A series of procedural moves by Senate leaders Tuesday generated a schedule that they say will set up a final vote on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) early next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed cloture on a substitute package for S-754 that contains an enlarged manager's amendment that, as expected (see 1510200073), contains the language from several of the amendments that had been included in the early August deal to move the long-stalled bill forward. The first cloture vote on the manager's amendment from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will occur Thursday unless Senate leaders can reach a deal on an alternative schedule for debating the manager's amendment and other amendments.
Jimm Phillips
Jimm Phillips, Associate Editor, covers telecommunications policymaking in Congress for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2012 after stints at the Washington Post and the American Independent News Network. Phillips is a Maryland native who graduated from American University. You can follow him on Twitter: @JLPhillipsDC
The Senate took steps Tuesday to return the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) to the floor. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters “it’s my plan to move to cybersecurity,” after the Senate voted on the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act (S-2146). The latter then failed to advance, on a 54-45 cloture vote. “We have an agreement to get on” S-754, McConnell told reporters. “We have a number of amendments in the queue.” McConnell suspended consideration of S-754 in August but reached a deal on a set of 22 amendments that would be considered once the bill returned to the floor (see 1510060046). McConnell was expected to re-file cloture on S-754 later Tuesday.
The Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) began broadcasting an ad Monday on Washington-area radio station WTOP and is circulating a video via YouTube supporting the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act amid continued interest in S-754’s prospects in the Senate. The U.S. “needs a team approach to fight this national security threat,” FSR said in its radio ad. CISA “is part of the solution. This bill would enable businesses and the government to voluntarily share cyberthreat information, not personal information, to better protect Americans from hackers. Tell the Senate, we need to pass CISA now. Hackers aren’t waiting, so why are we?” It remains unclear if S-754 will return to the Senate floor this week as the bill’s top supporters had hoped earlier this month (see 1510060046). Senate leaders may tee it up once the body votes as early as Tuesday on a bill prohibiting federal funding for sanctuary cities, an industry lobbyist said. Senate consideration of S-754 was previously delayed amid negotiations over condensing the original 22 amendments up for consideration. FSR and other financial services groups have strongly backed S-754. FSR and 13 other finance-related groups said in a joint letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee that passage of the bill “would be a significant step forward toward clarifying what is permissible and what is not and ensuring that the government and the private sector work more closely together to mitigate cyber threats.” Meanwhile, Wikimedia joined the tech entities that have begun publicly opposing S-754. Its policy division said via Twitter Sunday that “we believe in fighting for our users['] privacy and security,” while S-754 “endangers both.”
A possible compromise mechanism for enforcing proposed new ICANN community powers received increased attention during Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) sessions in the first days of ICANN’s Dublin meeting. The compromise “sole designator” model is being touted by supporters as a way to break a stalemate between backers of CCWG-Accountability’s original enforcement single member model and the ICANN board’s proposed “Multistakeholder Enforcement Mechanism” (see 1509140064).
Compromise negotiations on a proposed set of changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms are widely expected to dominate ICANN’s planned meeting in Dublin, with stakeholders telling us that other issues to be debated during the meeting have become secondary concerns amid a lack of consensus on accountability fixes linked to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition. The ICANN 54 meeting was set to officially begin Sunday, but preliminary meetings that began Friday included a Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) session to continue internal discussions on its ICANN accountability proposal.
Some of the transparency issues that the music industry currently faces can be solved via a neutral nongovernmental organization (NGO), but intervention by Congress and federal agencies may be necessary to solve the rest, said Berklee College of Music associate professor Allen Bargfrede during an interview Thursday for a future episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Bargfrede, executive director of the Berklee-sponsored Rethink Music project, led the writing of a July Rethink report that recommended that a nonprofit or other neutral consortium lead the development and administration of a decentralized, distributed music rights database in the absence of progress on government and industry-led efforts to create similar databases.
Former Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., called cyberwarfare the U.S.'s “greatest day-to-day threat,” during Tuesday night's Democratic presidential primary debate in response to a question about national security threats against the U.S. Webb noted the cyberthreat against the country as an example of strains in the U.S.-China relationship, noting recent incidents attributed to China like the Office of Personnel Management data breach. China doesn't “have the right to conduct cyberwarfare against tens of millions of American citizens,” Webb said. “In a Webb administration, we will do something about that.” Webb was the only candidate among those participating in the Democratic debate to mention cyberthreats as a top U.S. national security concern, while multiple candidates for the Republican nomination have called out China for its cyber tactics. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is also a candidate for the Democratic nod, and other Democratic contenders also debated NSA surveillance powers. “I'd shut down what exists right now … that virtually every telephone call in this country ends up in a file at the NSA,” Sanders said. “That is unacceptable.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended her earlier support for the Patriot Act but noted that she began opposing warrantless surveillance tactics after President George W. Bush's administration “began to chip away” at privacy and civil liberties protections. Both Clinton and Sanders said they believed former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks about NSA surveillance violated U.S. law but disagreed about how federal law enforcement should handle prosecuting Snowden.
ICANN is right to continue discussing how to change policies and procedures related to its generic top-level domains (gTLD) program ahead of a possible second round of gTLD applications, but those discussions remain in early stages and are unlikely to substantially advance in the near term, domain name stakeholders told us in interviews. ICANN has extended to Oct. 30 the public comment period on its preliminary report on future gTLD procedures. That report, prepared in response to questions raised by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Council, urged GNSO to proceed with policy development for subsequent rounds of new gTLD rollouts (see 1510050067).
House Judiciary Committee leaders said Tuesday that the committee is planning to hold two roundtable meetings next month in California as part of its ongoing Copyright Act review. House Judiciary is currently planning a Nov. 9 roundtable in Silicon Valley and a Nov. 10 roundtable in Los Angeles, said committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich. The meetings would follow up on House Judiciary’s Nashville copyright roundtable in late September, which focused on music licensing issues (see 1509220055). “We look forward to continuing the productive dialog that we had in Nashville,” said Goodlatte and Conyers in a joint statement. House Judiciary’s California meetings are likely to attract a wider variety of copyright stakeholders than the music-centric Nashville roundtable, but stakeholders told us that they anticipate that music licensing issues will remain an important focus even amid copyright issues affecting the film and TV industries.
Homeland Security Undersecretary-National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) Suzanne Spaulding and other department officials committed Wednesday to seek Congress's approval of any plan to reorganize NPPD. Spaulding told the House Homeland Security Committee's Cybersecurity Subcommittee that DHS “absolutely” plans to continue collaborating with lawmakers. House Cybersecurity Chairman John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, and other House Homeland Security members raised concerns Wednesday both about the outlines of DHS's communication with Congress about its reorganization work.