Senate fails to pass last-minute cybersecurity push #thecircuit

Cybersecurity: The Senate did not approve a last-minute attempt to pass a cybersecurity bill Wednesday with less than a supermajority of senators voting to invoke the rule of cloture.

The push to get cybersecurity legislation through the Senate stalled in August, and Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared after the election that he wanted to make passing the measure a top priority for the lame-duck Congress.The Hill reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he hopes cybersecurity legislation is revisited as early as next month.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that President Obama had signed a secret directive on cybersecurity in mid-October.

E-mail privacy: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a markup session on an electronic privacy bill that relates to e-mail. Reforming and updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) has been on many lawmakers’ to-do lists.

The committee will meet to mark up the bill Nov. 29.

Senate clears SAFE WEB Act: The Senate voted Wednesday to reauthorize a House bill that grants the Federal Trade Commission jurisdiction to fight Internet fraud.

The House bill was sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), who recently conceded a tight race for her seat to Democrat Raul Ruiz.

Amazon ships Kindle Fire 8.9 early, 4G coming next week: Amazon announced Thursday that it’s shipping a larger Kindle Fire HD tablet earlier than the date set when the product launched in September.

“With the holiday season upon us, we’re excited to make our $299 Kindle Fire HD 8.9 available early — we think customers are going to love Web browsing, e-mail, gaming, watching TV shows, reading magazines and more on the large, stunning HD screen, with fast Wi-Fi and exceptional audio,” said Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon’s Kindle unit.

The 4G-enabled version of the tablet is due to ship next week, the company said, just in time for the holidays.

The tablet starts at $499. For data, however, users will have to pay a one-time fee of $49.99 for a data package with AT&T that also includes a $10 Amazon Appstore credit and 20 GB of storage in Amazon’s Cloud Drive.