Attorney General Eric Holder will testify before Congress on Jan. 29, the Senate Judiciary Committee said, announcing its Justice Department oversight hearing. The hearing will be at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Holder is the only witness listed. “The oversight hearing will be just weeks after President [Barack] Obama charged the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence with considering reforms to government surveillance programs, a top priority” for Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and other committee members, the notice said. Expect “a range of issues” to be discussed, it said.

Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., introduced a spectrum bill Thursday, with no text or details provided or given upon request. The title of HR-3916 says its purpose is to “amend the Communications Act of 1934 to promote the expansion of spectrum-based services to exceptionally hard-to-serve populations in unserved and underserved geographic locations.” The bill lists no co-sponsors and was referred to the House Commerce Committee. The bill will also be known as the Promoting Rural Broadband Act of 2014, according to the text provided by his spokesman. It’s part of a broader economic package of bills and ideas focused on the congressman’s home district, the spokesman added. “This legislation directs the Federal Communications Commission to promote the expansion of spectrum-based services, like broadband to extremely hard to serve populations in unserved and underserved geographic locations,” Kilmer said in a document dated Friday pegged to the economic initiative. “It is critically important that our homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals have access to the communication networks that they require.”

Patent lawyers from big Internet companies discussed patent assertion entities with senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday, said a statement from the Internet Association, which represents Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and other major Internet companies. “Senators must understand the urgency of stopping patent abuse, this is a Main Street problem,” said Michael Beckerman, Internet Association CEO. With House passage of the Innovation Act, the Internet Association’s “member patent counsels” want to “ensure that the momentum continues and passage of an effective bill occurs” in the Senate, said the group.

The FCC must “act quickly to preserve net neutrality,” Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1b8AOdA). Franken blasted the recent Verizon v. FCC court decision that vacated the FCC net neutrality rules. “I am writing to urge you to take any and all appropriate actions necessary to preserve net neutrality,” he said. “Fortunately, the court clearly stated that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 empowers the FCC to promulgate rules governing broadband providers’ treatment of Internet traffic.” The agency thus has the legal authority and “must exercise that authority to implement new rules that will preserve access to the Internet,” Franken said.

Congress is all caught up in the court issues being debated in the Aereo case, now heading to the Supreme Court, said a Congressional Research Service report dated Monday (http://bit.ly/Ll4dLX). “Several bills introduced during the 113th Congress would implicate the various parties in the Aereo and FilmOn cases,” CRS said. “The Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013, introduced by Senator John McCain, [R-Ariz.,] would impact the market in which companies such as Aereo, FilmOn, and the broadcasters are competing.” It would permit cable providers to offer a la carte service and “deny broadcasters their spectrum licenses if they moved big event programming from broadcast television to cable,” it said. “Many of the Aereo plaintiffs have threatened this action in response to Aereo’s success in the courts.” CRS also pointed to the Consumer Choice in Online Video Act, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. The bill “contains provisions that would address antenna rental services, such as Aereo, specifically,” and “would exempt these services from paying certain retransmission fees,” CRS said. Legislative attorney Emily Lanza wrote the report.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wants NTIA to update a 1993 report on the role of telecom in hate crimes. He introduced the Hate Crimes Reporting Act of 2014, HR-3878, Wednesday with 11 Democratic co-sponsors. In a news release (http://1.usa.gov/1mbUHZp), Jeffries’ office said the bill has the backing of 45 advocacy groups, including the NAACP and the National Organization for Women. The bill tells NTIA to look at the role both telecom and the Internet play in hate crimes and then to submit recommendations on how to address those crimes while respecting the First Amendment. The National Hispanic Media Coalition lauded the bill in a news release (http://bit.ly/1asN0sW).

The National Security Agency can’t “be fairly characterized” as spying on members of Congress, Director Keith Alexander told Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a letter the senator released Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1dpPqtu). Sanders had asked if the NSA was collecting bulk phone metadata or reviewing email information of Congress members. Alexander stressed the oversight and protections built into U.S. surveillance practices. The bulk phone metadata collection program is lawful, Alexander said. “But the director’s letter and a separate statement that the NSA issued to reporters did not rule out that records swept up by the NSA may include data on elected officials -- information that Sanders said could be abused,” Sanders’ office said in a news release when releasing the NSA response (http://1.usa.gov/19sYAG6).

"American drivers deserve better,” said Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., in a letter (http://1.usa.gov/1dwv1V9) to Ford Motor Co. about the company’s mixed statements last week on its in-car data collection practices, said a news release from Franken’s office Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1j6fkWZ). Franken criticized statements made by Jim Farley, Ford global marketing and sales vice president, last week, said the release. “We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone,” said Farley, according to the release. Afterwards, Farley clarified his remarks, saying, “"We do not track our customers in their cars without their approval or their consent,” according to the release. “He did not, however, seem to take back his claim that Ford ‘[doesn’t] supply that data to anyone,’ although you have made recent comments clarifying that this data may be shared with user consent,” said Franken, according to the release. On Jan. 6, the Government Accountability Office released a report (http://1.usa.gov/1aIwOR1) that said that some in-car navigation companies aren’t adequately disclosing the use of a consumer’s data location.

Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen is set to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on the congressional trade agenda. The hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. in 215 Dirksen.

Congress should enact national technology-neutral liability protection for all stakeholders involved in emergency services access, such as next-generation 911, and work to consolidate and “regionalize” 911 call centers to help guarantee consistent consumer expectations, CTIA Executive Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe plans to tell the Senate Communications Subcommittee Thursday, according to his written testimony. The subcommittee is holding a hearing on wireless 911 location accuracy at 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. Other witnesses are Trey Forgety, National Emergency Number Association director-government affairs ; APCO International President Gigi Smith; Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Executive Director Claude Stout; and Qualcomm Senior Director-Technology Kirk Burroughs. “The current liability protection framework is premised on protections available to legacy telephone networks under state law and regulations, but the industry is rapidly evolving to IP-based technologies in which services are diverse, increasingly mobile, and potentially multi-jurisdictional,” Guttman-McCabe plans to say. He plans to cite proactive efforts of the wireless industry in bettering emergency services, such as the voluntary carrier commitment to offer text-to-911 services by mid-2014 as well as its work with the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council. In his testimony, he laments what’s happening to states’ 911 funding. “The diversion of these fees is unacceptable and CTIA urges Congress to use every tool at its disposal to halt the practice of raiding 911 funds,” his testimony says. Congress should also “examine the potential intellectual property implications associated with the deployment of E911 and NG911 capabilities,” he will add.