Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., introduced legislation Thursday targeting phone scams that he says affect senior citizens. The bill is S-2956, listed as the Phone Scam Prevention Act. One of the bill’s three co-sponsors is Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., who referred to it in a news release as the Anti-Spoofing Act of 2014, the title of legislation that successfully passed the House earlier this year. “This bipartisan legislation would take steps to help protect seniors and all consumers from phone scams by giving people additional protection and closing existing loopholes,” Donnelly said. The other two co-sponsors are Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. Nelson and Collins are the chairman and ranking member of the Special Committee on Aging, where Donnelly is also a member. Nelson is also a Commerce member expected to lead Commerce Democrats in the next Congress, and this bill has been referred to the Commerce Committee. The Aging Committee held a hearing Wednesday on phone scams to hear from debit card companies and retailers. The legislation is intended “to make it easier for seniors to actually know who is calling them, and give them tools to protect themselves from fraud,” Nelson said in his opening statement for that hearing.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, wants to expand the federal Do Not Call restrictions. He introduced a bill (S-2957) Thursday to “allow individuals to opt out of receiving these sorts of pestering phone calls from Super PACs [political action committees] and similar groups,” Begich said in a statement. The Do Not Disturb Act of 2014 would, according to a Begich news release, prevent calls to those who don’t want such calls from super PACs as well as “so-called ‘social welfare’ political organizations.” It also “prohibits push polls and robo-calls to Americans who have listed their telephone numbers on the registry,” the release said. The legislation lists no co-sponsors currently and is referred to the Commerce Committee, where Begich is a member. He lost his re-election bid and will not be a member of the next Congress.

Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., last week lauded the progress in the FCC's AWS-3 spectrum auction, which had raised just shy of $30 billion by Thursday (see 1411200041). It has “achieved remarkable success,” earning “enough to fully fund FirstNet, the nationwide interoperability network for America’s first responders and public safety officials,” she said in a statement. “I am confident that as the spectrum [auction] continues, it will net billions more that will help pay down our national debt. In addition to generating needed revenue, this spectrum auction provides an opportunity for wireless carriers to build-out and enhance their networks, providing better coverage and faster speeds to their customers. This auction is clearly proving to be a major win for consumers, innovation, and public safety.” Matsui co-chairs the Congressional Spectrum Caucus and is a member of the Communications Subcommittee.

The Internet’s root zone file should be managed by a proposed Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) consortium, not ICANN, said a bill introduced Wednesday by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa. The Defending Internet Freedom Act (HR-5737) said the consortium would be financed and managed by top-level domain registries. HR-5737 also calls for an “Internet Freedom Panel” within ICANN. The panel would have the power to “review and veto” any proposed changes to the Domain Name System by ICANN, said the bill. “Preserving Internet freedom is an American duty,” Kelly said in a news release Wednesday. “The requirements within this bill will guarantee that the Internet remains unchained and out of the grasp of bad actors and hostile powers that actively limit freedom.” HR-5737 is co-sponsored by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., and has been endorsed by the American Center for Law and Justice, Center for Security Policy, Eagle Forum and Heritage Foundation, the release said. Kelly spoke at a Heritage Foundation event about the IANA transition in July (see 1407160044). A June paper released by Heritage also called for an IANA consortium.

The House Commerce Committee added seven Republicans to its roster for the new Congress, it said in a news release Thursday. The new members are Reps. Susan Brooks and Larry Bucshon, both Indiana; Chris Collins, New York; Kevin Cramer, North Dakota; Bill Flores, Texas; Rich Hudson, North Carolina; and Markwayne Mullin, Oklahoma. The committee did not announce which subcommittees these members will join.

The House Appropriations Committee named subcommittee chairs Thursday for the next Congress. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., will remain the head of the Financial Services Subcommittee, which oversees such agencies as the FCC and the FTC. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, will chair the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee, replacing Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. The Republican Steering Committee signed off on the 12 subcommittee chairs, an Appropriations news release said.

The White House thinks “federal criminal law should be modernized to include felony criminal penalties for those who engage in large-scale streaming of illegal, infringing content,” said Alex Niejelow, White House IP enforcement coordinator chief of staff, in a blog post Wednesday. Such laws are “already on the books" for the "reproduction and distribution of infringing content,” he said. Niejelow was responding to two petitions to the White House, asking that penalties not be increased for online media sharing (see petitions here and here). The petitions invoked the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (HR-3261), which would have imposed much stiffer penalties for such infringement. SOPA was tabled after public outcry. “We should keep in mind that a felony is meant to reflect significant criminal activity,” Niejelow said. “Congress should consider the question of whether changes in the business model of streaming-based infringement also counsel corresponding changes in the way we set the harm thresholds … required to establish a felony penalty for illegal streaming under the criminal copyright statute.” Those thresholds include the number of infringing acts, their monetary value and the “statutory” time frame in which those acts are committed, Niejelow said.

The USA Freedom Act (S-2685) surveillance overhaul died before proceeding to Senate floor debate or the amendment process Tuesday night. A cloture vote fell short of the required 60, coming to 58-42 and mostly divided across party lines. Sen. Bill Nelson, Fla., was the only Democrat to vote against advancing the cloture motion. Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas; Dean Heller, Nev.; Mike Lee, Utah; and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, were the four Republicans voting in favor of cloture. A companion measure, widely considered by privacy advocates to be watered down, had passed the House earlier this year. “Yesterday a bill that was bipartisan in nature and came out under the auspices of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee after years of consternation, debate and just worked by so many different people came to the floor,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the floor Wednesday. “That was blocked yesterday -- blocked from even having a hearing here in the Senate floor. That’s really wrong. … Shouldn’t we at least be able to debate the issue here on the floor?” Wednesday, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., author of the provision, slammed “some of the worst fear-mongering I’ve heard in 40 years” on the floor. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had urged senators to oppose the USA Freedom Act, saying it would increase U.S. vulnerability to terrorist groups. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a surveillance critic, voted against the measure and framed it as “renewal of the Patriot Act,” not doing enough to revamp surveillance law. Several supporters of the bill have issued statements saying they want to continue the overhaul efforts in the next Congress.

Communications Subcommittee members spoke up on net neutrality on the Senate floor Wednesday. “People are trying to send a message here,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., reflecting on the recent midterm elections that featured many GOP seat gains. “It’d be a good idea if the White House would get on receive and try to figure out what that message is and what is wrong with those policies the American people don’t like.” Voters are “concerned about the president’s recent overreach” on net neutrality “where even the chairman of the FCC, nominated by the president, confirmed by this Senate, even the chairman of the FCC says, no, I think the president’s headed in the wrong direction there and we need to do something different than that,” Blunt said. President Barack Obama recently backed Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband, and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has not publicly disagreed with that proposal (see 1411190039). Wheeler is widely seen as having worked on a hybrid proposal, drawing on Title II and Section 706. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., defended net neutrality. She called for strong rules to prevent blocking, throttling, paid prioritization deals and to promote transparency, for wired and wireless networks. She worries about ISPs “cutting backroom deals,” she said, flanked by a large sign displaying the words net neutrality. “We face a pivotal moment,” Cantwell said. “I’m calling on the FCC to take forceful action that adopts the strongest rules possible to provide maximum protection for consumers, maximum flexibility to promote the Internet economy.” She called net neutrality “one of the most important economic issues before us.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed its hearing on sports blackout legislation for a second time. The hearing was initially scheduled for September and then rescheduled for Wednesday. The committee announced the second postponement Monday, without giving any indication of when it may now be rescheduled.