COMMUNICATIONS & TECHNOLOGY - page 3

A spending bill set to be considered in the House on Wednesday is being loaded up by Republicans with provisions to neuter the Federal Communications Commission and the signature ruling it made last year. The latest GOP onslaught against the FCC and its Net Neutrality rules comes a week after a federal appeals court in Washington, DC upheld the regulations, which classified the internet as a public utility. The move was designed to prevent telecom companies from putting up barriers to non-proprietary content online. Internet industry titans are expected… Keep Reading

The telecoms industry’s legal assault on the Federal Communications Commission’s “Net Neutrality” rule has been momentarily halted. A ruling handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday upheld the FCC’s regulations. Finalized in early 2015, they reclassified service providers, and subjected them to new rules, in a bid to ensure equal treatment of online traffic. The commission’s Open Internet Order—perhaps the most significant progressive policy achievement of last year—was the culmination of years of grassroots organizing and agitating in response… Keep Reading

For the second time in two weeks, legislation to update a thirty-year old digital privacy law was yanked from consideration by a Senate panel—a sign that the bill, which passed the House 419-0, is dead in the upper chamber. The ECPA Amendments Act was slated to be marked up and voted on in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but its co-sponsors withdraw the measure after fellow senators continued efforts to weigh it down with controversial amendments. ECPA refers to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act—a… Keep Reading

A master database of taxpayer account information used by the Department of Treasury is stored on technology that is more than a half-century-old, according to an audit released by a federal watchdog. That’s just one example noted in a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report disclosed Wednesday on aging information technology systems still in use by federal agencies. GAO warned that such IT systems are growing increasingly obsolete, less secure, and more costly to maintain. Included among the aging infrastructure is a 53-year-old IBM computing system used… Keep Reading

Lawmakers made quick work of approving long-stalled legislation that enhances privacy protections for emails and digital documents stored in the cloud. Stagnant for years, the Email Privacy Act passed the House without opposition on Wednesday, less than two weeks after the body’s Judiciary Committee also approved the measure in a unanimous vote. The legislation would require the government to obtain a warrant before accessing an individual’s stored digital effects, updating a thirty-year old Reagan-era computer surveillance law. The 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) contained a… Keep Reading

The Obama administration conditionally approved Charter Communications’ bid to acquire Time Warner Cable, paving the way for a deal that would create one of the largest media companies in the country. Officials from the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission said on Monday that they wouldn’t stop the merger, if the companies agree to terms that would restrict their practices. Charter would become the second and third largest provider of internet and video, if a federal judge also approves of the deal. Comcast would still… Keep Reading

Long-awaited reforms requiring law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing emails and information stored on the cloud was affirmed by a key House panel on Wednesday. The Email Privacy Act passed the Judiciary Committee in a unanimous vote, in an ongoing initiative to update laws on computer surveillance passed during the Reagan administration. The 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) currently allows the government to read stored digital communications older than 180 days with only a court order—not a probable cause warrant. “To the investigators… Keep Reading

Federal law enforcement authorities may deny the link between strong encryption and data security, but critical government agency overseers won’t. In a report released Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) paid out more than $3 billion in 2014 to people who fraudulently requested tax returns. The tax-processing agency was vulnerable to these claims, in part, due to weak cyber security controls, GAO concluded. “Key systems we reviewed had not been configured to encrypt sensitive user authentication data,” the watchdog reported.… Keep Reading

The White House will reportedly not advocate for anti-encryption legislation about to make its way through Congress. The administration “remains deeply divided on the issue” sources told Reuters, and will provide “minimal public input, if any,” on a bill being worked on by leadership on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) plan to introduce their measure as early as next week. The proposal would give federal judges the power to order tech companies to break into cryptographically-secured information at the behest… Keep Reading