On Tuesday, President Trump shocked the country by firing FBI director James Comey. The broader population probably knows Comey best as a result of his decision to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just days before the general election. But Comey was an especially contentious figure within the tech community due to his broader pro-surveillance and anti-encryption stances and last year’s very public confrontation with Apple over the unlocking of an iPhone used during the San Bernardino terrorist attack. And while Director Comey’s relationship with tech companies during his time in leadership could best be described as tumultuous, it is unlikely that the President will appoint someone with a friendlier approach. During his time on the campaign trail, President Trump blasted tech giant Apple over its unwillingness to enable a backdoor for government on encrypted devices in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting.

On Tuesday, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) revealed the committee’s top tech priorities for this Congress. Among the issues he hopes to address are encryption and surveillance, as well as high skilled immigration. On immigration, he suggested that too many green cards were being given to family members of current U.S. residents, instead of going to skilled laborers. He told reporters that his goal was to “find a balanced solution to increase the high-skilled talent pool to promote job growth through visa and green card reforms,” and to protect “job opportunities for similarly qualified Americans.”

On Wednesday morning, more than 800 startups, innovators, investors, and entrepreneurial support organizations from all 50 states joined Engine, Y Combinator, and Techstars in sending a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to protect a free and open internet. As we note in the letter, the success of America’s startup ecosystem depends on strong, enforceable net neutrality rules. Any effort to roll back these rules would allow for discrimination and impede entrepreneurs’ ability to grow their companies, reach customers, and compete with incumbents. Rather than dismantling the existing net neutrality framework, signatories called on Chairman Pai to “focus instead on policies that would promote a stronger Internet for everyone,” such as removing unnecessary barriers to construction of new networks. Read the full letter and add your company’s name here.

On Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reiterating the Administration’s policy to buy and hire American. On the ‘Hire American’ side, the EO directs federal agencies to evaluate the various programs that allow foreign workers to enter the United States, with a particular focus on the H-1B visa program. While the EO will not have a direct, immediate impact on the H-1B program, it brings new scrutiny to a visa category relied on heavily by the tech and startup communities. In a statement responding to the EO, Engine Executive Director, Evan Engstrom, called on the the Administration to consider the concerns of the startup community when reviewing and reforming the program: “[I]t is essential that they take into account the economic realities of the startup ecosystem and work to craft reform policies that do not inadvertently make it harder for startups to hire the talented workers they need.”

Last week, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai floated a proposal during a meeting with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that would roll back the net neutrality rules put in place by the previous Administration and replace them with “voluntary” commitments from ISPs. The proposal would completely undermine the Open Internet Order that the startup community backed in 2015, and Engine has put together a startup letter in conjunction with Y Combinator to push back, telling FCC Chairman Ajit Pai that any efforts to undo net neutrality will threaten startups’ ability to innovate and thrive. Learn more and sign the letter here.

H-1B season kicked off on Monday, and while the the White House missed the opportunity for a larger overhaul of the program before the lottery opened, the Administration did slip in a few changes at the last minute that have made the already chaotic process of applying for H-1Bs even more frenzied. Late last Friday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) quietly issued a policy memo indicating a more rigorous vetting process for computer programmers. While the changes are mostly cosmetic in nature (USCIS has maintained that the guidance is a clarification of existing policy, not a “policy change”), the agency also announced on Monday that it would be increasing the number of targeted site visits to crack down on H-1B abuse and fraud. The same day, the Justice Department issued a strong warning that employers seeking H-1B visas must not discriminate against American workers. On their own, each of these changes is arguably meant to target outsourcing firms and abuse of the system, not technology companies (most of whom reserve their visas for more complicated, higher paying roles that cannot be filled by U.S. workers). But taken together, they indicate an intentional effort by the President to deliver on his campaign promise to “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.” We’re tracking.

Engine Examines the Limits of Filtering. In a congressional briefing on Tuesday, Engine Executive Director, Evan Engstrom, and Princeton University professor Nick Feamster introduced the report they co-authored exploring various content filtering technologies and the impact that their mandatory application could have on startups. Feamster, a computer scientist, explained the primary modes of filtering and each of their shortcomings in identifying copyright infringing material. Engstrom addressed the implications for startups if policymakers moved to require the use of these technologies. Not only would companies suffer because of the limited ability of the current methods to accurately filter infringing content, he said, but they would also be unable to pay the extremely high price required for full-scale operation of the filtering technology. The full report, which elaborates on the speakers’ remarks, can be found here.