Good morning tech

Good morning!

Tea party groups stake out position against net neutrality. A coalition that included 35 Tea Party groups sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday urging the agency not to boost its authority over broadband providers through a controversial process known as reclassification. How did these groups become interested in the issue? “I think the clearest thing is it’s an affront to free speech and free markets,” said a Tea Party leader. The free-speech argument holds that, by interfering with how phone and cable companies deliver Internet traffic, the government would be thwarting the First Amendment rights of providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. Read more in The Hill: http://bit.ly/dfRiom

White House expresses support for FCC on net neutrality. A White House aide reportedly told Time on Thursday that net-neutrality rules should address wireless and managed services. Staunch net-neutrality advocates have charged this week that a net-neutrality policy proposal from Google and Verizon falls short in these two areas. The Time blog post does not clarify what the White House aide meant by "address." Verizon and Google do address managed services and wireless rules in their policy proposal — just not in a way that satisfies everyone. Separately, White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage told Time: “The President supports an open Internet that drives innovation, investment, free speech and consumer choice. … We support the FCC's process to establish balanced, sound and enforceable rules in this area. http://bit.ly/baw2hI

RIM addresses BlackBerry discussions with India. Canadian smartphone maker Research In Motion commented Thursday afternoon on its ongoing discussions with India and several other countries regarding potential bans on BlackBerry messaging services. RIM laid out some broad principles it said apply to any such agreement negotiated with government regulators, but declined to comment on specific discussions. RIM said it will only give carriers the same access that are imposed on BlackBerry's local competitors and won't make any changes to the BlackBerry enterprise server's security architecture, which is the same worldwide. RIM continues to maintain that it doesn't cut special deals with any country and cannot provide any specific customer's encryption key.

Liberal groups to protest Google at Mountain View headquarters. MoveOn.org and other groups will protest what they see as Google's abandonment of net neutrality. Liberal groups and consumer advocates are planning a rally at Google's Mountain View headquarters Friday, sounding off against what they see as a reversal of the company's long-held net-neutrality stances. http://bit.ly/agqGzJ

Google speaks up to dispel 'myths' about proposal with Verizon. In a blog post, Washington telecom and media counsel Richard Whitt took issue with the charge that Google’s business relationship with Verizon led to the companies' net-neutrality proposal. Verizon has a partnership with Google to offer its Android operating system on Verizon phones. http://bit.ly/aCABo

President Obama signs law banning cell phones in prisons. Obama signed legislation on Tuesday that prevents inmates from using or possessing cell phones and wireless devices in federal prisons, classifying them as “contraband material.” People who attempt to provide inmates with wireless devices could face a year of jail time. Prisoners sometimes pay as much as $1,000 to obtain cell phones while behind bars, according to law enforcement officials. Read more in The Hill: http://bit.ly/aqi6Jc

House installing new LED vote display board. The House is spending a total of $6 million to replace the electronic board that displays lawmakers' names and votes on a piece of legislation, NextGov reports. The current board, which dates to 1976, will be torn down this week and replaced by the installation of a Light Emitting Diode board that is scheduled to be installed during the recess. Around $2.6 million of the total price will be spent during the 2010 fiscal year. http://bit.ly/cy6k1E

CAN'T-MISS NEWS

Industry notes

India to target Google, Skype next. The Indian government may shut down online messaging services from Google and Skype, according to a report from the Financial Times. At a July 12 meeting, Indian telecom officials discussed possible solutions to monitoring encrypted communications for terrorists and other national security threats, and indicated the Aug. 31 deadline imposed on BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion to come up with a solution is just the first of several such actions. The Internet phone company Skype and Google were two of the companies mentioned along with Research in Motion. http://bit.ly/dq5fkx

Oracle sues Google over Android mobile OS. Oracle has filed a lawsuit against Google in California claiming the search giant's Android mobile OS infringes on its patent for the Java programming language, which was originally created by Sun Microsystems and acquired by Oracle earlier this year. An Oracle spokesperson said the search giant had knowingly and repeatedly infringed on Oracle's intellectual property and said the lawsuit would seek "appropriate remedies" for the infringement. http://bit.ly/cS5qm4

Cisco, IBM miss sales forecasts. Weaker-than-expected sales from tech leaders IBM and Cisco may signal a slowdown in the U.S. corporate recovery, according to a report from Bloomberg. Cisco plunged 10 percent on Thursday after its revenue fell short of expectations, and CEO John Chambers expressed some skepticism about the health of the economy. IBM missed revenue targets last month, blaming a second straight monthly drop in the market for contract services. http://bit.ly/a3AMFu

Executive notes

ACTA discussions come to Washington next week. "A lot is at stake for the tech sector at next week's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations," reports Tech Daily Dose. Not much is known about where the negotiating countries are in the talks. The secrecy about the negotiations is to "tamp down on public participation because it slows down the process," says Sean Flynn, an expert on information justice and intellectual property. http://bit.ly/dunH5T

New FCC office targets broadband for Native Americans. It will work to increase the adoption and availability of broadband and other communications technologies among Native communities. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Thursday that the Office of Native Affairs and Policy would be headed by former FCC attorney Geoffrey Blackwell and housed in the Commission's consumer and governmental affairs bureau. It will promote policies to expand broadband availability in tribal lands and Native communities. http://bit.ly/cGkY4v

SAID

"As a general rule, whenever you hear special-interest groups using near-hysterical language to warn that some proposal will destroy jobs, snuff out innovation and end free-market capitalism as we know it, you can generally assume that progress is being made."

—Business columnist Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post on Friday, discussing a net-neutrality regulatory proposal from Google and Verizon. http://bit.ly/cJOrth

WATERCOOLER

TWITTER, THE MOVIE — This parodic trailer for a (made-up) Twitter movie features an actor yelling, in agony, "hasssshtag!" http://youtu.be/putQn89TQz (Context to watch first: The non-parodic Facebook movie trailer: http://bit.ly/9XQDG2.)