Industry experts shed more light on the recent Salt Typhoon hacks during a congressional hearing Tuesday as leaders of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law called on the Federal government to “galvanize action now” against the China-linked hacking group’s recent infiltration of commercial telecommunications infrastructure. […]

The Senate Judiciary Committee held its annual oversight hearing on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today, where conversations about leveraging emerging technologies – like AI – took center stage amidst the growing, bipartisan concern surrounding the nation’s opioid crisis. […]

The Senate Judiciary Committee favorably reported the Open Courts Act of 2021 (S. 2614) to the full Senate floor with bipartisan support for the legislation. […]

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create a Joint Cyber Planning Office (JCPO), and an official from DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) told Congress today the unit will soon launch the effort. […]

Data privacy and online child protection experts at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today called for multi-layered approaches to online data monitoring, policies, and enforcement to safeguard children from sexual exploitation and exposure to inappropriate content online. […]

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved the nominations of former FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc and Aditya Bamzai, formerly of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and National Security Division, to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). […]

Thomas Fanning, chief executive officer of Atlanta-based electric utility holding company Southern Co. and a key player in developing private-sector cybersecurity policy, said today at a Senate subcommittee hearing that he has begun to have interactions with senior Federal government military leaders about capabilities to “hack back” at cyber attackers, but emphasized he believes that those types of retaliatory capabilities need to remain in the hands of the military rather than become a corporate function. […]

The Reform Government Surveillance (RGS) coalition, whose members include tech-sector bellwethers such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, called on the Senate to take prompt action to confirm nominees to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), which has only one member currently. […]

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. […]