Lobbying

The controversial advocacy group Demand Progress can't get enough of Lamar Smith.

After working to torpedo the Texas Republican's Stop Online Piracy Act, Demand Progress is taking aim at another of Smith's bills.

The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act (HR 1981), which cleared Smith's House Judiciary Committee 19-10 last year after a hotly contested markup, would require Internet service providers to keep some user information on file to help track pedophiles and child pornographers. The bill's supporters say it does not require the collection of content and most ISPs already retain the data.

Still, the measure drew attention from critics who see a potential to undermine privacy and civil liberties.

House aides say the bill is effectively dead for now, but that hasn't stopped opponents from reigniting the debate after SOPA and its Senate companion bill were shelved. The issue also resurfaced on the link-sharing website Reddit, where users organized opposition to SOPA.

Demand Progress, which claims a following of more than one million, is asking supporters to send letters to Congress opposing the bill.

"We taught Congress a lesson last month: We need to do to HR 1981 what we did to SOPA, and make it clear to Lamar Smith and the rest of Congress that they can't run roughshod over Internet freedom," the group's executive director, David Segal, said in a statement.

Smith's spokeswoman, Kim Hicks, said child pornography is one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S. "The Internet can be a force for good or bad," she said. "But it should not be used to facilitate crimes against our children."

During the fight over anti-piracy legislation the U.S. Chamber of Commerce accused Demand Progress of using scare tactics to distort the issue.

Organizers of Wednesday's Internet protest against online piracy legislation touted the participation in the unprecedented event that led some of the Internet's most popular destinations to black out their websites for a day and helped place the Senate bill's future in serious doubt.

The event appears to have paid off for organizers and other critics of the Senate's Protect IP Act and the House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. Numerous lawmakers have withdrawn support for both bills in recent days and late Thursday Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to shelve Tuesday's vote on whether to begin debate on Protect IP.

Fight for the Future, one of the groups that helped organize the protest, said Thursday that more than 115,000 websites and 13 million Internet users participated in the protest. The group said that 50,000 websites blacked out all or most of their sites Wednesday including Craigslist and Wikipedia, which are among the top 10 U.S. websites. The nation's biggest website, Google, also participated by blocking its name on its homepage and gathering support from 7 million users for its online petition against the legislation.

The group also said that 10 million Internet users signed petitions to Congress and 3 million sent e-mails to lawmakers calling on them to oppose the legislation. Fight for the Future's Tiffiniy Cheng said the numbers were gathered with the help of the many groups that helped organize the outreach to Congress and by monitoring the sites that blacked out their homepages.

"These bills have become a mainstream issue -- because of the strike, they were a top story for most news outlets, a trending topic on social media sites, and a buzz topic in offices and homes across the country," the group said in a statement.

The Chamber of Commerce, which is leading a broad coalition pushing for legislation that would crack down on piracy and counterfeiting on foreign websites, pledged Thursday to work with critics of such measures who argue that they will stifle free speech, innovation and could harm the Internet.

The chamber's Global Intellectual Property Center has helped lead a coalition of content creators and trademark owners in support of the House's Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP bill in the Senate. The bills would give the attorney general authority to seek a court order to require online advertisers and payment processors to stop doing business with foreign websites that provide pirated music, movies and other content or counterfeit goods. In addition, the legislation also allows a court to order search engines to stop showing results for such websites and to require service providers to block U.S. access to such sites.

The measures, however, have sparked fierce opposition from Internet firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as privacy advocates, Internet users and others.

"We knew this would be a difficult issue. We believe that there are serious objections and legitimate ones that have been raised by some of our friends in the Internet business and we're working very, very hard to get those resolved," chamber President and CEO Thomas Donohue said at a news conference following his annual State of American Business speech. But he added that, "There is a fundamental reality here that if the things we're talking about were going on in a store down the street the police would go in and arrest them. It's not only the question of selling illegal goods. It's the question of selling fundamentally dangerous goods."

Donohue also was asked whether he is concerned that the chamber's aggressive lobbying efforts in support of SOPA and Protect IP may be alienating some of the group's members such as Google and the Consumer Electronics Association, which oppose both bills.

"I think that's a bunch of bunk," he said. "I talk to the Google people all the time. They've got 15 things they're worried about around here. A lot of this is being run by the Washington guys that are trying to make a name for themselves. We've got to work this together. We will."

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Protect IP Act in May but it's been blocked from moving to the floor by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The Senate has scheduled a Jan. 24th cloture vote on whether to begin debate on the bill. Meanwhile in the House, the Judiciary Committee began marking up SOPA last month but postponed final action after a day and a half of debate. The committee is expected to resume work on the bill sometime after the House returns next week from its holiday break. Critics have pledged to continue trying to fix what they see as major flaws with the bill. They offered more than two dozen amendments during last month's markup.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., one of the bill's leading critics, plans to hold a hearing in his panel next week on how SOPA could impact innovation as well as the integrity and security of the Internet's domain name system. He said Wednesday he will be looking for input on possible fixes from the technical experts testifying at the hearing and may hold additional hearings in his committee on the issue.

Broadcasters brought in a former United Nations ambassador on Tuesday to help make their case to policy makers that the future of broadcasting is bright, growing and should be preserved.

Former U.N. Ambassador, ex-Atlanta Mayor and civil rights leader Andrew Young was on hand as the National Association of Broadcasters launched their Future of Television coalition.Their case has grown more important as the industry grapples with calls for broadcasters to voluntarily give up some of their spectrum to help meet growing demand for wireless technologies.

Congress is weighing legislation to authorize incentive auctions, in which broadcasters would give up some of their airwaves and get cash from the proceeds. Broadcasters worry that television stations that opt out could be harmed if they are forced to move to a different place on the TV band in order to clear out a chunk of space that can be auctioned to wireless providers.

"We're trying to reassert ourselves in the debate with the Future of Television Coalition," NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith said during a news conference Tuesday. "It's enormously important for the American people to understand that while they have the blessing of taking broadcast television for granted, there are decisions that could be made that could take that away from them."

The coalition argues that broadcasting is far from a dying industry and that more Americans are dropping their subscription-based television services such as cable and satellite and returning to over-the-air broadcasting. At the same time, they note that the transition from analog to digital TV has allowed broadcasters to roll out mobile digital television and offer additional channels with even more free programming including content for minority communities, which tend to rely on over-the-air television more than other groups.

The coalition includes mobile television providers, digital antenna makers and new broadcast networks offering content for some of the digital channels being simulcast by TV stations, including Bounce TV co-founded by Young and others.

Amazon unveils an iPad competitor for $199.

South Koreans armed with digital tools are turning in their neighbors, the New York Times reports.

The Atlantic says Facebook's new political action committee is a sign that the social network is just another big business.

A report says up to 41 percent of North American cellphone users plan to buy Apple's next iPhone, TechCrunch reports.

For more of Today's e-Reads, visit out Tech page.

Who needs a lobbyist when you can hire a mime to get your message across to lawmakers?

While talk is currency in Washington, Consumer Watchdog is taking the opposite tack by hiring people who don't talk to highlight the group's concerns over how Google collects information about Internet users.

Consumer Watchdog plans to deploy a group of mimes wearing white track suits emblazoned with Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto Wednesday, just as Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The mimes will mercilessly track senators and their staffers as they move through the Dirksen Senate office building..

Consumer Watchdog and other groups have been critical of Google's privacy policies and business practices.

Wednesday's hearing before the Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee will focus on whether Google's dominance over the online search market is harming competition or helping consumers.

"We want to dramatize Google's online tracking and focus attention on the issue," Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson said via e-mail. "If you track people in the real world, it's stalking, if you do it online it's just business. Besides, mimes can be creepy and tracking is creepy."

In addition to the mimes, Consumer Watchdog also will be playing off a previous anti-Google stunt by having an ice cream truck on Capitol Hill to give out free ice cream along with information about Google's data collection activities. It's playing off a video that Consumer Watchdog displayed in New York's Times Square last fall showing a cartoonish Schmidt offering free ice cream to children while he collected personal information about them.

As for Wednesday's hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, told reporters Tuesday that senators will ask Google about how it uses its power in the marketplace.

"I'm going to be asking questions that will be challenging on those issues of Google's power in the marketplace and whether it has acquired the kind of dominance that means it has certain legal responsibilities and whether it has complied with those responsibilities," Blumenthal said.

As Connecticut attorney general, Blumenthal launched a probe last year after Google revealed that its Street View vehicles, which collect images for its mapping service, had "mistakenly" collected personal data from unsecured home and business Wi-Fi networks.

Hewlett-Packard announced Tuesday that it has hired Gregg Melinson to head the firm's government affairs efforts.

Melinson will succeed Larry Irving as vice president of global government affairs and also will take on a new role as deputy general counsel. Unlike Irving, who was based out of Washington, Melinson will primarily work out of Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters.

Melinson, who starts his new gig on Sept. 19, has spent much of the last 20 years at Drinker Biddle & Reath and currently works out of the firm's Philadelphia office. He briefly left the law firm in the mid-1990s to serve as deputy general counsel to then-Gov. Tom Ridge, R-Pa.

"Gregg is an excellent leader with deep government affairs expertise, strong business acumen and a proven track record of building successful teams," HP Executive vice President and General Counsel Michael Holston said in a statement. Melinson will report to Holston.

Irving announced in June that he was leaving HP to return to consulting.

President Barack Obama is no fan of lobbyists, priding himself on running an administration he says is unswayed by undue influence.

But he seems to have swallowed his distaste long enough to entertain one of Microsoft's top lobbyists Monday at the White House, where the tech giant announced a $15 million investment in immersive learning technologies like game-based instruction.

Microsoft SVP Fred Humphries sat in for CEO Steve Ballmer, who couldn't make the education roundtable that featured other high-powered current and former executives like United Way's Brian Gallagher and former Intel chief Craig Barrett, who were both registered to lobby until several years ago.

"At least Humphries is registered, unlike so many of his counterparts who lobby under the radar," complained one GOP tech lobbyist.

Humphries lobbies on copyright, immigration reform, broadband, taxes, free trade and, appropriately for today's White House meeting, "promoting excellence in technology, education, standards, and science," according to the company's latest lobbying disclosure.

"Microsoft is making a significant investment in education today announcing a new $15 million investment in research and development," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. "They are committing over the next three years to train 150,000 educators and leaders and provide access to professional learning communities."

Still, the meeting left some on K Street grumbling about what they see as the president's double standard, regularly knocking lobbyists until they can help his administration.

Larry Irving is leaving Hewlett-Packard to return to consulting, the company said Wednesday.

Irving, the company's vice president of global government affairs, has been with HP since 2009 and oversaw the company's government affairs office in Washington, D.C. During the Clinton administration, Irving headed the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Irving is moving back to consulting and his first client will be Hewlett-Packard starting July 1.

"Larry's unique perspective on business, technology and government has been invaluable to HP," Michael Holston, HP's executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. "I fully expect that HP will continue to seek his counsel, especially in the area of federal technology policy, in years to come."

Holston said John Schultz, HP's vice president and deputy general counsel for litigation, will handle Irving's duties until a replacement is found.

In other personnel news, Courtney Sanders, who handles press issues for Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, also is departing Capitol Hill for a job at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Wednesday is her last day on the committee. Hutchison is retiring from the Senate when her term expires at the end of 2012.

Outgoing Federal Communications Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker worked with the agency's general counsel to make sure she followed ethics rules while negotiating for a new job with Comcast/NBCUniversal, according to a letter from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Genachowski explained the process in a written response to questions from House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who sought more information about Baker's controversial decision to leave for a lobbying job.

"Based on the public statements of both Commissioner Baker and the FCC, it does not appear that she violated any of her legal or ethical obligations in accepting a position with Comcast," Issa wrote in a letter on May 18th. "Nevertheless, because only a short time has passed since the Comcast-NBC Universal merger, it is imperative that the public can trust the integrity of the process."

Genachowski's letter included responses from the agency's general counsel, and largely mirrored statements previously made by Baker and the general counsel, but the letter revealed some details, including exact dates.

On April 13, Baker asked the FCC's general counsel what procedures to follow in discussing potential employment, the letter states. And on April 18, Baker recused herself from "matters that would have a direct and predictable effect on either NBCUniversal or Comcast."

Baker will be prohibited from lobbying the FCC for two years, as well as from lobbying many other political appointees for as long as President Obama is in office.

Baker has said she plans to leave the FCC Friday.