Two Republican Senators endorsed the Democrats plan to overhaul the laws that govern the nation's telecommunications following Monday's announcement.

Four prominent Democratic Committee chairmen said Monday they will begin the process for updating the Communications Act of 1934, which established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and gave it jurisdiction over the nation's radio and wireless communications. The law has not been updated since the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Questions about the FCC's jurisdiction over broadband Internet access have plagued the Commission since a federal court ruled in April that it had overstepped its bounds in attempting to force a broadband service provider to provide equal access to all websites, a concept known as net neutrality. The FCC responded by proposing to reclassify broadband access as a telecom service.

But that proposal has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans worried that the new regulations would stifle rather than encourage broadband development. Some lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, say the Democrats' recent announcement is a direct rebuke to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

74 House Democrats have added their names to the list of lawmakers opposed to the Federal Communications Commission's plan to expand its jurisdiction over broadband Internet access.

The lawmakers signed a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday expressing their opposition to the FCC's "Third Way" plan to reclassify broadband from a Type I information service to a Type II telecom service. Both Senate Republicans and telecom providers have also expressed opposition to the plan.

"The uncertainty this proposal creates will jeopardize jobs and deter needed investment for years to come," writes Rep. Gene Green of Texas. "The significant regulatory impact of reclassifying broadband services is not something that should be taken lightly and should not be done without additional direction from Congress."

The letter calls the FCC's proposal "unprecedented" and says it could create regulatory uncertainty that would distract the commission from broadband expansion, which should be its top priority.

"We urge you not to move forward with a proposal that undermines critically important investment in broadband and the jobs that come with it."

Republicans have also criticized the proposal, arguing it would stifle competition among broadband providers and harm consumers. Internet service providers have also resisted the additional regulation, but some Internet companies, including Google and Skype, have expressed support.

Information technology contractor EMC Corporation announced Tuesday it will pay $87.5 million to the government to settle lawsuits alleging the company provided kickbacks to business partners and misrepresented its pricing practices during negotiations with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).

The suit was originally filed in December 2006 by Norman Rille and Neal Roberts, under the False Claims Act; it alleged EMC submitted phony claims for information technology hardware and services on numerous government contracts from the late 1990s to the present. The original suit also named contractors Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Acxiom Corporation, and Titan Corporation.

The Department of Justice joined the lawsuit against EMC in March 2009 as part of a "larger investigation of government technology vendors that has resulted in settlements to date with three other companies, with several other investigations and actions still pending," according to a statement from EMC. 

Rille, a former partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Roberts, a former senior manager at Accenture, have also filed suits against several other technology contractors, including HP, Accenture and Sun Microsystems, accusing them of providing kickbacks to win government contracts. They have also settled cases with IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers involving allegations of improper contracting practices.

"Misrepresentations during contract negotiations and the payment of kickbacks or illegal inducements undermine the integrity of the government procurement process," said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. "The Justice Department is acting to ensure that government purchasers of commercial products can be assured that they are getting the prices they are entitled to."

The governors of California, New York and Pennsylvania are strongly behind Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal, according to a letter sent today to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Paterson, and Ed Rendell added their names to the list of lawmakers supporting the deal, which would create a new $30 billion joint venture by merging the Philadelphia cable giant's content division with NBC Universal's (NBCU) stable of television networks, film studios and theme parks.

Under the terms of the deal the two would form a new company in which Comcast would hold a 51 percent share, with NBCU's owner General Electric holding the remainder. The FCC has appointed John Flynn, formerly employed in the private sector, to examine the merger's impact across a range of media and telecommunications markets.

"This transaction will let two great American companies, Comcast and GE, focus on their respective strengths. By placing NBCU under the management of Comcast, a company whose sole focus is entertainment and communications, we believe it will become a stronger company," state the governors, who note that they represent states where the two firms have the most substantial business presence.

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The nation's top scientists are turning to amateur astronomy aficionados for help reviewing and classifying thousands of photos taken from the moon's surface.

Overwhelmed by the number of pictures taken and sent back to Earth by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA has turned to the public for help. The agency has asked anyone interested to sign up at MoonZoo.org to help review, measure and classify the pictures as they stream from the moon's surface, according to a report on National Public Radio's All Things Considered program.

"We need anybody and everybody," Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott told NPR. Tasks could include counting the number of craters in an area, measuring them and identifying any other boulders or features visible in the image.

Lintott said humans are preferable to computers for the task because they are capable of spotting anomalies. He said checks have shown the work done by amateur scientists thus far rates on par with that done by experts.

This isn't the first time NASA has tried to involve the public in its mission; GalaxyZoo asked users to check images sent back by the Hubble Space Telescope for previously unknown galaxies, and earlier this year the agency let the public choose targets to be photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's high-resolution camera.

A former Facebook official running for California attorney general is taking some flak due to his former employer's recent controversy over user privacy settings.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Democratic candidate Chris Kelly is drawing attacks over his former position as the social network's privacy chief. Facebook has been the target of much criticism over recent changes to its privacy policies that users have complained are too opaque.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, a front-runner for the nomination, released a statement last week demanding that Kelly come clean with voters about his role in devising Facebook's privacy policies.

"Was Kelly simply a fox guarding the hen house at Facebook?" the statement asks. "If Kelly couldn't stand up to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on behalf of Facebook users, how on earth can Californians trust Kelly to go to bat on their behalf as attorney general?"

A spokesman for Kelly's campaign told the Journal that while Kelly only resigned in March, he took a leave of absence starting last August, well before the latest privacy controversy began. He has said if elected, he expects Facebook to follow the law like any other company.

The backlash against Facebook's new privacy policy prompted Zuckerberg to publish an op-ed in The Washington Post this week promising forthcoming changes to address the issue.

What we're following on the morning of Tuesday, May 25 ... 

Congress to Review Telecommunications Law (NYT) — Two top Democratic legislators said Monday that they would begin a process to modernize telecommunications laws that were last overhauled in 1996 but barely mention the Internet. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in a joint statement that they would hold meetings in June to examine how the Communications Act meets the current needs of consumers, the telecommunications industry and the Federal Communications Commission. ... The issue came into focus in April when a federal appeals court ruled that the F.C.C. had overstepped its authority in applying a portion of the Communications Act to an Internet service provider. 

IRS Mistakenly Designated Many E-File Providers as Nonprofits (NJ) — An internal report released Monday says the Internal Revenue Service failed to check as required by agency rules the nonprofit status of groups participating in a volunteer program that provides free tax advice and electronic filing of returns to low-income and elderly taxpayers.

Tony Blair to Join Khosla Venture Firm as Adviser on Technology (NYT) — Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, is turning his attention to Silicon Valley. Mr. Blair is becoming a senior adviser at Khosla Ventures, the venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, an investor and a proponent of green technology. ... The firm is investing $1.1 billion in clean technology and information technology companies. ... Mr. Blair will offer strategic advice on public policy to the firm’s green portfolio companies. ... “The more I studied the whole climate change issue and linking it with energy security and development issues, I became absolutely convinced that the answer is in the technology,” Mr. Blair said in an interview. Mr. Blair worked on international climate change policy as prime minister, and now leads the Breaking the Climate Deadlock initiative, through which he aims to help shape international climate policy. Silicon Valley and Washington have a distant and at times adversarial relationship. That is fine when it comes to information technology, Mr. Blair said, because government is not its driving force.

USASpending.gov makeover leaves room for improvement (Nextgov) — The federal government's contract awards website last week received a facelift, but analysts believe the portal still needs improvements to increase its usability and accuracy. The Office of Management and Budget on Friday relaunched USAspending.gov, the public website for federal contract and grant spending, the same day it debuted an overhaul of Data.gov, its clearinghouse of federal statistics. "[USAspending.gov] has been upgraded with bells and whistles, pictures and maps, but I'm still worried about trying to access useful contracting information," said Scott Amey, general counsel at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight.

The General Services Administration (GSA) has created an office dedicated to applying innovative technologies to improve government operations. The new office will be headed by Sanjeev "Sonny" Bhagowalia, formerly chief information officer at the Department of Interior.

GSA announced Friday it would be splitting the Office of Citizens Services and Communications into two separate offices; the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies will be lead by Dave McClure, while the Office of Communications and Marketing will be led by Martha Dorris Sahar Wali. Bhagowalia will head the new Office of Innovative Technologies under McClure, while Martha Dorris will head the Office of Citizen Services.

GSA spokesperson Caren Auchman said Bhagowalia started at his new position today.

"The newly formed Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies will leverage GSA's leadership role in identifying and applying new technologies to effective government operations and service delivery while continuing to advance GSA's responsibilities in serving the American people through open and transparent government initiatives," said McClure in a statement.

Dorris's office is expected to be a fairly straightforward public affairs shop. McClure and Bhagowalia will take over the office's Web and online outreach efforts, which includes the federal Web portal USA.gov, a number of cloud computing initiatives and the federal data clearinghouse Data.gov.

The Obama administration has made the transition to cloud computing a central piece of its information technology agenda. Bhagowalia's experience as chairman of the Interagency Management Council is expected to prove valuable in helping agencies formulate their cloud computing strategies.

"[Sonny] will play a pivotal role in directing GSA's Federal Cloud Computing efforts and other innovative technology initiatives. GSA will be executive as part of OMB's eGovernment agenda and will be overseeing special projects and activities related to the Federal CIO Council," McClure said.

Democratic lawmakers will start developing proposals to update the 1934 Communications Act in June, according to a statement from four prominent committee chairmen on Monday.

Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.), along with Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), announced Monday that they will start the process to update the Communications Act by inviting stakeholders to take part in a series of meetings beginning in June.

The Communications Act of 1934 established the Federal Communications Commission and established its jurisdiction over radio and wireless communications. The 1996 Telecommunications Act overhauled the original bill and attempted to bring it up to speed with modern telecommunications technologies.

Now Democrats will attempt once again to update the act, likely with an eye towards determining exactly which regulatory body has jurisdiction over the various aspects of the Internet. The FCC's authority to regulate broadband access was called into question by an April federal court decision ruling the Commission had overstepped its bounds when attmepting to enforce net neutrailty on an Internet service provider.

“Our economic future depends upon getting all Americans connected to broadband, and that cannot happen unless the FCC acts fast. The 1996 Act took more than five years to enact, and the most recent attempt to rewrite the law produced no results," said S. Derek Turner, research director for the nonprofit Free Press.

"We cannot wait for Congress to act to protect consumers and carry out the National Broadband Plan. We hope that the public will have a seat at the table during this process, and that any draft legislation will put the needs of Main Street before the demands of Wall Street." 

Update: A spokesperson for Sen. Kerry sends the following:

"Senator Kerry believes that this process is complimentary to the efforts at the FCC, not a substitute for them. The deliberative process, both here and at the agency, will help inform and enhance our respective responsibilities to write and execute law and regulation that encourages innovation, inclusion, and consumer protections."