House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said Friday, following a government report detailing new abuses, he will oppose reauthorization of the intelligence community’s surveillance authority unless there are major changes. DOJ and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released declassified documents Friday detailing unauthorized surveillance of Americans related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. According to the documents, the FBI did backdoor searches on groups ranging from Black Lives Matter protesters to Jan. 6 rioters. “The FBI says that they have instituted new procedures to make this kind of abuse impossible,” said Nadler. “They have made that promise before. Without significant changes to the law to prevent this abuse, I will oppose the reauthorization of this authority." Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., also condemned the abuse: “These abuses have been going on for years and despite recent changes in FBI practices, these systematic violations of Americans’ privacy require congressional action. If Section 702 is to be reauthorized, there must be statutory reforms to ensure that the checks and balances are in place to put an end to these abuses.”

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., led filing Wednesday of the AM for Every Vehicle Act to require automakers to maintain AM radio in new vehicles at no additional charge. The measure would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to issue a rule mandating AM radio access in new vehicles. It would also require automakers that sell vehicles without AM radio before the NHTSA rule takes effect to clearly disclose that lack of access. Markey pressed automakers in December on whether they would include AM receivers. Other lawmakers have also weighed in on the issue recently, including a group of more than 100 House members led by Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio (see 2305150063). Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas is the lead GOP sponsor of the bill's Senate version. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and three other Commerce members are co-sponsors. Four lawmakers are co-sponsors of the House version: Tom Kean, R-N.J.; Rob Menendez, D-N.J.; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.; and Bruce Westerman, R-Ark. NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt said the measure “ensures that the tens of million Americans who depend on AM radio for news, entertainment and critical safety information each month can continue to have access to this reliable communications medium. As the backbone of the Emergency Alert System, AM radio is instrumental in promptly disseminating vital information across all mediums during crises, ensuring that communities remain safe and well-informed.”

Members of the Wireless ISP Association will be on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a “fly-in” lobbying day, a spokesperson said. Members of the National Association of Tower Erectors are also taking part and the NTIA’s broadband, equity, access and deployment program is expected to “figure prominently” in the discussions, the spokesperson said. The group emphasized the role wireless could play in the BEAD program (see 2302090063).

The House Communications Subcommittee plans to vote Wednesday on a new proposal from Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., to temporarily restore the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through June 30, plus 27 bills aimed at eliminating communications deployment permitting barriers, the panel said Monday. Rodgers’ legislation comes two months after the FCC’s mandate expired amid a Senate impasse (see 2303090074) over her House-passed bill to renew the authority through May 19 (HR-1108) and an alternative extending it through Sept. 30 (S-650). All four FCC commissioners and other communications policy stakeholders renewed their push for Congress to resurrect the remit (see 2304190069). House Communications members during an April hearing divided along party lines on the Winning the International Race for Economic Leadership and Expanding Service to Support Leadership Act (HR-3279) and the other 26 other bills on the Wednesday markup. The markup session will begin at 1 p.m. or 30 minutes after a Wednesday House Commerce Health Subcommittee meeting ends, whichever is later, in 2123 Rayburn.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and 101 other House members wrote Ford and nine other automakers Monday urging them not to remove AM radio receivers from electric vehicles. Latta and the other House members sent the letters to automakers that previously responded to a December inquiry from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., that they would be removing AM receivers and to those that didn’t respond. The other automakers are BMW, General Motors, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Polestar, Rivian, Tesla, Volkswagen and Volvo. Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., pressed the Federal Emergency Management Agency last week on how removal of AM receivers would affect the emergency alert system (see 2305110068). “AM radio has more than 45 million listeners each month, and our constituents rely heavily on it for emergency alerts and local news, information, and weather” forecasts, Latta and the other lawmakers said in the Monday letters. “For rural Americans, the importance of having access to AM radio in their car or truck is particularly important. When Internet connectivity and cell phone service is limited or unavailable, these residents do not have as many options to access emergency information as those living in more densely populated areas. AM radio stations are often our constituents’ ‘go to’ source for information in times of crisis. We cannot deprive them of that free, life-saving resource.” The lawmakers want the automakers to respond by May 26. NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt said the House members "understand the critical role that AM radio plays in disseminating vital information to the public, particularly in times of emergency. Tens of millions of Americans listen to AM radio each month for its local and diverse content and we applaud these lawmakers for their commitment to their constituents who depend on AM."

Chris Luna, the person the League of United Latin American Citizens wants President Joe Biden to nominate for the vacant FCC seat, has retired as T-Mobile vice president-legal affairs (see 2305090077), the carrier said.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., filed a Senate version Thursday of the House-passed Stopping Home Office Work's Unproductive Problems Act (HR-139) in a bid to roll back federal agencies’ COVID-19 telework policies. The measure, which the House approved in February, would require the FCC and all other federal agencies to return to using the telework policies in place at the end of 2019. The measure would effectively require all federal employees who were working in the office before the COVID-19 pandemic to return to their former work locations. Unions representing employees at the FCC and other agencies criticized HR-139 before its House passage (see 2302010068). “I regularly hear from Tennesseans struggling to get ahold of a federal agency because of the massive backlog created by employees not being in the workplace,” Blackburn said. The Show Up Act “would help restore accountability and productivity within the federal government, and I urge the Senate to promptly join the House in passing it.” Six other GOP senators are co-sponsors.

The Senate Commerce Committee advanced the Securing Semiconductor Supply Chains Act (S-229) on a voice vote Wednesday. The measure and House companion HR-752 would direct the Commerce Department’s SelectUSA program to work with state-level economic development organizations to develop strategies to attract investment in U.S. semiconductor manufacturers and supply chains. Senate Commerce advanced a previous version of the bill in 2021 (see 2112090058).

Equifax, Experian, Kochava, Oracle and Thomson Reuters are among data broker companies the House Commerce Committee queried Wednesday in its bipartisan investigation into potential exploitation of U.S. data. Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., led efforts to deliver letters to some 20 heads of data broker companies. They presented various questions to the companies in an effort to understand how they “purchase, collect, use, license, and sell Americans’ data.” Passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation to increase Americans’ control over their personal data is a “top priority,” they said.

Testimony and written responses from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew show he’s as “adept at obfuscating Congressional oversight” as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, House Innovation Subcommittee ranking member Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., told us Tuesday. She issued a statement in response to the company’s written answers to the House Commerce Committee’s questions for the record (see 2305080041). “Everything we heard at the hearing reinforced what we already knew -- industry-wide privacy issues arising from the vast collection, use, sharing, and monetization of personal data by social media platforms and other technology companies are a threat to Americans,” she said. “This further demonstrates a need for a comprehensive national consumer data privacy framework to create meaningful limits on collection, use, and sale of Americans’ data.”