Nicole Brightbill, ex-U.S. Office of Special Counsel, joins the Consumer Product Safety Commission as chief counsel ... Cybersecurity firm Outpost24 appoints Ido Erlichman, previously Kape Technologies, as CEO ... Data protection company Commvault moves Chief Financial Officer Gary Merrill to chief commercial officer, new post; Jennifer DiRico, ex-Toast, replaces him, effective Aug. 12 ... Cybersecurity provider Becrypt appoints Gavin Newport, ex-7Technologies, as managing director ... Bruce Gordon, ex-GeoDigital, joins IoT provider Kore as executive vice president-chief operating officer ... Siyata Mobile names Robert Escalle, ex-Samsung, vice president-public safety ... Cellular security company OneLayer appoints Drew Ganther, previously Grip Security, as vice president-sales ... Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) elects Niels Fache, Keysight Technology; Hong Sok Choi, Sk-hynix; Juan Rey, Siemens; and Lluis Paris, TSMC, to board.

The FCC will hold a forum on direct video calling (DVC) and related issues July 30. The session will explore how government agencies can implement DVC, an internet service that allows communication between American sign language users without the need for a translator. The session will begin at 1 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room at FCC headquarters. The forum "features an overview of relevant Executive Orders regarding accessible Federal customer services ... and exhibits by DVC providers," the FCC said.

Officials with the 12 GHz for 5G Coalition remain hopeful that FCC action in coming months will allow use of the lower 12 GHz band for fixed-wireless deployments, they said in interviews. In addition, should the FCC act soon, the band could still play a part in some state proposals under the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, the officials said. The coalition had hoped for action early in 2024 (see 2312270045).

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency should narrow the scope of its proposed cyber incident reporting rules to ease the regulatory burden on industries already facing a multitude of state and federal mandates, USTelecom, NTCA and Microsoft said in comments that were due Wednesday in docket CISA-2022-0010 (see 2403270070).

Courtney Hjaltman, ex-Texas Office of Public Utility Counsel, sworn in as Texas public utility commissioner; Gov. Greg Abbott (R) appointed her last week ... Internet Society Foundation appoints Chris Locke, Caribou Digital founder, as executive vice president-managing director ... BMNT Partners consultancy taps Maria Tranquilli, ex-Mission Acceleration Center, to lead its Common Mission Project, nonprofit hacking education initiative ... Midwest Energy & Communications promotes Terry Rubenthaler, effective Oct. 1, to president-CEO, succeeding Robert Hance, retiring in September ... Tredence, data science and AI provider, promotes Rekha Nair to chief human resources officer ... Lightmatter, photonic computing firm, hires Simona Jankowski, ex-Nvidia, as chief financial officer ... Comcast promotes Javier Garcia to senior vice president-sales and marketing-central division ... Pia, automation platform for managed service providers, appoints CoderPad’s Molly Lindsay as vice president-marketing.

Back and forth arguments to the FCC on whether the FirstNet Authority should have effective control of the 4.9 GHz band appear to be heating up. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel last week to oppose a proposal that "wrest[s] control of the 4.9 GHz band from local public safety agencies and give[s] it to FirstNet and, in turn, AT&T,” a filing posted Monday in docket 07-100 said. This “proposed spectrum giveaway would disrupt the competitive marketplace for public safety and commercial wireless use,” Verizon said. It would give AT&T access to 50 MHz of mid-band spectrum “valued at over $14 billion and available for commercial use” and “would result in a substantial windfall, particularly at a time when the Commission and other policymakers are working to develop a pipeline for mid-band spectrum,” the carrier said. In a filing posted Monday, the National Sheriffs’ Association shared with the FCC its CEO Jonathan Thompson's recent blog that opposed giving the spectrum to FirstNet. “For more than two decades, we in public safety have been able to use the 4.9 GHz band to serve our local needs,” Thompson wrote: “It’s available for us to use as we need and see fit, and not part of a nationalized process controlled by a central authority that can only provide a limited set of basic, quasi-commercial AT&T products to choose from.” The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) supported giving FirstNet use of the band. “Public safety has spoken loud and clear in the 4.9 GHz proceeding … calling for FirstNet to have unfettered access to the band,” said a letter from Executive Director Dwayne Crawford. NOBLE wants “to be clear that organizations that claim to represent thousands of law enforcement CEO’s across the United States and do not support our commitment to fully incorporating the 4.9 GHz band into the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network do not represent our organization.”

The First Amendment protects social media platforms’ ability to moderate content, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday, sending the tech industry’s lawsuits against Florida and Texas laws back to the lower courts (see 2402270072). All nine justices agreed on remanding, but Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch disagreed with First Amendment-related aspects of the majority opinion, which Justice Elena Kagan wrote (dockets 22-555 and 22-277).

Tucows hires Verizon’s Ivan Ivanov as chief financial officer, effective Aug. 5, to succeed departing Dave Singh ... Infleqtion, quantum information company, taps Pat Tang, ex-IonQ and former Amazon Lab12, as chief engineering officer ... S&P Global promotes Martina Cheung to president-CEO, effective Nov. 1, succeeding Douglas Peterson, remaining on board until May, then becoming special adviser until year-end 2025; also adds Cheung to board ... Kane Infrastructure Services, tech infrastructure provider, hires Gilbert Romo, ex-IES Communications, as chief revenue officer ... Ironclad, digital contracting platform, taps Michel Feaster, ex-Qualtrics, as chief product officer ... KittyHawk, tech investment firm, adds venture capitalist Alexandra Peterson as a partner ... Red River, tech transformation company, promotes Sara Siddiqui to vice president-strategic partnerships.

The FCC’s rechartered Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council on Friday held the first meeting of its cycle at FCC headquarters. The meeting was organizational and offered little substance. CSRIC will focus on AI and 6G with three working groups (see 2406100047). And it will consider “how can we harness AI for good … while also preventing and mitigating harms associated with the use of AI,” Public Safety Bureau Chief Debra Jordan said. Another focus is next-generation 911, Jordan said. “In the future, consumers will have an increasingly wide range of wireless devices that can transmit 911 calls over a variety of networks -- you will examine how to best ensure people can call for help across these expanding platforms and options and in the next-generation 911 environment,” she said. Moreover, CSRIC will develop a plan “for more secure and reliable 6G networks and services that minimize risks,” she said. It feels like 5G is just getting started, “but we want to be forward-looking,” Jordan added. Sanford Williams, an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, said, AI “has swiftly transitioned from a futuristic concept to an integral part of our daily lives, from voice assistance … to advanced machine learning algorithms predicting consumer behavior.” Williams added, “AI is literally everywhere.” He played for CSRIC members the deepfake President Joe Biden political robocall that was featured during the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee Wednesday (see 2406260041). Williams noted that Biden’s executive order on AI (see 2310300056) delegated several tasks to the FCC, including examining the potential for AI “to improve spectrum management, increase the efficiency of non-Federal spectrum usage and expand opportunities for the sharing of non-Federal spectrum.” The order instructed the FCC to consider use of AI for improving network security, resiliency, and interoperability through next-generation technologies including self-healing networks, 6G, and open radio access networks, Williams said. FCC staff need help from industry experts in all CSRIC's areas of study, he said. In brief remarks, Rosenworcel thanked members for agreeing to serve on CSRIC. "It will be hard to surpass the last CSRIC’s work on 5G network security and mitigating the vulnerabilities of software in cloud services, but I think you’re up to the challenge,” Rosenworcel said. CSRIC co-Chair Billy Bob Brown from the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the world has never faced greater cyber risks. “I believe we face the greatest challenge of our generation -- an existential challenge -- but I also have hope.” CSRIC is expected to next meet Sept. 27.

The statute authorizing the federal TikTok ban -- the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act -- is unconstitutional, and it isn’t even “a close case,” four professors’ amicus brief said Thursday (docket 24-1113), urging that the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit reject it.