Silicon
Valley will soon have to decide whether to continue to seek
comprehensive immigration or settle for piecemeal legislation. A cohort
of 30 Republicans failed to convince House Speaker John Boehner to
support an online sales tax—but he did promise to revisit the issue
early next year. Sen. Dianne Feinstein plans to introduce drone
legislation to ensure safety protections are properly enforced, and
President Obama gave shout-outs to patent reform and cybersecurity
legislation as workable priorities in 2015.
TOP NEWS
TECH MAY DITCH PUSH FOR COMPREHENSIVE BILL:
With Republicans about to take control of the Senate, comprehensive
immigration reform is dead for the foreseeable future. Republicans are,
however, signaling they may pass piecemeal legislation that helps U.S.
businesses—so long as it doesn't give a path to citizenship to the
millions of people already in the country illegally.
Now
Silicon Valley companies will have to make a decision: Will they push
for legislation that advances their interests even if it leaves poor
immigrants behind? (Sasso, NJ)
ONLINE SALES TAX DEAD—FOR NOW:
A last-ditch push by about 30 Republicans to convince House Speaker
John Boehner to allow lame-duck action on an online sales-tax measure
failed
Wednesday, but those attending the closed meeting said he is promising to revisit the issue early next year.
"We had a
robust discussion, and everybody knows how everybody feels," said GOP
Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas as he exited the meeting, which he'd
organized. Womack has taken the lead in the House on pushing for action
on such a bill.
Rep.
Mark Amodei of Nevada said there was a promise that the issue will be
considered early next year, he believed as early as February. A Boehner
spokesman had no comment on the meeting. (House/Sasso, NJ)
FEINSTEIN PLANS TO INTRODUCE DRONE LEGISLATION:
The senator from California sent a letter to FAA administrator Michael
Huerta alerting the agency of her intention to unveil legislation soon
that would "codify and expand the moratorium on private drone use
without specific authority from the FAA that is already in place."
Feinstein, long a drone skeptic, also asked Huerta to ensure safety laws
are being enforced, a request that comes just a week after media
reports revealed that drones have been involved in 190 "near miss"
incidents with aircraft this year.
"It is
clear we have a serious potential safety problem which could cause a
serious threat to life," Feinstein wrote. "Yet, very few of these
incidents resulted in FAA enforcement actions, according to reports,
even though the drones' operations appear to have been plainly illegal."
NEW COALITION TAKES ON COMCAST:
Opponents of Comcast's bid for Time Warner Cable are ramping up their
campaign to convince regulators to kill the deal. Dish Network, Public
Knowledge, Writers Guild of America West, and other groups launched the
"Stop Mega Comcast Coalition" on Wednesday.
"Allowing a single company to dominate 50% of our nation's broadband
wires is not only a recipe for disaster, but it also runs counter to our
antitrust and communications laws," Public Knowledge President Gene
Kimmelman said in a statement.
"There's
no real news here," Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said, claiming
that the arguments of the "special interest" groups have already been
discredited.
Also on Wednesday,
the FCC restarted the 180-day clock on its review of the merger, as
well as AT&T's bid for DirecTV. The agency had paused its review of
the deals because of disputes over access to confidential information.
OBAMA WANTS TO MOVE ON PATENT REFORM AND CYBERSECURITY IN 2015: President Obama ticked off a list of 2015 priorities during a brief presser Wednesday,
and he didn't forget to throw tech a few bones. After discussing the
usual desire to move on immigration and tax reform, Obama said during a
Q&A at the Business Roundtable headquarters that there are a few
issues he's hoping to jump on "that we haven't really talked about. ...
Patent reform, there's still more work to do there. Cybersecurity, an
area that is of great interest to a lot of people in this room."
Obama
has given nods to both issues before (notably calling for patent reform
during last year's State of the Union). But he indicated both could be
starting points for breaking Washington's gridlock as "areas that
shouldn't be ideological at all [or] don't require huge expenditures of
money."
TOP LINES
THE SONY HACK IS REALLY BAD:
The data dump includes employee criminal background checks, salary
negotiations, doctors' notes, and the script to an unreleased pilot
written by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. (Tora Gara and Charlie
Warzel, Buzzfeed)
SONY BLAMES NORTH KOREA:
The entertainment company and cybersecurity firm Mandiant have
determined the recent hack came from North Korea, possibly as
retribution for the upcoming film The Interview. (Arik Hesseldahl,
Re/code)
IBM'S NEW WAY OF FIGHTING EBOLA:
"IBM has teamed with scientists at Scripps Research Institute in
southern California on a project that aims to combine the power of
thousands of small computers, to each attack tiny pieces of a larger
medical puzzle that might otherwise require a supercomputer to solve."
(Brandon Bailey, AP)
TWITTER JOINS COMPTEL: The advocacy group also includes Netflix, Amazon, and a number of small and medium-sized network operators.
THE DAY AHEAD
- The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on sports blackouts with testimony from Sen. John McCain at 10:15 a.m.
- Republic 3.0 will hold a panel discussion on rewriting the Communications Act with former Rep. Rick Boucher at noon.
- The Georgetown University Law Center will hold a conference on the future of cybercrime beginning at 8:30 a.m.
- Sens. Kelly Ayotte, Brian Schatz, and Deb Fischer will speak at a Center for Data Innovation event on the Internet of things at 1 p.m.
- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller is set to give his farewell speech on the Senate floor at about 3 p.m.
- Brian Krebs will talk
about his new book, Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized
Cybercrime—From Epidemic to Your Front Door, at Politics and Prose at 7 p.m.
National Journal Group Inc. • The Watergate 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW Washington, DC 20037
No comments:
Post a Comment