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  May 11, 2013, 12:00 pm

Issa tapped for major role on immigration

By Jennifer Martinez

The oversight chairman has been tasked with a major piece of the House's immigration overhaul, The Hill has learned.

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  May 10, 2013, 10:10 pm

Reports: Top executives leave Facebook CEO's political advocacy group

By Jennifer Martinez

The departures come after Mark Zuckerberg's advocacy group sparked an outcry from liberal and progressive groups.

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  May 10, 2013, 4:11 pm

House to reaffirm need to keep Internet free of government control

By Pete Kasperowicz

The House next week will pass legislation reaffirming that it is U.S. policy to keep the government out of the business of managing the Internet.

Early in the week, members will vote on H.R. 1580, which states simply that the policy of the U.S. is to "preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet."

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  May 10, 2013, 3:59 pm

Senate Judiciary panel to debate high-skilled immigration amendments

By Jennifer Martinez

The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider amendments to the section of the Gang of Eight bill that proposes to modify the immigration rules for highly skilled foreign workers when the panel resumes its markup next week, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Friday.

“After reviewing the remaining amendments that members may wish to offer, and consulting with ranking member [Sen. Chuck] Grassley [(R-Iowa)], I have decided the best path forward is to move next to Title IV of the bill," Leahy said in a statement.

The tech industry will be keeping a close watch on the proceedings when the markup picks up next Tuesday. 

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  May 10, 2013, 9:10 am

News bites: Hackers stole $45 million in heist

By Brendan Sasso

Hackers in more than two dozen countries stole $45 million from thousands of ATMs in a matter of hours, The New York Times reports. 

ESPN has had talks with at least one mobile carrier to exempt its content from data caps, according to The Wall Street Journal. Such a deal could raise net-neutrality concerns.

Yahoo is considering buying video site Hulu, Bloomberg writes. 

The State Department demanded the takedown of 3D printable gun files, according to Forbes

The Onion's tech team (seriously) explains how they were hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. 

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  May 9, 2013, 7:04 pm

OVERNIGHT TECH: New cellphone unlocking bill targets copyright law

By Brendan Sasso and Jennifer Martinez

THE LEDE: Four House lawmakers introduced legislation on Thursday to allow consumers to unlock their cellphones, which allows them to switch carriers.

Unlike some of the other bills on the topic, the Unlocking Technology Act would amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to permanently legalize cellphone unlocking.

The bill is sponsored by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.), and won praise from consumer advocacy groups.

"This bipartisan bill not only makes it clear that consumers can, of course, unlock their phones without fear of legal repercussions; it also addresses a longstanding problem with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)," Sherwin Siy, vice president of legal affairs for Public Knowledge, said. "For too long, the DMCA has been a barrier to consumers, educators, researchers, and others, in ways that don't even protect artists."

"This bill proposes more permanent fixes to the copyright laws that carriers exploit to keep people from using their wireless phones and tablets as they choose," Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said.

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  May 9, 2013, 5:12 pm

Lawmakers urge NASA to be mindful of budget constraints

By Amrita Khalid

Lawmakers on Thursday urged NASA to be more realistic about developing space technology in light of budget constraints.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) chided NASA for not making the cost of projects clear to Congress and warned the agency that it risked having them axed entirely.

Noting the recent exoplanet discoveries by NASA’s $591 million Kepler telescope, Rohrabacher noted that Congress nearly shut down a similar telescope due to a lack of funding.

“The [National Science Foundation’s] Arecibo telescope was actually the first observatory to find evidence of this exoplanet, and we almost closed that down due to lack of funds. And that telescope remains a very important part of the projects that we are talking about,” Rohrabacher said.
 
Rohrabacher pressed NASA scientists to give their estimates for a booster for the Space Launch System (SLS) in Huntsville, Ala., but they were unable to provide one.

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  May 9, 2013, 2:56 pm

McCain takes aim at 'unfair' cable TV bundles

By Brendan Sasso

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation on Thursday aimed at pressuring cable and satellite TV providers to allow their customers to pick and choose the channels they pay for. 

Cable companies usually require customers to purchase a tier or bundle of channels. The system means that consumers often have to pay for dozens of channels just to gain access to the few they watch.

“This is unfair and wrong — especially when you consider how the regulatory deck is stacked in favor of industry and against the American consumer," McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor.

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  May 9, 2013, 1:29 pm

House Intel chairman urges White House to elevate cyber talks with China

By Jennifer Martinez

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said the White House should put China's alleged cyberattacks against U.S. government computer systems first on the list of issues to discuss in its next bilateral meeting with Beijing.

The Michigan lawmaker was responding to a Pentagon report published earlier this week that accused the Chinese government and military of hacking into U.S. government computer systems to steal intelligence.

"We should make this a bilateral issue between us and China, and in any discussion moving forward we should have three issues we talk about with them before we talk the first trade issue: [It] should be cyber, cyber, and cyber and that's where we need to go," Rogers said during a brief interview with The Hill. "If we don't elevate this problem, they're going to continue their bad behavior because to date there's been no consequence."

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  May 9, 2013, 1:09 pm

FCC moves to speed up in-flight Internet

By Brendan Sasso

The proposal could boost the Internet speeds available for airplane passengers and potentially bring down prices.

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