Politico

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s pick to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, will inevitably have to weigh in in important cases related to technological issues including data privacy, intellectual property, telecommunications and antitrust if confirmed. Here are a couple cases where Jackson’s weighed in on key tech topics: Equal Rights Center v. Uber and Electronic Privacy Information Center v. Department of Justice.

Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ)—widely seen as the key swing vote in the Biden administration’s quest to confirm Gigi Sohn as the fifth commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission—has finally (sort of) weighed in on Sohn’s promise to recuse herself from certain television broadcast copyright and retransmission issues. In questions for the record, which stemmed from Sohn’s unusual second confirmation hearing on Feb.

At least 17 members of Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats, have children who work or have recently worked for Google, Amazon, Meta, or Apple, according to an analysis by Emily.

National Economic Councilmember Tim Wu said the Biden administration has adopted a different perspective on how to promote innovation — while previous White Houses might’ve said “trust the giants,” this one believes “small is beautiful.” Wu, Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy, pushed back on what he termed the “monopoly innovation” theory that he says has dominated antitrust thinking for several decades. According to that view, he said, the high prices a monopoly can charge encourages it to innovate and develop new technologies.

The coming surge of broadband spending fueled by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is already creating headaches for the Commerce Department — particularly around the law’s Buy America provisions. The issue put National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson in a tough position at his first oversight hearing.

Change is coming to the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the next Congress, a pattern of turnover that has become a staple of the powerful panel over the past 15 years. The list of those leaving is already significant. Five Democrats on the committee won’t be back for the 118th Congress. Among Republicans, Rep Billy Long (R-MO) is making his own Senate run. Other committee members are in real danger of losing their seats, including Reps David McKinley (R-WV) and Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ), both of whom are locked in tough reelection fights after redistricting.

Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission nominees will remain stalled in the Senate for weeks, further jeopardizing progressives’ ambitious technology and telecommunications agendas. Floor votes to confirm FCC nominee Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] and FTC nominee Alvaro Bedoya may not happen until at least March 2022 due to GOP opposition and the absence of Sen Ben Ray Luján (D-NM).

The tight-knit civil liberties advocacy community has helped shepherd through the most significant reforms to government surveillance over the past decade. But a growing number of experienced civil liberties and privacy activists have taken jobs at major tech companies in recent years, even as the data collection and practices of tech companies and the government come under increasing scrutiny.