Other Developments, Further Reading, and Coming Events (2 August 2021)

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Other Developments

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has filed the text of the bipartisan Senate infrastructure package as an amendment to the House’s surface transportation reauthorization, the “Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act” (H.R.3684). Schumer performed this procedural move during a rare weekend session on behalf of the Senators who negotiated the $1 trillion package, the “Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act:” Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Rob Portman (R-OH), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jon Tester (D-MT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mark Warner (D-VA) and Mitt Romney (R-UT). Thus far, of the stakeholders, only the White House has released a summary of the 2702 page bill, and it contains the following technology provisions:
  • Broadband internet is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school learning, health care, and to stay connected. Yet, by one definition, more than 30 million Americans live in areas where there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds – a particular problem in rural communities throughout the country. The deal’s $65 billion investment ensures every American has access to reliable high-speed internet with an historic investment in broadband infrastructure deployment, just as the federal government made a historic effort to provide electricity to every American nearly one hundred years ago.
  • The bill will also help lower prices for internet service by requiring funding recipients to offer a low-cost affordable plan, by creating price transparency and helping families comparison shop, and by boosting competition in areas where existing providers aren’t providing adequate service. It will also help close the digital divide by passing the Digital Equity Act, ending digital redlining, and creating a permanent program to help more low-income households access the internet.
  • As the recent Texas power outages demonstrated, our aging electric grid needs urgent modernization. A Department of Energy study found that power outages cost the U.S. economy up to $70 billion annually. The deal’s $73 billion investment is the single largest investment in clean energy transmission in American history.  It upgrades our power infrastructure, including by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy. It creates a new Grid Deployment Authority, invests in research and development for advanced transmission and electricity distribution technologies, and promotes smart grid technologies that deliver flexibility and resilience. It invests in demonstration projects and research hubs for next generation technologies like advanced nuclear reactors, carbon capture, and clean hydrogen.
  • The bill includes cybersecurity provisions pertaining to the U.S. electric grid and other cyber provisions such as those in previously introduced standalone legislation: the “State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act” (H.R.3138) funded at $1 billion and the “Cyber Response and Recovery Act of 2021” (S.1316) funded at $100 million. Moreover, it includes $21 million to help stand up the new National Cyber Director’s office in the White House, and an additional $35 million for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency “for risk management operations and stakeholder engagement and requirements.”
  • Also, the package uses “tax enforcement when it comes to crypto currencies” as a means of raising revenue, and the preliminary estimates run by the Joint Committee on Taxation project this will raise $28 billion.
  • A media outlet has made available a summary that appears to have been written by someone with knowledge of the bill, presumably staff on Capitol Hill.
• President Joe Biden nominated Jonathan Kanter to be the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, a key position in the United States (U.S.) government that steers antitrust policy. In its statement, the White House asserted that “Kanter has also been a leading advocate and expert in the effort to promote strong and meaningful antitrust enforcement and competition policy…[and] is currently a partner at The Kanter Law Group LLP, which is a boutique antitrust law firm that advocates in favor of federal and state antitrust law enforcement.” According to one media source, the Biden Administration’s delay in naming a person to head the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division set a new record for modern administrations, eclipsing the Carter Administration. Nonetheless, Kanter’s nomination follows Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s, signaling a more adversarial stance for the Biden Administration on antitrust, competition, and merger policy that will almost certainly affect technology companies.
• The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted an Article 65 dispute resolution decision that “seeks to address the lack of consensus on certain aspects of a draft decision issued by the Irish (IE) SA as lead supervisory authority (LSA) regarding WhatsApp Ireland Ltd. (WhatsApp IE) and the subsequent objections expressed by a number of concerned supervisory authorities (CSAs).” The EDPB has already issued one Article 65 decision in regard to the Data Protection Commission (DPC) that functionally overruled the agency and revised upward its proposed punishment of Twitter for data breaches. In a recent related development, the EDPB turned down the Hamburg data protection authority’s request for an urgent binding order on WhatsApp and Facebook’s new privacy and policy and terms of service (see here for more detail and analysis). The EDPB did urge the DPC to investigate, which appears to overlap with this Article 65 proceeding. In the press release, the EDPB further explained:
  • The LSA issued the draft decision following an own-volition inquiry into WhatsApp IE, concerning whether WhatsApp IE complied with its transparency obligations pursuant to Art. 12, 13 & 14 GDPR. On 24 December 2020, the LSA shared its draft decision with the CSAs in accordance with Art. 60 (3) GDPR.
  • The CSAs issued objections pursuant to Art. 60 (4) GDPR concerning, among others, the identified infringements of the GDPR, whether specific data at stake were to be considered personal data and the consequences thereof, and the appropriateness of the envisaged corrective measures.
  • The IE SA was unable to reach consensus, having considered the objections of the CSAs, and consequently indicated to the Board it would not follow the objections. Accordingly, the IE SA referred them to the EDPB for determination pursuant to Art. 65 (1) (a) GDPR, thereby initiating the dispute resolution procedure.
  • Today, the EDPB adopted its binding decision. The decision addresses the merits of the objections found to be “relevant and reasoned” in line with the requirements of Art. 4 (24) GDPR. The EDPB will shortly notify its decision formally to the concerned supervisory authorities.
  • The IE SA shall adopt its final decision, addressed to the controller, on the basis of the EDPB decision, without undue delay and at the latest one month after the EDPB has notified its decision. The EDPB will publish its decision on its website without undue delay after the IE SA has notified their national decision to the controller.  
• The House Agriculture Committee marked up and reported out the “Broadband Internet Connections for Rural America Act” (HR 4374), a bill that would infuse the Department of Agriculture’s broadband programs with a significant funding increase. The committee explained in a summary:
  • The Broadband Internet Connections for Rural America Act invests $43.2 billion in USDA’s Rural Development broadband programs by providing last mile technical and financial assistance to rural communities seeking to improve their broadband service, increasing resources available to build out middle mile, providing grant funding to small rural communities, and providing funds to invest in distance learning and telemedicine capabilities. Overall, these investments provide opportunities for rural communities to invest in the health and well-being of their communities, incentivize business growth, and expand economic opportunities.
  • The demographics, geography, and landscape of rural communities creates a unique set of barriers to broadband accessibility and adoption in these areas. The Broadband Internet Connections for Rural America Act (BICRAA) addresses those challenges through investment in the Innovative Broadband Advancement Program, directing the Secretary to fund projects in states across the U.S. that demonstrate innovative methods of broadband deployment or technologies that would decrease the cost of broadband deployment and result in faster and higher quality broadband.
  • To address the broad array of barriers rural communities face today, the Secretary would be required to award projects to a diverse range of areas.
  • The bill consolidates and incorporates the best of ReConnect and the farm bill authorized Rural Broadband Program to create the ReConnect Rural Broadband Program. Since its creation in the Fiscal Year 2018 appropriations bill, ReConnect has delivered over $900 million to rural areas to build, expand, and improve available broadband services. The Broadband Internet Connections for Rural America Act provides a path forward for both ReConnect and the Rural Broadband Program. The bill provides a timeline and adequate funding to stand up the new ReConnect Rural Broadband Program by Fiscal Year 2023.
• The United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre launched Zero trust architecture design principles. The NCSC explained:
  • Network architecture is changing. More services are moving to the cloud and there is continued growth in the use of Software as a Service (SaaS).
  • Meanwhile, many organisations are embracing flexible working, meaning your systems may see numerous types of devices connecting from a variety of locations. It’s also increasingly common for organisations to share data with their ‘partners’ and guest users, necessitating granular access control policies.
  • Zero trust architecture is designed to cope with these changing conditions by enabling an improved user experience for remote access and data sharing. With this in mind, our new zero trust guidance is intended to help organisations design and build a zero trust architecture.
  • Our 8 zero trust principles
    • The eight principles outlined in our guidance will help you to implement your own zero trust network architecture in an enterprise environment.
    • The principles are:
    • Know your architecture, including users, devices, services and data.
    • Know your User, Service and Device identities.
    • Assess your user behaviour, device and service health.
    • Use policies to authorise requests.
    • Authenticate & Authorise everywhere.
    • Focus your monitoring on users, devices and services.
    • Don’t trust any network, including your own.
    • Choose services designed for zero trust.
• In response to the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s first Surgeon General’s Advisory of this Administration that warned the American public about the urgent threat of health misinformation” and comments from President Joe Biden on vaccine misinformation and pressure from the White House, Facebook asserted in a blog posting titled “Moving Past the Finger Pointing” that “[a]t a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies.” Facebook continued:
  • And when we see misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, we take action against it. 
    • Since the beginning of the pandemic we have removed over 18 million instances of COVID-19 misinformation. 
    • We have also labeled and reduced the visibility of more than 167 million pieces of COVID-19 content debunked by our network of fact-checking partners so fewer people see it and — when they do — they have the full context. 
  • In fact, we’ve already taken action on all eight of the Surgeon General’s recommendations on what tech companies can do to help. And we are continuing to work with health experts to update the list of false claims we remove from our platform. We publish these rules for everyone to read and scrutinize, and we update them regularly as we see new trends emerge. 
  • The Biden Administration is calling for a whole of society approach to this challenge. We agree. As a company, we have devoted unprecedented resources to the fight against the pandemic, pointing people to reliable information and helping them find and schedule vaccinations. And we will continue to do so.
• The Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner “determined that Uber Technologies, Inc. and Uber B.V. interfered with the privacy of an estimated 1.2 million Australians” according to her press release. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
  • Commissioner Falk found the Uber companies failed to appropriately protect the personal data of Australian customers and drivers, which was accessed in a cyber attack in October and November 2016.
  • The determination follows detailed investigations into US-based Uber Technologies Inc and Dutch-based Uber B.V. which involved significant jurisdictional matters and complex corporate arrangements and information flows.
  • While Uber required the attackers to destroy the data and there was no evidence of further misuse, the investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) focused on whether Uber had preventative measures in place to protect Australians’ data.
  • Commissioner Falk found the Uber companies breached the Privacy Act 1988 by not taking reasonable steps to protect Australians’ personal information from unauthorised access and to destroy or de-identify the data as required. They also failed to take reasonable steps to implement practices, procedures and systems to ensure compliance with the Australian Privacy Principles.
  • Rather than disclosing the breach responsibly, Uber paid the attackers a reward through a bug bounty program for identifying a security vulnerability. Uber did not conduct a full assessment of the personal information that may have been accessed until almost a year after the data breach and did not publicly disclose the data breach until November 2017. 
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory “on a spearphishing and intrusion campaign conducted by state-sponsored Chinese actors that occurred from December 2011 to 2013, targeting U.S. oil and natural gas (ONG) pipeline companies.” The agencies stated:
  • CISA and the FBI provided incident response and remediation support to a number of victims of this activity. Overall, the U.S. Government identified and tracked 23 U.S. natural gas pipeline operators targeted from 2011 to 2013 in this spearphishing and intrusion campaign. Of the known targeted entities, 13 were confirmed compromises, 3 were near misses, and 7 had an unknown depth of intrusion.
  • The U.S. Government has attributed this activity to Chinese state-sponsored actors. CISA and the FBI assess that these actors were specifically targeting U.S. pipeline infrastructure for the purpose of holding U.S. pipeline infrastructure at risk. Additionally, CISA and the FBI assess that this activity was ultimately intended to help China develop cyberattack capabilities against U.S. pipelines to physically damage pipelines or disrupt pipeline operations.
  • This advisory provides information on this campaign, including tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and IOCs. The TTPs remain relevant to help network defenders protect against intrusions. The IOCs are provided for historical awareness.
  • CISA and the FBI urge owners and operators of Energy Sector and other critical infrastructure (CI) networks to adopt a heightened state of awareness and implement the recommendations listed in the Mitigations section of this advisory, which include implementing network segmentation between IT and industrial control system (ICS)/operational technology (OT) networks. These mitigations will improve a CI entity’s defensive cyber posture and functional resilience by reducing the risk of compromise or severe operational degradation if the system is compromised by malicious cyber actors, including but not limited to actors associated with the campaign described in this advisory.
• The chair and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee “introduced bipartisan legislation that would help bolster the federal workforce’s understanding of artificial intelligence (AI)” according to their press release. The “AI Training Act” (S.2551) “would create a training program to help federal employees responsible for purchasing AI technologies better understand the risks and benefits it poses to the American people…[and] would also help ensure the United States maintains a global leadership role in rapidly-developing technologies as foreign competitors like the Chinese government continue to prioritize investments in AI technologies.” They explained further:
  • The bipartisan bill would require the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide and regularly update an AI training program for federal employees who manage and purchase this technology for the federal government. The training aims to help federal employees better understand the benefits of AI, as well as the ethical and national security risks posed by these technologies. The legislation also encourages the OMB director to work with scholars and experts from the public and private sectors to create the training. It would also ensure that OMB is tracking the participation and feedback of participants to identify possible ways to improve the training.
• The National Security Agency (NSA) released a “Cybersecurity Information Sheet, “Securing Wireless Devices in Public Settings” today to help National Security System (NSS), Department of Defense (DOD), and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) teleworkers identify potential threats and minimize risks to their wireless devices and data” per the agency’s press release. The NSA stated:
  • Cyber actors can compromise devices over Bluetooth, public Wi-Fi, and Near-Field Communications (NFC), a short-range wireless technology. This puts personal and organizational data, credentials, and devices at risk. Devices include laptops, tablets, mobile, wearable, and others that can connect to public wireless technologies. The Cybersecurity Information Sheet describes how to identify potentially vulnerable public connections, secure common wireless technologies, and better protect devices and data.
  • NSA lists malicious techniques used to target each technology and provides specific recommendations, such as avoiding public Wi-Fi and instead using a personal or corporate mobile hotspot with strong authentication and encryption. If users must connect to public Wi-Fi, they should take necessary precautions, such as using a personal or corporate-provided virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt the traffic.
  • The guidance throughout helps users understand the risks in using public wireless technologies and enables them to make calculated decisions about the level of risk they accept. At a minimum, NSA recommend disabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC when not in use.
• The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) published “the aggregated data and analysis of the incident reports for telecom services and trust services” in 2020. ENISA offered these key takeaways:
  • Telecom Security Incidents 2020 – Annual Report
  • The annual report on telecom security incidents for 2020 reveals that faulty software changes and/or updates constitute a major aggravating factor in terms of impact resulting in 346 million hours lost which is equivalent to 40 % of the total number of hours lost.
  • System failures continue to dominate as the most frequent cause of incidents leading to severe adverse impact.
  • The total of incidents caused by human errors or third-party failures remain similar to the levels seen in 2019.
  • The multiannual trends show that although system failures continue to be the most frequent cause of incidents (61%), these incidents are decreasing in size.
  • The analysis also reveals that incidents cause by human errors have been on the increase between 2016 and 2020, reaching 26% of the total number of incidents.
  • Trust Services Security Incidents 2020 – Annual Report
  • The annual report on trust services incidents also reveals system failures remain the dominant root cause of incidents with human errors ranking second.
  • Overall, the level of severity remains steadily low, which indicates that Trust Service Providers (TSPs) report more incidents, even those that are less severe.
  • In 2020, 69% of total incidents had an impact on qualified trust services when compared with approximately 33% of incidents reported on non-qualified trust services. The study highlights a concern over non-qualified trust services incidents considered to be under reported although such services are very widely used. A good example of this is website certificates used by 80 % of websites globally. The rather limited number of incident reports on non-qualified trust services under the eIDAS regulation suggests there is still under-reporting in the specific market. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that one Member State reported 11 incidents during 2020.
  • Besides, the analysis also revealed PDF sign-in vulnerabilities with the emerging of new “shadow attacks” affecting a wide range of software products.

Further Reading

• “She risked everything to expose Facebook. Now she’s telling her story.” — Karen Hao — MIT Technology Review. The world first learned of Sophie Zhang in September 2020, when BuzzFeed News obtained and published highlights from an abridged version of her nearly 8,000-word exit memo from Facebook. Before she was fired, Zhang was officially employed as a low-level data scientist at the company. But she had become consumed by a task she deemed more important: finding and taking down fake accounts and likes that were being used to sway elections globally. Her memo revealed that she’d identified dozens of countries, including India, Mexico, Afghanistan, and South Korea, where this type of abuse was enabling politicians to mislead the public and gain power. It also revealed how little the company had done to mitigate the problem, despite Zhang’s repeated efforts to bring it to the attention of leadership.
• “The ugly side of 5G: New cell towers spoil the scenery and crowd people’s homes” By Robert McCartney — The Washington Post. The telecom giants promise that 5G technology will thrill us with dramatically expanded, ultrafast wireless service. But they don’t mention that it also means installing vastly more equipment, including cell towers, in ugly and intrusive ways. Property owners and local governments across the country are pushing back with a surge of grass-roots objections pressing the industry not to erect poles that spoil a view or crowd a home and potentially reduce its value. Such a protest in Dewey Beach, Del. — summer playground for thousands of Washingtonians — has drawn national attention. The resort has emerged as a champion of the movement after persuading Verizon to promise to remove three of five towers that marred the scenery along the dunes.
• “How Do You Stop Robocalls?” By Christine Hauser — The New York Times. The calls look vaguely familiar, as if they could be coming from a neighbor’s phone. Sometimes they’re ominous warnings about your Social Security number. A friendly voice pretends to be concerned about the warranty on a car you don’t have. Americans get millions of illegal robocalls every month, despite attempts by the telecommunications industry and government agencies to stop them.
• “The summer Intel fell behind” By Chaim Gartenberg — The Verge. In the summer of 2020 Intel seemed poised for triumph. Then it all went wrong. “To put it briefly: Intel blew it,” explains Glenn O’Donnell, a research director at Forrester Research. Intel was forced to announce to the world that it’d be delaying its next major manufacturing milestone for its chips for another few years, an admission that, once again, Intel was falling behind the competition. After years of misplaced bets, manufacturing delays, and changing leadership, the previously undisputed chip-making king has found itself faced by competition the likes of which it hasn’t faced in decades — while simultaneously finding itself at what could be the company’s nadir.
• “Turn off, turn on: Simple step can thwart top phone hackers” By Alan Suderman — The Associated Press. As a member of the secretive Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Angus King has reason to worry about hackers. At a briefing by security staff this year, he said he got some advice on how to help keep his cellphone secure. Step One: Turn off phone. Step Two: Turn it back on. That’s it. At a time of widespread digital insecurity it turns out that the oldest and simplest computer fix there is — turning a device off then back on again — can thwart hackers from stealing information from smartphones.
• “Semiconductor shortage hammering automakers, costing billions in lost production and sales” By Jeanne Whalen — The Washington Post. The global shortage of computer chips continues to hammer automakers, forcing factory shutdowns and sapping sales and profits, with mixed views on when relief might arrive. Seventeen auto factories in North America and Europe have halted or reduced production in recent weeks over the scarcity of the tiny components, according to Seraph Consulting, which is advising automakers on the shortages. The shutdowns have affected plants in Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Mexico, Canada and Germany.
• “Meet Paragon: An American-Funded, Super-Secretive Israeli Surveillance Startup That ‘Hacks WhatsApp And Signal’” By Thomas Brewster — Forbes. Paragon Solutions doesn’t have a website. There’s very little information at all about them online, even if the Tel Aviv-based smartphone surveillance startup’s employees are all over LinkedIn, more than 50 of them. That’s not a bad headcount for a company that’s still in stealth mode. But it does have a cofounder, director and chief shareholder that will turn heads: Ehud Schneorson, the former commander of Israel’s NSA equivalent, known as Unit 8200. The other cofounders – CEO Idan Nurick, CTO Igor Bogudlov and vice president of research Liad Avraham – are ex-Israeli intelligence too. Also on the board is cofounding director and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. They also have a significant American financial backer: Boston, Massachusetts-based Battery Ventures. According to two senior employees at companies in the Israeli surveillance industry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the venture capital business put in between $5 and $10 million, though Battery declined to comment on the nature of its investment, which is only mentioned in brief on the company’s website. 
• “Justice Department officials urge Congress to pass ransomware notification law” By Tonya Riley — cyberscoop. U.S. Justice Department officials came out in strong support of legislation requiring companies to report ransomware attacks and other severe data breaches to federal authorities. “Without prompt reporting, investigative opportunities are lost, our ability to assist other victims facing the same attacks is degraded and the government and Congress does not have a full picture of the threat facing American companies,” said Richard Downing, deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice, at a Senate Judiciary hearing on ransomware Tuesday.
• “Snapchat is TikTok is Instagram is Facebook is Snapchat. What do we do now?” By David Pierce — Protocol. The ouroboros of social media is now so complicated that it’s almost impossible to find its beginning. Snapchat debuted the Stories format, which Instagram copied, and is now a feature everywhere from LinkedIn to Twitter to YouTube. (That joke about Excel Stories seems a little more plausible every day.) Facebook’s algorithmically-curated news feed is now the way most platforms work. Everybody got into video, then live video, then audio, at about the same pace. Everything from hashtags to @-usernames started in one place and eventually became ubiquitous. Most recently, TikTok’s never-ending scroll of full-screen videos has become the latest way people navigate the internet, even on platforms far away from TikTok.
• “The YouTubers who blew the whistle on an anti-vax plot” — BBC. A mysterious marketing agency secretly offered to pay social media stars to spread disinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. Their plan failed when the influencers went public about the attempt to recruit them. “It started with an email” says Mirko Drotschmann, a German YouTuber and journalist. Mirko normally ignores offers from brands asking him to advertise their products to his more than 1.5 million subscribers. But the sponsorship offer he received in May this year was unlike any other.
• “Israeli Government Visits NSO Group Amid Spyware Claims” By Jeremy Kirk — Bank Info Security. he Israeli government paid a visit on Wednesday to NSO Group, the controversial company whose spyware is alleged to have been covertly installed on the mobile devices of journalists and activists. Officials from Israel’s Ministry of Defense visited NSO Group, according to Calcalist.co.il. The visit was prearranged, the publication reported, and it did not include an audit or examination of computer systems or documents.

Coming Events 

• 4 August
  • The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will markup a number of measures, including:
    • S. 2559, Deepfake Task Force Act;
    • S. 2551, AI Training Act;
    • S. 2520, State and Local Government Cybersecurity Act;
    • S. 2305, Cybersecurity Opportunity Act;
    • S. 2439, DHS Industrial Control Systems Capabilities Enhancement Act of 2021;
    • S. 2540, CISA Technical Corrections and Improvements Act of 2021;
    • S. 2525, Domains Critical to Homeland Security Act.
  • The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing titled “Beijing’s Long Arm: Threats To U.S. National Security.”
• 5 August
  • The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will hold its monthly open meeting with this tentative agenda:
    • Establishing Two New Innovation Zones. The Commission will consider a Public Notice that would create two new Innovation Zones for Program Experimental Licenses and the expansion of an existing Innovation Zone. (ET Docket No. 19-257)
    • Numbering Policies for Modern Communications. The Commission will consider a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to update the Commission’s rules regarding direct access to numbers by interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol providers to safeguard the nation’s finite numbering resources, curb illegal robocalls, protect national security, and further promote public safety. (WC Docket Nos. 13-97, 07-243, 20-67; IB Docket No. 16-155)
    • Appeals of the STIR/SHAKEN Governance Authority Token Revocation Decisions. The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would establish a process for the Commission to review decisions of the private STIR/SHAKEN Governance Authority that would have the effect of placing voice service providers out of compliance with the Commission’s STIR/SHAKEN implementation rules. (WC Docket Nos. 17-97, 21-291)
    • Modernizing Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Compensation. The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on TRS Fund compensation methodology for IP Relay service. (CG Docket No. 03-123; RM-11820)
    • Updating Outmoded Political Programming and Record-Keeping Rules. The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to update outmoded political programming rules. (MB Docket No. 21-293)
    • Review of the Commission’s Part 95 Personal Radio Services Rules. The Commission will consider a Memorandum Opinion and Order on Reconsideration that would grant three petitions for reconsideration of the Commission’s May 2017 Part 95 Personal Radio Services Rules Report and Order. (WT Docket No. 10-119)
• 1 September
  • The House Armed Services Committee will mark up the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R.4395).

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