Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced Tuesday his latest version of the USA Freedom Act (http://1.usa.gov/1powtMR), the surveillance overhaul bill he originally introduced last fall. The House approved a watered-down version earlier this year, and Leahy’s new version attempts to add back teeth, he said. The bill “ensures that the ban on bulk collection is effective,” said Leahy, who heads the Judiciary Committee, in a statement of introduction. “It ensures that the government cannot rely on Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] pen register and trap and trace device statute, or the national security letter statutes to engage in the indiscriminate collection of Americans’ private records.” The bill has 13 co-sponsors from both parties and backing from top privacy advocates and technology companies, many of which had opposed the final House version. Privacy advocates say that more overhaul must follow this bill, a sentiment Leahy also conveyed in introducing the compromise legislation. “Given the need to act quickly, I am willing to forego regular order and take this bill directly to the Senate Floor,” Leahy said. Sens. Al Franken, D-Minn., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., applauded Leahy for including transparency provisions they had authored. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., want the bill to go further and address “backdoor” and warrantless searches, they said.

Lawmakers must look past the current spectrum auctions when considering spectrum policy, said Darren Achord, a senior legislative assistant leading telecom policy for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. Achord spoke Tuesday at a briefing hosted by the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute at the Capitol. This forward-looking need is a challenge, “because so much focus is on the here and now,” he said, calling on government to use spectrum as efficiently and effectively as possible. There’s need for more spectrum sharing and scrutiny of barriers to wireless infrastructure deployment, he said. Rubio has highlighted spectrum policy as a priority this year and introduced two pieces of legislation on the topic. “On the member level, it’s just the education about how important this is,” Achord added, lamenting people falling asleep at the sound of gigahertz. “It’s all about after those auctions,” Achord said. “We've got to continue to be looking forward. … Can we make more spectrum available? Where do we need to be doing that?”

A top House Democrat attacked the way the House Commerce Committee is conducting its business. The Commerce Committee met Tuesday afternoon for the start of a markup session including the Anti-Spoofing Act of 2013 (HR-3670), the E-LABEL (Enhance Labeling, Accessing and Branding of Electronic Licenses) Act (HR-5161) and the Kelsey Smith Act (HR-1575). Ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., attacked the committee leadership, turning the title of a recent Republican news release on its head. “The title of the release left an impression on me,” Waxman said during his opening statement, referring to the Republican release (http://1.usa.gov/1pc5YXT) ripping into what it judged a broken FCC process and something smelling rotten on the eighth floor of the agency’s headquarters. “Well, by their standards, something is broken in our committee today.” He criticized the way the committee had bypassed a hearing process or subcommittee markup for many of the measures under consideration. Waxman backs the Anti-Spoofing Act and E-LABEL Act, calling those common-sense measures, but the Kelsey Smith Act is complicated and has faced no subcommittee or hearing debate. Waxman pointed to such issues as “consumer privacy regarding call location data.” But Waxman noted “it is not perfect but progress has been made.” In his opening statement, Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said that all three telecom bills are bipartisan. Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., called the Kelsey Smith Act, which would compel carriers to share call location data with law enforcement when necessary, “the most meaningful” of the three telecom measures. “Versions of this legislation have been passed in 14 states.” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said she’s glad the drafters of the Kelsey Smith Act took some of her privacy concerns into consideration with the version for the markup. She aligns herself with Waxman’s committee process concerns, she said. Commerce will resume the markup session Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

Data caps may have the same “damaging effect" as Internet traffic discrimination that net neutrality debates focus on, House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said Tuesday during a briefing at the Capitol. She emphasized the danger of certain corporate relationships that can affect such usage-based pricing arrangements, where streaming from a company like Netflix might count against an ISP’s data cap but streaming from an affiliate of that ISP would not: “That’s where the thorn in the ointment is,” Eshoo said. She requested the Government Accountability Office look into these issues last year, and the GAO presented its preliminary findings Tuesday, with the final report to come in November. Mark Goldstein, head of the GAO’s physical infrastructure division, noted that the four major wireless providers have all applied usage-based pricing (UBP) to some degree and many wireline providers “slowly and surely” are as well. But consumers are largely confused, both about their plans and about how much data they consume, Goldstein said. Consumers seemed to have much more negative reactions to wireline UBP than wireless, he added. GAO interviewed the top 13 wireline providers and the four major wireless ISPs as well as held eight focus groups with consumers who subscribe to wireless and wireline broadband, according to his presentation. They spoke with 77 consumers total in Baltimore, Des Moines, Las Vegas and New York. “Consumers are left wondering if they're going to have to foot the bill,” concerns that are all the more relevant “in the midst of what is now a full-blown net neutrality debate,” Eshoo said. All consumers want a “fair price,” she added. An Eshoo aide told us last week Eshoo plans to submit these initial GAO findings to the FCC as part of its net neutrality proceeding.

Senior officials from the FCC and FTC are scheduled to testify on wireless cramming before Congress this week. The witnesses for Wednesday’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing are, as the committee announced Monday, CTIA General Counsel Michael Altschul, FCC Enforcement Bureau Acting Chief Travis LeBlanc, FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny and Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell. The hearing will be at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell.

Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, wants to help resolve the union contract struggles that FairPoint Communications faces in Maine. “I am encouraging both sides to stay at the bargaining table and to negotiate in good faith on a new contract that will protect workers and help the company to grow and be successful,” he said in a statement last week, citing a recent meeting he had with FairPoint workers and that his staff had with FairPoint. Negotiations are underway between FairPoint and both the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, representing 2,000 FairPoint workers, 750 of them in Maine, Michaud said. “The success of any company -- or the state as a whole for that matter -- is tied to its workforce,” he said. “It’s my hope that a fair agreement can be reached that will protect good jobs in Maine and help Fairpoint to provide top quality service to its customers.” Shenna Bellows, the Democratic challenger for one of Maine’s U.S. Senate seats, backs the Maine FairPoint workers, she said in a news release earlier this month (http://bit.ly/X547Oc). The FairPoint labor contract expires Aug. 2.

There’s a deficit of information about broadcaster sharing agreements, the Government Accountability Office said in a 41-page report released Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1nOn1nv). It argued that the FCC “should determine whether it needs to collect additional data to understand the prevalence and context of broadcast agreements and whether broadcaster agreements affect its media policy goals of competition, localism, and diversity,” which the FCC accepted and has begun acting on, including by “proposing disclosure of sharing agreements.” GAO had reviewed, from July 2013 to last month, relevant FCC dockets and interviewed industry stakeholders as well as FCC officials, it told Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who requested the report. “Consumer groups raised concerns that agreements in which stations share news resources can lead to duplicative content in local newscasts,” GAO said. “Station owners counter that the agreements are needed to allow some stations to continue providing news and allow other stations that previously did not provide news to begin doing so.” It provided details on the prevalence of such sharing agreements and in which markets they are more prominent.

The House Commerce Committee plans to mark up three telecom bills this week: The Anti-Spoofing Act of 2013 (HR-3670), the E-LABEL Act (HR-5161) and the Kelsey Smith Act (HR-1575). Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, had offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the Anti-Spoofing Act, updating the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, “to focus the bill on specific text messaging and voice over Internet protocol services,” said the GOP memo for the markup (http://1.usa.gov/1lOjCQ5). The E-LABEL Act would remove a requirement that electronics manufacturers display a physical label of FCC approval. The Kelsey Smith Act “would require telecommunications carriers to share call location data with law enforcement when it is necessary to respond to an emergency call or in an emergency situation where a person’s life may be in danger,” the memo said. “The law also provides liability protection for companies that provide the data to law enforcement.” House Commerce lawmakers will begin the markup session Tuesday at 4 p.m. in 2123 Rayburn to give opening statements and then reconvene there at 10 a.m. Wednesday to complete the markup.

Congress should embrace the surveillance overhaul compromise bill that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is preparing to unveil this week, The New York Times editorial board said (http://nyti.ms/1zmVSed). The bill, not yet released but expected to be announced Tuesday, is a “breakthrough” and “a significant improvement over the halfhearted measure passed by the House in May,” the board said. The legislation is based on a measure Leahy introduced last fall, known as the USA Freedom Act. The House passed a version of the USA Freedom Act that many privacy advocates and lawmakers said was far too watered down. Leahy’s revised bill “would require the agency to ask for the records of a specific person or address it is tracking, instead of conducting a broad dragnet of an entire area code or city in the hopes of turning up something useful,” the board said. “The new bill would also make the process more transparent by requiring the government to disclose how many people’s data was collected by intelligence agencies, and how many of those people were American.” Leahy should add a provision on backdoor surveillance, “a proposal requiring the government to get the court’s permission before examining communications of Americans that were collected when tracking foreigners,” the board added.

CTIA sees spectrum as its top priority, it plans to tell the House Tuesday: “Congress therefore must encourage the [FCC] to do everything necessary to ensure that these [spectrum] auctions are successful and on schedule,” Executive Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe plans to say, according to his written testimony, at a House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Rural Development and Credit hearing on broadband investment. He will advocate for less regulation for the wireless industry and a “predictable, expedited process for seeking siting approvals,” as well as the removal of barriers to the deployment of fiber. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 1300 Longworth. Rural Utilities Service Administrator John Padalino is also scheduled to testify, as is USTelecom Vice President-Policy David Cohen; Robert Hance, CEO of the Midwest Energy Cooperative on behalf of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; and Lang Zimmerman, vice president of Yelcot Communications on behalf of NTCA. Zimmerman plans to focus on the funding that rural companies need. “Unfortunately, the success, momentum, and economic development achieved from the RUS’s telecommunication programs were put at risk as a result of the regulatory uncertainty arising out of USF reforms,” he will say, according to written testimony. “It will be all the more important to continue providing RUS with the resources it needs to lend to the rural telecom industry as demand for financing will inevitably increase when reforms are improved and small carriers are given certainty, hopefully through a program like the Connect America Fund that is designed to promote broadband investment.” He will also talk about the urgency with which rural companies require access to such funding, warning against the possible implementation delays that could come from any major tweaks in reauthorizing the farm bill. “Thankfully, it appears that the final Farm Bill left RUS with discretion in administering the program that grants sufficient leeway to make it function more smoothly than the initial Senate Farm Bill would've allowed,” Zimmerman will say. Congress should give “an express directive” to the FCC to broaden “the [USF] contribution base to include the information services that USF already supports,” he will say.