The Louisiana House voted 97-0 Monday to concur with the Senate on HB-69 to give Rural Digital Opportunity Fund winners sales-and-use tax rebates on fiber facilities. The bill goes to the governor, who was sent an electric co-op bill (SB-10) Monday, passed Thursday (see 2006260059).

California’s proposed privacy sequel is bad for education technology, Software & Information Industry Association President Jeff Joseph said Monday. Californians will vote in November on the California Privacy Rights Act (see 2006250052). CPRA “clarifies and improves some aspects of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), most notably by alleviating the CCPA’s First Amendment infirmities with respect to publicly available information,” said Joseph. But he said the proposal “can be interpreted to present educational technology companies with an impossible choice: comply with the CPRA, and remove data from school records on student request and breach their contract with the school, thereby jeopardizing the school’s federal funding, or refuse and face liability for breaching the CPRA.” Congress should pass a national privacy law, he said. SIIA earlier raised constitutional concerns with CCPA, to be enforced starting Wednesday.

The California Public Utilities Commission should hold T-Mobile accountable to conditions in its April order clearing the deal, said CPUC Public Advocates Office Communications Program Manager Ana Maria Johnson. It proves PAO’s concerns that “compliance with merger conditions will be taken lightly and ultimately California consumers are negatively impacted,” Johnson emailed us Thursday. PAO joined the consumer and union backlash to T-Mobile asking the CPUC to modify three conditions on jobs, 5G speeds and deployment (see 2006230062). The company didn’t comment Friday.

The California Senate voted 28-9 Friday to raise the minimum standard to 25 Mbps symmetrical from 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload under the current law (AB-1665) governing the California Advanced Services Fund (see 2004090056). Opposing SB-1130, Sen. Brian Dahle (R) argued that the point of the slower standard was to focus on unserved areas first. Cover everyone before increasing speeds in places that have service, he said on the Senate floor, livestreamed from Sacramento. SB-1130 author Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D) replied, "We shouldn't settle for low speeds." The federal floor is 25/3 Mbps, which isn’t high enough, and many California communities with 6/1 Mbps can’t get funding under AB-1665, she said. The bill goes to the Assembly.

AT&T denied it's resisting a proposed rural broadband grant program responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in Mississippi. The House received SB-3046 Thursday after senators voted 49-2 the previous day. Tweeting Friday, Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley claimed AT&T and the cable industry are lobbying the House on the bill “to kill rural broadband.” The NARUC president added, “We cannot allow them to rule the roost on this issue any longer.” AT&T has “no opposition to the grant program established by the Senate,” though it hasn’t seen details of what the House is considering, the carrier’s spokesperson emailed. “In general, we see the value of programs -- like the FCC’s Connect America Fund and others -- that help spur increased investment by the private sector in underserved, rural communities.” The Mississippi Cable Telecommunications Association didn’t comment, and Presley didn’t comment further. The House voted 114-4 Thursday for HB-1786 providing $200 million for a distance-learning grant program for electronic devices. It goes to the Senate. In Louisiana, lawmakers’ second try at an electric cooperative broadband bill looks likely to be enacted after state senators voted 35-0 Thursday to concur with amendments by the House. That chamber voted unanimously for SB-10 Wednesday (see 2006240065). Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said he supported the cooperative-backed SB-10 when he vetoed SB-406, an earlier bill that co-ops opposed because it restricted them to unserved areas. Edwards “will review the final version of the bill when we receive it and make a decision,” emailed a spokesperson.

Small rural telcos and consumer advocates supported 25/3 Mbps, with caveats, as California’s essential broadband definition in comments filed Wednesday in a utility affordability proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission. That standard is fine if the agency recognizes smaller companies need state and federal funding to cover their higher costs, CalTel and other small RLECs commented in docket R.18-07-006. The Utility Reform Network said 25/3 Mbps is a “reasonable starting point” but the CPUC should specify that the service must not include data caps and reevaluate the speed every three years. The agency should consider what is an essential data capacity in the proceeding’s next phase, said the Center for Accessible Technology, saying 1 terabyte "is a commonly provided data cap in both market-rate and certain low-income broadband programs." Consolidated Communications warned that broadband internet access services are beyond the agency’s jurisdiction. “Clarify that unregulated broadband Internet access services will not be subject to rate regulation or data reporting requirements beyond providing publicly available pricing information,” it commented. The National Diversity Coalition urged included a household's socio-economic status when defining affordability of essential utility services.

California’s privacy law sequel qualified for the Nov. 3 election, with more than 623,212 signatures validated, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) said Wednesday, one day before the deadline to approve ballot initiatives. “We’ve come a long way in the two years since passing the landmark California Consumer Privacy Act, but during these times of unprecedented uncertainty, we need to ensure that the laws keep pace with the ever-changing ways corporations and other entities are using our data,” said Alastair Mactaggart, author of CCPA and the new California Privacy Rights Act. CPRA is “the important next step in ensuring that privacy rights are sustained now and well into the future,” said California Senate Majority Leader Robert Hertzberg (D). Mactaggart sued Padilla over a deadline snafu that could have kept CPRA off the ballot (see 2006120060). In a Friday ruling on that suit, the California Superior Court in Sacramento supported Mactaggart and listed possible remedies. CCPA enforcement starts Wednesday, but it’s unclear if the Office of Administrative Law will approve by then the final rules, submitted earlier this month by Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D), said Wiley privacy attorney Duane Pozza on a Thursday webinar. If not, enforcement would be based solely on the text of the CCPA law, he said. “We’ll have to see what the attorney general does” on the first day of enforcement, he said: Becerra could focus on a few cases, announce broader investigations or send warning letters to businesses that would be “made public and put people on notice about the kinds of things they’re looking at.”

Verizon’s 5G deal with San Diego benefits the company more than the city, the Communications Workers of America said Thursday, releasing a report on the April 2019 small-cells partnership. Verizon got discounted leases on public property and expedited permitting reviews for 10 years in exchange for “limited community benefits” that are “are only unlocked if the agreement’s unrealistic benchmarks are met,” CWA said. Verizon isn’t transparent about what workers it’s contracting, the union said. “It is particularly troubling that the City of San Diego does not track which subcontracted companies are working in its rights-of-way,” said San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Keith Maddox: “Subcontracted workers often earn lower wages and are subject to more dangerous working conditions.” CWA Local 9509 Secretary-Treasurer Orlando Gonzalez urged the city to hold a hearing. “With a massive budget shortfall expected next year, these types of corporate handouts are just unacceptable,” he said. “The Verizon deal does nothing to address the city’s digital divide and homework gap, which COVID-19 has shown is a critical issue.” The San Diego partnership will benefit local residents and businesses for years, a Verizon spokesperson responded. The company spent $1.5 million on an inventory of city-owned streetlights, committed to $400,000 to deploy lights on 200 poles in underserved communities, gave $100,000 to a San Diego digital literacy effort and shipped 500 smartphones to police and 50 tablets to the fire department, he said. "Verizon is at the beginning of a four-year build and as we obtain more permits, we are actively working and excited to continue expanding our 5G [ultra wideband] network to neighborhoods across San Diego." San Diego didn’t comment Thursday.

The Louisiana House supported legislators’ second try on a bill to spur rural broadband by electric cooperatives (see 2006220044). Members voted 102-0 Wednesday, sending SB-10 back to the Senate for concurrence. Cooperatives support SB-10 as passed and expect no issues in the Senate, said Association of Louisiana Electric Cooperatives CEO Jeff Arnold.

Indiana disagrees with "some aspects" of a state Supreme Court ruling that individuals may refuse to unlock their phones for law enforcement to avoid self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, a spokesperson for Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) said Wednesday. "We are carefully reviewing it to determine how it will impact future criminal investigations involving electronic devices." The court ruled against the state Tuesday in Katelin Seo v. Indiana (18S-CR-00595), reversing a trial court that held Seo in contempt for refusing to unlock her iPhone. “By unlocking her smartphone, Seo would provide law enforcement with information it does not already know, which the State could then use in its prosecution against her,” wrote Chief Justice Loretta Rush, who seemed to bristle at April 2019 oral argument in which Indiana said individuals may not refuse (see 1904180025). Indiana argued if the compelled act doesn't give the government additional information, the result is a “foregone conclusion” not protected by the Fifth Amendment, but Rush said that exemption doesn’t apply in this case and possibly others involving smartphones due to their “unique ubiquity and capacity." Justices Mark Massa and Geoffrey Slaughter dissented. The case “was mooted when the underlying criminal case was dismissed,” wrote Massa. “And this now-moot case shouldn’t be resolved under our ‘great public interest’ exception because doing so could -- in violation of the core principles of federalism -- leave our Court as the final arbiter of our nation’s fundamental law.” State courts have split on smartphone encryption. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court sided with law enforcement, while the Pennsylvania Supreme Court supported Fifth Amendment protections. The New Jersey Supreme Court held argument on a similar case in January (see 2001210053). The Constitution's individual privacy protection is important, but the document "also recognizes society’s equally important interest in investigating crime and holding criminals responsible," said the Indiana AG spokesperson said. "These legal issues are difficult, and courts all across the county are struggling with how to strike the right balance when modern technology is concerned. Our argument in this case has always been that police followed the proper procedures to obtain a court order and Ms. Seo should have also followed proper court procedures rather than first openly flaunting her contempt for the trial court." The Electronic Frontier Foundation is “gratified by the ruling, and we’re watching for courts in New Jersey, Oregon and elsewhere to continue the trend of protecting against compelled decryption,” blogged Senior Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker.