The public should weigh in with hearing questions for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, said the House Communications Subcommittee Thursday. It issued a news release calling for people to offer potential questions for Wheeler using the Twitter hashtag #AskWheeler. People can also suggest questions through Facebook, the subcommittee said. Wheeler will testify before the subcommittee during a Tuesday oversight hearing, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn. “Are you worried about the future of the Internet? What would you #AskWheeler?” Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., tweeted Friday.

Congress should strengthen provisions in the revised USA Freedom Act to reflect the legislation as originally introduced last fall, several stakeholders told House leaders in a letter Wednesday. The bill, HR-3361, cleared the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees last week. “While the bill makes significant progress in ending bulk collection, we strongly believe that several technical corrections and clarifications to the bill are required if Congress is to help ensure that the bill language is not misinterpreted and its stated goal of ending bulk collection is met,” the letter said (http://bit.ly/1k5kTo0). Signers include the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy & Technology, Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Reddit. The Reform Government Surveillance coalition also signed -- its members are AOL, Apple, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo. The letter points to three items that need deeper modification, changed to reflect the original bill -- overhauling Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702, which authorizes online surveillance; allowing for more “robust” reporting of surveillance orders by industry and government; and creating a special advocate for the FISA court. The letter also recommended that Congress tighten the language of the bill in certain places.

Some Democratic lawmakers applauded the FCC’s move forward with broadcast TV incentive auction rules at its Thursday meeting (see separate report in this issue), with much praise coming from the lead authors of recent letters to the FCC requesting a reserve of spectrum for certain carriers in the auction. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., who led a letter from House lawmakers to the FCC, lauded the proposal as striking “a good balance that will allow the wireless marketplace to remain competitive.” The proposal “correctly balances the need to promote wireless competition while generating sufficient revenue to fund critical priorities such as FirstNet,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who led a similar Senate letter. House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., praised the agency for making “smart choices in balancing the congressional objectives of freeing up highly valuable spectrum for mobile broadband, unleashing the next generation of innovative unlicensed services that will one day fulfill the vision of ‘Super Wi-Fi’, and promoting a competitive wireless marketplace by giving carriers large and small a fair chance to bid for and win spectrum at the auction all while guaranteeing full funding of FirstNet.” Waxman had signed onto Matsui’s letter. Waxman urged parties to “redouble our efforts to ensure the auction’s success,” which primarily means “attracting as many willing broadcasters as possible to voluntarily participate in the reverse auction in order to maximize the amount of spectrum available for mobile broadband,” he said. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who also signed Matsui’s letter, commended Wheeler for “crafting a balanced set of rules that will raise the necessary funds for FirstNet; advance new unlicensed innovation; and ensure a competitive bidding process where wireless companies of all sizes will have an opportunity to acquire the most valuable, beachfront spectrum.” Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is pleased “the FCC is holding a future proceeding relating to Low-Power Television and TV translator stations,” he said. “I am a proponent of ensuring that the FCC considers every possible way to protect these stations during the incentive auction, and I anxiously await the future outcome of this proceeding.” Barton said he will champion “greater protection of LPTV and urge my colleagues to do the same,” he said. Don’t restrict bidding in the incentive auction, four senators told the FCC in a letter before its Thursday meeting. “We are concerned that bidding restrictions will have the effect of disincentivizing broadcaster participation because of concerns about reduced returns,” wrote Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; John Cornyn, R-Texas; Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; and John Thune, R-S.D., ranking member of the Commerce Committee (http://1.usa.gov/1swfirP). “This could result not only in less spectrum being put back into the market to be used efficiently, but also less revenue generated by the auction.”

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., expressed concern about the privacy protections for Samsung’s fingerprint scanner on its new Galaxy S5 smartphone, in a Tuesday letter to Samsung executives (http://1.usa.gov/1v2ekrc). “Passwords are secret and dynamic, while fingerprints are public and permanent,” Franken said. “Fingerprints are the opposite of secret.” Humans leave fingerprints everywhere, he said. “If hackers get hold of a digital copy of your fingerprint, they could use it to impersonate you for the rest of your life.” Franken said the Galaxy S5’s fingerprint scanner had been hacked, days after its release. The same thing happened to Apple’s Touch ID, which it rolled out on the iPhone last year, Franken said. He asked for more information about how Samsung’s technology generates fingerprints, what security measures it has, how it interacts with third-party apps and whether Samsung believes users have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” for the fingerprint data provided. Samsung did not comment. Franken’s staff has been a consistent presence at the NTIA-backed facial recognition code-of-conduct multistakeholder meetings, which have touched on similar biometric issues.

Five senators joined Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in backing the reserve of spectrum for some carriers as part of the FCC’s broadcast TV spectrum incentive auction, signing the Wednesday letter Markey sent on the topic, as expected (CD May 14 p16). “We support reserving a portion of available licenses for carriers with limited nationwide low-frequency holdings in order to promote competition, increase auction revenues, and protect against highly concentrated spectrum holding,” said the letter, signed by Sens. Markey; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Al Franken, D-Minn.; and Angus King, I-Maine. “Although no qualified entity should be barred from participating in the auction, the Commission should establish transparent and fair limitations on how much low-frequency spectrum any one carrier can acquire.” The FCC will consider an incentive auction item at its Thursday meeting, and several House Democrats also recently voiced similar sentiments in a letter to the FCC.

Verizon backs the USA Freedom Act, it said in a statement emailed Tuesday. The measure, HR-3361, cleared the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees last week and “will achieve the important goals of ending [Patriot Act] Section 215 bulk collection of communication data, heightening privacy protections and increasing transparency,” Verizon said, saying it looks “forward to working with the House and Senate leadership, along with the White House, to address remaining issues and enact the USA Freedom Act into law this year.” The surveillance bill was introduced last fall.

The House Communications Subcommittee scheduled its May 20 oversight hearing of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn. Wheeler is the sole witness, with topics expected to range from net neutrality to the broadcast TV incentive auction.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is spearheading a letter to the FCC backing the reserve of spectrum for some carriers as part of the broadcast-TV incentive auction it plans in mid-2015, his spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday. That letter is expected to be sent to the agency Wednesday morning, she said, and is similar to a letter House Democrats sent to the FCC earlier this week (CD May 13 p7). Markey’s spokeswoman declined to say how many signatures this Senate letter may have. The FCC is expected to vote on an incentive auction item at its meeting Thursday.

The Main Street Patent Coalition urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to move forward with its planned markup of the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), which has been repeatedly delayed amid stalled negotiations over creation of a compromise version of the bill. “Congress has come too far to leave this problem unsolved,” wrote the pro-patent revamp group Monday to committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “Delay in enacting reforms simply empowers patent trolls and permits even greater harm to Main Street businesses and our economy” (http://bit.ly/1sFxOQt), the letter said. The coalition said it continues to support a compromise drafted by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that emerged in April (CD April 28 p10). The committee’s schedule for this week does not list a planned markup of S-1720, the first time in weeks it has not been on the agenda.

The Songwriter Equity Act was trumpeted by Senate Judiciary Committee member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both Tennessee Republicans, at an event in Nashville Monday, said a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1lpaTWD). The bill will be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, it said. The House version of the bill (HR-4079) was introduced by House Judiciary Committee member Doug Collins, R-Ga., Feb. 25 (CD Feb 26 p13) and seeks to update Copyright Act sections 114(i) and 115 that prevent “songwriters from receiving royalty rates that reflect fair market value” for their use, said a bill summary. Songwriters’ “paychecks ought to be based on the fair market value of their songs,” said Alexander in the release: “As technology advances, it’s important we not forget the sometimes unsung heroes of the music industry -- the songwriters -- and modernize the way they are compensated for their talents,” said Corker in the release. Allowing songwriters and composers to “receive the fair market value for their songs is the right thing to do,” said Hatch, himself a published songwriter, in the release. “The Senate’s introduction of the Songwriter Equity Act brings us an important step closer to our mission of ‘Fair market pay for all music creators across all platforms,'” said Neil Portnow, Recording Academy CEO, in a separate release. “The legislation would allow a ‘rate court’ to consider other royalty rates as evidence when establishing digital performance rates for songwriters and composers, and it would adapt a fair rate standard for reproduction,” ASCAP said Monday. NAB opposed the House bill and said Monday it would oppose the Senate bill as well. The SEA “could impose new costs on broadcasters that jeopardize the future of our free locally-focused service,” said an NAB spokesman in a statement.