FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will venture to Capitol Hill next month amid a fierce debate surrounding the government push to force Apple to unlock one of its devices and ongoing consideration of whether and how to tweak the wiretap law known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) as a way to address broader encryption concerns. Hill observers expect Wheeler to get questions about CALEA and the FCC’s perspective on tweaking it, a topic that also came up during a November oversight hearing following the deadly attacks in Paris.
Russia export controls and sanctions
The use of export controls and sanctions on Russia has surged since the country's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and especially its invasion of Ukraine in in February 2022. Similar export controls and sanctions have been imposed by U.S. allies, including the EU, U.K. and Japan. The following is a listing of recent articles in Export Compliance Daily on export controls and sanctions imposed on Russia:
CTA sides with Apple in its refusal to comply with a court order requiring the company to help the FBI unlock an iPhone 5c used by one of the attackers in the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California (see 1602170068), CTA said in a Thursday statement, making it the second major tech association to weigh in on the controversy. On Wednesday, the Information Technology Industry Council released a statement expressing "worry about the broader implications both here and abroad of requiring technology companies to cooperate with governments to disable security features, or introduce security vulnerabilities into technologies.”
Technology and Internet industry groups urged the U.S. to continue promoting IP protection among its trading partners, and identified countries that violate existing IP obligations or fail to provide "fair and equitable" market access, in comments filed with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and made public Monday. Stakeholders submitted comments to the USTR in response to the agency's request for written responses to its Special 301 report (see 1602080061), which is meant to "identify countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection." Commenters also warned of both active and proposed rules by certain global competitors that limit cross-border data flows and encourage digital protectionism.
Trademark holders said some countries don't protect U.S. copyright, and the International Intellectual Property Alliance, which includes MPAA and RIAA, said the U.S. Trade Representative's office should resume classifying Ukraine as a priority country for not protecting U.S. IP. In the filings we were able to get in the runup to last Friday's deadline for comments to USTR, the Trademark Working Group, while not recommending the office add countries to the priority countries list, said Argentina, Brazil, India, the Philippines and Malaysia -- which TWG called the “slows” -- regularly fail to adjudicate oppositions and cancelations in a “reasonable period of time.” IIPA, in comments it released Friday said Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam should be added to USTR's priority watch list. Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Mexico, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates should go on the regular watch list. IIPA members also include the Association of American Publishers, Entertainment Software Association and Independent Television & Film Alliance. Last week's Trans-Pacific Partnership signing was "a timely reminder of the valuable role our government plays in promoting U.S. economic interests abroad, and of the need to seek enforceable commitments from key trading partners to remove impediments to legitimate marketplaces," said IIPA Counsel Steven Metalitz in a news release. "TPP holds the potential to make a critical contribution, along with other trade agreements and Congressionally mandated reviews like the Special 301 Report, to this market-opening drive.” Monday, USTR posted about 30 public comments. The next issue of this publication will report on what tech groups like the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Internet Association and others said.
Congressional scrutiny of retiring ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé’s involvement with the controversial Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (WIC) heightens the need for ICANN to select and announce Chehadé’s successor, while the controversy's potential effect on U.S. government approval of the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition is less clear, said ICANN stakeholders in interviews. GOP presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and two other senators jointly sent a letter to Chehadé Thursday questioning Chehadé’s plan to become co-chairman of a high-level WIC advisory committee, and what compensation he will be receiving for that role, in a bid to determine whether his decision to take on a role at WIC while still ICANN CEO is a conflict of interest (see 1602040061).
GOP presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and two other senators who have been skeptical about the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition raised concerns Thursday about retiring ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé's involvement with the controversial Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (WIC). Chehadé agreed to become the co-chairman of a high-level advisory committee to WIC after his planned March departure from ICANN, along with planned roles as a senior adviser to Abry Partners and World Economic Forum Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab. Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at WIC's December conference in Wuzhen, China, supporting allowing countries to “independently choose their own path of cyber development,” raising concerns among pro-multistakeholder Internet governance stakeholders (see 1512180049 and 1512290044).
“That will end, and that will end immediately,” promised GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz of Communications Act Title II net neutrality rules, in a video unveiled last week by Protect Internet Freedom. “It’s been regulation-free,” the Republican Texas senator said of the Internet. “[President Barack] Obama is salivating to regulate the Internet.” He said the FCC now claims the authority to regulate pricing and terms of sale, despite FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler saying he has no intention to regulate broadband pricing. “If they succeed in this, anyone who wants to innovate has to go to government regulators to get permission to launch some new website, to do something novel on the Internet,” Cruz said. “That is lunacy.” He again blasted net neutrality as “Obamacare for the Internet” and called the order “a disaster.” Last month, Protect Internet Freedom posted videos of two other GOP presidential contenders -- Carly Fiorina and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. -- blasting the order (see 1512180046). The Obama administration is “trying to hand over control of the Internet to what they call an international body of stakeholders, such paragons of free speech as Russia and China,” Cruz said, referring to Internet governance. He compared the Internet governance transition to President Jimmy Carter's giving away, as Cruz phrased it, the Panama Canal. “We will keep the Internet entirely free of regulations, entirely free of taxes,” Cruz said of his possible presidency. “Leave the Internet free and open for the American people.”
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his staff offered the U.S. perspective on net neutrality at a workshop that was part of last week’s plenary session of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), said outgoing BEREC Chairwoman Fátima Barros during a public briefing on the plenary Wednesday. The briefing was streamed from Brussels.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler reassured the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee about their concerns about the use of Russia’s GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) to improve 911 location accuracy. They wrote to Wheeler Sept. 18 about concerns from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. “Having reviewed that response and the detailed [classified] analysis provided by the DNI, we write today to ask that the Commission end its consideration of any proposal that would create reliance on the undependable GLONASS system or dependency on any system in the control of the kleptocracy run by Russia's Vladimir Putin,” the lawmakers told Wheeler, warning of possible vulnerabilities. “We urge you to obtain the Director's classified response and ensure that the full Commission is briefed on it and other related classified threat briefings.” Wheeler has “reached out to Director Clapper to get a better understanding of the intelligence community's concerns about the use of GLONASS signals in addition to GPS signals for 911 location purposes,” Wheeler replied in a Nov. 10 letter to subcommittee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and ranking member Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., that was released Tuesday. “We will work closely with our federal partners, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Defense, in assessing available technological approaches to improving emergency response efforts.”
Zero-rating concerns haven't gone away, despite EU agreement on net neutrality rules, said industry and public interest commentators in interviews. That split also was clear during a Nov. 11 European Parliament plenary debate. While many lawmakers said zero rating is good for consumers, subject to monitoring by national telecom regulators to ensure net neutrality, others criticized colleagues, governments and the European Commission for failing to take explicit action against it. That prompted an angry retort from Digital Economy & Society Commissioner Günther Oettinger.