The Copyright Office's proposal to separate its systems from the Library of Congress' IT infrastructure and allocate specific funding for CO IT improvements “has nothing to do with the constitutional arguments” over whether to detach the CO from the LOC, said Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante during a House Appropriations Committee Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing Wednesday. The CO made its proposal for separating its IT systems as part of a provisional version of its IT modernization plan released Monday (see 1602290071).
Major communications interests are urging the FCC to implement confidentiality protection rules for its proposed voluntary FCC-private sector meetings on cyber risks that are similar to those that the Department of Homeland Security uses in its Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) program, several told us. The FCC is circulating a policy statement that would set up the process for conducting the FCC-private sector meetings as part of its larger adoption of the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council’s (CSRIC) 2015 report on recommendations for communications sector cybersecurity risk management. The private sector voluntarily committed via the CSRIC report to promote the use of FCC meetings with individual companies about their cyber risks and their use of cybersecurity best practices (see 1503180056 and 1602220052). Several stakeholders said the FCC is unsure whether it has the legal authority to fully implement the confidentiality protections used in DHS’ PCII program for its own confidential meetings.
The Copyright Office said its five-year IT program modernization plan focuses on increasing stakeholders’ use of copyright registration and moving the office away from dependency on a large infrastructure base by using a “variety of cloud strategies.” A “provisional” version of the IT plan released Monday would move the CO’s current paper-based copyright registration to an “automated system where recording parties may enter their own information,” the CO said. Back-end improvements to CO online search functionality will give all stakeholders “dynamic access to the Office’s recordation data,” and the CO will better integrate siloed registration data to provide “a more seamless chain of title from registration to licenses to transfers and the public domain,” the office said. Several copyright stakeholders voiced early praise Monday for the IT plan, saying its high-level priorities stick with the spirit of the CO's 2016-2020 strategic plan (see 1510230042 and 1512010061).
The House Communications Subcommittee is planning a March 17 hearing on the status of ICANN’s Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition plan, a House Commerce Committee aide told us Friday. House Commerce later confirmed that the IANA transition hearing is set for March 17, but provided no additional details on the hearing. House Communications "will continue to exercise our oversight over [NTIA's] effort to transition its oversight of the Domain Name System to ensure that the Internet remains free and open for all users," said House Communications Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., in a statement. The House Communications hearing would occur a week after the ICANN board is set to vote on the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group’s IANA transition plan and the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s (CCWG-Accountability) related proposal for changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms (see 1602250053). Expectations had been growing that a congressional hearing on the IANA transition would occur after the ICANN board’s vote, particularly given recent criticism from GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about retiring ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé’s involvement with the Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (see 1602220066). It’s likely that NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling will testify at the House Communications hearing, but it’s less clear which ICANN official will testify, an industry lobbyist told us. Chehadé is expected to leave ICANN March 15, at which point ICANN Global Domains Division President Akram Atallah will become acting CEO. ICANN selected Swedish Post and Telecom Authority Director-General Göran Marby in early February to permanently replace Chehadé, but he won't take the reins until May (see 1602080066).
A trio of GOP presidential hopefuls called on Apple to comply with U.S. District Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym’s court order in Riverside, California, requiring the company to create software to bypass the auto-erase function on an iPhone 5c used by one of the two alleged attackers involved in the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.
The main focus of ICANN’s upcoming March 5-10 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, will be final consideration of the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s (CCWG-Accountability) proposal for changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms, as expected (see 1602160069), ICANN policy officials said Thursday in a webinar. The CCWG-Accountability proposal has become intertwined with the final proposed Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition plan, with the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group saying it would wait to submit its final transition plan to the ICANN board in tandem with the accountability proposal. The ICANN board is expected to consider both the ICG’s transition plan and CCWG-Accountability’s proposal during their public board meeting March 10, ICANN Senior Vice President-Policy Development Support David Olive said.
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé “should recuse himself from all ICANN decisions that could impact the Chinese government,” including all activity related to the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a statement Tuesday. Chehadé responded Friday to questions raised by Cruz and other senators about his decision to become co-chairman of a high-level advisory committee to the Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (WIC) following his mid-March retirement from ICANN, saying his future WIC role didn't violate ICANN's conflict of interest policy. ICANN stakeholders said they believed Cruz was unlikely to be satisfied with Chehadé's answers (see 1602220066). Cruz disputed Chehadé's response, noting a Dec. 17 report by the Chinese government's Xinhua News Agency that the WIC advisory committee held its first meeting “on the sidelines” of the 2015 WIC summit in Wuzhen, China. Either WIC and the Chinese government “have misreported the events that took place during their own conference or Fadi Chehade isn’t being completely honest” with the Senate, Cruz said in a statement. Chehadé had said the only compensation for his WIC role would be for any travel expenses he incurs related to WIC activities, which Cruz said “can be a form of personal conflict of interest.” That compensation “could impair Chehade’s ability to act impartially and in the best interest of the [U.S.] government when performing under” NTIA's current contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions, Cruz said. Chehadé's involvement with WIC “is not helpful, obviously,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters off the Senate floor Wednesday. He said that Senate Commerce is “following that issue very carefully and we're waiting for [ICANN's IANA transition] proposal to come forward. We've been in touch with NTIA about it.” ICANN and NTIA didn't immediately comment.
President Barack Obama Wednesday nominated Carla Hayden, CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, to be Librarian of Congress. Hayden previously was president of the American Library Association and has been a member of the federal National Museum and Library Services Board since 2010. If the Senate confirms Hayden, she would be the first woman and the first African-American to lead the Library of Congress. The White House had been searching for a permanent LOC head since Librarian of Congress James Billington announced in June that he would retire (see 1506180057). Billington ultimately left the LOC in late September. Deputy Librarian of Congress David Mao has been acting head (see 1509250052).
The National Institute of Standards and Technology should concentrate on improving its existing Cybersecurity Framework rather than make any move toward developing an entirely new iteration of the framework, cybersecurity stakeholders said in filings. NIST had been seeking comments on how entities are using the existing framework, which the agency released in 2014, and whether a full update is needed. Communications and tech sector stakeholders were particularly supportive of the existing NIST framework, confirming NIST officials' earlier assessment that stakeholders didn't view a full framework update as necessary (see 1602180068). However, many stakeholders said the NIST framework's implementation tiers guidance hasn't worked as planned, and several suggested NIST remove them from the framework.
A Uniform Law Commission (ULC) drafting committee is closer to delving into the details of editing draft model legislation that would regulate some virtual currency businesses as money transmission services at the state level, participants in and observers of a committee meeting last weekend told us in interviews. The ULC's Regulation of Virtual Currency Businesses Act Committee is drafting its model legislation with an eye to providing a uniform template for states to use for drafting their own legislation, committee participants said. The ULC's ongoing effort has found support from bitcoin think tank Coin Center and other virtual currency industry stakeholders, though other stakeholders told us they remain apprehensive of any work on possible legislation, given the relative youth of bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Individual states' efforts to regulate virtual currency businesses have met with greater industry resistance in some instances (see 1508180057).