December 2007

That's what News.com thinks Congress gave the technology industry for Christmas this year. The story covers an array of topics, including:

1) Internet taxes. "Arguably the biggest victory scored by the high-tech industry -- although some would say it didn't go far enough."

2) Competitiveness. "There's no guarantee, however, that [President] Bush will approve the follow-up spending bills that would actually bankroll those programs."

3) H-1B visas. "Once again appears destined to fail, already a casualty of a divisive immigration bill that perished earlier this year."

4) Patent reform. "Proceeded further than ever before, with the House of Representatives backing the most significant revamp in decades. But the Senate hasn't acted yet amid lingering battles over the bill's approach."

5) Piracy. "The entertainment industry saw some action on its frustration with piracy on university networks."

6) Network neutrality. "A quiet year."

7) Tech mergers. Congress called "a number of technology-related companies onto the hearing-room carpet."

8) E-voting. "Post-election plans from the Democrats to require paper trails of all oft-maligned electronic voting machines used in federal races also appear to have collapsed."

9) Internet perils. Congress' activities covered cyber security, terrorists organizing online, file-sharing, sexual predators on social networks, and secretly installed computer spyware.

That question is at the core of a complaint that techPresident Editor Micah Sifry has lodged against Michael Arrington and his TechCrunch blog, which on Thursday announced plans for the "TechCrunch Tech President Primaries."

TechCrunch has been interviewing presidential candidates in recent weeks -- the first five to participate were Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain, and Democrats John Edwards, Mike Gravel and Barack Obama -- and its primaries are running from Dec. 18 to Jan. 18. The site will endorse one candidate from each major party "as the 'Tech President' candidate based on the popular results of reader voting and blog input from our community of technology leaders and entrepreneurs."

Ten specific issues are being emphasized in the primary: network neutrality, immigration and H1-B visas, taxes and Internet taxes, technology education, the "digital divide," identity theft, the mobile spectrum auction scheduled for January, China, intellectual property, and renewable energy.

Ironically, techPresident's Sifry accused TechCrunch of violations in two of those areas -- identity theft (later retracted) and intellectual property -- for allegedly stealing the brand that techPresident has been working to build since it launched in February. Sifry titled his post "TechCrunch Commits Identity Theft."

(Photo Credit: Justin Russell)

Happy holidays from Andrew, Aliya, Chris, Danny, David, Heather, Michael, Theresa and the rest of the Technology Daily gang! We will not publish again until Monday, Jan. 7 so feel free to take a break from tech policy for a couple of weeks. Readers, you deserve some rest and relaxation -- and we do too.

Information security provider Entrust e-mailed me its recommendations for Santa's 2007 "Naughty & Nice" list and I thought it might be worth a mention. Some excerpts:

Naughty

U.K. HM Revenue & Customs. More than 25 million records of children were lost in a breach that affected 40 percent of the British population.

Consumers responding to phishing e-mails. Online "phishing" and man-in-the-middle attacks continue to rise in profitability because consumers aren't paying attention to red flags.

TJ Maxx. Forget Santa's naughty list, they're already reaping the horror of their own insecurity in the court system. A lump of coal might be a welcome relief.

Nice

PKI [Public key infrastructure]. The 1990's solution that looked for a problem finally has found more than a dozen and come full circle. This technology is more pervasive than ever with more PK-aware applications on the rise.

Banks that step up security. U.S. Bank, Bank of New Zealand and others are increasing online security, adding things like picture replay, question-and-answer, grid cards and fraud detection solutions.

Smart, safe surfing. Let's hear it for online retailers that use encryption to secure transactions.

The FTC's former policy director, David Balto, told Technology Daily on Thursday that the agency's decision not to block Google's $3.1 billion merger with online advertising firm DoubleClick "is sound and shows a really careful evaluation of the potential competitive effects of the merger."

The commission's 4-1 vote, with Pamela Jones Harbour dissenting, was "very well reasoned," despite cries form critics who called for the recusal of Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras and voiced anti-competitive and privacy concerns, he said.

"People might advocate that the FTC become the super-regulator of the Internet but that would stifle the kind of innovation that is critical to the growth of these industries," Balto said. The agency took the privacy fears seriously and decided that "the marketplace is going to be the best discipline to make sure Google protects users' privacy."

The European Union's ongoing review of the pairing might be a different story because regulators there have "much broader concerns," Balto said. EU officials have scheduled a January hearing where privacy officials, consumer groups and Web firms will testify.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center plans to take its complaints about the FTC's approval of Google's multi-billion dollar merger with DoubleClick to Capitol Hill. The agency gave the controversial pairing its blessing on Thursday [see Technology Daily's PM Edition for more].

EPIC's director Marc Rotenberg said he will "bring this matter to the appropriate congressional oversight committees that are responsible for the agency’s funding and statutory authority." His group has also submitted a series of expedited Freedom of Information Act requests to the FTC regarding the commission's review of the merger.

The FTC "had an opportunity to establish the necessary safeguards for personal data and competition that could have allowed a global framework to emerge," Rotenberg said in a statement. "Instead, the commission's failure to act leaves the question of how best to address the privacy and competition implications of this deal to others."

The agency, which he notes, is "funded by taxpayer dollars," has the sole purpose of protecting the public interest. "It failed to do so today in a case that will have far-reaching implications for the Internet economy and the privacy rights of American consumers," he said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told us he still has concerns with the merger "especially as it relates to competition and privacy." "Given the relative youth of the Internet, a merger of this kind is unprecedented and no one can predict how it will affect the industry," he said.

European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes topped Ethisphere's "100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics." "Not only did Kroes levy record fines across Europe for antitrust cases, but she proved to American titans such as Intel, Apple and Microsoft that European rules should not be taken lightly," the magazine said.

Kroes is making an early case for leading the list again next year "with her plans to 'fight like hell' to stop price-fixing and ensure companies get the message," as well as indications that she plans on raising fines for antitrust violations even higher next year.

Other notables who made the list include Dell Computer Chairman Michael Dell; Computer Associates Senior Vice President Patrick Gnazzo; Hewlett-Packard Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer Jonathan Hoak; and Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy.

The Boston Red Sox may want to make sure Curt Schilling has a good keyboard wrist rest. Because at the rate he's been blogging lately, the guy might come down with carpal-tunnel syndrome before the season starts.

Schilling, one of the key players on Boston's world championship teams in 2004 and 2007, has been using his 38 Pitches blog as his personal soapbox for a while now. But the presidential race and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's recent report on steroids in baseball has forced him to crank his blogging up a notch.

His sprawling post on Wednesday about steroids clocked in at 3,676 words. He penned another entry earlier this month endorsing Sen. John McCain's presidential bid that went over the 1,000 word limit -- roughly twice the length of the story I'll have in this afternoon's edition of Technology Daily.

As I've mentioned on this blog before, I really don't like the Sox. So I can't say I'll be torn up if Schilling needs to sit out a start or two next season because he blogged too hard for his own good. But I'll advise him nonetheless that it's a dangerous world out there. After all, Detroit Tigers fireballer Joel Zumaya once got so into the "Guitar Hero" videogame that he rocked himself out of the American League Championship Series with a forearm injury.

Blog safely, Curt. And if you plan on writing more about the presidential race, it's Mike Huckabee not Huckaby. -- Michael Martinez

Cross-posted at Beltway Blogroll

Micah Sifry at techPresident calls attention to one that has garnered some attention this week, including from Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic.

The tactic: Register an unflattering Internet address and point it to a Web site you don't own in order to make a candidate you don't like look bad. The specific episode currently being discussed involves domain names like BarackOsama2008.org being pointed to the same Internet protocol address that hosts HillaryClinton.com.

The take-away from the controversy is this, according to Sifry: "Thanks to the Internet, there are all kinds of new games campaigns can play on each other now, and given the pressure to be first with a story, all kinds of new dangers that a misunderstanding about how the Web works will turn into a serious political story."

Political reporters (and bloggers) beware; don't be fooled by stories that sound too sensational to be true.

Here are some telling excerpts from an academic treatise in Democracy: A Journal Of Ideas that is written in predictably dry prose but that is still intriguing because of the subject matter -- incorporating the "wiki" concept of peer collaboration into government decision-making:

Our institutions of governance are characterized by a longstanding culture of professionalism in which bureaucrats -- not citizens -- are the experts. Until recently, we have viewed this arrangement as legitimate because we have not practically been able to argue otherwise. Now we have a chance to do government differently. We have the know-how to create 'civic software' that will help us form groups and communities who, working together, can be more effective at informing decision-making than individuals working alone.

... To bring about the new revolution in governance, the next president ought to issue an executive order requiring that every government agency begin to pilot new strategies for improved decision-making. For example, he or she could require that each agency ... set forth at least one "Peer-to-Policy" experiment to see how it could make its decision-making practices more collaborative.

(Hat tip to Micah Sifry at Personal Democracy Forum)

Remember how cool it was when Time magazine's "Person of the Year" was "You?" Remember the cover story that said the World Wide Web in 2006 had become a precious tool for bringing together the contributions of millions of people and making them matter? Gosh, that was nice. We really liked that.

Well, the 2007 "Person of the Year" is Vladimir Putin. The magazine said his final year as Russia's president was his most successful: "At home, he secured his political future. Abroad, he expanded his outsize -- if not always benign -- influence on global affairs."

Not a bad choice, but c'mon, plenty of fun tech-related people made news in the past 12 months. It would have been great to have claimed the cover yet again. Was Vint Cerf a contender? He's been called the "Father of the Internet" and his lengthy tenure as chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ended recently.

Runners up were former Vice President Al Gore, author J.K. Rowling, Chinese leader Hu Jintao, and U.S. military commander David Petraeus.

The good folks at Edelman who do the flacking for the musicFirst coalition must have spiked their office party eggnog. The group, which wants AM and FM radio stations to pay royalties to artists, has released a "T'was The Night Before Recess" holiday poem and it just begged to be blogged.

The coalition, which is backed by the Recording Industry Association of America and others, sent the poem to Capitol Hill on Wednesday. They are obviously still celebrating Tuesday's introduction of legislation in both chambers, which could be summed up as their biggest Christmas wish. Read more in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

The lengthy poem, penned to the cadence of "T'was the Night Before Christmas," can be read after the jump. No word yet on whether the National Association of Broadcasters will create rebuttal prose. NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton is pretty good at whipping up snarky comebacks so I'm sure he's hard at work.

The Homeland Security Department's recently launched blog has a new entry from Daniel Sutherland, the agency's civil rights and civil liberties chief. His post outlines efforts to make Hajj travel efficient and safe. More than a million people, including thousands of Americans, make a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia each year.

"We are strengthening our cultural competence and honoring our proud traditions of civil rights and civil liberties -- including religious freedom -- as we protect our homeland and our travelers," Sutherland wrote. "We work closely with various religious groups such as Sikh and Jewish organizations concerning the screening of people who wear religious head coverings or carry certain religious articles when they travel."

The DHS "Leadership Journal" averages more than 1,000 visitors a day, officials said. Recent posts have covered diverse topics like biometrics; the rollout of the standardized identification card program known as "Real ID;" and the government's response to an ice storm in the Midwest.

Workplace consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas unveiled its annual compilation of the year's strangest business-related stories on Wednesday and it should come as no surprise that technology played an important role in the wackiness.

▪ An announcer for London's Tube system was fired in November after recording spoof messages and posting them on her Web site. Some of the alerts told American tourists they were talking too loudly and warned male passengers to stop staring at female riders.

▪ Hip-hop mogul P. Diddy turned to the Internet this summer to find a personal assistant. Applicants had three minutes to showcase their talents and win him over. More than 10,000 Diddy-helper hopefuls applied for the position via video-sharing site YouTube.

▪ An Iowa woman was fired in January for misuse of company time – keeping an electronic diary about how she avoids work. Some of the entries detailed her efforts to fool management into believing she was hard at work, usually by furiously typing. The entire 300-page, single-spaced tome was written on the clock with a company computer.

Non-tech stories involved a South Korean bank that sent its employees on blind dates; a hotel chain's job posting for a Chief Beer Officer position; an architecture firm's moon-based design project; and a Thai law enforcement program involving "Hello Kitty" armbands.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is in search of 20 youngsters between the ages of 11 and 16 to represent the United States at a global summit on online safety. The conference will be held in London in July. More information is available here.

Students who are interested in the opportunity (or parents who want to ship their teens overseas for a week) have until Jan. 25 to submit an application. About 300 participants from Australia, Canada, the European Union, and the United States will attend the event.

"Children today are part of a new Internet generation that grew up playing, communicating and learning in cyberspace," NCMEC President Ernie Allen said in a press release. "It's important to solicit their input in our effort to protect them from predators who may try to victimize them online."

The conference will be hosted by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, in partnership with the Virtual Global Task Force, an international law enforcement that fights victimization of children.

"This event is not about talking to young people. It is not even about thinking how to best protect them. It is about listening to them," CEOPC chief Jim Gamble said. NCMEC will organize an April meeting with the selected students to prep them for their journey.

The FTC's antitrust review of Google's plan to buy online advertiser DoubleClick could conclude this week, the Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester told us Tuesday afternoon. His group and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have repeatedly urged commissioners to take privacy concerns into consideration as they deliberate.

Chester, who also unsuccessfully asked Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself from the review of the $3.1 billion deal because of her ties to the law firm handling the case in Europe, said a decision "is imminent." [See related Technology Daily story here].

"They need to act responsibly here but I feel that the commission is trying to duck the issue," he said. CDD and EPIC have claimed that if Google and DoubleClick pool their Web resources, the company would be able to construct intimate portraits of its users' behavior.

Meanwhile, the European consumer group known as BEUC wrote to regulators there following up on concerns expressed in June. The Tuesday letter raised "additional risks to consumer welfare ... in particular with respect to the price, degree of innovation, quality, and selection of online products and services" available to consumers post-merger.

A $516 billion Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill passed Monday by the House would ensure that the U.S. governmental body charged with determining music royalty rates would no longer be funded by copyright owners and creators, the National Music Publishers Association said Tuesday.

The legislative package would fund the salaries and benefits of the Copyright Royalty Board, NMPA President David Israelite said in a press release. "For too long, a small amount of copyright owners, including songwriters and music publishers, have funded the costs of the CRB through their royalties," he said.

The panel, housed at the Library of Congress, has three judges -- William Roberts, James Sledge, and Stanley Wisniewski -- and a very small staff. Read more about the omnibus bill in Technology Daily's AM Edition.

Running behind on your holiday shopping? Got a political junkie in the family? A quick trip to eBay might help you snag that emergency gift you're looking for.

For starters, there are currently more than 230 online auctions pending for Barack Obama-related goodies. You can scoop up some Obama pins on the cheap for about $10. But if you're buying for someone with a more international taste, you might want to consider these Obama-inspired Russian nesting dolls.

And if you've got the cash to spend, you can always throw down for the rights to an Obama domain name. The going price for ProObama.com? A cool grand. But that's not even that pricey, when you think about it. The enterprising vendor who goes by the name "festivusmaximus" is pawning the domain name MittRomneysDog.com for five times that. The seller even included a link to the Time magazine story that inspired the domain name. How Christmassy.

Hillary Clinton fans might be intrigued by this snazzy nutcracker modeled after the former first lady. But if you're part of the "Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary)" Facebook group, this stress-relief squishy toy might be more your speed. These Clinton clay pigeons also have stocking-stuffer potential for the gun-toting conservative types out there.

Here are a few more quirky gift items I found in my eBay travels...

Silicon Valley's holiday parties in the heyday of the Internet were an extravagant, lavish sight to behold. Champagne, caviar, huge bonuses and who knows what else. Then, the Web bubble burst and employees drank boxed wine in the break room.

These days, the industry is back on its feet and the sector has embraced a more practical partying sensibility, at least in Washington. Case in point: eBay, Google, InterActiveCorp (which owns Ask.com) and Yahoo teamed up to throw a joint holiday bash on Monday night at a reasonably sized venue for a reasonably sized crowd.

Congressional staffers, tech policy wonks, lobbyists, reporters and a mishmash of others enjoyed an open bar and hors d’oeuvres at the red-hued lounge Indebleu in Chinatown. The mood was lively as were the conversations and the DJ spun some pretty good music.

Some guests also walked out with a stocking-stuffer or two. A table stocked with baseball caps, lapel pins and squishy stress relievers was positioned near the coat check.

Dinner and a movie is always a nice way to unwind, especially during the hectic pre-holiday season in Washington -- but Dan Glickman and the Motion Picture Association of America really know how to do it right.

On Monday night, the trade group invited a small group of folks over for a bite to eat and a special screening of "Charlie Wilson's War." The movie opens Dec. 21 and stars Tom Hanks as Wilson, a scandal-prone Democratic congressman from Texas.

Before relaxing in the MPAA's posh, private theater, guests mingled in the group's newly renovated reception hall, which was anchored by an expertly decorated Christmas tree. The caliber of invitees was far loftier than a typical dinner party at my house (no offense to my friends and family whom I believe to be VIPs).

Guests included the Washington Post's Amy Argetsinger; CNN's Wolf Blizter; National Journal's own Linda Douglass; David Mark of The Politico; Capitol File's Jayne Sandman; CBS legend Bob Schieffer; pundit Stuart Rothenberg; NBC's Chuck Todd and a number of others.

Google's growing Washington staff started their first week of work at their new headquarters on Monday. Sources tell Tech Daily Dose that it's a big improvement from the team's temporary space on Pennsylvania Avenue. I'd been in the old office a time or two and it seemed nice (but uncharacteristically bland for the colorful Web colossus).

The new address is 1101 New York Ave., NW and Googlers tell me that they plan on doing a media tour of the facility in early 2008. The building looks pretty sleek from the outside but I can't imagine that it stacks up to the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif.

Here are a few amenities that the mothership offers (ripped straight from Google's Web site) that I'm unrealistically hoping they gave their policy squad in the nation's capital:

▪ Recreation facilities: Workout room with weights and rowing machine, locker rooms, washers and dryers, massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, baby grand piano, pool table, ping pong, roller hockey twice a week in the parking lot.

▪ Google Café - Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff. Stations include "Charlie’s Grill," "Back to Albuquerque," "East Meets West" and "Vegheads." Outdoor seating for sunshine daydreaming.

▪ Snack Rooms - Bins packed with various cereals, gummi bears, M&Ms, toffee, licorice, cashew nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks. Dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soda and make-your-own cappuccino.

The Department of Homeland Security is hosting a two-day workshop on the privacy and civil liberties implications of closed-circuit television surveillance. Panel discussions involve perspectives from the technology, law enforcement, community, international, and legal and policy arenas. In an age of Web wonders, CCTV, which some think of as an old-school, convenient store security tool, gets lost in the shuffle. But as speakers on Monday noted, CCTV has come a long way in the digital age. Read more in Technology Daily's PM edition. The photo above was taken at the deli on-site at the conference. It just seemed appropriate.

The Congressional Internet Caucus wants your latest, greatest, coolest gadgets to display on Capitol Hill. The group has begun searching for innovators to set up demos at its 11th annual exhibition scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 30.

The event kicks off the congressional session each year by showing off new and emerging technologies that illustrate the latest tech policy issues with interactive, hands-on demonstrations.

More than 600 lawmakers, staffers, reporters and government and private sector representatives are expected to attend. The exhibition will immediately follow a day of tech policy discussions at the caucus's annual State of the Net conference.

Last year's participating companies included Google, Kodak, Microsoft, MySpace, NBC-Universal and many more. Think you've got what it takes? Application materials are available here.

It's Friday afternoon and the Technology Daily staff was in desperate need of a sugar fix. Lo and behold, a bag of holiday cheer appears. AT&T branded cookies! Good work, guys. Follow the jump for another shot of my colleague Michael Martinez chowing down.

Tech policy PR firm 463 Communications held its "Self-Important Holiday Bash" on Thursday night at Hotel Monaco's upscale bistro Poste. The group, whose clients include heavy-hitters like Cisco and VeriSign, used the occasion to celebrate its third anniversary.

They commemorated that milestone by showing a really funny video. Immediately, I begged them to put the skit on YouTube and they did. 463's disclaimer: "We didn't take this video too seriously, so neither should you."

The House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee held a pretty lively hearing on Thursday on a new bill that would boost U.S. intellectual property enforcement efforts.

The bill, sponsored by full committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., has been cheered by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and many industries that rely on IP -- but some folks still have major concerns. Read Technology Daily's PM Edition for more details.

Several amusing occurrences worth mentioning:

At the start of the hearing, Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., said he couldn’t bang the gavel because it was missing. Does this warrant an all-points-bulletin on the committee's missing mallet?

A few members remarked on the lengthy title of the bill -- the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act." Staffers love acronyms and the "PRO-IP Act" is no exception.

California Democrat Brad Sherman showed his enthusiasm for moving the bill forward by quoting, oddly enough, redneck comedian Larry the Cable Guy. His motto is "get 'er done."

Full committee ranking Republican Lamar Smith chose a more academic quote. The Texan referenced Charles Duell, the U.S. patent commissioner in 1899, who said: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." A century later, "it is abundantly clear that he was wrong."

Congressional staffers, lobbyists, reporters and other followers of the entertainment industry in Washington celebrated the holiday season at the eagerly anticipated Recording Industry Association of America party on Wednesday night.

The event, co-hosted by the Motion Picture Association of America, SoundExchange and others, was held at trendy nightclub Ibiza and chart-topper Wyclef Jean performed for the crowd.

My apologies for the low quality cell phone photo. There's a second one after the jump.

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce-led coalition aimed at combating counterfeiting and piracy released a new study to a handful of reporters on Wednesday that the group says demonstrates the value of strengthening U.S. intellectual property enforcement efforts.

The report by Laura Tyson, the former head of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, was embargoed until Thursday -- the day of a crucial hearing chaired by California Democrat Howard Berman of the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee.

According to Tyson, the coalition's proposal to embolden American IP protection, components of which were included in H.R. 4279, would cost the government money but would save the country much more in the long run.

"Measured in present value terms, the CACP initiative would cost between $0.289 and $0.489 during the first three years," according to the report. Most of the costs incurred would pertain to the hiring and training of additional federal employees to fight IP crime.

U.S. companies lose at least $225 billion annually to piracy and counterfeiting, the report pointed out. Tyson said the coalition's proposal would reduce those losses by between $18.4 billion and $36.8 billion in three years' time. Savings could be as high as 10 percent by the third year, she said.

If enacted, the IP enhancements would increase U.S. output by about $27 billion a year and would boost employment by about 174,000 a year after three years, the report said. Those figures rise to $54 billion and 348,000 jobs after that initial period.

The American Civil Liberties Union put out a report on Wednesday slamming government-run, information sharing "fusion centers" but some security experts and congressional leaders weren't too pleased with the group's allegations. Read Technology Daily's PM Edition for details.

In addition to those quoted in the article, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., weighed in. He defended the centers, noting that they "play an increasingly important role in preventing terrorism and other criminal activities around the country."

Lieberman said policymakers must provide "adequate resources, better guidelines, standards, and training regimens for them, and ensure that they connect federal, state, local and tribal agencies." While the ACLU report recognizes the need for vigilance, "we must ensure that our oversight is careful and reasoned," he added.

The Homeland Security Department, which helps fund the programs, did not offer an official comment by deadline but Robert Riegle, the agency's point person for fusion centers, told us the document was packed with "egregious inaccuracies" and he thought it was "wholly in error."

Update: Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke called late in the afternoon and discussed the report at length. He called the ACLU's work "ill-conceived" and said it "shows yet again that the ACLU's strategy for security is to stick their head in the sand and wish a problem away."

Knocke said the report's authors, Mike German and Jay Stanley, "lack any evidence to support their theories" and put forward a document that "pushes an agenda instead of objective dialogue and viewpoints on an important issue."

(Photo Credit: Eric Draper/White House)

As promised, the White House unveiled its annual holiday video starring President Bush's Scottish Terriers Barney and Miss Beazley on Wednesday. In this year's installment, the dogs want to become junior park rangers with the National Park Service… but first, they have to help decorate the White House for Christmas.

The Web video features a cameo appearance by Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (one of the lesser-known members of the administration) as well as some pretty bad acting by First Daughters Jenna and Barbara. Oh, and former Prime Minister Tony Blair also shows up. I guess he didn’t have much else going on.

StopBigMedia.com, a coalition aimed at fighting media consolidation, has teamed up with the Harry Potter Alliance to mobilize thousands of fans of the fictional boy wizard. The two groups launched Potterwatch on Wednesday -- an effort that uses the character to illustrate the dangers of allowing big business to swallow up local media outlets.

In the book series, wizarding newspapers like the Daily Prophet put the magical community in jeopardy "by denying Voldemort's return … and ultimately becoming a mouthpiece for Voldemort," alliance creator Andrew Slack said in a press release.

[Disclaimer: I've never read a Potter book or seen a Potter movie so I have no idea what this guy is talking about but I'm sure those of you who are in the know either agree or disagree with his thesis.]

The Potterwatch movement brought together opponents of the sinister Voldemort, Slack said. StopBigMedia.com and the alliance "have come together to create a Potterwatch movement in the real world to fight back against 'Voldemedia' -- the handful of companies that control most of what we see, hear and read every day."

The groups are urging fans to speak out against FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's plan to loosen media ownership rules later this month. Ironically, some policy watchers have whispered that Martin looks a little like the spellbinding whippersnapper. Go figure.

Reprinted from the Dec. 7, 2007 edition of National Journal's Technology Daily

Draft Bill Spurs Talk About Trade-Related Job Aid
By Aliya Sternstein

The higher education community is divided on how much weight should be given to a report issued Tuesday that found U.S. high-school students overall are performing below average in science. But many concur that low U.S. test scores are largely due to the country's failure in reaching out to its underclass and immigrant population.

The United States ranked 21st on an international survey of 15-year-olds' knowledge and skills in science, known as the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA.

University of Washington Computer Science Professor Ed Lazowska, a former co-chair of the now-defunct President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, said the report "once again clearly indicates the performance of U.S. secondary students in science and mathematics lags that of our competitor nations."

He said the results should effectively counter a widely publicized October Urban Institute report that claimed the United States, contrary to other recent reports, is not falling behind in science and math education.

Lazowska acknowledged performance gaps among segments of the U.S. student population. While "the best-prepared students in America are equal to the best in the world," he said, "a greater and greater proportion of America's students are not being prepared at this level and are not being equipped for success."

I saw this on the 463 Blog and couldn't help but post an excerpt:

Cut to Washington lawyer talking to a Senator at cocktail hour...

Lawyer: "Senator, you know how kids use social networking sites to connect with each other on the Internet?"

Senator: "Yes, I believe my grandkids in college are on SpaceBook. I've heard that there are racy photos of kids up there drinking. I told my daughter that she needs to be watching their Internets..."

Lawyer: "Well, um, excuse me, sir ... my nephew has a page where he used it to get support for an endangered newt. And, from what I understand, my niece gets to communicate with other students her age from all over the world."

Senator: "Exactly, I hear that that there are racy photos of kids drinking and in their bathing suits on that MyFace. It must be the influence of those Europeans, or maybe it's those..."

Read the full post here.

(Photo Credit: Susan Sterner/White House)

First Lady Laura Bush is expected to speak at the Children's National Medical Center on Wednesday and unveil BarneyCam 2007 -- the annual holiday video featuring first dogs Barney and Miss Beazley.

In last year's film, available on the White House Web site, Barney (the elder Scottish Terrier) takes meetings with President Bush, former Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings as he plans his annual holiday stage show.

Other featured performers in the skit included three-time Super Bowl champion and winner of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" Emmitt Smith, former presidential adviser Karl Rove and former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow.

The best cameo, in my opinion, was from country crooner Dolly Parton, who showed up for the performance and exclaimed: "I wouldn't have missed this for nothing in the world. I'm intendin' to have a doggone good time with Barney!"

One can only imagine what we're in store for this year ...

One of the federal government's oldest continuing programs, Job Corps, has for the first time turned to video-sharing site YouTube to provide parents and students with information about what the initiative has to offer.

Job Corps, which was part of President Lyndon Johnson's " War on Poverty," began in 1964. It is currently managed by the Labor Department as a no-cost education and vocational training effort that helps 16-24 year olds secure job opportunities across the country.

Remarks made by Job Corps Director Esther Johnson as well as testimonials by program participants Tiffany Williams and Kelvin McJunkin and alumnus David Bol were uploaded to YouTube last week, officials said. The footage is from a Job Corps summit held in October.

In addition, a public service announcement was sent to radio stations around the country, Johnson said in an e-mail. The outreach effort fulfills a promise she made to "do whatever we could to spread the word and market the wonderful opportunities that Job Corps offers its students."

The YouTube videos are here, here, here, here, and here.

The Justice Department on Monday unveiled $1.7 million in funds for national, regional, state and local organizations and agencies that assist victims of identity theft and financial fraud. Read more about it in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

Betsy Broder, who oversees the FTC's ID theft efforts, lauded the grant-giving, told us that she met with and is providing guidance to the handful of groups that got the money. Every year, her agency responds to about 250,000 ID theft victims, she said.

Many consumers are "able to respond quickly and effectively themselves to recover from ID theft" but others aren’t as lucky, Broder noted. The grant program "contributes to the resources available for those consumers who need help" to recover from ID theft.

While certain forms of ID theft do not always have a financial impact, resolving issues can be time consuming and stressful for consumers, added Andy Serwin, a partner at Foley & Lardner who focuses on privacy and security matters.

Justice's focus on prevention is important, he said: "While identity theft can result from actions by third-parties, in many cases consumers themselves create conditions that increase their odds of being a victim of identity theft."

Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, also weighed in. He said the grants will "provide critical assistance to some of the small organizations helping ID theft victims clear their names."

"In the long run, the solution to identity theft is to hold data collectors – banks, stores and government agencies – accountable so that they protect information better in the first place," Mierzwinski said.

It's a bird.. it's a plane... It's the Ron Paul blimp. Supporters of the Republican candidate have raised $350,000 in private donations to rent a blimp to spread the candidate's message.

They released the flight plan at www.ronpaulblimp.com along with a preview video. The plan is to have the blimp circling over Boston Dec. 16 for the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

On one side it reads Revolution, with the 'L" backwards, on the other it invites people to "google" the candidate for more information on his stance on issues. Paul has drawn the attention recently after online organizers rather than campaign workers raised $4 million for him online in one day.

We know the grades for the Democratic presidential candidates, so now it's time to see where the Republican candidates rank on the tech policy scale. TechPresident has the report card (with a few shout-outs for the reporting we did here at Tech Daily in the summer), and none of the candidates scored higher than a C:

-- Rudy Giuliani: D
-- Mike Huckabee: C ("and we're being generous")
-- Duncan Hunter: F
-- John McCain: C-plus
-- Ron Paul: C
-- Mitt Romney: D-plus
-- Tom Tancredo: F
-- Fred Thompson: D-plus

As I walked into the National Association of Broadcasters' holiday party on Thursday, I finally felt like the jingle-belling season was upon us. Maybe it was the candy cane-flavored martinis or perhaps it was the big-screen projection of the Yule log, but for some reason, I felt instantly festive.

The party was a good one -- chock full of broadcasters, lawyers, lobbyists, reporters and their ilk. There was a make-your-own-hamburger station and several other tables stacked with warm, meaty dishes. Those NABers like their red meat and I seemed to be the lone vegetarian in the bunch.

I exchanged quick hellos with FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate; esteemed telecom attorney Richard Wiley; and legendary TV industry scribe Tack Nail before heading for the door. Meredith Baker, the new head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, was also there but I didn’t have a chance to meet her.

Highlights from Wednesday night’s annual FCC Chairman’s Dinner at the Washington Hilton, sponsored by the Federal Communications Bar Association. FCC Chief Kevin Martin, weary from a long day before Congress, poked fun at his recent battles with lawmakers and the cable industry:

“I have to admit that I usually dread delivering this speech. I’m not nearly as good at comedy as – oh, I don’t know – say charming my fellow FCC commissioners.”

“This year I can say I'm actually thrilled to be here. In fact, if I weren't at this dinner, I'd still be testifying before Congress.”

“Now I recognize that I’ve brought some of my recent problems on myself. For example, my cable choice proposal. You know the one, where cable gets to choose to do whatever I say.”

“But seriously, I’ve heard your complaints about how late the meetings have been starting. So I’d thought I’d start my next one early. So I’d like to welcome everyone to the December . . . [laughter]”

“Honestly, though, enough is enough with these late-night meetings. I just can’t keep delaying the meetings so you can run up your billable hours anymore. I think the clients are catching on.”

“I recognize that as rough as things are right now, they could be a lot worse. Some of you might remember a recent headline from the Washington Post” (The headline “Chinese Regulator is Sentenced to Death” was displayed on video screens throughout the ballroom)

“I should wrap it up here. I have another Senate hearing next week. Hopefully I’ve accomplished my real goal for the evening – doing enough bad jokes that they’ll criticize me for the jokes rather than my policies.”

Cable television giant Comcast announced a partnership with the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe) at the Family Online Safety Institute conference on Thursday. The new relationship will provide parents and teachers with tips, tools and resources to promote cyber safety awareness.

Comcast and iKeepSafe will also partner with state attorneys general, local community groups and with medical and public health organizations to bring a Web safety campaign to communities served by the cable provider.

"The Internet is a great place that can bring people and communities closer together, but we also want to make sure that young people grow up knowing how to use the Internet safely and responsibly," Comcast Vice President Joe Waz said in a press release. Waz also spoke at an afternoon panel at the FOSI conference.

To promote the partnership, Comcast's booth at the summit was staffed by a life-sized McGruff the Crime Dog and Faux Paw the Techno Cat. The characters also roamed around during lunch, posing for pictures with attendees -- including one journalist who will remain nameless (It wasn't me. I'm freaked out by giant, costumed humans.)

A Verizon Communications executive told a Family Online Safety Institute summit on Thursday that "kids who do risky things in the real world, do risky things in the virtual world" and those who know better, stay away from Web destinations that can get them into trouble.

Nevertheless, Kathryn Brown, the company's senior vice president for public policy, said parents, educators and other adults have an obligation to educate themselves. "We don’t have a lot of experience" in teaching children the do's and don'ts of the Internet age.

"We've equipped our kids pretty well about smoking, drugs [and] drunk driving … because it was part of the experience of our youth and the dangers we saw," Brown said. "We've got to catch up. If we lack experience, we need to learn."

Read more coverage from the FOSI summit in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

A trade group that represents Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other technology companies has some concerns about a new intellectual property enforcement bill sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and ranking Republican Lamar Smith of Texas.

Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said IP laws "should penalize pirates, not pioneers" and said H.R. 4279, which the Michigan Democrat introduced on Wednesday, "moves us in the wrong direction."

Rather than increasing IP enforcement rights against piracy and counterfeiting at home and abroad, aspects of the bill increase the risk that some U.S. businesses will be "baselessly persecuted and subjected to frivolous litigation," he said.

Interestingly, Microsoft, which is one of CCIA's most prominent members, is also a part of the Copyright Alliance. That group, which works to preserve content creators' rights in the digital age, released a statement in support of the legislation.

Read more reactions to the IP measure in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

When Vint Cerf, the man cited as one of the fathers of the modern-day Internet, sat down for a chat with the State Department's David Gross at the Family Online Safety Institute conference on Thursday, something seemed amiss.

Before answering questions formulated by Gross, the agency's communications and information policy coordinator, Google's chief Internet evangelist noted that his last name is spelled C-E-R-F, not C-E-R-T, as the gigantic projection screens on either side of the stage avowed.

The good humored Cerf made a crack about whether his mouth needed freshening (Certs is a popular breath mint manufactured by Cadbury-Adams). After a bit of audience laughter, the session commenced. Organizers promised that they spelled his name correctly in the program.

Read more coverage from the FOSI summit in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

StopBadware.org, a Web site run by Harvard Law School, Oxford University and Consumer Reports, is weighing in on the controversy over social networking site Facebook's new application that lets users see what other members are buying online.

Upon announcing an opt-out for the controversial tool known as Beacon, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: "[I] hope that this new privacy control addresses any remaining issues we’ve heard about from you." StopBadware said it doesn’t.

Facebook offers its partner sites the option of whether or not to use an encrypted connection to send data (e-mail address, item purchased, etc.) from a user's PC to the Facebook's servers. StopBadware wants that action to be mandatory, not optional.

When a user declines to use Beacon or clicks "no thanks" when asked to publish a story in his/her profile, it is not made clear to the user that the data will still be sent to Facebook, the group said. Read more of StopBadware's blog post here.

'Tis the season for holiday happy hours in Washington, which promise to bring out a fun mix of hacks, flacks, wonks and a potpourri of policy junkies. I kicked off the party-going parade on Tuesday with the Copyright Alliance's soiree at the swanky Sonoma wine bar.

A modest but lively crowd sipped specialty reds and whites and munched on a buffet of intriguing appetizers at the Capitol Hill bistro's back room. While there, I caught up with Cara Duckworth, media maven for the Recording Industry Association of America, who disclosed that she has been playing an awful lot of "Guitar Hero."

The latest version of the top-selling videogame for PlayStation 2 is on a number of holiday wish lists but Duckworth couldn’t resist buying it last weekend. She admits that the software has taken up much of her free time in the days since -- but she is getting really good at mimicking the moves of 80s crooner Pat Benatar.

Speaking of pastimes, I also learned that Patrick Ross, the executive director of the trade group that represents Microsoft, NBC Universal, News Corp., and more than 40 others, is an avid antique map collector. Go figure!

The Justice Department's top antitrust official told a telecommunications policy and regulation conference on Wednesday that the industry is "one that has had some major ups and downs but is certainly one that is not going away."

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett cited the "steady progress" and breakneck innovation that has been made in recent years in the delivery of data, voice and video. He also noted the promise of power companies' foray into the broadband game and mobile players' attempts to offer faster Web access. "It is a very exciting industry," he said.

To illustrate how times have changed, Barnett showed a photo of a "Star Trek" communicator, which he said "seemed like a pretty neat device at the time." Nowadays, that fictional tool doesn’t compare to "your BlackBerry or Razr phone," he said.

Read more coverage of the Practising Law Institute's symposium in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

Some in the blogosphere are abuzz this week over reports that a piece of monitoring software created by the Motion Picture Association of America had been taken offline, presumably due to copyright violations.

The trade group has made available its "University Toolkit," which is in a testing or beta stage, to schools around the country to install on their networks to flag illegal downloading.

SlashDot reports that the software is rooted in a type of operating system that requires those who make a program based on the code to release and license it. The MPAA reportedly refused requests to provide its source code, so a developer sent a takedown notice.

MPAA spokesman Seth Oster told Technology Daily on Tuesday that he believes his group has done nothing to warrant the action, which is a protection built into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

"The MPAA has a large target on its back," he said, noting that the group frequently gets complaints about alleged copyright infringement and most don't pan out. "It's not an unusual occurrence at all," Oster said.

Still, if someone raises a potential problem, the MPAA investigates, he said. Officials are doing that now and in the meantime decided to take the toolkit offline as a precautionary measure. "We have no reason to believe [the infringement accusation] has any significance at all," he said.

Republican new media consultant David All has partnered with Dan Manatt of PoliticsTV to produce a new Internet video program dubbed NetCenter08. The first episode revisits the controversy over last week's CNN/YouTube debate featuring Republican presidential candidates.

On Monday, Washington Post gossip column "The Reliable Source" blabbed about a $200 per person weekend fundraiser for New Orleans entertainers sponsored by the Future of Music Coalition.

The "Hope for Home" event was described by the newspaper as "just a casual little backyard shindig with live music by REM's Mike Mills." Mills, whose band is one of my faves, has been involved in the artists-rights group's events before.

The headliner, according to the paper, was blues pianist and singer Al Johnson. The crooner, who lost his own home to Hurricane Katrina, performed "Blueberry Hill," "The Twist" and his own "Carnival Time," a Mardi Gras mainstay.

There has been a bit of dry spell on the patent reform front since I reported last month that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid planned to take action on the controversial update to the intellectual property regime in early 2008. But that drought ended Monday with the release of a new buzz-worthy paper.

The report, written by former Bush administration official Viet Dinh for the Coalition for Patent Fairness, hailed the reform effort as a step toward fixing an outdated system. I spoke with the author and filed a story for Technology Daily's PM Edition.

Opponents of H.R. 1908 and S. 1145, like the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, were quick to speak out. PhRMA's Ken Johnson said the document "only emphasizes our view that any changes to the patent system should be balanced, appropriate and fair to all innovators."

Changes to the system may be necessary to address the concerns of some business sectors but no changes to the patent system should be made at the expense of research-based industries, he said.

“It is critically important that our patent system continue to encourage investment and support innovation," Johnson said, calling for a "careful and deliberate dialogue" that leads to "a truly strengthened system."

Meanwhile, a condensed version of Dinh's commentary was also published in The American Spectator. Read that op-ed here.

"Protecting the personal information of customers, clients, and employees is good business," the FTC says. That's why the has unveiled a new online tutorial to alert businesses and other organizations to practical and low- or no-cost ways to keep data secure.

The resource, which is available here, takes a plain-language, interactive approach to securing sensitive information, the FTC said Monday. Although the specifics are different for each firm, the basic principles are the same: "Any business or office that keeps personal information needs to take stock, scale down, lock it, pitch it, and plan ahead."