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Facebook has confirmed that a White House official will be leaving the administration to join the social network's growing Washington office to focus on international policy issues.

Marne Levine, who currently serves as chief of staff at the White House National Economic Council, plans to join Facebook next month in the position of vice president of global public policy.

Levine will be the fifth staffer to join the Facebook's Washington office as the social-networking giant steps up its advocacy work on a variety of fronts, ranging from privacy to child safety and Internet censorship.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told InternetNews.com that Levine's primary focus will be international development, working with foreign governments and NGOs as the company expands in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Tim Sparapani will continue to lead the Washington office, directing the company's policy relations with Congress and the agencies.

Richard Allan, Facebook's director of public policy for the EU, will retain the lead in Facebook's policy work in Europe, where the company has faced intense scrutiny of its privacy policies.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously approved a [sweeping cybersecurity bill](http://www.esecurityplanet.com/features/article.php/3887956/Lieberman-Racing-to-Mark-Up-Cybersecurity-Overhaul.htm) that would bolster the federal government's authority to respond to a major attack on critical digital infrastructure.

The bill, co-sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), heads to the full Senate after the committee adopted a substitute amendment to limit the president's powers in the event of a cyberemergency.

The version of the bill reported by the committee limits the president's authority to take control of private or public networks to 120 days, at which point the emergency powers would require congressional approval.

Tuesday morning kicks off a two-day series of hearings at the U.S. International Trade Commission concerning China and intellectual property, and the panel is going to get an earful from the software industry.

Executives from the Business Software Alliance, the Information Technology Industry Council and the Software and Information Industry Association are all slated to appear in a panel presentation today.

BSA and SIIA are leading anti-piracy industry groups, and ITIC has made reform of China's indigenous innovation policy -- which promotes the commercialization of home-grown technology over foreign imports -- a signature issue.

The U.S. ITC's two-day event is part of a fact-finding mission the trade panel initiated at the request of the Senate Finance Committee.

In a letter dated April 20, the committee asked the U.S. ITC to launch twin investigations into the scope of intellectual property infringement in China and the economic impact of Chinese indigenous innovation policies on U.S. firms. The committee asked for analyses of the impact China's policies are having on U.S. jobs and on the broader economy.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has said that it will open an investigation into Taiwanese phone maker HTC's patent-infringement claims against Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

HTC had filed its complaint with the U.S. ITC in May, alleging that Apple infringed on five of its patents regarding power management and cell-phone directory hardware and software.

That complaint followed two months after Apple had hit HTC with its own patent-infringement suit.

HTC is asking the U.S. ITC to impose a ban on Apple that would bar the company from importing, marketing and selling iPhones, iPads and iPods in the United States.

Of course, the decision to open an investigation in no way foretells an outcome. The chief administrative law judge of the trade panel will assign the case to one of the U.S. ITC's six administrative law judges, who will convene an evidentiary hearing. If the judge finds that Apple is in violation of the relevant provision of the Tariff Act, the matter will pass to the commission to review.

A Senate panel is set to consider on Tuesday sweeping legislation that would expand federal cybersecurity authority over private-sector networks designated as critical infrastructure.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will hear from senior members of the security community in the public and private sector as it considers a bill introduced by the committee's leaders that aims to elevate the profile of federal cybersecurity and establish a framework for government and industry partnerships.

That bill, the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, was introduced last Thursday by committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-Maine), along with Tom Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee.

"The [bill] is designed to bring together the disjointed efforts of multiple federal agencies and departments to prevent cybertheft, intrusions and attacks across the federal government and the private sector. The bill would establish a clear organizational structure to lead federal efforts in safeguarding cyber networks. And it would build a public/private partnership to increase the preparedness and resiliency of those private critical infrastructure cyber networks upon which our way of life depends," Lieberman said in a statement. "The need for this legislation is obvious and urgent."

Apple may be in hot water with the feds after a controversial change to its developer policy.

The Financial Times is reporting that antitrust authorities at the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are mulling a probe into Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) new rules that restrict rivals' abilities to sell ads against third-party applications on the iPhone and iPad.

Under the new policy, announced Monday, Apple is barring developers from sending information about the people using their apps to the ad networks of companies that make smartphones or mobile operating systems.

That means that Apple rivals like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) would not be able to access the demographic and location data that is so integral to the nascent mobile ad business.

Tuesday was a big day for a pair of former technology luminaries who ditched the boardroom in favor of the campaign trail.

Meg Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay, handily won the Republican nomination for the California gubernatorial race. And Carly Fiorina, who previously held the top spot at HP, won her bid to represent the GOP in a challenge to incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Whitman, a billionaire from her stewardship over the online auction site during its glory years, poured $71 million of her own fortune into her campaign, and easily defeat State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

Whitman will move on to face former Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, in the general election.

Given all the recent controversy and bad publicity that have been surrounding Facebook over its privacy policies, you might think that a resume that includes a stint as chief privacy officer at the social network would be a liability for a candidate seeking public office.

Kamala Harris certainly does.

Harris is vying for the Democratic nomination to run for attorney general in California in a primary contest with Chris Kelly, who held the top privacy position at Facebook during some of its less glamorous episodes, such as the Beacon advertising debacle.

Now, with a new campaign ad, Harris is trying to pin the latest dust-up on her opponent, evidently banking on the view that Facebook's troubles are enough of a mainstream issue that the coupling, no matter how disingenuous, will resonate.

The Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement that bars a Florida firm from marketing and selling keylogging spyware that illegally monitors users' computer activities.

The permanent injunction comes more than a year and a half after the FTC first filed suit against CyberSpy Software and its owner, Tracer Spence.

CyberSpy had promoted the RemoteSpy keylogger spyware as a "100 percent" undetectable method of monitoring people's keystrokes and snagging passwords, Web browsing activities and images of their computer screens, according to court documents filed by the FTC.

Additionally, the complaint alleged that the firm had provided its customers with detailed instructions for disguising the spyware as an innocuous attachment to an e-mail that would be automatically downloaded and installed on the victims' computers once they opened it.