The House passed the six-year FAA Reauthorization Act Friday 393-13, with language requiring a renewed ban on voice cellphone use on airplanes and several provisions aimed at the unmanned aerial vehicle industry. HR-4 would direct the Department of Transportation to issue regulations banning “an individual on an aircraft from engaging in voice communications” using a cellphone or other mobile device during flight. Flight crews, flight attendants and law enforcement officers would be exempted for duty-specific voice communications. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai earlier pulled the plug on a long-running proceeding to potentially relax rules on cellphone calls on commercial flights (see 1704100066). The Senate Commerce Committee approved similar language last year in an earlier version of FAA legislation (see 1706290024). HR-4 also includes provisions clarifying how wireless towers should be marked to protect low-flying aircraft. All covered towers would, within a year of enactment, be required to be “clearly marked consistent” with FAA 2015 guidance. “This clarification will protect the safety of low-flying aviation without imposing unnecessary regulations that would have impeded the deployment of next-generation wireless services and could have delayed access to mobile broadband across the country,” said Wireless Infrastructure Association President Jonathan Adelstein. HR-4's UAV language would in part accelerate creation of a “low-altitude unmanned aircraft traffic management system” and streamline the permitting process for all types of UAVs. It would expand the types of permissible UAV operations and require a DOT-led study aimed at identifying “any potential reduction of privacy specifically caused” by integration of UAVs into the national airspace system. The bill would direct the FAA to create a program to study the use of spectrum in civil aviation, including for UAVs. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Small UAV Coalition lauded passage.

The House Judiciary Committee scheduled a 10 a.m. hearing Thursday in 2141 Rayburn to discuss social media filtering and policing practices, following Republican concerns platforms like Facebook censor conservative content (see 1804120058). “Technology can be used to suppress a particular viewpoint and manipulate public opinion,” Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said. “I look forward to hearing from a wide variety of experts.” The committee invited Facebook, Google and Twitter to testify. The companies didn’t comment Friday. House Communications Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who prodded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the issue, is scheduled to appear. Diamond and Silk -- as Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, a pair of conservative social media personalities at the center of the controversy, are known -- are witnesses, with Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director Corynne McSherry and News Media Alliance CEO David Chavern. The hearing will focus on content moderation metrics, filtering decision-making and examples of censorship, said the committee.

Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., celebrated unanimous passage of the Hack the Department of Homeland Security Act (S-1281/HR-2774) in the Senate Tuesday. The bill would create a DHS “bug bounty pilot program” modeled after private sector and DOD efforts. The program would reward “ethical hackers to help identify unique and undiscovered vulnerabilities in the DHS networks and information technology.” Portman said such programs have shown “promising results” in government. Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Scott Taylor, R-Va., have introduced companion legislation.

After securing a Facebook endorsement for the Honest Ads Act, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked for support from Alphabet and Twitter Monday (see 1804060056). They asked the companies to follow Facebook’s example and voluntarily implement measures included in the legislation, which would regulate online political ads using the same rules as those for TV, radio and satellite TV. “As we saw in the 2016 presidential election, foreign actors can seek to influence the electorate without voters’ knowledge through online political advertising,” the lawmakers wrote. Twitter and Alphabet didn’t comment.

Bruce Springsteen, Outkast, the Beatles and Chuck Berry's estate were among 89 additional artists and groups pledging support for Congress to pass HR-3301 the Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service and Important Contributions to Society (Classics) Act (see 1803200050).

House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Gregg Harper, R-Miss., asked the Linux Foundation Monday for more information by April 16 on the cybersecurity “challenges and opportunities” the open-source software ecosystem “faces, and potential steps that OSS stakeholders may take to further support it.” OSS “is such a foundational part of the modern connected world that it has become critical cyber infrastructure,” the lawmakers said in a letter to Linux Executive Director Jim Zemlin. “The OSS ecosystem is more sustainable and more stable due to [recent] efforts, which directly increases the sustainability and stability of the cybersecurity of organizations that rely on OSS, as well. More work remains to be done, however. OSS adoption will continue to grow, making the sustainability and stability of the OSS ecosystem even more vital.” The House Commerce leaders cited the Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL cryptographic software, disclosed in 2014, which exposed user passwords (see 1404110031 and 1404110072). Heartbleed’s widespread impact “forced individuals and organizations outside of the information technology community to recognize what members within the community had long-known: software is no longer written, but assembled,” the lawmakers said. They asked Linux “how sustainable and stable” the OSS ecosystem is and whether its Core Infrastructure Initiative has performed a “comprehensive study of which pieces of OSS are most critical” to the global information infrastructure. Linux didn’t comment.

The House Digital Commerce Subcommittee scheduled a 10 a.m. Wednesday in 2123 Rayburn hearing on the tech industry’s impact on retailers. It said members are expected to discuss “how the proliferation of online shopping impacts supply chain and delivery, and how emerging technologies will help retailers improve the consumer experience.”

The House Rules Committee was to have considered Monday evening the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (HR-1865), setting up a planned Tuesday floor debate and vote. The committee will in part consider an amendment from Rep. Mimi Walters, R-Calif., to include language from the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (S-1693). Both bills would amend Communications Decency Act Section 230 to make it easier to bring criminal charges against websites that knowingly facilitate or promote sex trafficking. Some tech, privacy and open internet proponents have strongly favored HR-1865's existing language as a more targeted approach to curbing online sex trafficking (see 1801040050). Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., S-1693's lead sponsors, lauded Walters for seeking to add language from their bill to HR-1865. The additional provisions deserve "every member’s support," they said.

A handful of tech groups asked House lawmakers to delay considering “rushed” anti-sex trafficking legislation, slated for a vote Monday, arguing the law would ultimately harm victims. The Center for Democracy & Technology also criticized the bill, claiming it would “substantially expand” legal risks of hosting online speech, resulting in broad censorship. Lawmakers have an agreement (see 1802220043) for amending the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (HR-1865) to include language from the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (S-1693). The House bill has 174 co-sponsors. TechFreedom, Engine, FreedomWorks, Citizens Outreach, R Street Institute and the Committee for Justice wrote a letter calling SESTA’s language unworkable and warned against simply merging the two bills on the House floor. “Any new legislation should empower prosecutors and compensate victims without inadvertently discouraging responsible websites from helping to combat sex trafficking,” the groups wrote. TechFreedom released a separate statement Friday, again saying the legislation, as merged, would harm, not help, trafficking victims. SESTA would “upset a balance carefully struck by Congress in 1996 to ensure that the fear of liability does not discourage responsible websites from assisting in the fight against trafficking,” TechFreedom said. CDT’s Free Expression Project Director Emma Llansó said Thursday the reconciled bill combines the most expansive parts of SESTA and FOSTA, creating a “mashup of overlapping forms of federal and state criminal and civil liability for internet intermediaries.” Llansó said the legal risks from the new law could potentially put small firms out of business after one infraction, jeopardizing classified ad sites, dating apps, social media platforms and other hosts of user-generated content. “By including SESTA's expansion of existing federal anti-trafficking law, which links liability to knowledge of specific content, the House bill will actually discourage some platforms from engaging in good-faith moderation efforts,” CDT said. CTA President Gary Shapiro said Friday that “moving forward on a House vote without having a legislative hearing on the impact of the SESTA language is ill-advised.”

The House Oversight Committee’s Information Technology Subcommittee held the first of three hearings on artificial intelligence Wednesday, as Chairman Will Hurd, R-Texas, begins his push to keep the U.S. a leader in developing AI. Witnesses discussed potential uses, including infrastructure defense and analytical processes, and challenges for government adoption of AI. At the second hearing, scheduled for March, officials are expected to explain how agencies are adopting AI, Hurd said, and the third, set for April, will cover private and public sector roles. “We have allies and adversaries, both nation states and individual hackers, who are pursuing artificial intelligence with all they have because dominance in artificial intelligence is a guaranteed leg up in the realm of geopolitics and economics,” Hurd said in opening remarks, saying the end goal for the three-part series is for the U.S. to clearly understand what will be needed to remain an AI leader. Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence CEO Oren Etzioni said AI is neither good nor evil. “It’s a tool. It’s a technology,” he said. Intel Vice President-Chief Technology Officer Amir Khosrowshahi said AI is “poised to create tremendous economic value while solving some of society’s most pressing challenges, but governments must mitigate unwanted impacts.”