Jimm Phillips

Two members of the Global Network Initiative said Friday they will remain in the multistakeholder information and communications technology group after the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a founding member of the group, resigned Thursday. GNI, which advocates for free expression and Internet privacy, is known for creating a code of conduct for its members to use overseas to mitigate “government demands for censorship and disclosure of users’ personal information. EFF said it “no longer believes we can sign our name onto joint statements that rely on shared knowledge of the security” of GNI member companies’ products or internal processes because gag orders on some of those companies bar them from disclosing U.S. government interference in their security practices brought to light in recent disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance programs. GNI’s member corporations include Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Yahoo. “We know that many within the industry do not like or approve of such government interference, and GNI has, in statements, made it clear that member companies want permission from the U.S. government to engage in greater transparency,” said EFF International Director Danny O'Brien and Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian York in a letter to GNI leaders. GNI had asked the U.S. and other member governments in the Freedom Online Coalition to allow the disclosure of surveillance requests. “However, until serious reforms of the U.S. surveillance programs are in place, we no longer feel comfortable participating in the GNI process when we are not privy to the serious compromises GNI corporate members may be forced to make,” O'Brien and York said in the letter. EFF will “continue to share information and work closely” with GNI, but as an external entity, O'Brien and York said (http://bit.ly/19FHUKC). Center for Democracy and Technology President Leslie Harris said in a statement Friday that CDT is “committed to GNI and to its multistakeholder approach to addressing the difficult privacy and free expression challenges faced by companies on the global Internet.” Rebecca MacKinnon, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation who also participates in GNI as an individual, told us in an email she has “no intention” of leaving GNI. She said she continues to have faith in “GNI’s mission and in the positive impact it has already begun to have -- and which will only strengthen over time. No progress is easy and the road to our ultimate goal -- a global ICT sector that maximizes respect for free expression and privacy -- is neither straight nor flat nor without major potholes. We are in a marathon, not a sprint. I don’t quit when the going gets difficult. With the Snowden revelations, we've certainly hit a rough section that is also on a steep incline. That does not mean the road should not be traveled.” GNI said in a statement that it appreciates EFF’s contributions to the group and “we look forward to working with them outside our formal structure to protect rights online.” GNI is “actively calling for transparency from governments on surveillance. These challenges make GNI’s work to advance freedom of expression and privacy rights more important than ever.”

T-Mobile US believes efforts to make the 1755-1780 MHz band available for commercial use are now “very doable” because of the Department of Defense’s proposal to vacate the band, said Steve Sharkey, T-Mobile chief-engineering and technology policy, at a 4G Americas event Thursday. Under the plan, DOD would exchange its space on the 1755 band for continued use of the 1780-1850 MHz band and shared use of broadcast auxiliary spectrum in the 2025-2110 MHz band (CD July 23 p1).

Implementation of President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order is on an indefinite hold at most federal agencies because of the government shutdown, the effects of which vary, said industry observers. The order directed the Department of Homeland Security and National Institute of Standards and Technology to execute most provisions, though the departments of Defense and Treasury, U.S. intelligence agencies and sector-specific agencies also hold implementation responsibilities (CD Feb 14 p1). Much of the public attention related to the order has focused on NIST’s work with critical infrastructure industries to develop the voluntary Cybersecurity Framework, but observers said development of the framework will be almost entirely unaffected by even an extended shutdown. Other parts of the order will be more adversely affected by further delays, they said.

An import ban on certain older-model Samsung mobile devices was set to take effect Tuesday night after U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman declined to veto a limited exclusion order issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission. The Samsung phones and tablets had been the subject of a Section 337 case Apple brought to the ITC. USTR gave Apple a reprieve from a similar import ban in August (CD Aug 15 p10). Samsung said in a statement it’s “disappointed” by the USTR’s decision, saying “it will serve only to reduce competition and limit choice for the American consumer."

CEA is hopeful Congress might be within “striking distance” of meaningful legislation to address patent litigation abuse, said Michael Petricone, senior vice president-government and regulatory affairs. Momentum to address patent litigation abuse has increased quickly over the course of 2013, with many on Capitol Hill still viewing it as a “niche problem” at the beginning of the year, Petricone said at an event Monday meant to address legislative issues of importance to U.S. startups. “Now, they see that it’s impacting the entire economy.” Legislation to address patent litigation abuse during the 112th Congress -- including the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act -- focused on technology companies, but bills in the current 113th include all sectors.

A report commissioned by the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute argues that “progressives” should wholeheartedly back efforts to solve the problems caused by abusive patent litigation filed by patent assertion entities (http://bit.ly/151Jx1M). PAE lawsuits are “sucking the lifeblood of innovation out of the American economy,” said Shook, Hardy partner Phil Goldberg, the report’s author, during a conference call on the release the report Tuesday. PAE-initiated litigation has “mushroomed” over the past decade amid the “perfect storm” caused by the rising number of patents that resulted from the increasing economic strength of software and consumer electronics companies, Goldberg said in the report. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has seen a rapid rise in the number of patent applications over the past 20 years, and many consumer electronics include technology covered by hundreds of thousands of patents -- an average smartphone may hold technology covered by 250,000 patents, the report said. This convergence of technologies “has created seemingly endless opportunities for patent holders to allege that others’ products are infringing on their patents,” the report said.

The private sector must be just as involved as the U.S. government in improving cybersecurity -- particularly when it comes to economic cyberespionage and intellectual property theft, said former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff Thursday. Chertoff is now of counsel at Covington & Burling and chairman of the Chertoff Group, which consults with companies on cybersecurity issues. Industry actors can no longer consider increasing their cybersecurity protections a “luxury” -- it’s now a necessary protection of economic growth and profitability, he said at a Covington & Burling-George Washington University Cybersecurity Initiative event. Cybertheft has become the “preferred pathway” for entities to steal intellectual property -- and it’s the most visible cyberthreat the U.S. faces, Chertoff said. Recent studies have confirmed the Obama administration’s position that the pace of economic cyberespionage and intellectual property theft are accelerating, Chertoff said. He said the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property (IP Commission) and others have estimated the theft of U.S. intellectual property is worth up to $300 billion annually.

Release of a preliminary version of the National Institute of Standards and Technology-facilitated Cybersecurity Framework will “inevitably” be delayed if an overall government shutdown occurs, said White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel at a Billington cybersecurity conference Wednesday. A shutdown could occur Oct. 1 if Congress and President Barack Obama can’t agree on a continuing budget resolution. A shutdown would furlough all but essential federal employees, including NIST staff working to finalize the preliminary framework, Daniel said. Obama’s cybersecurity executive order requires NIST to release the preliminary framework for public comment by Oct. 10 (CD Feb 14 p1). Delay of the preliminary framework’s release would be one of the many “bad things” to result from a government shutdown, but “ultimately we'll get there and get it published,” Daniel said. The cybersecurity summit also touched repeatedly on fallout from the leaks of information on the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance tactics.

The FCC is “totally in and invested” in efforts to prevent distracted driving caused by the use of personal electronic devices (PEDs) like smartphones, said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday at a National Organizations for Youth Safety-led rally for the “It Can Wait” anti-texting campaign. The National Safety Council said 100,000 car crashes are caused by distracted driving. That’s an “epidemic” that results in completely preventable deaths and injuries that can be prevented by education and advocacy efforts, Rosenworcel said. The FCC has led its own anti-texting education efforts directed at elementary, middle and high school students, along with sponsoring a distracted-driving technology event in April (CD April 22 p10), she said. Rosenworcel said she’s also invested in preventing distracted-driving deaths as the mother of two small children. “I never want to see them at risk because someone behind the wheel thinks that paying attention to a text is more important to paying attention to the road,” she said.

The House Cybersecurity Subcommittee voted Wednesday to send two cybersecurity bills to the full Homeland Security Committee. The subcommittee approved the bills -- the Critical Infrastructure Research and Development Advancement Act (HR-2952) and the Homeland Security Cybersecurity Boots-on-the-Ground Act (HR-3107) -- on a unanimous voice vote with amendments. Both bills have bipartisan support, said subcommittee Chairman Patrick Meehan, R-Pa.