Good morning! Lawmakers will tackle a host of tech issues today as Congress gets back to business in earnest with a series of hearings on issues ranging from NASA to stuff straight out of "The Matrix."
The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity will hold a morning hearing on the threat posed by electromagnetic pulses, or EMPs, a concept that should be familiar to any fans of the futuristic sci-fi movie series. Meanwhile, the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness will hold an afternoon hearing on resilient communications.
The House Science Committee's Oversight Subcommittee will hold an afternoon hearing on the mismanagement of funds at the National Weather Service. That agency found itself in hot water after reprogramming some funds appropriated for equipment upgrades without Congressional approval.
The House Science Committee's Space Subcommittee will hold a morning hearing at Rayburn on NASA's space launch system and Orion Crew Capsule, two forward-looking projects that should eventually restore the agency's human spaceflight capability. On the Senate side, the full Senate Commerce Committee will hold an afternoon hearing focusing on NASA's exploration portfolio, from low-earth orbit to the surface of Mars.
Feinstein Pushes for FISA Vote Despite Liberal Opposition: Senate Intelligence chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is pushing her colleagues to take a House bill that would extend a 2008 law that allows the warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals. The House is expected to pass an extension (HR 5949) of the law through the end of 2017 this week. But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has placed a hold on the Senate bill (S 3276), while demanding more information on how the surveillance activities have affected American citizens. Feinstein would like to see her chamber take up the House bill, which has strong support from the White House but has drawn objections from Wyden and other liberal Democrats. House Votes to Extend FTC Authority to Combat Online Fraud: The House passed a bill (HR 6131) on Tuesday that would extend the Federal Trade Commission's authority to fight cross-border Internet scams and spyware. The FTC was granted those powers under a 2006 law set to expire next year. Under the new legislation, the FTC would be authorized to continue its actions through Sept. 30, 2020.“Today, with nearly 1.5 billion credit cards in use in the United States, nearly everyone in America has a stake in making certain that the Federal Trade Commission has the powers it needs to combat cross-border fraud, spam and spyware. The U.S. SAFE WEB Act is good for American consumers. It’s good for the future of e-commerce. And it sends an important signal to the rest of the world that online crooks — no matter where they’re located — will be tracked down and prosecuted. I urge the Senate to join the House and adopt this important bipartisan legislation.” — Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif.
House Endorses Alert System Grants: The House also passed a bill (HR 4305) on Tuesday that would authorize the Justice Department to issue grants to establish alert systems for recovering missing children and elderly and disabled people. The measure, which passed by voice vote, would also allow the grants to be used to improve the technology and provide training on the alert systems, which would generate phone calls in the first hours after the disappearance. Zuckerberg Acknowledges Disappointment in Facebook Stock Price: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his first public appearance on Tuesday since the company's poorly received IPO in May, acknowledging the "disappointing" performance of his company's stock. Zuckerberg said Facebook cares about its shareholders and indicated that the company's future on mobile platforms is promising. Zuckerberg's previous insistence that Facebook would not focus primarily on making money has been blamed partly for the stock's slide. He hedged that position Tuesday and indicated that he was not completely uninterested in increasing profits. Buoyed by his comments, the company's share price rose roughly 3 percent in after-hours trading. FCC Says Repacking Won't Significantly Diminish Coverage Area: One of the primary concerns about the FCC's upcoming spectrum auction is what will happen to stations that choose to relinquish their spectrum and take the money. According to one report, the FCC is claiming that stations that are repacked will generally lose less than 2 percent of their coverage area. The leak appears to be an attempt to assuage the concerns of local stations with interest in sharing spectrum rather than going out of business entirely. Those stations would presumably share channels with others that take up the FCC's offer as part of the reverse auction that will take place, likely in 2014.