plug-and-play tools and best practices to help agencies improve the management and release of open data. For example, one tool released today automatically converts simple spreadsheets and databases into APIs for easier consumption by developers. Anyone, from government agencies to private citizens to local governments and for-profit companies, can freely use and adapt these tools starting immediately.
- Building a 21st century digital government. As part of the Administration’s Digital Government Strategy and Open Data Initiatives in health, energy, education, public safety, finance, and global development, agencies have been working to unlock data from the vaults of government, while continuing to protect privacy and national security. Newly available or improved data sets from these initiatives will be released today and over the coming weeks as part of the one year anniversary of the Digital Government Strategy.
- Continued engagement with entrepreneurs and innovators to leverage government data. The Administration has convened and will continue to bring together companies, organizations, and civil society for a variety of summits to highlight how these innovators use open data to positively impact the public and address important national challenges. In June, Federal agencies will participate in the fourth annual Health Datapalooza, hosted by the nonprofit Health Data Consortium, which will bring together more than 1,800 entrepreneurs, innovators, clinicians, patient advocates, and policymakers for information sessions, presentations, and “code-a-thons” focused on how the power of data can be harnessed to help save lives and improve healthcare for all Americans.
Obama Administration Releases Historic Open Data Rules to Enhance Government Efficiency and Fuel Economic Growth Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information (Executive Order) Landmark Steps to Liberate Open Data (White House blog) White House to release 'vast' troves of data from federal agencies (The Hill) White House Orders Agencies to Follow New Open Data Standards (nextgov) Obama orders agencies to make data open, machine-readable by default (ars technica) The White House opens the data floodgates, and now the real work will begin (GigaOm) FCC moves to speed up in-flight Internet (The Hill)
The nation’s largest service providers would like to see regulations governing local phone service relaxed – and as data compiled by the National Regulatory Research Institute illustrates, AT&T has been particularly active on this front.
Twenty-five states limited or eliminated public service commission oversight of local telecom service between 2006 and the first quarter of 2012, including 16 in states where AT&T is the dominant local carrier, one Verizon state, five CenturyLink states and three Fairpoint states, according to the NRRI. Another nine states, primarily AT&T states, have legislation pending, said Sherry Lichtenberg, principal of the NRRI, who presented the data on a webcast yesterday organized by broadband association USTelecom, whose members include large telcos. It’s not surprising that AT&T has been so active in pursuing telecom deregulation, as the company wants to phase out its traditional voice network but may be prevented from doing so in some states until the states are deregulated. Telecom deregulation has occurred in two separate waves. Initial legislation focused on getting rid of some elements of the carrier of last resort concept, which traditionally required telcos to make phone service available to anyone in their territories who wanted it. Some states also re-defined home phone service. More recently telecom legislation has had a different focus – and states that already passed bills are already looking at updates. The bills state, ‘Thou shalt not touch VoIP or IP-enabled services even if we haven’t defined them yet.’
AT&T Spearheading State-Level Deregulation