Senate cybersecurity push continues - Commissioner voting with conservative slant - Cyber amendments pour in - Amid tech meltdown, Yelp, LinkedIn set to report earnings - Genachowski heads west Presented by Comcast

With help from Tony Romm and Michelle Quinn

THE SENATE CYBERSECURITY PUSH CONTINUES -- The Senate gets back to action today at 2 p.m., and later in the evening it will adopt a motion to proceed on S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. That sets up a whirlwind week that sponsors hope will bring some agreement on amendments and, ultimately, enough votes for passage prior to the fast-approaching August recess.


ICYMI: SENATE CYBER BACKERS IN DUSTUP WITH CHAMBER -- A last-minute dispute between the chief architects of the Senate’s cybersecurity reform bill and the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce threatens to cast a pall over the measure as debate begin today. Sen. Joe Lieberman and other allies wrote in a letter to the business lobby that they are "baffled" at the Chamber’s opposition to the bill's new mechanism for improving the digital security at power plants, water systems and other forms of critical infrastructure. Tony Romm has the story for Pros: http://politico.pro/MW5btN. More on cyber — new amendments to watch, below the jump.

COMMISSIONER VOTING WITH CONSERVATIVE SLANT -- Brooks Boliek has the story: “FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, the newest Republican on the panel, is proving anything but shy about establishing his conservative credentials from the get-go. … The stance that Pai and fellow Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell took opposing an order that found Comcast discriminated against the Tennis Channel in favor of sports networks underlines the difference between the parties when it comes to the commission’s role.” More for Pros: http://politico.pro/OBz4kI

Good Monday morning and welcome to Morning Tech, where the fastest way to our hearts is through our stomachs. And if the folks at Yahoo are the same way, they’ve probably already been won over by new CEO Marissa Mayer, who wrapped up her second week by declaring that the food in Yahoo’s URLs Café in Silicon Valley would henceforth be free. From AllThingsD: http://dthin.gs/OzKANx

Send food, comments or tips — ideally, all three — to [email protected] or @ jesskamen. Find the crew’s contact info below today’s Speed Read and find Pro on Twitter @ POLITICOPro.

CYBER AMENDMENTS POUR IN -- Lawmakers are prepping and introducing a good number of revisions to the bill, and we've told you about a number of them introduced or expected — data security and breach amendments from the likes of Sens. Daniel Akaka, Richard Blumenthal, Patrick Leahy, Jay Rockefeller and Pat Toomey; a SECURE IT-related substitute from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison; and an attempt to add a VPPA update to the bill from Leahy. Hutchison also is prepping an amendment, we hear, that would at least replace DHS's role on the new cyber council with NIST — an idea she laid out in a speech last week. Sen. Chuck Grassley, meanwhile, has a new amendment related to civil penalties for computer-related crimes.

There are a bunch of newly submitted tweaks by Sen. John McCain — one would strike from the bill its entire section on critical infrastructure (Title 1), and another would eliminate the section on cybersecurity education (Title 4). A third would add a “rule of construction” that seems designed to prevent critical-infrastructure owners from being subject to civil action or other penalty for not participating in the new system. A fourth would remove a section in the bill that, if passed now, would have agencies with critical-infrastructure authority reporting to Congress as to why they have not adopted the industry standards as mandatory. And perhaps most concerning to privacy groups, McCain wants to remove limits that would keep DoD or NSA from being the first to receive shared information.

ON THE HILL THIS WEEK -- The Senate Commerce Committee holds an executive session Tuesday on reauthorization of the SAFE WEB Act and the nomination of Patricia K. Falcone to be associate director of National Security and International Affairs at OSTP ( http://1.usa.gov/MpHB7J) … the Senate HSGAC holds a hearing on fed and state data security and privacy law at 10 a.m. ( http://bit.ly/MpHOI0) … And Senate Commerce on Wednesday holds a hearing on marketplace fairness and the online sales tax at 2:30 p.m. ( http://1.usa.gov/MpHIjJ)

POLITICAL FILES DUE THURSDAY -- As we reported Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down the NAB’s request for an emergency stay of the FCC “political file” rule, which requires the biggest TV stations in the top 50 markets to disclose on the Web information about who is buying political ads. (The NAB argued that posting the info would damage the TV business and distort competition, but the court said the NAB “has not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review.”) That means that Thursday is still the deadline for TV stations to start posting their public files online. We’ll be tracking.

AMID TECH MELTDOWN, YELP, LINKEDIN SET TO REPORT EARNINGS -- The tech industry has taken a hammering, with Zynga and Facebook down after earnings reports last week that failed to excite investors. Apple, which reliably wows the market, also reported a disappointing quarter. Next up this week are Yelp, the online review site, which is set to report earnings on Wednesday, and social network LinkedIn, which will report on Thursday. Some have asked whether the tech industry — one of the bright spots in the U.S. economy — is having its next crisis. Venture capitalists interviewed by The New York Times in a Saturday story dismissed the latest tech stock cratering as emblematic of Wall Street’s short term thinking. But Ben Schachter of the Macquarie Group told the NYT that “the gleam has come off the word ‘social.’ … The ground is now shifting underneath these companies’ feet at a speed that we didn’t see even in the late 1990s.” The NYT story: http://nyti.ms/Mt3Qtu

APPLE, SAMSUNG & GOOGLE -- Some commentators have said that the court showdown between Apple and Samsung that begins today in San Jose is really about Google and its Android software, which Steve Jobs called “a stolen product,” as The Wall Street Journal recalled in an article Sunday ( http://on.wsj.com/Q1WuRs). But others dismiss that assessment because the case deals with older Samsung products that are being phased out. More relevant to Google is another case before Judge Lucy Koh involving Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus. Judge Koh granted a preliminary injunction, which was later stayed by an appeals court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear Samsung's appeal on August 20.

GENACHOWSKI HEADS WEST — FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski today is heading to Nevada and California to visit areas where the Connect America Fund will bring broadband for the first time, an FCC spokesman said. He'll join Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter and community, business, and tribal leaders at ribbon-cutting events in Topaz Lake and Douglas County, Nev. and Alpine County, Calif.

ICYMI: CONSUMER ADVOCATES NOT IMPRESSED BY UNIVERSAL’S PROPOSAL TO EU -- On Friday, Universal Music Group offered a package of concessions to European competition regulators in an attempt to address antitrust concerns and let its $1.9 billion acquisition of EMI's recorded-music business proceed. The proposal to the commission included selling the European rights to labels Parlophone, Mute, Chrysalis and Ensign, as well as various other labels and rights packages. Universal would retain ownership of the Beatles, Virgin Records and the EMI Records label, but most of EMI would be put up for sale. (For more details, check out The New York Times story: http://nyti.ms/QOAKtt) “We believe the package fully addresses the commission’s concerns and follows our constructive discussions with regulators, independent labels and competitors,” Universal said in a statement.

But Universal’s concessions did little to ease concerns of consumer advocates in the U.S. "Regardless of the European Commission's response to Universal's proposed concession package, these proposed divestments do not address the serious competitive harms this merger would inflict on the U.S. physical and digital music licensing markets,” Public Knowledge’s Gigi Sohn said in a statement. “Much of this proposed concession package consists of European rights and holdings, and the concessions would have little impact on the U.S. market share that a combined UMG/EMI would control over the most popular music today."

TODAY: CHAMBER LAUNCHES 'IP DELIVERS' CAMPAIGN — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center today hosts “Intellectual Property: A Piece of the Global Innovation Puzzle.” The event will launch GIPC’s “IP Delivers” educational campaign, an international effort to promote intellectual property rights and highlight the value of IP in advancing national and global economic growth. Speakers include GIPC CEO David Hirschmann, World Intellectual Property Organization Deputy Director General James Pooley, Sproxil Inc. CFO Alden Zecha, International Park of Creativity President Raul Cuero and Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University. The event starts at 9 a.m.

SPEED READ

FORMER APPLE DESIGNER DOESN’T WANT TO TESTIFY AT SAMSUNG TRIAL: The Apple designer whose “Sony-infused” iPhone designs have become a central issue in the Samsung patent case won’t be testifying at the upcoming trial, arguing that he doesn’t work at Apple anymore and that he’s recovering from health issues, according to AllThingsD: http://dthin.gs/P8ZrLf

U.S. PROFIT STREAK HIT BY GLOBAL WEAKNESS: The Wall Street Journal’s Kate Linebaugh reports: “And with that, one of the few bright spots of the struggling U.S. recovery gets dimmer. Strong earnings had been fueling corporate investment in technology and machinery, if not much hiring. Now, however, the pressure on profit is prompting firms including United Technologies Corp. and Dow Chemical to cut more costs.” http://on.wsj.com/Q2Cluj

FRAUDSTERS TEMPT OLYMPIC FANS WITH BOGUS STREAMING WEBSITES: Security vendor Trend Micro says there are a lot of sites supposedly offering live video streams of Olympic events, PC World reports: http://bit.ly/MtG1Sr

WANT TV? DON’T TWEET: London’s Olympic sports fans were told to avoid non-urgent text messages and tweets during events because overloading of data networks was affecting television coverage, Reuters reports: http://reut.rs/QqcBue

TWO SOUTH KOREANS ARRESTED FOR CUSTOMER DATA THEFT: South Korean police said they arrested two men who allegedly stole the personal details of about 8 million mobile phone subscribers, the AP reports: http://apne.ws/OwDNCe

WEST BANK’S EMERGING SILICON VALLEY EVADES ISSUES OF BORDERS: “We are in the right position to have exponential growth,” said the managing director of ASAL Technologies, one of the largest companies in the small but burgeoning Palestinian tech sector that some say is on the verge of big things, The New York Times reports: http://nyti.ms/MVm0qo

[Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Jess Kamen ([email protected], @jesskamen), Tony Romm ([email protected], @tonyromm), Eliza Krigman ([email protected], @ekspectacular), Elizabeth Wasserman ([email protected], @elizwasserman), Brooks Boliek ([email protected], @technocowboy), Keith Perine ([email protected], @kperine), Michelle Quinn ([email protected], @MichelleQuinn), David Saleh Rauf ([email protected], @davidrauf) and Steve Friess ([email protected], @stevefriess).]

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