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A bipartisan group of House lawmakers wants to make more space for Wi-Fi. Four legislators are introducing a companion bill to a Senate effort that would call for the Federal Communications Commission to study how certain bands of the nation’s airwaves can be set aside for wireless machines like tablets and laptops as well as garage door openers and other devices.

Together, lawmakers say they want to clear the way for future technologies. Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA) said, “The Wi-Fi Innovation Act will make available the spectrum necessary to support the best new inventions and the jobs and prosperity these new discoveries will foster.” Rep Issa was joined on the bill by Reps Anna Eshoo (D-CA) Bob Latta (R-OH) and Doris Matsui (D-CA).

A group of security experts is encouraging the US agency tasked with creating technological security standards to reevaluate its relationship with the National Security Agency. T

he group said the National Institute of Stadards and Technology (NIST) should not defer to the NSA given reports that the NSA deliberately weakened encryption standards created by NIST.

The House approved a proposal to prohibit funding for the Federal Communications Commission to implement regulations preempting state laws on Internet access.

Rep Blackburn (R-TN) said her amendment to the fiscal 2015 Financial Services appropriations bill that would keep regulators from modifying state laws would limit federal overreach. Rep. José Serrano (D-NY) -- the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Financial Services subcommittee -- said the amendment would have the opposite effect.

"Whatever happened to localism or local control? This amendment means the federal government will tell every local citizen, mayor, and county council member that they may not act in their own best interests," Rep Serrano said. "Any such amendment is an attack on the rights of individual citizens speaking through their local leaders to determine if their broadband needs are being met."

AT&T and Comcast don’t want local governments creating Internet networks for their taxpayers. Such networks are “poorly run and ultimately bankrupt,” Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said.

Testifying at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on video competition, Cohen and AT&T Senior Executive Vice President John Stankey pushed back on pressure to let local governments create Internet networks, despite state laws that often ban them.

When pressed by community-broadband supporter Sen Ed Markey (D-MA), Cohen said that local governments should be allowed to create Internet networks, but Comcast “will advocate at the municipal government level that we think this is a mistake.”

House Republicans are pushing the Senate to delay the Obama Administration's plan for relinquishing America's oversight role over the Internet. Rep Greg Walden (R-OR) touted a House Republican bill that could pump the brakes on the Commerce Department’s plans to step back from its oversight role of the Internet’s Web address system and encouraged the Senate to take up the bill.

Rep Walden talked up the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters Act (DOTCOM Act), a bill from Rep John Shimkus (R-IL) that would require a congressional study before the administration could continue with its planned Internet oversight shift.

Lawmakers in Congress need to step up to the plate and protect US cyber networks, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said.

New legislation allowing companies to share information with each other and the government while still providing “important liability protection” is needed to ensure that banks and other major networks stay safe from hackers, Secretary Lew said. “Our cyber defenses are not yet where they need to be,” he said. “Cybersecurity must be ongoing, and by working together -- all of us -- we will meet this test.”

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) would allow people’s personal information to be shuttled to agencies like the National Security Agency, critics fear. In the past, President Obama has threatened to veto similar bills that did not do enough to protect people’s information.

The US Copyright Office is asking the public to weigh in on what the Supreme Court’s ruling on streaming TV service Aereo means for the future of copyright law.

The office “is interested in commenters’ views regarding the Supreme Court’s opinion in Aereo and how that opinion may affect the scope of the rights of making available and communication to the public in the United States,” it said. Specifically, the office asked how June’s 6-3 decision affects “unauthorized filesharing,” the right to make content available and other aspects of copyright law.

The Copyright Office will be accepting comments from the public for 30 days.

A bipartisan trio of lawmakers wants to know why people can’t sign more federal government forms electronically. Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sen John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) wrote to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker asking for an update on what the government is doing to get rid of wasteful and redundant paper signatures.

“The acceptance of electronic documents has become a cornerstone of Internet commerce and is vital to our country’s economy,” they wrote. “We are concerned about the extent of the adoption of electronic signatures within the federal government.”

Privacy advocates are dusting off a months-old campaign to block cybersecurity legislation that they warn would send too much personal information into government hands.

After failing to prevent a similar bill from passing through the House in 2013, advocates now want to make sure that the Senate can’t finish the job and send the bill to the president’s desk.

Regulators are establishing new rules requiring closed captions for online video clips. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously Friday to approve the rules from Chairman Tom Wheeler.

Chairman Wheeler repeated a pledge he made at another closed captioning vote earlier this year.

“This is just the beginning in dealing with our responsibility to make sure that individuals with special needs are in the front of the technology train, not the back of the technology train,” he said.

The vote sets requirements for online video clips that have aired on television with closed captions, mimicking current requirements for full-length online videos that originally were broadcast with captions on television. The new requirements apply to video distributors like broadcasters and cable and satellite companies. Under the 2010 Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, the FCC has the authority to require closed captions for online videos.