Democratic and Republican House members asked the GAO to conduct a study of communications services on tribal lands. “We're deeply concerned by the lack of access to communications services in Tribal communities and the barriers this presents to education, public safety, and economic development,” said a Wednesday letter (http://1.usa.gov/1jzjym2) signed by Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., along with Reps. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Don Young, R-Alaska. They asked about efforts at various levels to collect data on communications availability, “including fixed and mobile broadband, wireline and wireless phone service, and radio and television broadcast service,” as well as programs that help in promoting the deployment of such infrastructure and service adoption. They also request a list of “challenges that exist to increasing telecommunications subscribership rates for residents on Tribal lands and recommendations for addressing those barriers.”

Industry groups, technology companies, civil liberties advocates and libertarian-leaning groups on Wednesday lauded the Email Privacy Act for reaching 218 co-sponsors, which gives it majority House support. HR-1852 would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to require a warrant to access all remotely stored electronic content. It’s a “significant milestone,” said Google Senior Privacy Policy Counsel David Lieber in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1oGb0le). Software and Information Industry Association Senior Director-Public Policy David LeDuc noted in a blog post that a “majority of the majority” supports the bill, with 136 Republicans backing it (http://bit.ly/1qdskvh). “This stands out as a bipartisan priority to level the playing field for protection of electronic communications,” LeDuc said. The bill’s original sponsors -- Reps. Jared Polis, D-Colo., and Kevin Yoder, R-Kan. -- have said they would like to skip any committee markup and pass the clean bill under suspension, which requires a two-thirds majority. “This legislation is critical to Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights,” said Katie McAuliffe, executive director of Digital Liberty for Americans for Tax Reform, a tax reduction advocate group that is a member of Digital 4th, a coalition of civil liberties and conservative groups. Getting majority sponsorship means “Americans’ electronic communications can be protected from unwarranted government intrusion,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which also belongs to the Digital 4th. Amending ECPA is a “top priority” for the Direct Marketing Association, said DMA Vice President-Government Affairs Rachel Thomas in a Wednesday blog post (http://bit.ly/1yj5jf5). “The consequence of this outdated provision in an important law has been to strip Internet users of basic rights.” Linda Moore, CEO of senior tech executive network TechNet, said in a statement that “ECPA is an obsolete piece of legislation that must be brought into the 21st century.” Google’s Lieber said ECPA makes outdated distinctions based on age of email. “An email may receive more robust privacy protections under ECPA depending on how old it is, whether it has been opened, and where it is stored -- while users attach no importance to these distinctions,” he said. “The Department of Justice itself has acknowledged that there is no principled reason for this rule.”

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) asked the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership to modify its bill reauthorizing the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, currently a two-page clean bill (S-2454) that doesn’t revamp the video market. But leaders should “add provisions that eliminate outdated regulatory schemes, such as retransmission consent agreements and must-carry provisions of the Cable Act of 1992,” CCAGW President Thomas Schatz told Senate Judiciary lawmakers in a Tuesday letter (http://bit.ly/1qepcPG). The group calls itself a nonpartisan nonprofit with more than a million members and supporters. “Short of disposing of retransmission consent agreements and must-carry provisions altogether, I encourage you to eliminate the ban on [pay-TV companies] from disconnecting service during sweeps week, and eliminating a broadcaster’s right to placement on the basic tier in order to provide for a level playing field in negotiations,” Schatz said. Broadcasters have requested a clean STELA reauthorization that does not tweak the video market in such ways and applauded the Judiciary bill the way it is. A low-power TV group also sent Judiciary leadership a letter Tuesday requesting changes to the bill. It should address “the inconsistency of the local service area boundaries for cable retransmission of LPTV with the boundaries STELA established for satellite retransmission, the inconsistency of the satellite MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] regional installation rules which discriminate against LPTV in how these vital local stations are displayed in the satellite MVPD channel databases,” said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, as well as “the lack of vital industry statistics provided by the satellite [sic] MVPDs related to the number of their subscribers which use their local- in- local service.” Judiciary lists this STELA bill on the agenda for its Thursday executive session at 9:30 a.m. in 226 Dirksen, but according to committee rules, any member may ask for its consideration to be delayed a week, given it’s new committee business (CD June 18 p4). “STELA is on the agenda for the first time, so common practice is for the bill to be held over a week,” a spokeswoman for committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told us Wednesday.

House Judiciary Committee lawmakers issued statements Wednesday clarifying what they want to focus on during Friday’s expected Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on net neutrality. The hearing “will examine whether antitrust law or regulation would be more effective at protecting consumers, innovation, and fair competition on the Internet,” said Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “Antitrust law seeks to achieve these goals by promoting and preserving a competitive process and prosecuting anticompetitive and discriminatory conduct -- while regulation could in fact prevent, rather than promote, innovation on the Internet and negatively affect the economy and consumers.” Subcommittee Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said the “question at hand is whether antitrust law or regulation is a more effective approach to prevent misconduct and protect consumers and innovation.” The hearing will take place at 9 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released a new draft Tuesday of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (http://1.usa.gov/1vAZvew). The committee expects to mark up the bill next week, her office said. The bill, which Feinstein has been writing since last year in collaboration with committee Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., included many parts of the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), but has what proponents say are improved privacy protections. The bill has support from many in the communications industry, while privacy advocates who opposed CISPA (HR-624) have said they have significant concerns with the Senate Intelligence bill (CD May 15 p11). House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said last week he was “extremely optimistic” the Senate would pass its CISPA equivalent this year (CD June 13 p10).

The Office of Management and Budget supports the Senate Appropriations Committee amendment (http://1.usa.gov/1kLdJBM) to the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act FY 2015, said OMB in a letter Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1pdBFDS). The amendment was expected to be debated on the Senate floor late Tuesday, said a Senate aide. The Senate amendment to HR-4660 allocates $48.5 million to NTIA, compared with $36.7 million in the original House bill (CD June 2 p8), it said.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler pledged to modernize the E-rate program, in a letter responding to a bipartisan group of House lawmakers, many belonging to the New Democrat Coalition. “I agree with each of the recommendations in your letter and hope to soon be able to adopt an Order beginning the process of E-rate modernization consistent with the approach you have outlined,” Wheeler said in a response received Tuesday, expressing concern over timing and wanting an order adopted in summer to ensure funding for the coming year. He is “especially concerned” about lack of robust Wi-Fi in schools and libraries and wants funding allocated for that, he said. “According to internal staff estimates, allocating an additional $1 billion to Wi-Fi next year without updated program rules will allow us to reach fewer than 4 million students, mostly in urban areas,” Wheeler said. “With modernized rules for internal connections, however, E-Rate could help over 10 million students connect to Wi-Fi in their classrooms, including many in rural areas.” The FCC has $1 billion committed for 2014, with more than $700 million slated for broadband-related funding, Wheeler said.

"The current uncertainty over reauthorization” of the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act “is hampering business development and further growth of the technology sector as a whole,” said an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) spokesman in a news release Tuesday. The House Judiciary Committee will mark up HR-3086 at 10 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1kHa87B) (CD June 17 p9). The bill has 214 House co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/1l0xbiL). ITIF released a report (http://bit.ly/U6OG6E) last year in support of HR-3086. “The National Governors Association (NGA) is disappointed that the House Judiciary Committee is moving to make the Internet access tax moratorium permanent,” it said in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jwNz64). “Federal prohibitions on state taxing authority are contrary to federalism and the sovereign authority of states to structure and manage their own fiscal systems,” said NGA. “The markup is the first step of many to ensure consumers, students, and small businesses are not burdened with new taxes on Internet access that could be as high as double the national sales tax rate,” said Annabelle Canning, Internet Tax Freedom Act Coalition executive director. “We applaud” the committee’s “efforts and hope the Senate will follow suit in moving a companion bill prior to the August recess to ensure Congress extends the Internet tax moratorium before it expires on November 1st."

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has included net neutrality among his Senate campaign priorities, featured prominently on his campaign homepage. He is running for re-election this November, a seat the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report deems safely Democratic. Net neutrality has featured in other Senate campaigns, such as that of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. (CD June 4 p5 ). Booker’s campaign website highlights net neutrality in two separate pages, one allowing people to “tell the FCC: No Internet ‘fast lanes.'” The website argued the FCC has changed its policies: “In the past, the FCC has agreed that Internet ‘fast lanes’ like those currently under consideration would threaten net neutrality,” the Booker campaign website said in a sample letter to the agency (http://bit.ly/1jujvIc). “This proposed rule change would likely result in higher consumer costs and decreased private sector innovation.” The FCC has defended its net neutrality rulemaking as merely asking questions and disputed assertions it’s pushing to allow for any such Internet fast lanes. Another Booker campaign webpage asked for voter feedback on the issue. “Do you agree with the principles of Net Neutrality?” the Booker campaign asked, allowing people to select yes or no (http://bit.ly/T1ns0l). “Are you a small business owner who relies on Net Neutrality?”

Asian Americans Advancing Justice emphasized in a letter to House Communications Subcommittee leaders the importance of media diversity. The letter was dated June 10 and posted this week by the FCC, which had also received a copy. “Ensuring a diverse media landscape is especially important for Asian Americans to access information that is culturally and linguistically relevant -- including lifesaving emergency information -- because approximately one-third of Asian Americans are limited-English proficient,” the group said (http://bit.ly/UGhgMP). It backs the FCC’s “efforts to enforce its media ownership rules,” it added.