Comcast has donated considerable cash to key members of Congress, disclosure forms and analysis show, which observers have said may be significant in light of Comcast’s decision to acquire Time Warner Cable. Lawmakers are planning multiple hearings on the proposed acquisition, and lobbyists and observers were quick to tell us of Comcast’s deep Washington influence, with many millions spent on lobbying in 2013 (CD Feb 14 p3). “Comcast has been among the top corporate donors to members of Congress, and following the money shows that they have been focusing their giving on members of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, which has jurisdiction” over the FCC, said MapLight, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance spending and uses data from the Center for Responsive Politics, in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/1f23g64). Both the FCC and Justice Department must review and approve any Comcast-TWC deal. Comcast gave $853,525 to members of the House Communications Subcommittee over a 12-year period -- from Jan. 1, 2001, to Dec. 31, 2012, with current Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., receiving $53,000 over that time, MapLight said. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a former top-ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, received $100,775 over that time period, more than any other House member. Comcast has remained an active spender, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2014 election cycle, Comcast has given $610,800 to Democrats and $571,335 to Republicans, with more than $1.14 million of that money going to incumbents. Comcast has spent just shy of $2 million on the 2014 cycle overall, with $286,500 of that going to leadership political action committees, $259,765 to party committees and $261,250 to tax-exempt Internal Revenue Code Section 527 groups. Members of Congress who have received the most money from Comcast so far in the 2014 cycle include House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, with $59,200; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with $32,800; Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., with $28,750; Walden with $26,750; and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., with $22,000. Comcast has also given $21,350 to Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark. Multiple Comcast executives have ties to President Barack Obama -- Comcast CEO Brian Roberts has golfed with Obama and Executive Vice President David Cohen has fundraised for Obama, who has called Cohen a friend. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 25 members of Congress own Comcast stock -- including Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., Dingell, Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The White House wants comments on a House spectrum bill that proposes to incent federal spectrum holders to give up their spectrum. The administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a request for information about the legislation and other spectrum matters, said a Friday filing in the Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1c6ZbfJ). HR-3674 “would expand the allowable usage of auction proceeds shared with agencies who voluntarily relinquish spectrum to include appropriations accounts reduced by sequestration, up to the level of reduction induced by sequestration,” the administration said. “OSTP welcomes comments on the approach proposed in this legislation and any modifications that could improve its efficacy.” Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., one of the bill’s authors, said she was pleased that the administration is seeking additional public comments on incentives for federal spectrum holders. The bipartisan legislation was announced in December and easily cleared the House Commerce Committee in a voice vote. Responses to OSTP are due within 30 days of the notice’s publication. The administration asked several questions that it says are to inform the development of spectrum policy. “With respect to a spectrum fund, what are alternative means to fund agency planning, research, and development?” it asked. “If the funding is to come from subsequent auctions of the spectrum band in question, how would agencies assess the potential risk of not being reimbursed for planning costs given that the plans may not be approved or implemented as expected?” It also seeks information about spectrum property rights and coordination among agencies.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., signed onto the Open Internet Preservation Act as a co-sponsor, giving the legislation seven Senate backers. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduced the bill earlier this month. It proposes to restore FCC net neutrality rules.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced a kill-switch bill. S-2032 would “require mobile service providers and mobile device manufacturers to give consumers the ability to remotely delete data from mobile devices and render such devices inoperable,” according to a bill text the senator’s office shared with us. The legislation, to be known as the Smartphone Theft Prevention Action, is eight pages long and is not yet posted online. Klobuchar chairs the Senate Antitrust and Consumer Rights Subcommittee and told us last week that she plans a hearing on the issue before the end of the month. Late last year, she queried several carriers on behalf of her subcommittee about kill-switch technology, calling it a competition issue. Her office declined to provide additional details Thursday. The bill would waive the kill-switch requirement for low-cost, voice-only cellphones that only have limited data functions, such as for text messaging. Carriers would not be allowed to charge subscribers for the kill-switch feature. The bill’s requirements would apply to all cellphones made in or imported into the U.S. starting Jan. 1, 2015. It has three Democratic co-sponsors, Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and has been referred to the Commerce Committee. CTIA voiced concerns about the legislation, preferring the approach of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “While Senator Klobuchar and CTIA are of like mind when it comes to wanting to prevent the theft of wireless devices, we clearly disagree on how to accomplish that goal,” CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter told us in a statement. “Rather than impose technology mandates, a better approach would be to enact Senator Schumer’s legislation to criminalize tampering with mobile device identifiers. This would build on the industry’s efforts to create the stolen device databases, give law enforcement another tool to combat criminal behavior, and leave carriers, manufacturers, and software developers free to create new, innovative loss and theft prevention tools for consumers who want them."

Ford Motor Co. has a strong commitment to protecting customers’ privacy, said a company spokeswoman in response to comments from Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn. Franken Wednesday indicated he was not satisfied with the car manufacturer’s response (http://1.usa.gov/1j5Farb) to a letter he had sent the company inquiring about its data collection practices (CD Feb 13 p13). Franken said the company was not receiving “clear consent” from customers when collecting data. In response, a Ford spokeswoman said the company’s letter to Franken “noted that no data is wirelessly transmitted from the vehicle without customer consent, and transmitted data is used only to support customer-generated requests for services and to improve products.”

Ford Motor isn’t giving “clear consent” to consumers when collecting data, said Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., in a Wednesday statement. Franken had sent the automaker a letter asking for information on its data collection practices. Franken found Ford’s Feb. 3 response lacking (http://1.usa.gov/1j5Farb), he said Wednesday. “I wrote Ford to clarify some of their data collection practices, and I'm glad that they responded,” Franken said. “But consumers in Minnesota and across the country still deserve to get basic information about who’s collecting their location and when it’s being collected.” Ford was getting consent through the fine print of website and mobile app user agreements, said Franken. “This is sensitive information -- and notices to consumers about this sensitive data shouldn’t get lost in fine print.” Franken said he would be reintroducing a location privacy bill requiring consumers give “clear consent before their information is collected or shared.” Ford did not comment.

The House Homeland Security Committee delayed a hearing with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, previously scheduled for Wednesday. The hearing on “The Secretary’s Vision for the Future” is now scheduled for Feb. 26 at 10 a.m., the committee said in a news release Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/NCYB0N).

Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers questioned the government’s phone surveillance program due to revelations in recent weeks about how few calls the program clocks. During a Wednesday hearing with the five members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the idea that the government collects perhaps only 30 percent of all call metadata information “contradicts representations made to the court in justification of the program itself” and by President Barack Obama. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was not present but also expressed concern in a written opening statement. “The intelligence community has defended its unprecedented, massive, and indiscriminate bulk collection by arguing that it needs the entire ‘haystack’ in order for it to have an effective counterterrorism tool -- and yet the American public now hears that the intelligence really only has 20 to 30 percent of that haystack,” Leahy said (http://1.usa.gov/1j3NMi2). “That calls even further into question the effectiveness of this program.” Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., expressed disappointment that over half a year since surveillance revelations, it’s still unclear how much bulk collection is happening and pressed for more transparency and disclosure related to surveillance requests. A recent Justice Department announcement on a partnership with such companies “didn’t address the bulk collection question,” said PCLOB member Jim Dempsey, vice president-public policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Franken argued that companies want this surveillance request information to be more public, but Dempsey countered that it may depend. “Honestly I think there may be a split between what the telephone companies want to do and the Internet companies want to do,” Dempsey said. “I'm not sure about that."

Three members of the House Judiciary Committee asked Deputy Attorney General James Cole for clarification on his remarks before the committee at a hearing last week. “You indicated that the Administration would look only at call records from a Member of Congress if it had a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the number was related to terrorism,” wrote Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in a letter to Cole Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1fhi6lx). “That is not accurate. The NSA looks at individual numbers when it has low level, particularized suspicion, but it looks at millions more with no suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever, some of whom may well be Members of Congress.” The members said the government looks at a wide network based off of contacts of contacts and suggested a wide swath of records that could be collected. Such surveillance may raise separation-of-powers concerns, with the executive branch collecting information on the legislative, they said. Cole must clarify his testimony and “fully disclose all of the ways in which the government conducts or may possibly conduct surveillance on Members of Congress,” they said.

The office of Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., questioned as “legal hair-splitting” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s reasoning on Wheeler’s lack of obligation to consult with Congress on forming any new net neutrality rules. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the FCC’s net neutrality rules in a mid-January decision but affirmed the agency’s authority over broadband. At issue was a commitment Wheeler made to Thune, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, during Wheeler’s confirmation process last year. Thune had asked Wheeler, in a question for the record (http://1.usa.gov/1eRqgVg): “Please answer yes or no -- if you are confirmed and if the FCC’s Open Internet order is struck down in the courts, will you come to Congress for more direction before attempting another iteration of network neutrality rules?” Wheeler replied yes. But Wheeler told The New York Times in an interview last week that he felt no obligation to return to Congress because the court decision affirmed the FCC’s Communications Act Section 706 authority over broadband, despite vacating the net neutrality rules. “What I said was if the Open Internet Order was thrown out by the court, of course I would talk to Congress,” Wheeler told the newspaper (http://nyti.ms/1bSpdDg). “But the Open Internet Order was not thrown out by the court. In fact, the court affirmed our authority.” The FCC confirmed to us the accuracy of the quote in the newspaper. But Thune’s office did not buy the argument, saying the question was never one of authority but one of new rules. “Senator Thune certainly believes the Chairman needs to abide by his commitment to return to Congress for more direction before trying to impose net neutrality restrictions again,” a spokeswoman for Thune told us this week. “Considering The New York Times itself has reported that the court ’threw out’ and ‘invalidated’ the net neutrality parts of the Open Internet Order, as has nearly every media outlet and commentator who has written about the case, the Chairman’s parsing of the decision sounds like legal hair-splitting. Senator Thune hopes the Chairman will avail himself of this opportunity to work with Congress and key stakeholders, rather than repeating the mistakes of the past on this issue.” Senate and House Democrats introduced legislation last month to restore net neutrality rules, and the bill, while not seen as likely to move, is seen as a signal pushing the FCC to act. “We would really like to see Chairman Wheeler come consult with Congress before engaging in any action in regard to this court order,” said Jason Van Beek, Senate Commerce Republican deputy general counsel, Tuesday during a NARUC panel. The FCC has an Office of Legislative Affairs and regularly interacts with Congress with varying levels of formality.