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Business groups urge Biden to help resolve labor dispute at West Coast ports

Retail, footwear and travel goods groups on Wednesday urged President Biden to facilitate a contract agreement between West Coast dockworkers and maritime shipping companies to prevent further port disruptions.  

The current contract between shippers and 22,000 West Coast port workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is set to expire July 1, setting the stage for a potential work stoppage that would ravage the nation’s fragile supply chains. 

“We urge you to encourage both parties to remain at the table until an agreement is finalized because even a relatively brief port slowdown or shutdown would compound current supply chain challenges and cause long-lasting damage to consumer confidence and American businesses,” the Retail Industry Leaders Association, American Apparel and Footwear Association and Travel Goods Association wrote in a joint letter to the White House.

Maritime shippers and trucking companies have struggled to accommodate a surge in demand for imported goods this year amid staffing shortages, creating bottlenecks at U.S. ports that drive up costs for consumers.

West Coast ports, which receive roughly 60 percent of U.S. imports from Asia, are anticipating more congestion as ships that were stranded outside of Shanghai during China’s COVID-19 lockdowns return to the U.S.

Both the dockworkers’ union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the shipping companies, have said they want to avoid a work stoppage at all costs. But dockworkers are opposed to maritime shippers’ proposal to increase the use of automation at ports to speed up cargo processing, creating an impasse.

The dispute is on the White House’s radar as Biden attempts to unclog supply chains and slow inflation. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Bloomberg last month that Biden officials “don’t need to get involved in this negotiation unless we have to,” an approach previous administrations have taken.

“A work slowdown or stoppage later this year would exacerbate global supply chain disruptions that are a significant cause of high inflation and economic uncertainty. We must avoid this outcome,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) wrote in a letter to the two parties last month.

Source: TEST FEED1

Is China sparking stealth war in the air?

On May 26, a high-performance Chinese fighter jet engaged in a “dangerous maneuver,” flying close to an Australian Royal Air Force (RAAF) reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace in the South China Sea region. 

The Australian plane was, according to the Australian Department of Defense, undertaking “routine maritime surveillance activity.”  

The Chinese J-16 “accelerated and cut across the nose of the P-8, settling in front of the P-8 at very close distance” said Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles on Sunday, as Canberra publicly disclosed the incident for the first time. “At that moment, it then released a bundle of chaff, which contains small pieces of aluminum, some of which were ingested into the engine of the P-8 aircraft.” The Chinese jet also fired flares at about the same time as releasing the chaff, metal-coated filament used to confuse radar. 

This was perhaps the first time any military had used chaff and flares in this manner. 

The Australian Poseidon P-8, a modified Boeing 737, was able to return safely to base. 

China has engaged in a series of troubling intercepts of aircraft in recent months. On Feb. 17, a Chinese naval vessel “illuminated” a RAAF P-8 with a laser over the Arafura Sea, which separates Australia from New Guinea. Canberra labeled the action a “serious safety incident.” As the Australian Defense Force said in a statement, “Acts like this have the potential to endanger lives.” 

China has on multiple occasions lasered aircraft in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. In 2018, its military “lit up” a U.S. Air Force C-130 from China’s only official offshore military base, in Djibouti. The action injured two pilots, who were eventually able to land their plane.  

Last week, Canada complained of “unprofessional” Chinese air maneuvers that put its crews at risk as they participated in surveillance flights monitoring violations of North Korea sanctions. Canadian craft have surveilled Chinese vessels transferring oil on the high seas in violation of United Nations prohibitions. China’s intercepts, Ottawa said, were becoming more frequent. 

The incidents this year evoke the April 1, 2001 collision of a Chinese F-8 fighter jet and a propeller-driven U.S. Navy EP-3 over international water. The incident, caused when the Chinese jet clipped the wing of the slow-moving reconnaissance craft, resulted in the death of the fighter pilot. The American plane made an emergency landing at a Chinese base on Hainan Island.  

In clear violations of American sovereignty, the Chinese stripped the plane of its electronic equipment and held the crew of 24 for 11 days.  

The U.S., to obtain a return of the aircraft and crew, issued what amounted to an apology and offered a ransom. Beijing refused the payment as too little. 

Why did China intercept the RAAF P-8 last month? James Fanell of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy suggested in an email that Beijing wanted to test the new Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese.  

Richard Fisher, senior fellow of the Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center, pointed out in an e-mail that Chinese leaders like “to elevate popular fears of conflict with China to undermine American alliances in the region.” China, he also stated, would have obtained another “intelligence bonanza” if the People’s Liberation Army had forced the P-8 to land at a Chinese base. 

Whatever the reason, there is a pattern of Beijing, with dangerous air and sea intercepts, creating crises it thinks it can manage. 

China thinks it can manage dangerous encounters, I believe, because the U.S. and its partners do not impose costs for increasingly provocative behavior. Perhaps the pattern was set by Washington’s willingness to pay the Chinese for the return of the EP-3 and its crew. After that incident, the U.S. did not even publicly disclose Chinese intercepts of its aircraft and ships. Now, at least American and Allied officials release statements.  

At some point, targeted countries will have to do more than issue words. The “chafing” of the RAAF P-8 could have been catastrophic. 

“Chaff clouds ingested into the P-8’s two engines could have caused an inflight emergency and the deaths of the aircrew,” Fanell, also a former U.S. Navy captain who served as director of Intelligence and Information Operations at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said. 

China’s May 26 act was intentional and of the type likely to damage the P-8, which is in fact what happened. Given the potential consequences, China’s actions constituted an act of war, as Fanell mentioned.   

“War?” China’s behavior is becoming far more dangerous, an indication that deterrence is breaking down, and Chinese leaders, both civilian and military, now think they can do anything they want. 

 The world, therefore, is entering an especially perilous era.   

Gordon G. Chang is the author of “The Coming Collapse of China.” Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.   

Source: TEST FEED1

Live coverage: House gun violence hearing

The House Oversight and Reform Committee will hear testimony on Wednesday in the wake of recent mass shootings that killed dozens of people.

Among the expected witnesses is a fourth grader who survived a mass shooting just two weeks ago at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Democrats are hoping that the testimony will aid them in making new gun restrictions a reality.

Follow The Hill’s live coverage below:

Maloney: ‘We are failing our children’
10:14 a.m.

House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) opened Wednesday’s hearing by thanking the witnesses who have survived or lost loved ones in recent mass shootings for their “incredible courage,” calling on her colleagues to enact gun control measures.

“Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in our country,” Maloney said.  “As a society, we are failing our children and we are failing each other.”

She chastised Republicans who have blamed mental illness, violent video games and multiple school entry points for the cause of gun violence, calling the issue a “uniquely American tragedy.”

“They have blamed everything but guns,” she said. “But we know the United States does not have a monopoly on mental illness, video games or any other excuse. What America does have is widespread access to guns.”

Maloney called for a ban on assault rifles and greater accountability for the gun industry, pointing to the committee’s ongoing investigation into the manufacturing, sale and marketing of weapons that have been used in mass shootings.

She called an eight-bill gun package expected to come to a vote in the House later today as “crucial first step” to address gun violence.

“My goal for today’s hearing is simple,” Maloney said. “I am asking every member of this committee to listen with an open heart to the brave witnesses who have come forward to tell their stories about how gun violence has impacted their lives.”

-Zach Schonfeld

Gun violence nonprofit executive to rail against gun industry in prepared remarks
9:45 a.m.

Nick Suplina, the senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, plans to leverage his prepared remarks at Wednesday’s hearing to rail against the gun industry, calling for more accountability.

“There is no other way to put it: the gun industry has grown tremendously over the last two decades, business is booming, profits are breaking records,” Suplina plans to say. “And so are rates of gun violence.”

Suplina, who will appear in the hearing’s second panel of witnesses, will reference by name the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which Congress passed in 2005 to grant gun manufacturers broad immunity from lawsuits over crimes committed with their products, although the law carves out certain exceptions.

Democratic state legislatures have shown a renewed interest in holding firearms manufacturers liable for gun violence after recent mass shootings. 

“The gun industry, for its part, has innovated not to make guns — or us — safer, but to make them more dangerous, more likely to evade regulation and its business more profitable,” Suplina plans to say.

He will point to the manufacture of bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire much more rapidly, and the creation of “impossible-to-trace” ghost guns, noting that more than one million of the industry’s firearms were recovered in connection to crimes between 2016 and 2020.

“The industry has done almost nothing to take steps to prevent diversion of guns into the criminal market and to gun traffickers,” Suplina will say.

Suplina will also criticize the sales of AR-15-style rifles, which were reportedly used in both the Uvalde shooting and a massacre at a Buffalo, N.Y. supermarket where officials say the gunman deliberately targeted Black people and killed ten.

“They have normalized the AR platform because its simplicity and modularity makes it easy for gun owners to customize their rifles or build them from scratch, necessitating a huge, profitable aftermarket for parts and accessories,” Suplina will say.

-Zach Schonfeld

Source: TEST FEED1

Zelensky: 'Book of Torturers' to be launched detailing Russian war crime allegations

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that officials in his country are creating an information system, called a “Book of Torturers,” to compile data on war crimes during Russia’s invasion.

“The creation of such an information system has been going on for some time already,” Zelensky said in a video address. “These are specific facts about specific people who are guilty of specific violent crimes against Ukrainians.”

Zelensky pointed to images that surfaced in early April from Bucha, a suburb of the capital city, Kyiv, showing hundreds of people buried in mass graves and bodies piled in the streets.

The Ukrainian president visited the suburb days later and condemned the inhumane treatment of civilians, and President Biden referred to the Bucha killings as a “war crime” and called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to face a trial.

Zelensky also referenced the struggle for control of Mariupol, a city in southern Ukraine long-eyed by Russia as a strategic capture, in his announcement.

The eventual capture of Mariupol was part of an effort by the Kremlin to create a land bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. During the three-month siege, Russia reduced much of the city to ruins, with more than 20,000 civilians feared dead.

In March, the Mariupol City Council claimed that Russia bombed an art school in the city where hundreds of refugees were sheltering and one day later said thousands of residents had been forcibly taken to Russian territory.

The war, which has now surpassed 100 days, has shifted primarily to the country’s east in the Donbas region after Russia failed in its initial campaign to take Ukraine’s capital city. 

Zelensky in recent days has characterized the conditions in the Donbas, where Ukrainian troops have fought against Russian-backed separatist forces since 2014, as “indescribably difficult.”

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have mostly stalled after atrocities in Bucha and Mariupol.

“Such a ‘Book of Torturers’ is one of the foundations of the responsibility of not only the direct perpetrators of war crimes — soldiers of the occupying army, but also their commanders,” Zelensky said on Tuesday. “Those who gave orders. Those who made possible everything they did in Ukraine.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Redistricting is done for 2022 — and it’s still terribly unfair

The redistricting maps are drawn, state and federal courts have had their say, and the playing field for the U.S. House and state legislatures nationwide is largely intact for the next decade. Both parties have claimed victory and can point to real gains. 

Democratic strategists believe much of the Republican advantage over the past decade has been erased, leaving them in a much stronger position than in 2012, and that the national map comes close to parity. Republicans, meanwhile, strengthened districts for incumbents and gained seats in rapidly diversifying states such as Texas, Florida, Georgia and Arizona, and strong-armed state courts in Ohio and Wisconsin to preserve gerrymandered advantages that have lasted 10 years.

But while Team Red and Team Blue debate which side’s lawyers and creative cartographers did a better job of potentially tilting elections their way, the biggest loser is clear: Those of us who longed for fair maps, competitive districts and meaningful elections — and who hoped this redistricting cycle might deliver them.

Not all the news is bleak. Independent commissions in Michigan and Colorado delivered as promised. State courts protected reforms demanded by voters in Virginia and New York, and unraveled an aggressive GOP gerrymander in North Carolina. Divided political control in Pennsylvania forced a fairer outcome than a decade ago, when Republicans held both the legislature and the governor’s office.

Such bright spots, however, proved rare. And while a better-balanced national map is certainly something to celebrate, a stalemate was produced by gerrymandering on steroids in nearly every state under one-party control. That, in turn, will under-represent minority voters, render Republicans in blue states and Democrats in red states all but voiceless, and drive the number of competitive seats nationwide to dreary modern lows.

Take Texas, for example, which gained two seats in Congress because of population growth. Latinos and other communities of color drove 95 percent of those gains — but actually lost political power under new maps that reduce the number of majority Latino and Black seats, while solidifying GOP incumbents. Texas had nine competitive congressional districts in 2020; it will have one in 2022. The eight that disappeared are now safely red.

In Alabama, meanwhile, where Blacks make up as much as one-third of the population but can win only one of seven congressional seats (14 percent), Black voters brought litigation under the Voting Rights Act, arguing that they had sufficient numbers to create a second majority-minority seat. A panel of three federal judges agreed, and demanded a new map — but the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court prevented it from happening this year. 

The high court cited the “Purcell principle” and ruled that it was too close to the election to revise the map now, a curious ruling since it was still winter, and experts can create a map in days. It means that this fall’s election will be conducted on a map that has been determined to be a racial gerrymander. It also creates the likelihood that, after full arguments this fall, the court will weaken Voting Rights Act protections against racially discriminatory districting. (A federal judge in Louisiana this week found its congressional map was created the same way — packing most Black voters into one district and then diluting the rest over several other districts — yet it likely will face the same fate on appeal.)

Alabama isn’t the only state where the 2022 midterms will be held on an effectively unconstitutional map. In Ohio — where more than 70 percent of voters approved a 2015 constitutional amendment requiring fair maps that neither favor nor disfavor either party — the Republicans who dominate the state’s redistricting commission have flouted the state constitution, strong-armed a state supreme court that has declared its maps unconstitutional time and again, and even threatened the Republican chief justice with impeachment for requiring that the process work as voters demanded. 

Yet they got away with it. A federal court said that it would impose one of the maps that the state court found unconstitutional if the commission couldn’t produce another map before then. Given such a backwards incentive, the Republicans simply delayed, refused to meet and ran out the clock — ensuring themselves 12 of 15 congressional seats, or 80 percent, in a state that broke 54-46 for Donald Trump in 2020.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ran roughshod over his state constitution as well, which forbids drawing maps that are designed to give any party political advantage. DeSantis vetoed maps approved by the legislature and demanded a map engineered to provide his Republican Party with an additional four seats and to eliminate two historic majority-minority seats. Florida’s state supreme court, itself packed with GOP justices, said this month that it would not review the maps before the 2022 election.

Democrats were no angels, either, but state courts — controlled by Democratic jurists who would not countenance this behavior — undid the worst Democratic chicanery in New York and Maryland. That leaves Illinois, Oregon and New Mexico as the most prominent Democratic gerrymanders. The Illinois and New Mexico maps wipe several competitive seats, well, off the map. 

According to the new FairVote Monopoly Politics report, only about 9 percent of districts nationwide will be competitive this fall. Republicans wiped several of those away as well, by cracking blue cities in red states, such as Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Little Rock, Ark., Oklahoma City and Nashville, Tenn.

That a coast-to-coast, maximally gerrymandered national map is an improvement over the past decade’s signals just how unrepresentative these maps have become. Like so much else in our democracy, redistricting is broken — entrusted to partisans who abuse the process and entrench themselves in office. The courts apparently have abandoned voters, insisting that voters fix it themselves, either by ousting politicians who can’t lose or passing constitutional amendments that politicians hijack or ignore. 

Think it can’t get worse? It can — if the U.S. Supreme Court adopts an extreme theory known as the “Independent State Legislature Doctrine” during its next session. It could eliminate the ability of governors and state courts to review maps, and perhaps put an end to independent commissions, as well. We are drowning and cannot see land.

David Daley is a senior fellow at FairVote and the author of “Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count” and “Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy.” Follow him on Twitter @davedaley3.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden readies for balancing act in first late-night sit-down

President Biden is making his late-night TV debut as commander in chief, but all signs point to his first in-studio appearance not being a typical, lighthearted opportunity to yuk it up. 

While Biden had been a regular on late-night couches throughout his political career and on the campaign trail, his Wednesday sit-down with Jimmy Kimmel will be the first face-to-face interview of his presidency on one of the comedy shows. He appeared virtually on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” in December. 

Biden will tape his “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” interview this week during a swing through California. The year-and-a-half gap between taking office and hitting the late-night circuit in person is much longer than his most recent Democratic predecessor. Former President Obama appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in March 2009, just two months after his inauguration. 

“The reality is that Joe Biden came to office with an immensely long list of challenges: From COVID, to instability in eastern Europe, to trying to bring the country together after Jan. 6,” said Stephen Farnsworth, co-author of the book “Late Night with Trump: Political Humor and the American Presidency.” 

“It’s certainly a good idea for President Biden to appear on late-night television, but one can certainly understand why he didn’t rush to do so, given everything else that consumed the first year of the Biden presidency,” Farnsworth said. 

Since John F. Kennedy famously became the first presidential candidate to enter the late-night landscape — appearing on “Tonight Starring Jack Paar” in 1960 — politicians have strategically used such bookings to connect with audiences who might not be laser focused on what’s going on in Washington. 

Late-night viewers aren’t always “as reflexively partisan on one side or another,” said Farnsworth, and tend to skew younger. 

But Amy Bree Becker, an associate professor and associate chair of Loyola University Maryland’s Department of Communication, said in the wake of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she expects Biden’s visit to Kimmel’s set to go light on the usual comedic back-and-forth. 

“It’s going to have a more serious tone, especially given everything that’s going on,” Becker said. “The tone of the conversation and the tenor is going to matter.” 

Kimmel is offering a similar forecast. 

“Well, I’ll have a lot of questions for him. Obviously, there are a lot of terrible things going on,” the ABC host told “Extra” this week when asked to give a preview of his Biden chat. 

“So, it’ll be more serious than it would typically be,” he predicted. 

“The biggest question would be: Should we move?” Kimmel, 54, quipped. 

Becker said Kimmel’s impassioned plea for “commonsense gun laws” a day after the Texas school attack could have played a role in Biden’s team choosing his show for the president’s first in-studio late-night foray. 

Last month, Kimmel railed against Republicans as he spoke through tears directly to the camera.  

“Our cowardly leaders just aren’t listening to us,” he said. “They’re listening to the [National Rifle Association], they’re listening to those people who write them checks, who keep them in power.” 

Biden, however, likely would’ve found a favorable audience anywhere on late night. 

After making headlines as a guest on Fallon’s and Kimmel’s shows as a GOP White House hopeful during his 2016 presidential campaign, former President Trump famously eschewed the formats while in office. Trump was a favorite target for the late-night hosts, with Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and company frequently devoting their nightly monologues to mocking the 45th president. 

Becker said while Kimmel was a fierce critic of Biden’s predecessor, Wednesday’s interview likely won’t be the comedian simply chucking softballs at the commander in chief. 

“There’s still a lot of frustration that things aren’t happening in Washington. And so I think that if the economy was in better shape, had we seen more policy change, it would [be] even more friendly of an interview,” Becker told ITK. 

While late-night TV can give presidents the chance to present themselves as more likable, the appearances aren’t without their pitfalls. A potential Biden gaffe wouldn’t make for the best optics during a pandemic and amid decidedly unfunny domestic issues and international conflict. 

But Farnsworth, a political science and international affairs professor at the University of Mary Washington, said, “That combination of mostly discussion and humor is exactly why these shows are appealing to presidents. It’s a chance to connect with voters in a less formal way.” 

“It seems likely that Biden’s appearance will include a significant amount of policy discussion, and that will involve the key issues of the moment: the issues of guns, inflation and Ukraine, above all,” Farnsworth said. 

“It won’t just be a laughfest, given the state of the world.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Congress can prevent an over-regulated US digital economy. Here’s how

Last month, Connecticut became the fifth state to pass a comprehensive consumer data privacy law. As more states appear poised to follow suit, America’s digital economy is increasingly threatened by regulatory fragmentation. If Congress were to pass federal data privacy legislation, it should preempt this growing patchwork of state laws, protect consumer privacy and promote technological innovation.

Unlike the European Union, Japan, Canada and many other advanced economies, the United States does not have a national comprehensive data privacy law. Instead, Congress has passed specific statutes to create privacy rules in particular sectors, such as education (as with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and financial services (as with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act).  

But in the absence of comprehensive federal privacy law, a growing number of states have sought to create new data privacy legislation. Connecticut – following California, Colorado, Utah and Virginia – passed its own data privacy law, the Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA), in May 2022, due to come into force in July 2023.

The CTDPA borrows heavily from existing state-level privacy laws, but it features significant differences. Unlike under the California Consumer Privacy Act, businesses do not become subject to the CTDPA based solely on annual revenues. And unlike under the Utah Consumer Privacy Act, companies do not need to exceed a predefined annual revenue benchmark to fall under the CTDPA’s scope.

These differences can pose a significant challenge for small and medium-sized businesses and startups trying to operate in multiple states with different legal privacy requirements. For example, the definition of “the sale of personal data” varies across state borders.

Under the more business-friendly Utah and Virginia privacy laws, a sale occurs only when personal data exchange involves monetary gains. Under Connecticut’s privacy law – which adopts the broader definition of data sale used by California and Colorado – data exchange for “other valuable consideration” will constitute a data sale and implicate certain legal obligations.

Without understanding the minutiae of such legislation, a company could easily fall afoul of the California, Colorado and Connecticut laws — even though their data practices could be legal in Virginia and Utah.

The timing could hardly be worse. With growing inflation, rising labor costs and limited access to financing options, startups and digital companies already face significant challenges. Conflicting state regulatory regimes will exacerbate the challenges that these companies face today. This patchwork of divergent laws could easily discourage companies from developing innovative products and services (or offering them in certain states) to consumers’ detriment in those states.

And things could get worse. Last year, more than three dozen states proposed over 160 new privacy laws — and more than 20 states are currently considering them. If all 50 states were to pass their own data privacy legislation, it could cost the U.S. economy more than $1 trillion in the next decade. That burden will fall disproportionately on startups and small and medium-sized businesses that lack the legal and compliance staff of large corporations.

This increasingly confusing patchwork of state data privacy laws makes it urgent for Congress to enact federal privacy legislation. Many policymakers – and President Biden – have already called for federal privacy legislation.

Just as importantly, Congress needs to ensure that such a comprehensive federal privacy framework does not create more problems than it solves. To that end, a federal privacy law should follow three basic principles.

First, it should preempt the growing patchwork of state laws that risks creating significant uncertainty for businesses.

Second, it should establish the same legal standards for all industries but create distinct rules and liabilities for different data types. For example, a consumer’s Netflix streaming preferences don’t carry the same privacy risks as her financial and medical records.

Third, it should develop separate rules based on the risk level of how companies process and store consumer data. Allowing businesses to use properly anonymized data and privacy-enhancing technologies under a lightened regulatory framework can promote innovation while reducing privacy risks from data breaches.   

As more states seek to follow Connecticut’s footsteps by creating new privacy laws, America’s digital economy faces a real risk of fragmentation. That will create significant regulatory challenges for small and medium-sized businesses and confusion for consumers about how their data is processed and used across state lines. Congress can help with a pro-consumer, market-friendly data privacy framework that can help promote innovation while reducing consumer privacy risks. 

Ryan Nabil is a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington, D.C.

Source: TEST FEED1

Increasingly autonomous cars raise cybersecurity fears

As the auto industry enters an era where cars are increasingly relying on the internet to operate, some experts say that the shift to autonomy may pose greater cybersecurity risks if potential hackers target software vulnerabilities.

Although the experts are not aware of any cyberattacks targeting electric vehicles thus far, they said the auto industry should still be working to upgrade their security and software systems for the well-being of their customers. 

And they said a real cyberattack against autonomous vehicles is very much in the realm of possibility. In fact, two cybersecurity researchers proved that it was achievable when they remotely hacked a Jeep Cherokee in 2015 to demonstrate the vulnerabilities of connected vehicles. 

The researchers were able to gain access to the car’s steering, transmission and brakes. The simulation hack prompted Fiat Chrysler to recall 1.4 million vehicles so it could install software to fix the vulnerabilities.

A spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told Reuters at the time that it was the first time an auto company had to recall cars over cybersecurity concerns.

“That woke up the whole auto industry to the challenges they had,” said Shane Tews, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Tews said that unlike the aviation industry, which took cyber threats seriously amid terrorist attacks, “the auto industry didn’t have the same early nudge” to invest as much in cybersecurity. 

“They just weren’t thinking about people somehow using cars in a nefarious way,” Tews said. 

As for hackers, Tews said, they would be after the different components of a car that will easily give them access to the system. For instance, they may try to find out which firm a company uses for its locking system. Once they get that particular locking system model, they can work to hack the software to unlock the doors. 

“Once you figure out that company F is the creator of the car locking system that Toyota and Hyundai uses, and you know which models and which years they’re using that locking system, you can now target those cars on the road,” Tews said. 

Tews added that once the hackers are inside the system, they can continue poking around to access more information.

“The hardest part is getting inside that window,” Tews said. “Once you figure out how to open that window and then you’re in the house, now you can figure out what else you can get into.”

Tews also said that if the hackers want to maximize their profits, they can go after companies that have big fleets, such as rental car company Hertz.

James Anderson, a senior behavioral scientist and director of justice policy program at Rand Corp., said another potential concern is the increased use of over-the-air updates, which allow manufacturers to wirelessly deliver new software to the car without having someone physically there to make the changes.

Anderson said that the idea new features can be added to a car wirelessly may pose risks as hackers attempt to gain control of the vehicle. 

“The risks are growing in the sense that more and more vehicles are moving towards the over-the-air software update capabilities, and vehicles are also generally moving towards more autonomous capabilities by which I mean giving more control over vehicle functions to the software,” Anderson said. 

Anderson, however, emphasized that the cyber risks tied to autonomous vehicles are hypothetical at this time.

As for potential motivations, Tews said that 95 percent of the time it’s about money while the other 5 percent is creating fear.

“The biggest market is ransomware,” Tews said, adding that the hackers may do several tests to figure out how much they should request. 

“The dollar amount should be high enough for them to make the effort but low enough that you will pay it and not tell anyone,” she said. 

Hackers could also attempt to create fear by using vehicles as instruments of terror. For instance, a terrorist organization may hack a vehicle to harm a specific target, such as a diplomat, or use it to hit a government building.

Although these potential attacks have yet to materialize in the real world, Anderson said it’s important for the auto industry to be aware of the risks and take steps to mitigate them as more cars become reliant on the internet to operate. 

“We want to anticipate this particular set of potential threats now so we can hopefully minimize the risks,” he said.

Source: TEST FEED1

The electric vehicle industry needs our help

The transition to electric vehicles is already well underway across the United States. This is a groundbreaking shift that has the potential to revolutionize both our economy and our transportation systems. But this transformation isn’t pre-ordained. A successful transition won’t happen organically — it will require significant federal involvement. To reap the benefits of electric vehicles, we need the federal government to play an active role in forging consensus among an array of stakeholders with diverging views and interests.    

Americans love their cars. Since Henry Ford revolutionized the automobile manufacturing process in the early 20th century, cars and trucks have come to dominate the United States transportation system. The advent of electric vehicles marks arguably the most significant technological leap forward since Ford’s time. Sales have exploded in recent years, jumping from just over 16,000 battery and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2011 to more than 2 million cumulative sales by 2021.  

We should all hope that these sales continue to climb. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and electric vehicles offer a partial remedy. As green energy technology has rapidly improved in recent years, the environmental benefits of replacing conventional cars and trucks with EVs continue to grow. Moreover, as we invest in electric vehicles, we also reduce our dependence on foreign oil, a fact that has taken on renewed relevance at a time when Americans are reeling from high prices at the pump.

There is no single barrier to the transition to electric vehicles, but rather an entire ecosystem of challenges to address. Some obstacles — like the need to install charging infrastructure nationwide — are more obvious and widely discussed, but there are a range of others, including manufacturing and battery costs, semiconductor shortages and raw material shortages for batteries. This nascent industry will also need to navigate a thicket of regulatory and revenue hurdles that will only become more intractable as the transition progresses.

For this industry to survive and thrive, the federal government needs to meet the moment. We must develop a proactive, comprehensive strategy and then devote the resources and leadership necessary to effectively implement it. As a first step, policymakers must bring together the broad range of stakeholders that will be involved in — or affected by — this transition, from manufacturers to public utilities, fueling distributors, energy providers, auto dealers, trucking operators, and regional and local planning agencies.  

All these partners can help Congress and the administration formulate a roadmap for the future of electric vehicles. We urgently need a plan for how we can prepare the American workforce for the adoption of electric vehicles, collaborate with labor unions and manufacturers to ensure existing automobile industry workers aren’t left behind, and promote the benefits of EV ownership to the general public. We can’t afford to delay difficult but necessary conversations about these key questions and only the federal government has the power to convene them.  

Fortunately, we are already making real progress. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included a provision I led with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) that will establish an electric vehicle working group that will seek to tackle these challenges, providing a central forum for different voices to report on the barriers we face and make recommendations for how to address them. I know our federal agencies are already hard at work setting up the working group under the newly created Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. 

The path to our electric vehicle future is littered with pitfalls. Just as Americans in the 20th century were not able to fully realize or equally access the benefits of cars and trucks until the federal government coordinated efforts nationwide, we cannot realize the full promise of the electric vehicle transformation in the 21st without Congress and the administration playing a leading role. 

Deborah Ross represents North Carolina’s 2nd District and is a member of the House Science Committee. 

Source: TEST FEED1