Privacy advocates had mixed reactions to the House Judiciary Committee taking up the USA Freedom Act (HR-3361) for markup Wednesday at 1 p.m. as well as the substitute language key committee lawmakers plan to offer, as the committee announced earlier this week. “The mere fact that the Judiciary Committee is taking up this bill now is positive and encouraging,” the ACLU said (http://bit.ly/1kTXXHN). “The details still need to be hammered out, but the bill is certainly better than the one that the House Intelligence Committee will be considering this week, which is a non-starter.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation called the substitute a “potentially powerful approach to stopping the mass collection of phone records under the Patriot Act,” but said: “Nonetheless, we are deeply concerned about the number of ‘hops’ that the bill would permit, as well as the undefined phrase ’selection term,’ which may leave the door open to government attempts to take a nonintuitive interpretation of the language” (http://bit.ly/1if9Fg0). “We are also concerned that this bill [substitute language] omits important transparency provisions found in the USA FREEDOM Act, which are necessary to shed light on surveillance abuses.” The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute also said it was pleased the bill is being taken up but said it’s “dismayed to see that the strong transparency provisions in the original USA FREEDOM Act, which would have allowed Internet companies to engage in more reporting about the number and kind of government demands for information they receive and which were broadly supported by both industry and privacy advocates, have been removed” (http://bit.ly/1iZZFD7).

The Senate Appropriations Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Subcommittee plans a hearing Wednesday on investment in cybersecurity. Phyllis Schneck, DHS deputy undersecretary-cybersecurity, is among the DHS officials to testify. Others include Peter Edge, executive associate director-homeland security investigations, and William Noonan, U.S. Secret Service deputy special agent in charge-Criminal Investigative Division Cyber Operations. Representatives from CenturyLink, Entergy, Indiana Statewide Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives and the University of Maryland are also to testify. The hearing is to begin at 2 p.m. in 192 Dirksen (http://1.usa.gov/Su3Tyc).

Two House Homeland Security Committee subcommittees plan a joint hearing Thursday to “examine the persistent threat, assess intentions and capabilities of these bad actors, and review U.S. coordination and response efforts,” said Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., in a statement. National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center Director Larry Zelvin is among the witnesses to testify during the hearing, which the Cybersecurity and Intelligence subcommittees are co-hosting. FBI Assistant Director-Cyber Division Joseph Demarest and Glenn Lemons, DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis senior intelligence officer-Cyber Intelligence Analysis Division, are also to testify. The hearing is to begin at 10 a.m. in 311 Cannon (http://1.usa.gov/1nZJopy).

House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., will address net neutrality issues Wednesday, she said in a news release. She plans a Google Hangout discussion on the FCC’s proposed new net neutrality rules at 6:30 p.m. The panel will include Republican former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, content delivery network CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince and Stanford Law School professor Barbara van Schewick. Eshoo had issued a statement last month stating her fear that new FCC rules would “not do enough” to protect net neutrality. Several people have already posed questions on the Google Hangout page (http://bit.ly/RlMKFK): “What is holding up the FCC classifying internet providers as common carriers and access as a Title II telecommunications service??” one person asked.

Two key House committees on Monday announced markups of surveillance bills. The House Judiciary Committee plans to mark up the USA Freedom Act (HR-3361), which would strongly curb U.S. phone surveillance, introduced last fall. Judiciary lawmakers plan to introduce an amendment in the nature of a substitute (http://1.usa.gov/1okqc3e) Wednesday at the 1 p.m. session, the committee said in a news release. The substitute “prohibits bulk collection under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act (Section 501 of FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]), prohibits bulk collection under the FISA Pen Register/Trap and Trace statute (Section 402 of FISA) and National Security Letter statutes, authorizes the government to acquire telephone records stored by telephone providers but only with prior approval from the FISA Court on a case-by-case basis, increases privacy protections at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and clarifies privacy protections for Americans under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act,” the news release said (http://1.usa.gov/1iVA3av). Six Judiciary members -- Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich.; Crime Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the original bill author; subcommittee ranking member Bobby Scott, D-Va.; and Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Randy Forbes, R-Va. -- issued a joint statement calling the substitute “a bipartisan solution” that’s the product of months of cooperation. Also Monday, House Intelligence Committee leaders announced plans to mark up the FISA Transparency and Modernization Act of 2014 (HR-4291) Thursday morning in a closed session in HVC-304. The committees have sharply disagreed throughout the past half-year over which has jurisdiction over FISA matters.

The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee plans to do “a detailed examination of the proposed merger between the nation’s two largest cable companies,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., committee ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., and subcommittee ranking member Hank Johnson, D-Ga., in a joint statement Monday. “We look forward to an even-handed and robust discussion on the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger from our distinguished witnesses on Thursday. The hearing will provide an opportunity for Members to ask questions about the proposed merger and a public forum to explore effects on competition in the video and broadband markets that may impact consumers.” The oversight hearing of Comcast’s buy of Time Warner Cable is at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in 2141 Rayburn.

Top officials from the American Cable Association and Cogent Communications are slated to weigh in before Congress on Comcast’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable. The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee is holding an oversight hearing on the deal Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn. Witnesses include Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Time Warner Cable CEO Robert Marcus, defenders of the deal, which requires FCC and Justice Department approval. Also testifying are ACA President Matthew Polka and Cogent CEO David Schaeffer as well as Patrick Gottsch, chairman of the Rural Media Group; Allen Grunes, an antitrust attorney at GeyerGorey who worked at the Justice Department Antitrust Division for upwards of a decade; C. Scott Hemphill, a Columbia Law School professor and former New York attorney general’s office antitrust bureau chief who has studied how antitrust law influences the competition and innovation balance; and Craig Labovitz, CEO of DeepField Networks.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved by voice vote the nomination of Elisebeth Collins Cook to be a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, during an executive session Thursday. Cook has been one of the Republican members of the five-member board, which has offered several recommendations to the White House on phone surveillance and is putting together recommendations on Internet surveillance. She was formerly a Senate Judiciary Committee counsel and now counsel for WilmerHale. President Barack Obama re-nominated Cook in December and if approved by the full Senate her term would continue through 2020.

The House Commerce Committee is eyeing May 8 for a markup of its Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) reauthorization draft bill, Capitol Hill and industry sources told us. But multiple people on and off the Hill also said no deal has been reached between Democrats and Republicans, who were divided on the House draft bill’s language on the set-top box integration ban provision as well as the provision that would limit FCC actions on broadcaster sharing agreements until the agency completes its media ownership quadrennial review -- key points of tension when the draft bill advanced out of the Communications Subcommittee earlier this year. There’s no agreement on how to proceed, and many key staffers have been out of town for the NCTA Cable Show, one media industry lobbyist told us. One Hill aide pushed back against judging anything too soon, pointing to many floating rumors but nothing concrete nailed down yet. A second industry official also said he has heard May 8 as the markup day and predicts it will go relatively smoothly. The real hurdle is the language on sharing agreements but the integration ban provision is a settled issue, with no further back-and-forth happening now, that official said. Staffers don’t seem inclined to add any provisions into the draft at this point, the official added. A committee spokesman did not confirm or deny the accuracy of any committee agreement or disagreement on the draft or proposed dates for the markup. The House Judiciary Committee will hold two hearings at the subcommittee level that same day on video issues in 2141 Rayburn -- the first at 9:30 a.m. will be the Antitrust Subcommittee’s oversight hearing of Comcast’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable, and the second at 2 p.m. will be the IP Subcommittee’s hearing on compulsory video licenses of Copyright Act Title 17. That second hearing, which multiple officials framed as a STELA hearing, will include Marci Burdick testifying on behalf of NAB and a representative from Dish, one media lobbyist said.

One Senate Democrat flagged the importance of rural high-speed broadband. Agriculture Subcommittee on Jobs, Rural Economic Growth and Energy Chairwoman Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., wants regional strategies in rural economic development to address the provision of high-speed Internet, she said in an opening statement (http://1.usa.gov/1o6Ea8O) at a hearing Thursday. “'Regional strategies’ may sound vague, but the main point is that they target resources to where they will have the most impact locally,” Heitkamp said. “It could mean working with multiple counties and state officials to install high-speed Internet services in homes in those areas to support a regional plan to attract food processing businesses to locate closer to the farm.”