A telco executive is slated to testify on surveillance Thursday. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s open hearing on surveillance overhaul will look at the version of the USA Freedom Act (HR-3361) that the House passed last month, committee leaders said Tuesday. Two panels of witnesses are planned -- first, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano, NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett and Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stephanie O'Sullivan; second, former national security official Stewart Baker, Center for Democracy & Technology Senior Counsel Harley Geiger, Information Technology Industry Council CEO Dean Garfield and Verizon Assistant General Counsel Michael Woods. Garfield “will focus on how the technology sector has been impacted by the NSA revelations, and how enacting meaningful surveillance reform is a critical step forward in restoring public trust in the U.S. technology industry and the U.S. government,” ITI said in a media advisory Wednesday. The hearing is at 2:30 p.m. in 216 Hart.

Basic voice service is “still vital to public safety” and “day-to-day personal and business communications of millions of people,” Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney Jodie Griffin plans to tell the Senate Communications Subcommittee Thursday. That’s according to written testimony (http://bit.ly/1l6qxGW) for the 9:15 a.m. hearing on the IP transition and public safety in 253 Russell. “Unfortunately, we are already seeing complaints arise across the country that indicate the network compact may start fraying at the edges if policymakers don’t step in to protect consumers,” Griffin will say, pointing to companies “forcing customers off of traditional copper-based phone service” and problems that may just be the tip of the iceberg. “We have also already seen complaints from rural residents experiencing degraded service due to rural call completion problems.” The FCC should retain authority to oversee such problems and make sure customers have reliable service, Griffin will argue. She focuses on how the IP transition could affect certain groups such as the elderly and a need for the FCC to clarify its Communications Act Section 214(a) standard, which involves when a company can discontinue, reduce or impair service to a given community and is not, according to Griffin, suited for an IP era. Other witnesses represent APCO, the FCC, NARUC and USTelecom.

The House Communications Subcommittee scheduled a hearing on “Media Ownership in the 21st Century” for Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn. Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in a statement that it’s “imperative that our laws that govern media ownership evolve” and that these discussions will inform any Communications Act overhaul. “The subcommittee is expected to discuss the FCC’s inaction on the statutorily required 2010 quadrennial review of the media ownership rules as well as the continued relevance of the media ownership regulatory framework in general,” it said in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1mPj1yO). “Members will explore the commission’s decision to forge ahead with new rules on joint sales agreements (JSAs) and other media ownership changes without the completed quadrennial review.” The FCC voted along party lines March 31 on a JSA attribution order (CD April 1 p4).

Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., emerged as the top candidate by far in the open primary (CD June 4 p13) in the California 17th district Tuesday night. He competed against Democratic challenger Ro Khanna, an attorney who was deputy assistant secretary of the Commerce Department during President Barack Obama’s first term and received heavy backing from technology companies. Honda received 48.6 percent of the vote compared with Khanna’s 27.1 percent. Both candidates earned far more than the two Republicans competing and, based on California primary rules, they will advance to compete against one another in the November election.

Don’t let the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process get bogged down, one observer warned. Americans for Limited Government Vice President-Public Policy and Communications Rick Manning in a blog post in The Hill (http://bit.ly/1jRvJdc) Wednesday argued for a narrow bill to allow easy passage, given a congressional calendar year growing ever shorter. “A clean bill, without controversial amendments, would very likely pass before Congress adjourns, but amendments being considered by retiring Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) could serve as poison pills to the whole process,” Manning said. Industry lobbyists have told us Senate Commerce is cobbling together its STELA extension draft now and that many options may be on the table. “We may be close,” Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told us Wednesday at the Capitol of that committee’s STELA draft.

Progressive groups urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to ask FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to reclassify broadband as a Title II telecom service in order to craft what they estimate will be stronger net neutrality rules. These “strong” net neutrality rules should “ban all unreasonable technical discrimination (and define pay-to-play arrangements as inherently unreasonable), forbid blocking, and ban other undue interference with the open architecture of the Internet,” said the Wednesday letter (http://bit.ly/1x8jfIm), signed by Credo, Daily Kos, Democracy for America, Demand Progress, MoveOn, Free Press and others. Reclassification is “the only path forward,” they said, releasing several statements from the group’s leaders backing the letter. “What’s missing is the political will in Washington to challenge AT&T, Comcast and Verizon,” Free Press President Craig Aaron said.

The Senate Communications Subcommittee scheduled its Thursday hearing on the IP transition and public safety for more than one hour earlier than initially announced, it said in a news release this week. The hearing (http://1.usa.gov/1pPo58t) at 9:15 a.m. in 253 Russell is on “Preserving Public Safety and Network Reliability in the IP Transition.” Witnesses are APCO International President Gigi Smith, FCC Chief Technology Officer Henning Schulzrinne, NARUC President Colette Honorable, Public Knowledge Senior Staff Attorney Jodie Griffin and USTelecom Senior Vice President-Law and Policy Jonathan Banks.

Funding for NTIA’s transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority wasn’t mentioned in the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies’ markup Tuesday of the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act FY 2015. The bill was unanimously approved by the subcommittee and allocated $8.6 billion to the Commerce Department to “create cybersecurity standards to protect dot-mil, dot-gov, and dot-com,” among others, said a subcommittee news release (http://1.usa.gov/1iPva46) Tuesday. It didn’t mention NTIA, and we didn’t immediately hear back from the subcommittee on whether the bill would give the agency all the money it needs for the IANA transition. The House version of the bill (HR-4660), which the House passed Friday, reduced NTIA’s funding from the $51 million requested by the executive branch to $36.7 million to stop the transition (CD June 2 p8). The Senate bill allocates $722 million to the Department of Justice for cybersecurity, the same as FY 2014, said the release. The Senate Appropriations Committee will have a markup vote on the bill in 106 Dirksen at 10 a.m. Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1kqoSfE).

The Senate Intelligence Committee plans an open hearing Thursday on overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The hearing will be at 2:30 p.m. in G50 Dirksen. The committee hasn’t announced witnesses. This is the first Senate hearing since the House passed its much-debated surveillance revamp USA Freedom Act, HR-3361, last month.

Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., faced off against a fierce challenger backed by the tech industry Tuesday in his Silicon Valley district’s highly watched Democratic primary. Ro Khanna, an attorney who was deputy assistant secretary of Commerce during President Barack Obama’s first term, outraised the seven-term Honda, amassing $2.6 million, compared with Honda’s $2.09 million. Khanna’s campaign website touts several telecom and media priorities, such as an Internet Bill of Rights (http://bit.ly/1otwRbg) that calls for a right to net neutrality, universal Web access, the right to be free of warrantless metadata collection and more. Last month, Khanna blasted FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for his net neutrality NPRM, saying: “Frankly, a former telecommunications lobbyist should never have been appointed to chair the Federal Communications Commission in the first place.” Honda is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and signed a letter to Wheeler asking for Title II reclassification of broadband and expressing his own disappointments in the NPRM. Honda’s website points to his own tech focus, spotlighting his work in bringing a patent office to California and an emphasis on nanotechnology and broadband, from access and adoption issues to fighting for net neutrality protections. Honda was an “instrumental ally in the establishment of a National Broadband Plan to lay out a bold roadmap to internet accessibility and service,” it said (http://bit.ly/1x2ayPu). Election rules would allow both Honda and Khanna to proceed to the November general election if they emerge with the two highest tallies of votes in what is an open primary, allowing both Democrats and Republicans to compete. Results were still coming in at our deadline.