Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., reintroduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2023 this week, to create new protections for people affected by AI systems that are already impacting decisions affecting housing, credit, education and other high-impact uses. […]

Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., urged the National Science Foundation (NSF) in a Dec. 20 letter to secure Americans’ information within the National Secure Data Service (NSDS) platform using advanced encryption technology.  […]

Two Democratic senators are urging the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component to end its use of facial recognition technology and purchases from data brokers to carry out deportation proceedings. […]

A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation this week that would require public reporting and notice – eventually – of hundreds of thousands of court-ordered criminal surveillance orders issued  each year that are often kept under seal indefinitely even if the surveillance targets were not accused of any crimes. […]

New legislation introduced in the Senate today would authorize $100 million of Federal spending per year, for a period of seven years, to help state and local governments take quick action on fixing pressing IT problems. […]

On April 15, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., released a discussion draft of legislation that would regulate the exportation of American citizen’s sensitive, personal information to adversarial nations. […]

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced new legislation on Feb. 10 that would provide $500 million of Federal funding to help states deploy new technologies to improve performance of their unemployment insurance systems – many of which have had trouble dealing with higher demand during the coronavirus pandemic. […]

After months with no movement and a weekend full of deal-making, Congress is expected to pass a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package as part of a broader Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) omnibus spending bill. The relief includes a new round of Payment Protection Program (PPP) funding, money for broadband deployment and emergency use, and money to remove banned Huawei and ZTE equipment. […]

Senior House Republicans pointed today to the still-unfolding situation on Russian-backed hacking of government networks via SolarWinds software to call for passage of the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the cybersecurity elements that the legislation features. […]

A group of five senators has sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) urging the agency not to follow through with a plan to expand its collection of biometric information. […]

In a letter to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., raised questions on cybersecurity issues across the intelligence community (IC), and suggested that the IC may need to fall under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) authority of requiring all Federal agencies to adopt specific cybersecurity technologies and policies. […]

In a letter to ShiftState Security Chief Security Officer Andre McGregor, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., challenged the results of an audit ShiftState was supposed to have conducted of the Voatz voting app. […]

An apparent series of interconnected failures surrounding the use of a key vote-tallying phone app – plus delays associated with a phone-reporting backup system – derailed the reporting of the Iowa Democratic Caucus results last night, even as more states and localities are preparing to add app technologies to some aspects of their election processes. […]

Apple CEO Tim Cook yesterday called for the Federal Trade Commission to take a larger role in protecting online consumer data by creating and overseeing a data-broker clearinghouse under which all brokers would have to register so that consumers could track how their data has been sold or deleted. […]

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter on Friday to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) calling on the department to block internet advertisements on Federal computers to prevent malware infections, citing advice from the National Security Agency (NSA). […]

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., long a champion for tighter regulations on government surveillance and expanded data privacy rights for citizens, on Thursday unveiled a “discussion draft” of data privacy legislation that he said would create “radical transparency” into how large corporations use and share consumer data, and impose prison terms and monetary fines on executives whose companies misuse consumer data. […]

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wants to understand what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has learned from Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Confirmation (DMARC) reports about cyber criminals using email to impersonate Federal agencies. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

The House Science, Space, and Technology’s Oversight Subcommittee convened Wednesday to discuss the threat posed by international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers–which have recently come into the spotlight as tools foreign actors could be using to spy on Federal officials and perhaps even the President himself–but witnesses at the hearing said there were no easy solutions to the problem. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said at a hearing today that the Federal government’s focus going forward should be to “prevent and deter” interference with U.S. elections like that perpetrated by the Russian government in 2016, and to “harden” election infrastructure against future interference from Russia and other malicious parties. […]

A group of 19 Democratic senators today urged John Bolton, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, to reverse course on his decision earlier this month to eliminate the White House cybersecurity coordinator position. […]

Reps. Bill Foster, D-Ill., and Mark Takano, D-Calif., deserve a big thumbs up for introducing legislation on Thursday to reopen the Office of Technology Assessment–OTA. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will lead the charge in the Senate. […]