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.

Backers of the Smartphone Theft Prevention Act include the Major Cities Chiefs Association, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and Consumers Union, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., in a news release Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1jESIxq). She introduced with three Democratic co-sponsors last week S-2032, which would require the installation of a “kill switch” in cellphones and has prompted CTIA’s objections, (CD Feb 14 p8). Philadelphia Police Chief Chuck Ramsey, who heads the Major Cities Chiefs, called the kill switch requirement “the only way to get the job done.”

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.

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.”

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."

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).

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.

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.

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."

House Republicans intend to move the FCC Process Reform Act for a full vote before the House “probably toward the end of the month,” Ray Baum, senior policy director to Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told NARUC during a Tuesday panel. “We expect pretty bipartisan support, perhaps unanimous support, across the House,” Baum said, saying he hopes the Senate takes up the bill as well. The House Commerce Committee cleared the bill in December. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced a version of the bill in the Senate this month. The FCC “needs a legislative backstop” despite FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s own move toward process reform, Baum said. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., prefers to wait for the FCC’s process reforms before legislative action, said committee Democratic Senior Counsel John Branscome during the NARUC panel. “It really becomes ‘what reforms will actually help the FCC actually protect consumers and competition?'” Branscome said. He commended the bipartisan nature of the House bill, which he said has “significant improvements” and positive aspects.