Tech policy takes the stage in Vegas

Tech policy issues were a key focus at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) on Friday, with three Senate Democrats laying out their priorities for the coming year.

Meanwhile, ransomware attacks against the U.S. health care sector doubled in the last few years, a new study shows.

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Lawmakers pitch tech proposals at CES

LAS VEGAS — Policy, as well as the ongoing political chaos in the U.S. House, took a more center stage Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Sen. Jackie Rosen (D-Nev.) spoke to the crowd in her home state, alongside Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), about their tech agenda priorities for the new year.

• The Democrats said the U.S. needs to invest more in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced engineering and synthetic biology to help compete on a global scale.
  
• Warner said the investments should follow the path Congress took in passing the Chips and Science Act last year.
  
• The senators also said expanding fast and affordable broadband access needs to be priority for Congress.  

Tough road forward: Three overarching areas of tech policy kept coming up throughout CES programming: data privacy, content moderation and antitrust law. 

Warner said a federal data privacy bill, a “long overdue debate” about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and legislation about dominant platforms self-preferencing their products and services are also among his priorities this year.  

But lawmakers face a tough Congress this year, with split control between the Democratic Senate and Republican House.  

Antitrust may pose some of the toughest battles for supporters looking to reform the law. Even when Democrats controlled both chambers and had support from the Biden White House, two key proposals — including one around self-preferencing — failed to get across the finish line last year.  

Charlotte Slaiman, competition policy director at Public Knowledge, said she is optimistic about the future path for antitrust reform, especially given the energy built by a coalition of supporters over the past few years. 

But Tyler Grimm, chief counsel for policy and strategy for House Judiciary Committee Republicans, said the committee under GOP control is largely going to focus on content moderation concerns over antitrust battles.

However, he provided a caveat that it’s difficult to tell what the scope of the committee will be given the lack of a consensus on who the Speaker of the House will be after more than a dozen votes failed to garner enough support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).  

Outside of Congress, the tech policy world will also have their eyes on the Supreme Court and two cases that could alter the fate of Section 230. The controversial provision provides a liability shield that protects tech companies over content posted by third parties.

Health care sees spike in ransomware

The annual number of ransomware attacks against U.S. hospitals, clinics and other care delivery organizations more than doubled from 43 to 91 between 2016 and 2021, new research shows. The security breaches exposed personal health information of an estimated 42 million patients. 

• Findings were published in JAMA Health Forum and include data on 374 attacks throughout the country.
  
• During the five years studied, researchers found attacks exposed larger quantities of personal health data over time and became more likely to target large, multi-facility organizations.  

Ransomware can prevent users from accessing electronic systems while perpetrators demand a ransom to restore access. Unlike other data breaches, the goal of the attacks is to disrupt operations rather than steal data, authors wrote.

The software is a major cybersecurity threat and can jeopardize patient outcomes when health organizations are targeted. 

Read more here. 

EV SEES INCREASE IN SALE THIS YEAR

U.S. electric vehicle sales jumped by two-thirds in 2022 as sales for the overall auto industry dropped, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Fully electric vehicles jumped in popularity last year, making up 5.8 percent of all vehicles sold in 2022, an increase from 3.2 percent in 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The new data, which the publication gathered from market-research firm Motor Intelligence, comes after the overall U.S. auto industry saw its worst sale year in more than a decade, with sales falling 8 percent in 2022.  

Tesla made up 65 percent of the electric-vehicle industry sales last year, a significant decrease from its 72 percent in 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal. Ford Motor Co. held the second spot by accounting for 7.6 percent of U.S. electric vehicle sales, and Hyundai Motor Co. and affiliate Kia Corp. held the third top spot by making up 7.1 percent of electric vehicle sales, the report said. 

Read more here.

SOLAR POWER IN SPACE?

Among the many space-bound satellites aboard the SpaceX rocket launched earlier this week was a small prototype designed to harvest the power of the sun. 

Scientists are hoping to show that space-based solar power is more than a futuristic concept — and potentially the next big thing in clean energy.  

Weighing in at just 110 pounds, the prototype satellite called the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD) is part of a larger effort to test out space-based solar power called the Space Solar Power Project (SSPP).  

Built by engineers at CalTech, the demonstration mission blasted off into space on Tuesday morning. The team is hoping to see if the technology is capable of working in the harsh environment of space, and ultimately launching a constellation of solar panels that would form an orbital power station, beaming energy harvested from the sun back down to Earth. 

Read more here. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: The CHIP Act’s next-generation ambitions require a modern workforce 

Notable links from around the web:  

Inventor of the world wide web wants us to reclaim our data from tech giants (CNN / Daniel Renjifo) 

U.S. national cyber strategy to stress Biden push on regulation (The Washington Post / Ellen Nakashima and Tim Starks) 

Twitter Promised Them Severance. They Got Nothing (Wired / Vittoria Elliott and Chris Stokel-Walker)  

One more thing: Court blocks Psaki’s testimony

A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked two GOP-led states’ attempt to secure former White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s testimony in their lawsuit claiming the Biden administration unlawfully pressured social media companies into taking down content. 

A three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s ruling authorizing Psaki’s deposition in the case, determining that her testimony did not merit the “extraordinary circumstances” needed to proceed with depositions of current or former high-ranking government officials. 

Missouri and Louisiana’s attorneys general and a group of private individuals filed the lawsuit in May, accusing the Biden administration of effectively censoring content related to the pandemic, elections and the Hunter Biden laptop story by pressuring social media companies.

Read more here. 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you Monday.