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A group of Democratic lawmakers is backing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler as he pushes for municipal broadband networks, despite state laws that may stand in the way.

“Communities are often best suited to decide for themselves if they want to invest in their own infrastructure and to choose the approach that will work best for them,” the lawmakers said. Signatories include Sen Ed Markey (D-MA), Reps Mike Doyle (D-PA), Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA).

Rather than being inhibited by state laws, “local communities should have the opportunity to decide for themselves how to invest in their own infrastructure,” including working with incumbent Internet providers, creating public-private partnerships and creating their own networks.

A coalition of privacy advocates have come out against a new Senate cybersecurity bill that critics say ignores the revelations about US surveillance. In a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, 22 privacy groups warned against taking up the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act.

That recently introduced bill from Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) would make it easier for companies to share information about cyber threats with each other and the government.

In their letter, the groups -- including the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- said the bill would allow for more information sharing with US intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA) despite public backlash over NSA surveillance. “Instead of reining in NSA surveillance, the bill would facilitate a vast flow of private communications data to the NSA.”

The Federal Communications Commission’s complex and highly anticipated 2015 airwave auction is “absolutely not a train wreck,” according to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

FCC Commissioner Clyburn said that the agency “must be vigilant” as it prepares for the first-of-its-kind auction in 2015. That auction will involve the agency purchasing airwaves from television broadcasters, repackaging those airwaves and then selling them to spectrum-hungry wireless companies looking to boost their cellphone networks.

Much of the attention surrounding the auction has focused on whether the FCC would limit how much spectrum certain wireless companies -- namely industry giants AT&T and Verizon -- can purchase through the auction. At its May open meeting, the FCC voted 3-2 to limit those companies’ participation.

The limitations were less than those originally proposed by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler after Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel pushed for lessened limits in the hopes of driving up the auction’s revenue, which will go toward funding a nationwide network for first responders.

On the other side of the auction, some are worried about the incentives TV broadcasters have to show up to the auction and sell their airwaves at all.

Rep Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) doesn’t see Congress moving a bill to protect consumer privacy anytime soon.

“We’re not doing that,” Rep Lofgren said.

Earlier in 2014, the Administration renewed previous calls by President Barack Obama for baseline consumer privacy legislation through its report on Big Data. That report -- initiated after the administration faced public backlash over government surveillance practices -- called on the Commerce Department to work with the private sector to develop legislative proposals.

Rep Lofgren said that there is no enthusiasm in Congress for such a bill at the moment. “Do you see any appetite to do that? No,” she said. That appetite might increase based on consumer reactions to evolving, and potentially privacy-threatening, technologies, she acknowledged. “Consumer reaction … will shape what goes on,” she said.

High-speed broadband Internet can be vital to gay, lesbian and transgender people struggling to understand their sexuality and gender identity, Rep David Cicilline (D-RI) said.

Rep Cicilline, who is gay and one of the co-chairs of the congressional LGBT caucus, said that the Web can be especially important for people in countries where homosexuality is illegal. He urged Congress to do what it could to allow as many people as possible to get online.

“It has particularly important significance... in places where gay and lesbian and bisexual people -- transsexual people -- live in dangerous, repressive conditions,” he said. “Access to the Internet may be the salvation for these individuals to connect and understand that there are other places to be, other people who are experiencing the same kind of challenges.”

A recent report from the LGBT Technology Partnership and Institute called for the government to ensure that computers at schools and libraries allow people to search for LGBT information, make more of the nation’s airwaves available for public use and make sure that people’s privacy is protected online, among other recommendations.

The Senate Judiciary Committee renewed a “must-pass” satellite television law that avoided changes to the way businesses negotiate to send TV programs into people’s homes.

Members of the panel said those types of discussions are best left to a broader overhaul of the nation’s communication laws. However, their reluctance to make broader reforms now could run into opposition from other lawmakers who have pledged to use the opportunity to enact change.

“I know a number of other telecommunications issues have been raised relative to this bill, but they are more appropriately handled in the context of a comprehensive communication law overhaul which the Commerce Committee is considering,” said Sen Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the panel’s top Republican. “In the meantime, I look forward to working with the chairman and the Commerce Committee in ensuring that satellite consumers, in particular those in rural areas who need the law to get their television signals, will continue to see those signals.”

Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is working on legislation to ban misleading and unfair cable and satellite television bills, and she’s looking to consumers for the worst offenders.

Sen McCaskill asked consumers to visit her website and log their complaints if “they have experienced deceptive, or confusing billing practices” from cable and satellite companies.

"Consumers in every corner of the country share common experiences about fending for themselves against confusing, deceptive billing practices by cable, satellite and other pay-TV companies-and I want to hear their stories," Sen McCaskill, chairwoman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, said.

The Supreme Court’s ruling that police need a warrant to search someone’s cellphone is a “wake-up call” for Congress to act on other kinds of digital privacy, Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said.

“The Supreme Court’s decision in US v. Wurie and Riley v. California is a wake-up call that we need to update our laws to keep pace with technological advances,” he said shortly after the high court’s unanimous ruling. “Just as the government must now obtain a warrant to look through the contents of our cell phones, I believe the same standard should apply when the government wants to look through our emails.”

Sen Leahy’s bill “updates our digital privacy laws to keep pace with new technologies, protect civil liberties, and provide guidance to law enforcers,” he said. “Congress should act swiftly to pass this bill and bring our privacy laws into the 21st Century.”

The top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee is pushing for Congress to overhaul the law governing the Internet, television and phone service. Sen John Thune (R-SD) said that the Senate would likely begin work to update the law in 2015, and seemed to shine on the notion that Republicans would have taken control of the upper chamber.

The Telecommunications Act outlines the authority of the Federal Communications Commission and sets the path for regulating phone, Internet and TV service. But it was written back in 1996, when dialup Internet allowing access to just a few thousand websites was still a luxury. “Back then, you had to pay for Internet by the hour and going online meant tying up your home phone line,” Sen Thune said.

Critics have said that the law created inefficient silos for different types of communications services such as television and the Web, which have posed problems for regulators dealing with modern technologies like broadband Internet. Some Democrats have urged the FCC to regulate the Web like phone service, but Republicans have rejected that view, which they warn would impose strict rules for Internet service providers and would limit its growth.

To settle the issue, Sen Thune said that Congress should make itself clear in a new law.

[Commentary] A year ago, President Barack Obama unveiled the ConnectED initiative, declaring that his goal was to connect virtually every school in the United States to high-speed Internet by the end of the decade.

A key piece of the Administration's plan is reforming the Federal Communications Commission's E-rate program, which subsidizes communications services for schools and libraries across the country.

Earlier in June, a diverse coalition of over 100 organizations from the education sector, technology, and business communities (including the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute and Education Policy Program) sent a letter to the FCC urging the agency to modernize and expand the E-rate program. The letter outlines a series of joint recommendations which include upgrading E-rate to provide schools and libraries not just with Internet connectivity but also sufficient capacity to use new digital learning tools; prioritizing funding to support both high-speed broadband to the premises and ubiquitous Wi-Fi connectivity over other, outdated technologies; incentivizing schools and libraries to purchase connectivity more efficiently; and simplifying the program to streamline the application process.

The letter also urges the FCC to set clear targets for connectivity moving forward, to improve data collection practices and program transparency, and to commit to reviewing E-rate's goals every four years. The proposed reforms would address some of these concerns but not all. Focusing on infrastructure investments is the key to E-rate's ability to meet the goal of providing a gigabit of capacity per 1,000 students by the end of the decade.

While Wi-Fi upgrades are needed so that students, teachers and library patrons can access the Internet on their individual devices, these improvements must be made in conjunction with significant investments in broadband infrastructure that increase overall capacity at their institutions.

[Kehl is a policy analyst; Morris is a senior policy counsel, for the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation]