The U.S. government is misusing generalized warrants, and Congress should act, said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith at a Brookings Institute event. Microsoft in early June challenged in the U.S. District Court in New York City (http://wapo.st/UFFjLs) a U.S. federal judge’s order to turn over a European customer’s data stored in Dublin, Ireland (http://bit.ly/1nBQ20m). The warrant was overbroad and should not apply to data stored overseas, Smith said Tuesday. “The law applies where the data resides.” The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) “did not give the government the authority to ask technology companies to break down the digital doors of their facilities and go look at what was inside and turn it over to the United States government,” he said. If companies allow the U.S. government to obtain information stored overseas, “on what basis can the United States possibly stand up and object when other governments seek to reach into data centers here in the United States?” Smith asked. Protecting the rights of Americans -- primarily the Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure -- means “we as a country need to pursue principles that can be applied across the board,” he said. Smith urged Congress to codify these principles and ensure the executive branch is “accountable to the courts.” He also pressed the Senate to follow the House and “close the door on unfettered” bulk data collection. The House in May passed the USA Freedom Act (HR-3361), which would limit the government’s surveillance programs authorized under the Patriot Act (CD May 23 p9). Last week, the House also amended the Department of Defense Appropriations bill (HR-4870) to prohibit the use of funds for warrantless searches of certain data collected under the Patriot Act (CD June 23 p14). “We should all hope the Senate can get us the rest of the way,” Smith said. “So the public here and around the world can have the trust it deserves in the technology it uses.”

The House Judiciary IP Subcommittee will hold its previously scheduled second hearing this month on music licensing (CD June 11 p12) in 2141 Rayburn at 10 a.m. Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1pIUuAG). Music industry officials and artist advocates are waiting to see what licensing issues House Judiciary IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., tackles in his in-progress “MusicBus” bill, expected to be introduced this summer (CD June 19 p11). The hearing’s previously confirmed witnesses are musician Rosanne Cash on behalf of the Americana Music Association; Ed Christian, Radio Music License Committee chairman; David Frear, Sirius XM chief financial officer; Chris Harrison, Pandora Media vice president-business affairs; Michael Huppe, CEO of SoundExchange; Cary Sherman, RIAA CEO; Charles Warfield, YMF Media senior adviser on behalf of NAB; and Paul Williams, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers president. Pandora Media originally scheduled General Counsel Delinda Costin as its witness.

The Senate Judiciary Committee field hearing on net neutrality will begin July 1 at 10 a.m. at the Davis Center at the University of Vermont in Burlington, the committee said Tuesday. Witnesses weren’t announced.

"I don’t know” if AT&T has given money to lobby against municipal broadband networks, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said at a Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing Tuesday. He “personally” is against making a private company compete against networks funded by taxpayer dollars, unless the area is unserved, Stephenson told Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who pressed the executive on his company’s stance. Franken said many mayors and other municipal officials favor creating such networks. Stephenson repeatedly indicated he wasn’t sure where his company’s lobbying expenses went, declining to answer Franken’s questions about AT&T lobbying on that issue. AT&T is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has model state legislation restricting municipal networks and that has helped pass state laws of that kind.

Four House Judiciary Committee leaders praised the compromise that Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers unveiled on a cellphone unlocking bill earlier this week (CD June 24 p10). The Senate language mirrors language the House used in the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (HR-1123), passed earlier this year. “This is an issue of consumer choice and flexibility, plain and simple,” said House Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble, R-N.C., and that subcommittee’s ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in a joint statement.

Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable brings up several “key concerns,” Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and subcommittee ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah, told the FCC and Justice Department in a letter Monday. The two-page letter focused on their hearing earlier this year on the deal, and pointed to several issues witnesses had raised. “Witnesses voiced concerns that the merger may negatively affect the development of online video distribution, give the combined entity undue market power as a buyer in the market for programming, and increase the combined entity’s incentive and ability to restrict access to content by rival multichannel video programming distributors,” Klobuchar and Lee said, also citing what they see as the deal’s threats to independent programming. Comcast has argued the deal would be good for consumers, which the senators also mention. Klobuchar and Lee said they plan to keep working with regulators and talking more as the proceeding continues, filing “additional comments once the FCC record is complete.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee will soon review a bipartisan compromise on cellphone unlocking, its leaders said in a news release Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1lLU8aB). Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, forged the deal and added the modified Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act to the agenda for the committee’s Thursday executive session. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., had led an effort in the House, which passed a cellphone unlocking bill (HR-1123) earlier this year. “Consumers should be able to use their existing cell phones when they move their service to a new wireless provider,” Leahy said in a statement, citing work “for months with Ranking Member Grassley, Chairman Goodlatte and House members, consumer advocates and wireless providers” on “common sense legislation that puts consumers first by allowing them to ‘unlock’ their cell phones.” Leahy posted the four-page amendment to S-517 online (http://1.usa.gov/1q1NyyF). “While there are larger ongoing debates about Section 1201 of the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act], as well as other aspects of phone unlocking, those issues are not addressed by this bill,” a Leahy fact sheet about the legislation said (http://1.usa.gov/1nYrB0g). Judiciary’s Thursday session, which will also address the committee’s Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act bill, is at 9:30 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. CTIA thanked Leahy for trying to “alleviate consumer confusion” and is “pleased this bill achieves that objective without imposing any obligations on carriers,” said Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter in a statement. The Competitive Carriers Association and Public Knowledge also praised the release of the modified bill. “Not only does the Leahy/Grassley bill restore the right to unlock phones, but it includes provisions that allow for third party help in unlocking a device, as we saw in the House-passed version of this bill,” said Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Relations Chris Lewis.

Appropriations bills for the FCC and FTC FY15 budgets will receive scrutiny in both the Senate and House this week. Both agencies fall under the review of the Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in each chamber. The Senate panel will review its appropriations bill for the first time Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in 124 Dirksen. The House subcommittee cleared its appropriations bill last week (CD June 19 p15), and the full House Appropriations Committee will consider that bill Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn. That House subcommittee budget would give the FCC $53 million less than the agency’s request: $323 million, $17 million less than FY14’s enacted level. It would allocate $293 million for the FTC, $5 million less than FY14’s enacted level and at the White House budget request.

Don’t wait for Congress to stop government bulk surveillance of phone records, Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told President Barack Obama in a letter Friday (http://bit.ly/1nT7ikA). They applauded Obama’s move to end government surveillance but worry the House-passed version of the amended USA Freedom Act, HR-3361, is now too weak, they said. Congressional action is needed, but Obama “need not wait to end the dragnet collection of millions of Americans’ phone records,” they said, calling it “an imperative that cannot wait.”

The Communications Act of 1934 is showing its age and needs an update, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., reiterated Thursday in a message on the House Commerce Committee website (http://1.usa.gov/1m4LPWm). President Franklin Roosevelt had signed the Communications Act 80 years ago as of Thursday, thus creating the FCC. “Now I won’t claim to know what was going on in the minds of lawmakers in 1934, but I think it’s safe to say the members of the 73rd Congress did not have daydreams of the Internet or the near-ubiquitous connectivity of today’s mobile wireless networks,” Walden declared, saying the act “falls woefully short in accounting for the many innovative technologies we enjoy today.” In December, he and other House Commerce Committee Republicans had launched an attempt to update the act, with hearings and white papers this year and legislation next year. “We have received tremendous public input on our #CommActUpdate and encourage that to continue as we release additional white papers on the detailed issues that weigh so heavily on today’s communications marketplace,” Walden said. The House Republicans have released three white papers exploring these issues so far. The latest, on competition policy, which the subcommittee only recently posted online (http://1.usa.gov/1psSfzA) has received 84 responses.