Karl Herchenroeder

The White House is pressing Congress to pass legislation with $52 billion for U.S. chipmaking (see 2106090007), White House National Security Council Senior Director-International Economics and Competitiveness Peter Harrell told an AT&T livestream event Thursday. “The bigger picture is we’ve got to get the funding across the finish line,” he said. “Congress has to get the funding across the finish line, and we have to move on expanding capacity here at home and with our allies.”

The private sector should report major cyber incidents to the federal government, despite many company owners considering it a waste of time, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly told the House Homeland Security Committee Wednesday.

Legislation to require online marketplaces like Amazon to verify third-party sellers got strong bipartisan support from the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. But leadership needs to confer with the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction, said Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

The Senate should move quickly to confirm Jonathan Kanter as DOJ Antitrust Division chief so he can fill leadership gaps at the department, antitrust attorneys said in interviews. Some expect Kanter to get a 2021 vote, given support from the Senate Judiciary Committee last week (see 2110280044).

The Supreme Court declined to hear the American Civil Liberties Union’s case seeking access to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) documents, on docket 20-1499. The ACLU argued the First Amendment provides a “qualified right of public access” to the court’s “significant opinions” on statutory and constitutional law. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. The FISC and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) denied the ACLU access to secret opinions authorizing surveillance on U.S. citizens in 2016. The ACLU asked the high court to review a series of rulings denying access. The case presents questions about the “right of public access to Article III judicial proceedings of grave national importance,” Gorsuch wrote in the dissenting opinion Monday with Sotomayor. “Maybe even more fundamentally, this case involves a governmental challenge to the power of this Court to review the work of Article III judges in a subordinate court. If these matters are not worthy of our time, what is?” The high court failed to “bring badly needed transparency to the surveillance court and to rulings that impact millions of Americans,” ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Patrick Toomey said . “Our privacy rights rise or fall with the court’s decisions, which increasingly apply outdated laws to the new technologies we rely on.” Because SCOTUS “refuses to let the American people see how their own constitutional rights are being interpreted, Congress’s responsibility to conduct aggressive oversight and end secret law is even more important,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

The Senate Judiciary Committee reported DOJ Antitrust Division nominee Jonathan Kanter to the Senate floor Thursday by voice vote (see 2110210033). John Cornyn, R-Texas, was the sole no vote. He said he shares Kanter’s concerns about the tech industry’s influence over consumers but is troubled by Kanter potentially moving away from the consumer welfare standard. Cornyn said Kanter has expressed interest in “competitive objectives” outside the traditional scope of antitrust and using antitrust as a “political hammer.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., noted support for Kanter from a bipartisan group of nine former Antitrust Division chiefs (see 2109250003), saying he has the experience for the job. The committee 13-9 reported Lucy Koh, nominated to be 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge. Voting against Koh were GOP Sens. Cornyn; Josh Hawley, Mo.; Mike Lee, Utah; Ted Cruz, Texas; Ben Sasse, Neb.; Tom Cotton, Ark.; John Kennedy, La.; Thom Tillis, N.C.; and Marsha Blackburn, Tenn.

Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Chris Coons, D-Del., are gathering information on legislation that would require social media platforms to open their algorithms to independent research, Portman said Thursday.

A “substantial increase” in funding for DOJ’s Antitrust Division for FY 2022 is necessary to deal with the “skyrocketing” amount of merger filings, Attorney General Merrick Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. DOJ requested a 9% increase in division funding from FY 2021, to $201 million. The department’s 2022 budget request totals about $35.3 billion. The number of division evaluators has decreased, said Garland, calling antitrust a “key focus” for DOJ: “We need help in that regard.” He cited the case against Google’s alleged exclusionary conduct, among other efforts. The number of attorneys in the division is down, and the department “needs an expansion,” he said.

YouTube, TikTok and Snap agreed to share internal research with the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee, the companies' representatives told a hearing Tuesday. Chair Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told us he’s going to hold them to that promise and use the findings to develop a full picture in pursuit of legislation.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is working with Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on antitrust legislation, his office told us Monday. They are exploring a bill that could potentially shift the burden of proof from the government to the private sector, forcing companies to prove acquisitions don’t harm competition, said a former antitrust official. The official said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is also involved in discussions and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is reviewing. “We’re not at a stage where things are concrete enough to accurately share” information, said an aide for Cotton.