Hillicon Valley: Intel heads to renew threats listening to scrapped below Trump | New small enterprise coalition to induce motion on antitrust coverage | Amazon backs company tax hike to pay for infrastructure

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Welcome! Follow our cyber reporter Maggie Miller (@ magmill95) and the tech team Chris Mills Rodrigo (@chrisismills) and Rebecca Klar (@rebeccaklar_), for more coverage.

House and Senate intelligence bodies will hold hearings next week after a two-year hiatus to investigate global threats, including cyber and technology threats. In the meantime, a new coalition of independent companies is targeting Amazon and pushing for a revision of federal antitrust policy and the CEO of Amazon Jeff BezosJeffrey (Jeff) Preston BezosAmazon The union vote starts this week for the warehouse in Alabama. Amazon Tangles Up With Warren On Twitter Sanders Says He’s Not “Comfortable” With Trump’s Ban On Twitter MORE throws his weight behind the increase in the corporate tax rate he has to pay for President BidenJoe BidenJoe Biden’s Surprising Presidency The Hill’s Morning Report – Biden, McConnell Agree On Vaccines, Conflict Over Infrastructure, Republicans’ Fight Against MLB Exacerbates MOREInfrastructure package.

ANNUAL RISK RETURN: The House and Senate Intelligence Committees will interview the heads of five major intelligence and security agencies next week, resuming the annual tradition of a global threat hearing that was abandoned under the Trump administration.

Director of the National Secret Service April HainesAvril Haines2024 The GOP White House hopefuls lead the opposition to Biden Cabinet Biden to hold the first cabinet meeting on Thursday. Haines emphasizes the rebuilding of intelligence alliances after Trump MORE, CIA director William BurnsWilliam BurnsBiden urges Congress to pass the ban on offensive weapons. The Hill’s 12:30 Report – Presented by Facebook – Happy Anniversary to ObamaCare Harris calls bouldering “absolutely tragic” MOREFBI Director Christopher Wray, Director of the National Security Agency, General Paul Nakasone, and Director of Defense Intelligence, General Scott Berrier, will appear before the Senate on April 14 and the House of Representatives on April 15.

Federal law requires the intelligence community to submit an annual global threat assessment, but authorities have not done so in Trump’s last two years in office. The last global threat hearings were held in January 2019.

“For the past four years the Trump administration has abandoned the tradition of open hearings on global threats when it displeased the former president that his preferred views on rival nations were contradicted by the heads of agencies,” said the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam SchiffAdam Bennett SchiffThe Hill’s Morning Report – Biden hires Harris on the border; Press Conference Today The Hill’s Morning Report – Biden: Back To The Future Of Immigration, Afghanistan, Iran Ambitious House Legislators Look MORE For Promotions (D-Calif.) Said in a statement.

Read more about the upcoming hearings here.

PRESS FOR ANTITRUST POLICY: A coalition of independent companies was launched on Tuesday with the aim of calling for federal policy reform to curb the market power of top tech companies.

The coalition, Small Business Rising, is targeting Amazon specifically – accusing the e-commerce giant of anti-competitive tactics and harming small businesses across the country.

The coalition calls on lawmakers to help dissolve and regulate what they call monopoly technology companies.

She also calls on lawmakers to prevent dominant companies from engaging in abusive tactics by strengthening antitrust laws and banning “mega-mergers”.

Amazon has pushed back criticism of the coalition, saying that it has actually “empowered small and medium-sized enterprises”.

Read more about the new coalition.

BEZOS BACKS CORPORATE TAX HIKE: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced Tuesday that the company would support raising the corporate tax rate President BidenInfrastructure package.

Bezos released a statement saying he supports the administration’s focus on infrastructure and that “the time is right to work together” to adopt a package.

“We understand that this investment will require concessions on all sides – both in terms of the details of the benefits included and in terms of the way they are paid for (we support a corporate tax increase),” said Bezos.

Read more here.

UPDATE, PLEASE: The bipartisan leaders of a major Senate body on Tuesday urged the Biden administration for more information about its investigation into two recent massive incidents of hacking by foreign espionage.

Chairman of the Senate Committee for Homeland Security Gary PetersGary PetersFive Things To Watch On The Biden Infrastructure Plan Chairman Committee Continues Its Legislative Decline Michigan GOP Reveals Dozen Of Election Overhaul Acts After Losing 2020 MORE (D-Me.) And senior member Rob PortmanRobert (Rob) Jones PortmanOhio Democrat Danny O’Connor won’t seek Portman’s Senate seat The Memo: Biden’s Bet on Taxes White House: GOP “fought” to MORE the opposition to the infrastructure plan (R-Ohio) sent letters on cybersecurity concerns to Brandon Wales, acting director of the Agency for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security (CISA), and Federal CISO Christopher DeRusha, who works in the White House Office of Administration and Housekeeping (OMB).

Committee chairs interviewed Wales and DeRusha on the government’s progress in gathering information on the SolarWinds hack, which US intelligence agencies classified as “likely” by Russian hackers in January, and compromised at least nine federal agencies and 100 private companies Groups .

The senators also asked questions about recently discovered vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server, which the company said had been actively exploited last month by at least one government-sponsored Chinese hacking group to gain access to thousands of organizations around the world.

“There is no simple solution to advanced persistent cyber threats,” the senators wrote.

Read more about the senators’ concerns here.

YOUTUBE CHILDREN: Rep. Raja KrishnamoorthiSubramanian (Raja) Raja Krishnamoorthi From one “big house” to another: the DOJ must hold the leaders of Purdue Pharma accountable (D-Ill.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Supervision and Reform of Economic and Consumer Policy, sent a letter to the YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki Requesting documents through YouTube Kids amid concerns about content and advertising practices for children.

Krishnamoorthi wrote that YouTube Kids “appears to provide inappropriate, poorly educated, and highly commercial content.”

“I believe this is due to your ad-based business model and reliance on free uploads of user generated videos with no proper quality control. YouTube takes advantage of this poor service for kids with more paid ads and more business revenue, ”he wrote.

Read more about the letter.

FACEBOOK takes action: Facebook announced Tuesday that in March it removed more than 1,100 accounts linked to the distribution of misleading content in a variety of countries in an attempt to root out national and international disinformation efforts.

The social media giant reported that last month it removed nearly 300 Instagram accounts, over 250 Facebook pages, and 34 Facebook groups, which were linked to 14 coordinated influence operations.

The over a dozen networks were located around the world, including five in Mexico as well as networks in Israel, Comoros, Georgia and Benin, aimed at the domestic audience in each country.

One Israel-based network was aimed at the Iranian audience, while the remaining networks in Spain, El Salvador, Argentina, Albania and Iran targeted audiences in various other countries.

Read more about the shutdowns here.

GOOGLE RESEARCHER STEPped DOWN: A Google researcher who oversaw the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) ethics group stepped down Tuesday after two of his former colleagues on the research team were controversially fired. Bloomberg reported.

The researcher, Samy Bengio, announced that an email would be sent to employees received from Bloomberg. Bengio’s last day will be April 28, the point of sale reported.

“As I look forward to my next challenge, there is no doubt that it is really difficult to leave this wonderful team,” Bengio wrote in the email.

Bengio made no reference to this in his message Timnit Gebru and Margaret MitchellAccording to Bloomberg, two of his former colleagues who led Google’s work on ethical AI have been ousted in recent months.

Read more here.

BEZOS TOPS BILLIONAIRE LIST, AGAIN: Founder and CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos topped Forbes’ annual list of billionaires in the world for the fourth year in a row.

This year’s billionaires are worth $ 13.1 trillion, up from $ 8 trillion last year, according to Forbes. This year’s list has 493 newcomers, including Whitney Wolfe Herd, CEO of Dating App Bumble.

Tesla CEO Elon MuskElon Reeve Musk: Bernie Sanders goes after Elon Musk because he wants to explore space. Sheriff’s office confirms SpaceX debris found in Washington state. The Hill’s Morning Report – GOP Throws Biden’s Infrastructure Plan MORE comes in at number two on the list and jumps from 31st place last year. The top 5 are rounded off by LVMH CEO Bernard Arnualt, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg.

Read more here.

Easier clicking: First class lifeguard

A comment on chewing: Biden’s infrastructure proposal is also good for America’s national security

Notable links from the internet:

I canceled my wedding. The Internet Will never be forgotten (Wired / Lauren Goode)

European institutions targeted in a cyber attack last week (Bloomberg / Alberto Nardelli and Natalia Drozdiak)

The NYPD has misled the public Learn how to use the Clearview AI facial recognition tool (BuzzFeed News / Caroline Haskins)

End racism. Earn money. Says Finney Black entrepreneurs can do both. (Minutes / Megan Rose Dickey)