Two proposals to revamp National Security Agency phone surveillance law brought mixed reactions Tuesday, with details of the proposals still unfolding. Initial media reports emerged of a White House proposal, expected to be formally released by the end of the week (CD Jan 21 p1), and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., announced details of their legislation at a media briefing Tuesday. Their bill is called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Transparency and Modernization Act. That bill has 11 co-sponsors from both parties, Rogers and Ruppersberger said in a news release. They emphasized that it would require individualized judicial review, and that the government could query the communications companies for a number’s associations if it has “reasonable and articulable suspicion” of terrorism associations. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would have to keep Congress informed of any significant opinions, one provision of the bill said. Another would create a “privacy advocate” before the FISC. Both proposals are expected to move bulk phone metadata storage away from the government and into the hands of the phone companies, but without retention mandates. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., author of the USA Freedom Act, said he welcomed the news of President Barack Obama’s proposal. “In the meantime, the President could end bulk collection once and for all on Friday by not seeking reauthorization of this program,” Leahy said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order authorizing phone surveillance expires Friday and would have to be renewed, if surveillance were to continue. The USA Freedom Act’s House author, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., issued a statement calling the House Intelligence proposal “convoluted” and said it “accepts the administration’s deliberate misinterpretation of the law,” ultimately falling short of his own surveillance overhaul. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called Obama’s plan “a worthy effort” and said she plans a hearing on both the White House proposal and the House Intelligence bill. The Center for Democracy & Technology in a statement called both proposals “flawed.” “The Ruppersberger bill would end bulk collection for most types of data, but the bill would allow intelligence agencies to obtain individuals’ data without prior court approval,” CDT Senior Counsel Harley Geiger said (http://bit.ly/1jDl9bB). “The President’s proposal, as described, would require intelligence agencies to get court approval before obtaining phone records, but the Obama proposal is only limited to phone records.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation called both proposals “good news” but said details are still lacking. EFF’s blog post (http://bit.ly/1gWePYY) suggested the USA Freedom Act would be better than either. The ACLU called the White House proposal “a crucial first step” but the House Intelligence Committee is “on the wrong track,” Legislative Counsel Michelle Richardson said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1fYlZvU). “Its new bill uses reform momentum as a pretext for expanding government power. The bill’s modest improvements to the phone records program are not worth demolishing the important judicial role in overseeing these programs.”

Stricter government control of surveillance technology exports could reduce government abuse of surveillance technology, said a New America Open Technology Institute (OTI) report released Monday (http://bit.ly/1iVouUV). The report looks at export control regimes in Germany, the United Kingdom and the U.S., finding all to be lacking with regard to surveillance technology. “It is clear that export controls need to be updated,” said Tim Maurer, an OTI research fellow and report co-author. Authoritarian governments have used the technology for various suppression techniques, the report said. Maurer cited the recent Wassenaar Arrangement (http://www.wassenaar.org/) on surveillance technology controls “as an opportunity” to make necessary updates to export controls. “The U.S. government has a unique chance when it implements the changes to set a positive example for other countries,” he said.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court scolded the government for not being more forthcoming about certain cases and “material” information about preservation orders it was involved in. This came amid recent fillings on whether the government could hold onto phone metadata for longer than five years. FISC Presiding Judge Reggie Walton issued the order (http://1.usa.gov/1dxXiGo) Friday, asking the government to explain by April 2 why it failed to provide information regarding other relevant cases to that question. “As the government is well aware, it has a heightened duty of candor to the Court in ex parte proceedings,” the FISC said. The FISC “expects the government to be far more attentive to its obligations” to the FISC, it added.

CenturyLink said it won a contract to provide voice, data network and telecom infrastructure services at the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Command in Quantico, Va., and the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington, D.C. The two-year contract, worth up to $8.5 million, will make CenturyLink responsible for “daily operations and technical support, equipment and infrastructure upgrades, troubleshooting and repair calls, and the design, installation and planning” for telecom systems at the two Marine Corps facilities. CenturyLink said it has worked with the Marines’ Quantico facility for more than 12 years (http://bit.ly/1gbRBUy).

WaveDivision Holdings acquired Capacity Provisioning Inc. (CPI), said a press release (http://bit.ly/1gl9RcA) Wednesday. Based in Port Angeles, Wash., CPI is the largest privately owned fiber-based metro ethernet provider on the Olympic Peninsula, focused on serving businesses and government entities in Port Angeles, Sequim and surrounding areas. WaveDivision Holdings is a business-class fiber and broadband services company with business and residential customers in Washington, Oregon and California. Terms were not announced.

The U.S. Trade Representative determined Ukraine is a significant violator of intellectual property rights (IPR) protections in a Section 301 review under the 1974 Trade Act, but will disregard the infringement now in light of the ongoing political transition in the country, said USTR in a notice slated to appear in Thursday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1lX3G24). Under Section 301, USTR can retaliate against countries it classifies as IPR violators. In May, USTR determined the Ukrainian government used infringing software and the country hosted infringement of copyright and related rights. Ukraine has said it’s implementing an IPR action plan (CD Feb 21/13 p14).

"Millennials” are an “active audience,” with 65 percent in that age bracket using a second device while they watch TV, Verizon Digital Media Services said in the results of a survey released Friday. Millennials are those between 16 and 34 years old, About 75 percent of those using a second device are using that device to post on Facebook, and 73 percent use it to shop online, Verizon said. Millennials watch 34 percent of their total TV online, compared with 41 percent watched on live TV and a combined 25 percent watched through DVR or on-demand services, Verizon said. Millennials “will change the TV industry by consuming content online,” Verizon said. “They consume less linear TV and more online -- but the vast majority still have service from an MVPD [multichannel video program distributor]. And those that do are much more likely to subscribe to things like premium networks.” Millennials are responsible for $1.3 trillion in annual consumer spending -- 21 percent of all consumer spending, Verizon said. Hub Entertainment Research conducted the study, which included an online survey of 1,000 consumers -- 800 were in the Millennial age bracket -- and in-home interviews with eight Millennials (http://bit.ly/1cCcesk).

Comptel supports the petition by TracFone Wireless for a waiver of rules prohibiting retention of income-based and program-based eligibility documentation for the Lifeline program. Those rules should be waived for all eligible telecom carriers providing Lifeline service, the association of CLECs said in a filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1drIix1): “In the event of an audit or in-depth validation review by the Universal Service Administration [sic] Company or an investigation by the Commission’s Enforcement Bureau or Inspector General with respect to whether certain Lifeline beneficiaries meet the Commission’s eligibility criteria, requiring ETCs to review but not retain eligibility documentation puts them in the untenable position of being unable to provide proof to USAC or the Commission that those beneficiaries did in fact qualify for the service."

The number of times the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorized the gathering of telephone numbers from 2000 to 2013, including Internet and phone metadata, was at its highest from the first half of 2004 to the same period in 2008, said the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Monday (http://bit.ly/1i4zo8D). EPIC obtained the information (http://bit.ly/1crr0C5) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department, EPIC said. “The reports reveal a dramatic increase in the use of these [surveillance gathering] techniques in 2004 and then a significant reduction in 2008, likely the consequence of a shift to other investigative techniques,” it said. “The documents show that nearly all applications to the Surveillance Court were approved without modifications,” it said.

The FCC “should not interfere with the healthy growth and evolution of technology and business models by favoring localities over private investors,” the Free State Foundation said on its blog (http://bit.ly/No91RA) Monday. Criticizing FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s Feb. 19 statement raising the possibility of federal preemption of state anti-municipal broadband laws, FSF said the goal of increasing competition is worthy. But the FCC’s “'hypothesis’ that local entities can achieve that goal has been proven wrong repeatedly,” said the group. “Government-owned systems have experienced widespread failure nationwide, and the localities have passed the cost of those shortcomings onto taxpayers. In contrast, the private sector has been the central source of impressive investment and efficient broadband deployment for years.” The most recent municipal failure is Burlington, Vt.’s network, Burlington Telecom, which recently reached a settlement with Citibank in its lawsuit over BT’s delinquent loans, said FSF. Municipal broadband supporters want the FCC to use the Telecom Act Section 706 authority Wheeler cited to preempt local laws limiting broadband network buildouts (CD Feb 24 p).