Hillicon Valley: New questions about Facebook data practices | Dem wants FTC to probe Google | Perry cites cyber threat in defense of coal rescue plan | Florida gets election security funds | Trump taps FCC official for Dem seat

The Hill's Hillicon Valley | View in Browser     The Cyber and Tech Overnights are joining forces to give you Hillicon Valley, The Hill's new comprehensive newsletter detailing all you need to know about the tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Welcome! Follow the cyber team Morgan Chalfant (@mchalfant16) and Olivia Beavers (@olivia_beavers), and the tech team, Ali Breland (@alibreland) and Harper Neidig (@hneidig), on Twitter. Send us your scoops, tips and compliments.   FACEBOOK UNDER FIRE: Facebook is facing a new controversy over its data handling practices. In a story published late Sunday night, The New York Times detailed broad data-sharing partnerships Facebook has with dozens of device makers. Device makers could obtain user data such as political leanings, religion and even relationship status, and data on users' friends. Facebook's critics quickly pounced on the story, raising concerns about the practices, which they say could violate a 2011 consent agreement the company reached with the FTC to settle alleged privacy violations.   Facebook's response: Facebook responded dismissively to the new Times report on Sunday, by waving away any comparisons to the earlier Cambridge Analytica data scandal. "These partners signed agreements that prevented people's Facebook information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate Facebook-like experiences," Ime Archibong, Facebook's vice president of product partnerships, wrote in a blog post. "Contrary to claims by the New York Times, friends' information, like photos, was only accessible on devices when people made a decision to share their information with those friends," Archibong added. "We are not aware of any abuse by these companies."   Hard sell: A number of House Democrats don't appear to be convinced by that explanation. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said that the new report casts doubt on Mark Zuckerberg's testimony before Congress in April. "Sure looks like Zuckerberg lied to Congress about whether users have 'complete control' over who sees our data on Facebook," Cicilline wrote on Twitter. "This needs to be investigated and the people responsible need to be held accountable." Zuckerberg was dragged to Capitol Hill in the wake of an earlier bombshell story about how Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that's worked for President Trump and other Republicans, improperly obtained data on 87 million Facebook users without their consent. "It's deeply concerning that Facebook continues to withhold critical details about the information it has and shares with others," Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement. "Facebook and other data collectors, including these device manufacturers, should be prepared to come before Congress so that we can get a better grasp of the entire data collection ecosystem, and how people's personal information is being shared and used," Pallone added.   Senate weighs in: Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said on Wednesday that he's planning on pressing Facebook for more answers.  --Two Commerce Committee Democrats, Sens. Edward Markey (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), are already seeking answers from Facebook with their own letter. "We write seeking more information regarding Facebook's data sharing policies and practices, Facebook's security monitoring of device companies with user data access, and your previous statements on these topics before Congress," they wrote.     GOOGLE IS ALSO IN THE CROSSHAIRS FOR DEMOCRATS: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is urging the Federal Trade Commission to take another look at Google's online market dominance to determine if the search giant is stifling competition. Ellison sent a letter to the FTC pointing to the EU's record $2.7 billion antitrust fine against Google last year for favoring its own services in search results at the expense of competitors. The FTC closed a similar investigation into Google in 2012 with no monetary penalty. "The FTC should determine whether Alphabet has engaged in similar conduct in the United States and whether such conduct violates the FTC Act," Ellison wrote, referring to Google's parent company. "Google's full-year revenue was $50,175,000,000. In 2017, the company posted full-year revenue of $110,855,000,000," he added. "Given that the company has more than doubled in size since the last time the FTC opened an investigation, Google's persistent and increasing dominance since 2013 further justifies opening a new investigation." To read more, click here.   LATE BREAKING ON FRIDAY: TRUMP TAPS A NEW HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER: President Trump has tapped Rear Adm. Douglas Fears as his new homeland security adviser, the White House announced Friday. Fears will replace former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, who abruptly resigned in April after Trump's new national security adviser, John Bolton, took office. Fears has served for more than 30 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, and has been working as the National Security Council's (NSC) acting homeland security adviser in recent weeks. In a statement issued by the White House, Bolton said that Fears would be his "point person on an array of vital tasks ranging from overseeing the NSC Cybersecurity Directorate to coordinating the interagency efforts during disaster response." Fears will hold the title of deputy assistant to the president, as opposed to the title of assistant to the president held by Bossert. That title puts him one rung lower than Bolton, whose official title is assistant to the president for national security affairs. Bossert was a key voice on cybersecurity during his time in Trump's White House. He is widely credited for his work on the president's May 2017 cyber executive order. Bossert also publicly blamed North Korea for the global "Wanna Cry" malware attack in a speech from the White House podium last December.   TODAY IN ACQUISITIONS: MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES $7.5 BILLION DEAL FOR GITHUB: Microsoft on Monday announced that it will acquire popular software development platform GitHub in a $7.5 billion deal. GitHub was founded a decade ago as a platform for developers to share code. The platform is now the largest code repository on the internet, used by 28 million programmers worldwide. The firm has been a major player in the open-source software movement. Why it matters: Microsoft's decision to purchase the firm is the latest sign of the tech giant's embrace of open-source software under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. "Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation," Nadella said in a statement. "We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world's most pressing challenges." The deets: GitHub will still operate independently from Microsoft, with Nat Friedman, currently Microsoft Corporate's vice president, assuming the role of GitHub CEO. The company's current CEO, Chris Wanstrath, will become a Microsoft technical fellow. Microsoft will pay $7.5 billion in company stock for Github, which was valued at approximately $2 billion back in 2015. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year. More on the deal here.   PERRY TALKS CYBER: Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Monday that President Trump is right to take steps to prevent coal and nuclear plants from shuttering, suggesting their closure could hurt the government's efforts to recover from physical or cyber attacks. "Fuel secure units are retiring at an alarming rate that if unchecked will threaten our ability to recover from intentional attacks or from natural disasters," Perry said at a cybersecurity conference on Monday in Austin, according to the Houston Chronicle. "The president is right to view grid resilience as a serious national security issue." The White House said Friday that Trump had directed Perry to take "immediate steps" to prevent further closures of coal and nuclear power plants in the United States in the interest of national security to secure the resilience of the power grid. Perry's comment also come after the Energy Department released a report, in accordance with Trump's cyber executive order, that acknowledged "gaps" preventing the energy sector from improving its ability to rapidly respond to massive cyberattacks that could disrupt power.   ATTENTION, STATES: Verified Voting, along with the Brennan Center, Common Cause, and the National Election Defense Coalition, have released a toolkit to show state and local election officials how they can use funds allocated by Congress to improve election security in their respective states. The toolkit comes ahead of primaries in several states, such as California, New Jersey, Iowa and Montana on Tuesday.   FLORIDA AWARDED ELECTION FUNDS: A top executive at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in a letter on Monday told Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) the agency would be granting his request to give the state a hefty $380 million to help secure their elections ahead of the 2018 midterms. Rubio, who sent the request letter last week, said his state was a target during the 2016 presidential election and likely would be again. "I am pleased to report that the United States Election Assistance Commission has reviewed Florida's disbursement request and approved the request in one working day. We expect funds will be in Florida's account this week," Brian Newby, EAC's executive director, wrote to Rubio. "As of today, 23 states have requested more than 52% of the total funding allocated by Congress and additional requests are coming in at a steady pace," An EAC spokesperson also noted in an email to The Hill.   TRUMP TO NOMINATE FCC OFFICIAL FOR DEM SEAT: President Trump will nominate Geoffrey Starks, a current Federal Communications Commission official (FCC), as a Democratic commissioner for the agency, the White House announced late Friday. Starks, currently an assistant bureau chief with the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, will be replacing Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat who recently stepped down after nearly a decade on the commission.   A TWITTER CLICK: Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty officially assumes command of U.S. Army Cyber Command. We've got more on Fogerty here.   ON TAP FOR THE WEEK: Congress is back in session this week, and immigration, tariffs and pardons appear poised to dominate lawmakers' attention. Here are some things we're looking out for on the tech and cyber fronts: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) will speak at an IBM/Axios event over tech's responsibility on Tuesday morning. The House Homeland Security Committee will mark up a series of bills Wednesday, including one from Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) designed to help DHS protect industrial control systems (ICS) from cyber threats, as well as a resolution offered by ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) directing DHS to submit documents to Congress on cyber threats posed by Chinese telecom firm ZTE. The Senate Homeland Security will hold a hearing on countering drone threats on Wednesday. The House Science Committee is holding a hearing Thursday on the electric grid of the future.   NOTABLE LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB: Google's complicated relationship with Wikipedia. (Motherboard) How the alt-right organizes in Disqus comment threads. (BuzzFeed) High rents in San Francisco are now hitting the National Park Service (The Hill.) The Pentagon is taking over the federal government's security clearance process. (Associated Press) A summit between Trump and Putin? It might happen. (The Wall Street Journal) Five years after his leaks, Snowden has no regrets. (The Guardian) The FBI is investigating the hack of former RNC official Elliott Broidy's emails. (The Daily Beast)           Did a friend forward you this email? 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News Alert: Trump’s ‘pardon’ storm grows deeper

View in your browser     Trump’s ‘pardon’ storm grows deeper President Trump and his legal team are doubling down on their assertion of nearly unconfined presidential powers when it comes to the Justice Department and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the 2016 presidential election. Critics, both in politics and the media, have accused Trump and his team of asserting a Nixonian defense that in essence posits that the president is above the law. They argue the Trump team's approach could trigger a constitutional crisis, if the president follows through on the war of words. Read the full story here           Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for News Alerts     Forward News Alerts     You Might Like       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Overnight Health Care — Sponsored by PCMA — Judge orders Maine to implement Medicaid expansion | NY, Washington insurers seek double-digit ObamaCare rate hikes | Surge in Medicare drug spending

Sponsored by Pharmaceutical Care Management Association | View in Browser     Welcome to Overnight Health Care, sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association.   It's Monday in Washington, where everyone is debating whether the president can actually pardon himself. But there's plenty of health care news on the agenda as well. The big story, though, takes us to Maine, where a state court is ordering officials to begin implementing Medicaid expansion. The details: A Maine court has ordered the state to move ahead with Medicaid expansion, which was approved by voters last year but blocked by Republican Gov. Paul LePage. The judge asked the state to produce a plan by June 11 on how it will expand the program. Backstory: Maine was the first state to expand Medicaid through a referendum. But LePage has fought those efforts at every turn, arguing that it would be too expensive. Critics, though, question his estimate. We'll have more on the late-breaking story here.         SPONSORED CONTENT   Pharmaceutical Care Management Association Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are hired by employers, unions, and government programs to negotiate aggressive discounts from drug companies and drugstores.   Learn how PBMs are part of the solution to reducing Rx costs at DrugBenefitSolutions.com.       Also today, New York ObamaCare insurers are asking state regulators to approve an average rate hike of 24 percent. Meanwhile, 11 insurers in Washington state want to increase premiums by an average of 19.08 percent. Why it matters: Insurers in both states blame recent and upcoming changes to the law. In New York, insurers are concerned about Congress' repeal of the individual mandate, which takes place next year, and in Washington, insurers are concerned that looking action from the Trump administration could draw healthy people from the markets. Context: We're likely to see this trend continue for weeks or months to come as insurers finalize their rate requests. But remember, rates still need to be approved by state regulators. And those who receive subsidies to buy insurance will mostly be shielded from any increases. It's those who make too much to qualify for subsidies who will be most affected. We explain here.   Inspector general finds surge in Medicare drug spending Advocates for lower drug prices got some new fodder on Monday with an HHS inspector general report finding a surge in drug spending despite a drop in the number of prescriptions. Key findings: Medicare Part D spending for brand-name drugs rose by 62 percent from 2011 to 2015, from $49 billion to $80 billion. That occurred even though the number of prescriptions fell 17 percent in the same time period. Unit costs for drugs rose 29 percent from 2011 to 2015, six times faster than inflation. Medicare enrollees' average out of pocket costs per brand name drug rose from $161 to $225 in that time period, an increase of 40 percent. Key quote: "Today's report from the HHS Inspector General makes it clear that list price increases on brand drugs are hurting patients," said David Mitchell, founder of the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs. "I heard this weekend from a California woman who reports she pays $500  -- nearly half of her $1,200 per month income -- to cover two maintenance drugs. We need action to lower pharma list prices now." Read more here.     A federal judge over the weekend ruled against the Trump administration in a class action lawsuit filed by dozens of organizations working to prevent teen pregnancy. The Department of Health and Human Services last year told participants in the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program that their five year grants would be ending two years early, calling the program ineffective. This move prompted lawsuits, including the class action suit filed by 62 grant recipients. Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled over the weekend that the terminations were unlawful and HHS should proceed "as if the agency had not undertaken to shorten these grantees' federal awards." What it means: HHS will have to accept and process applications from grantees for their final two years of funding. It appears that grantees will be able to follow funding requirements set by the Obama administration, not new criteria issued under Trump that is focused more on abstinence. What to watch for next: Supporters of the program are waiting with baited breath, though, for HHS to decide its next steps, which could include an appeal. What HHS is saying now: From an agency spokesperson: "We are disappointed with this ruling," HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley said in a statement. "Continuing the program in its current state does a disservice to the youth it serves and to the taxpayers who fund it. Communities deserve better, and we are considering our next steps."         SPONSORED CONTENT   Pharmaceutical Care Management Association The Congressional Budget Office’s $43 billion score of point-of-sale rebates in Medicare Part D is the latest in a series of official estimates showing this mandate would increase costs for the government and taxpayers. This score strikes the third blow to the drugmakers’ multi-million dollar campaign to shift blame for their own prices onto the health plans and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that negotiate discounts and rebates to reduce costs.       CMS rolls out Medicaid scorecard CMS Administrator Seema Verma on Monday unveiled a new "scorecard" that provides data on different aspects of state Medicaid programs. The goal is to hold the program accountable, so "every American [can] see how well the Medicaid program is doing," Verma told reporters Monday. The National Association of Medicaid Directors, though, said they had concerns about the "comparability, accuracy and timeliness of the data." Another tidbit from Verma's briefing: She declined to comment on what President Trump meant when he said drug companies would soon be announcing voluntary price decreases. She said she did not want to get in front of any announcements.   From the weekend: Blue states are defying the Trump administration in a bid to protect ObamaCare. Virginia's expansion of Medicaid this week is giving hope to advocates in other states.   What we're reading 'Medicaid-for-All' rapidly gains interest in the states (Governing) Mail-order pharmacy system delays meds for some patients (Columbus Dispatch) U.S. postal stamp helped fund key breast cancer study (NBC News)   State by state Four states could expand Medicaid this year. That's a big deal. (Vox.com) Health care simmers on back burner In California heartland's hot House races (The Washington Post) How a reshaped Virginia legislature learned to love Medicaid expansion (The Washington Post)         Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Healthcare Newsletters     Forward Healthcare Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.