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).
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé framed his involvement with the Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (WIC) as “a natural continuation of ICANN's work” to promote multistakeholder Internet governance. The explanation came in a letter Friday responding to questions from GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other senators. Cruz and Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, raised concerns in early February about Chehadé's decision to become co-chairman of a high-level advisory committee to WIC after his planned mid-March departure from ICANN (see 1602040061).
The ICANN board and a contingent of Governmental Accountability Committee (GAC) members are separately objecting to GAC-related elements in a forthcoming final version of the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s (CCWG-Accountability) proposed set of changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms. The working group had been expected to submit a final proposal to ICANN chartering organizations Thursday (see 1602160069). The ICANN board “has a serious and continued concern” about a proposal to exclude GAC from final consensus discussions when ICANN community members formally object to ICANN board implementation of GAC advice, board Chairman Steve Crocker said Friday in an email to CCWG-Accountability members.
The White House's Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) includes “a few big-ticket items” like the formation of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity (CENC), but “in many ways it's corralling a lot” of the work President Barack Obama's administration has done on cybersecurity since 2009, said Department of Commerce Senior Adviser-Cybersecurity and Technology Clete Johnson Thursday during a USTelecom event. Federal officials highlighted many of the cybersecurity programs pulled into CNAP. The programs include the National Institute of Standards and Technology's ongoing assessment of the Cybersecurity Framework and the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council's (CSRIC) continued work on cybersecurity issues. CNAP, which the White House announced last week, also includes the creation of the Federal Privacy Council and a federal chief information security officer position. The White House released CNAP in conjunction with the release of its FY 2017 federal budget proposal, which includes a 35 percent hike in cybersecurity spending (see 1602090068).
The Copyright Alliance and the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) separately cautioned the Copyright Office against drawing early conclusions about the copyright implications of consumers’ rising use of software-embedded products, telling the CO that there’s not a sufficient record at this time to warrant changing U.S. copyright law to accommodate such products. Other stakeholders conceded that there’s not extensive evidence yet on how the use of software-embedded products and U.S. copyright law may clash, but urged the CO to explore possible change anyway in a bid to pre-empt potential future problems.