The Bipartisan Internet of Things Bill (DIGIT)

Yesterday, U.S. Senators Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduced bipartisan legislation addressing the future impact of new technology known as the “Internet of Things.” The bill, known as the Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things (DIGIT) Act builds upon the senators’ resolution, which called for a national strategy on the Internet of Things. This resolution passed the Senate March of last year.

Senator Fischer released the following statement:

“I’m proud to continue my work with Senators Booker, Ayotte, and Schatz on the Internet of Things. Together, we are working with America’s innovators to improve outdated regulations and update our laws so that this growth can continue aiding our growing economy.”

Senator Booker released the following statement:

“The Internet of Things is already having a major impact on our economy, society, and individual well-being. This bill underscores our strong commitment to fostering innovation, protecting consumers, and finding collaborative solutions to outstanding challenges. I am grateful to have worked with Senators Fischer, Schatz, and Ayotte on this legislation and look forward to continuing our focus on the Internet of Things and ensuring America leads the world in cutting-edge technologies.”

Senator Ayotte released the following statement:

“Innovation is the backbone of the American economy, and we must continue to work towards smart policies that foster creative solutions for people and businesses. Policymakers have an important role in studying the opportunities IoT presents, and I’m honored to work alongside Senators Fischer, Booker, and Schatz on a bipartisan basis to encourage our talented innovators and job creators. Whether its fitness wearables or cloud infrastructure, harnessing the full potential of connected data flow from IoT devices will serve to create newfound efficiencies for consumers, entrepreneurs, and businesses of all sizes.”

Senator Schatz released the following statement:

“With more and more devices connecting to the Internet every day, we have a unique opportunity to continue leading this technological revolution. Our bill recognizes the enormous potential the Internet of Things holds and will give us the tools to make sure our policies help promote its growth.”

The DIGIT Act directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to complete a report assessing spectrum needs required to support the Internet of Things. It also convenes a working group of both Federal and private entity stakeholders that would provide recommendations to Congress. These recommendations would focus on how to plan for, and encourage, the growth of the Internet of Things in the United States.

Over the past two years, Senators Fischer, Ayotte, Booker, and Schatz have worked on a bipartisan basis to explore advancements in new connected technologies and related public policy issues.

On March 24, 2015, the U.S. Senate passed their Internet of Things resolution, which put the U.S. Senate on record supporting a strategy to maintain U.S. global competitiveness in the digital age. It also called for a modern framework around innovation, recognizing the importance of consensus-based best practices and the need for innovators to drive the future development of the Internet of Things.

The rapidly developing market of health wearables, connected homes, and other novel solutions represents an expanding industry of consumer products.

CLICK HERE to read the six page (PDF) bill.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Bill to Improve Disclosure of TV Stations’ Political Files

The Campaign Legal Center called on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to move expeditiously to report out H.R. 4179, “The Fair and Clear Campaign Transparency Act.” This legislation, introduced December 3rd by Representative Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue regulations requiring television broadcasters’ political files to be made available in a machine-readable format.

“With the 2016 elections less than a year away, there are a record-breaking number of political advertisements running on the publicly-owned airwaves,” said Meredith McGehee, Policy Director of the Campaign Legal Center. “While establishing an online FCC database for the statutorily required public files kept by television broadcasters was an important step forward, the FCC has not finished its work because it has not required stations to make the information included in the public inspection file available in a searchable, sortable, downloadable format.”

Currently, broadcasters are uploading in pdf format whatever paper documents would have been placed in the public file. Every station keeps its records somewhat differently. As a result, the current database is difficult to navigate and does not permit the aggregation of spending by a particular campaign or outside group.

When the FCC first required that public files be placed online, it found that “certain information in the public file would be of much greater benefit to the public if made available in a structured and database-friendly format that can be aggregated, manipulated, and more easily analyzed; this continues to be our ultimate goal.” The FCC’s own Information Needs of Communities Report observed that “it matters greatly how government data is organized. It needs to be put out in standardized, machine-readable, structured formats that make it easy for programmers to create new applications.”

The letter points out that the FCC can use the data to create a database that facilitates analysis, including, among other things, an easy-to-use graphic interface as well as an application programming interface (API) to permit searching and downloading of the documents and metadata.

“Moving from pdfs to a database format may appear to simply be a technical matter. It’s not. Getting the information in a television station’s political file into database format is a key step in providing some of the disclosure the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld,” said McGehee.

CLICK HERE to read the two page (PDF) letter.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Amtrak and its Quest for Safety

The Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night was equipped with an automatic speed control system that officials say could have prevented the wreck, which killed eight passengers and injured hundreds. But the system, which was tantalizingly close to being operational, was delayed by budgetary shortfalls, technical hurdles and bureaucratic rules, officials said Thursday.

In 2008, Congress ordered the installation of what are known as Positive Train Control systems (PTC), which can detect an out-of-control, speeding train and automatically slow it down. But because lawmakers failed to provide the railroads access to the wireless frequencies required to make the system work, Amtrak was forced to negotiate for airwaves owned by private companies that are often used in mobile broadband.

The railroad struggled for four years to buy the rights to airwaves in the Northeast Corridor that would have allowed them to turn the system on. “The transponders were on the tracks,” said one person who attended a Thursday morning briefing for congressional staff members. “But they also said they weren’t operational, because of this ongoing spectrum issue.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had approved Amtrak’s application for the purchase of wireless spectrum from an entity called Skybridge Spectrum Foundation on March 5, clearing the way for final tests on the system, a spokeswoman for the commission said.

The crash spotlighted other possible shortcomings in Amtrak’s safety system, officials said. The stretch of track where Train 188 crashed heading north was equipped with an older automatic braking system, but only on the southbound side, an official briefed on the investigation said. Some senior Amtrak officials did not become aware that the braking system had not been installed on the northbound side until after the train derailed.

A spokeswoman for the railroad said Thursday that the decision not to install the system on the northbound stretch of track had been made in the 1990s and reflected the maximum allowable speeds in each direction. Trains approaching Philadelphia from New York can travel as fast as 110 miles per hour, Amtrak said, and face a steeper decrease in allowable speed heading into the curve than trains traveling from Philadelphia toward New York.

In addition, Train 188 was equipped with a second safety system designed to ring buzzers and bells in the engine’s cabin if the engineer does not touch the steering panel for a short period, people briefed on the investigation said. The system, which is intended to prevent crashes when engineers doze off or become distracted, is supposed to stop the train automatically if the engineer does not touch the steering panel after the alarms have sounded.

But officials did not explain in the congressional briefing whether the buzzers were operational on Train No. 188 or why they would not have stopped the train before the accident, according to two people who attended.

But this does not explain why the train first increased speeds from 70 to 106, before the breaks were applied, and why the train was going 102 at the time of the derailment.

The FCC also defended its handling of Amtrak’s petition to acquire wireless frequencies, asserting that it had taken Amtrak three years to negotiate the purchase and that the commission had approved the deal within days.

Money has also been an issue in implementing positive train control.

The Federal Railroad Administration has calculated the cost of the system at $52,000 per mile of track. The railroads have put a total price tag of more than $9 billion on the system and said they have spent $5.2 billion so far. One of the biggest problems is that the system needs to be interoperable, meaning that communication is necessary between equipment used by different railroads, even if the railroads use different types of equipment.

The Federal Railroad Administration twice sought extra funding from Congress to finance the technology for Amtrak and other commuter rails. A first request for $825 million was ignored. A second request for extra funding was made this year for the 2016 budget as part of the Department of Transportation’s Grow America budget.

“Clearly, one of the hurdles that Amtrak has and the commuter rail industry has is that this is very expensive technology,” Joseph C. Szabo, a former administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, said. “It was never funded. The failure to invest in Amtrak’s capital program clearly has been a hindrance in more timely deployment. The way to make public rail a priority would be with public funding.”











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

Net Neutrality Protest 9/10/2014

Twitter, Netflix and Reddit will take part in an "internet slowdown" protest in favour of net neutrality on today.

They are among dozens of firms worried that proposed new regulations will mean extra charges for fast internet access.  The US Federal Communications Commission said its proposals were designed to protect net neutrality.

Many groups taking part will display the spinning wheel, an icon for slow loading speed, but will run normally.  The Netflix post also urged others to join the campaign.&nbdp; WordPress and the American Civil Liberties Union said they were also planning to take part on Wednesday.

A Twitter spokesman told the BBC: "We support the Internet Slowdown campaign and its efforts to draw public attention to a critically important issue.  We're not planning to add a banner to our home page, but we'll participate in other ways."  The spokesman would not elaborate on the form Twitter's protest would take.

According to one of the protest organizers, Free Press, Reddit and Netflix will be joined by Mozilla, Kickstarter and Upworthy, as well as Automattic, which runs WordPress, Digg and Vimeo.  Other online firms taking part will include Boing Boing, Thunderclap and Urban Dictionary, as well as Foursquare, Digg and Cheezburger.

"The cause of net neutrality is important to us as a business.  It's important to our visitors, and it's important for our democracy.  We're proud to take part in the Internet Slowdown and encourage others to join with us," said Reddit general manager Erik Martin.

"We need our leaders to stand up to the cabal of cable and phone giants that have called the shots in Washington for too long," Free Press Action Fund president Craig Aaron said.

The move follows the proposal from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which would require telecom providers to ensure that "all users have access to an internet experience that is sufficiently robust, fast and effectively usable".

The proposal came after a US Court of Appeals ruling in January that found that broadband providers were not under an obligation to ensure all internet traffic was treated equally.

The FCC's proposals defined users as both consumers and "content providers who do not enter into specific arrangements with broadband providers".

Providers would be banned from blocking downloads of legal content but the rules would leave the door open to them to charge for "prioritized" data delivery.

In response, more than 100 technology firms, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter, wrote to the FCC claiming the rules "would enable phone and cable internet service providers to discriminate both technically and financially against internet companies and to impose new tolls on them".

They wrote: "This represents a grave threat to the internet."










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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