National Telecommunications and Information Administration employees have been told that Anna Gomez, who is currently vice president for government affairs at Sprint Nextel, has been tapped for the role of deputy assistant secretary. Sources said her paperwork is still being completed but the White House wants her to start as soon as possible -- potentially early next week. Gomez worked on President Barack Obama's transition team as the U.S. Trade Representative Lead and was deputy chief of the FCC's international bureau. She also previously served as deputy chief of staff for the National Economic Council and was an associate at the law firm Arnold & Porter, according to OpenSecrets.org.
In her role at NTIA, Gomez will answer to the yet-to-be-named Commerce secretary and will be a key administration voice on the nationwide switch to digital television. The transition is currently scheduled to conclude on Feb. 17 but it could be pushed back to June 12. The Senate voted twice to delay the switch last week. The first bill did not get a two-thirds majority in the House, which will take up the second bill next week. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama will sign legislation to delay the switch because he wants to make sure nobody loses their TV signals. -- Winter Casey
Update: At Sprint, Gomez served as one of the company's lead regulatory attorneys before the FCC and state public utility commissions. She was not a registered lobbyist on Capitol Hill and she officially left Sprint on Friday.
On the heels of President Barack Obama's "Day One" memos to encourage a more transparent and responsive federal government, the Smithsonian Institution last week formally adopted a new policy for responding to records requests. "It is the policy of the Smithsonian Institution... to respond timely to written requests for Smithsonian information consistent with the principles of disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act and in a manner that fosters openness and accountability and supports the Smithsonian's mission," the new policy states.
The museum complex is not subject to FOIA because of a 1997 federal court ruling but has been using a policy for releasing records modeled on FOIA since November. Monday's announcement made that system official. When considering requests for information, the Smithsonian will apply a "presumption of disclosure" and will provide information "except where disclosure would be harmful to an interest protected by an exemption." The Smithsonian has been criticized for limiting access to files in the past. In June, several senators introduced legislation that would have required the Smithsonian to comply with FOIA, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
President Barack Obama spoke with China's President Hu Jintao on Friday morning about their intention to build a more positive and constructive relationship between the countries, the White House press office said in an e-mail. According to the summary, Obama and Hu discussed the international financial crisis and agreed that increased close cooperation between the U.S. and China is vital. Obama stressed the need to correct global trade imbalances -- an issue important to the high-tech sector -- as well as to stimulate global growth and get credit markets flowing.
The two presidents agreed to work together on several global issues, specifically mentioning North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan, counterterrorism, proliferation, and climate change. Obama expressed appreciation for China's role as chair of the so-called Six-Party Talks and they affirmed the importance of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. What is unclear is whether intellectual property protection factored into the conversation. The U.S. business community -- particularly those in the entertainment, software and manufacturing industries -- have urged the new administration take hard line against piracy and counterfeiting.
China has long been cited by the U.S. government as one of the world's worst IP offenders and regularly tops the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's watch list of nations that have weak IP protection regimes. In recent years, Hu has made speeches pledging to work harder to crack down on bootleggers but many policy watchers have been skeptical of whether change is actually happening on the ground.
From Friday's CongressDaily PM Edition:
A Senate bill that would make sweeping changes in the U.S. patent system is moving closer to reintroduction, according to sources close to the talks. Staffers for Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have resumed negotiations on legislation that passed the committee 13-5 in 2007 but died after Leahy could not win Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter's support to bring the bill to the floor last spring. The two split over language that would address how damages are awarded in infringement lawsuits -- an issue that bitterly divided industry stakeholders as the bill moved through committee.
Leahy and Specter have indicated that patent legislation is the top priority on their intellectual property agendas, and sources said a bill is expected early in the first session of this Congress, with possible hearings scheduled for March or April. "We'll see this on a fast track," one individual close to the issue said. "The deal is there and it's ready to be made." Read the full story in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
Cyber crime expert Susan Brenner penned a blog entry last week on an upcoming Supreme Court case concerning whether an individual setting up drug purchases by cellphone, the Internet, or even land-line telephone can be charged with a felony. The case, Abuelhawa v. United States, hinges on judicial interpretation of the decades-old Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. The 1970 statute outlaws the use of a "communication facility" to carry out "any act or acts constituting a felony." Law enforcement agencies have usually applied this law to drug dealers and not personal-use buyers, who are commonly charged with a misdemeanor or no crime at all.
In the new case, Salman Khade Abuelhawa used his cellphone to purchase a small amount of cocaine for personal use and was arrested by the FBI, which had tapped the dealer's phone. The federal government saddled Abuelhawa with a felony and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the charge. For more on the case, click here to read a National Journal magazine story and here here for an audio slideshow.
Continue reading High Court To Consider Communications Case.
From CongressDaily's 11:30 Extra...
At first, the rumblings about Senate Budget ranking member Judd Gregg being considered as Commerce secretary in President Barack Obama's Cabinet, seemed to be undermined by one detail: Judd's Senate vacancy would be filled by someone appointed by the state's Democratic governor and a Democratic appointee, coupled with the likelihood of Democrat Al Franken eventually being seated as Minnesota's junior senator would give the party a filibuster-blocking 60 votes. But Gregg confirmed Friday that he is in the mix. "I am aware that my name is one of those being considered by the White House for secretary of Commerce, and am honored to be considered, along with others, for the position." He added that there was "nothing more I can say at this time." But he certainly said enough to get tongues wagging on a relatively quiet day. There was plenty of chatter earlier this week about Symantec CEO John Thompson's candidacy for Commerce secretary. The saga continues...
Update: White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters at his afternoon briefing that Gregg "is somebody the president has talked to recently about the economic crisis... and a host of host of economic matters." When asked for details on the Commerce nomination, Gibbs said: "I'm not going to get into the name game or the final four picks for this job or that. I talked to the president specifically about a decision on the next Commerce secretary and last time I talked to him this morning a final decision has not been made... it's something he hopes to make a decision on and announce shortly."
The National Foreign Trade Council on Friday launched its Global Innovation Forum, which will focus on international innovation policy issues, including global trade rules and the protection of intellectual property rights worldwide. The U.S.-based business group for multinational companies believes innovation is critical to solving global challenges and is one of the single most important drivers of economic growth. Millions of workers depend on fair trade rules to produce solutions to pressing global challenges such as improving public health, creating environmental sustainability, securing access to food and nutrition and raising global living standards, the NFTC said.
"There are few more cost effective ways to stimulate the economy than to ensure a predictable global IP system that protects jobs," NFTC President Bill Reinsch said in a press release. The forum will set up a Web site next month focused on its core issues and the group intends to hold a series of meetings to advance a dialogue among business stakeholders and workers, consumer groups, international development organizations and policymakers. Forum Executive Director John Stubbs added that the global economic slowdown is creating new pressures on both innovators and consumers. "These challenges will be met by the hard work of creative minds in the United States and around the world."
Neal Lane, a former science adviser to President Bill Clinton and former National Science Foundation director, wants the Obama administration to make science and technology a higher priority than it has been in recent years. Naming Harvard physicist John Holdren as head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy was a good start, he said in a paper co-authored by Kirstin Matthews, a policy fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Read the full document here.
Their recommendations include: ensuring federal policy is grounded in the best scientific and technical information; enhancing federal funding for science and engineering and research and development in high-priority areas; and mandating a comprehensive review of all federal programs in K-12 education and implementing major reforms, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math. "The discovery of new knowledge and technologies and their diffusion into the public domain drives innovation and contributes to sustainable economic growth and social well-being," they wrote.
Meanwhile, Christopher Bronk, a Baker Institute technology fellow, believes the new administration should place a renewed emphasis on information technology. In a separate paper, he recommended that the U.S. be more pragmatic with its IT policy by appointing a federal chief technology officer -- a position that Obama plans to fill. The report also recommends that the State Department create an entity to engage in digital public diplomacy and a clearly enunciated national policy on Internet monitoring. Read the full document here.
Recovery.gov, a new Web site that President Barack Obama has said will enable the public to monitor how effectively the U.S. government spends and distributes the $800-plus billion stimulus package, is ready to go live, an Obama transition team member and former director of the White House Office of Administration said Thursday. Franklin Reeder told a conference at American University's Washington College of Law that the site has been in the works for six weeks and is "ready to roll" as soon as Congress approves the funding. Obama said in a speech earlier this month that "restoring transparency is not only the surest way to achieve results, but also to earn back that trust in government." The House passed its stimulus bill Wednesday and the Senate is expected to vote next week.
Currently, visitors to Recovery.gov are instructed to: "Check back after the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to see how and where your tax dollars are spent." The placeholder page adds: "An oversight board will routinely update this site as part of an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency and unnecessary spending in our government." Recovery.com points to the forthcoming dot-gov site while Recovery.net is owned by Niche Sites LLC, a Pennsylvania-based firm that runs BuyersGuide.com, a product search portal. A message on that site notes that "traffic for this domain name is available." Recovery.org offers resources for recovering alcoholics.
FBI Director Robert Mueller emphasized the importance of information sharing among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies Friday during a speech to the National Sheriffs' Association. He told the group that the modern day FBI is an intelligence-driven organization and as such has improved the quantity and quality of its intelligence reporting and enhanced its technology so that data can get into their hands faster. "The FBI relies on your eyes and ears and expertise as we work together to prevent both crime and terrorism," he told the crowd.
One example he gave was the launch of e-Guardian earlier this month -- a program that allows the FBI to quickly share information about suspicious activities. Mueller said the agency is in the midst of developing the Next Generation Identification system, which expands on the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System and will include advanced biometrics. Additionally, Mueller pointed out that sheriffs can access FBI intelligence reports through a database that supports over 120,000 partners and can search and compare cases nationwide through the National Data Exchange.
On Thursday morning President Barack Obama was seen on White House grounds wearing a dark suit with a white collared shirt and blue tie, no overcoat, and a BlackBerry clipped to his belt, according to a pool report. He and First Lady Michelle Obama had recently returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after visiting Sidwell Friends School in Bethesda, Md., where their youngest daughter, Sasha, attends. Obama isn't concealing his handheld, but a Feb. 2 edition of Newsweek points out that he isn't carrying around the same tool that everyone else is using.
"Instead, he'll get a new device specially equipped with superencrypting security software to ward off hackers. His address book will be limited to a small group of family, friends and senior staffers, all of whom must first receive a security briefing to get on the list. A special server will block emails from unapproved senders, and messages sent by the president will be encrypted so that they cannot be forwarded," according the magazine. The publication says a bigger security concern could be phishing or when an email sender tries to trick the recipient into thinking the message is from someone else. -- Winter Casey
The House may have already passed its $819 billion economic stimulus package, which includes substantial funding for U.S. broadband deployment in underserved areas, but the Senate still has to act and there are similar provisions in that chamber's bill. In anticipation of a vote next week, a handful of experts will come to Capitol Hill Friday to offer advice for how best to include high-speed Internet incentives in such a package -- a proposition that hinges on understanding two critical issues: how broadband affects economic growth, and how the credit crisis has affected broadband investment. For event details, click here.
The Technology Policy Institute briefing will feature the latest research on the links between broadband and economic growth as well as analyst and industry perspectives. Speakers include: TPI Senior Fellow Scott Wallsten; National Cable and Telecommunications Association Executive Vice President James Assey; Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Robert Crandall; Stifel Nicolaus telecom analyst Chris King; and Northwestern University professor Shane Greenstein. A new report by Greenstein estimates that broadband adds about $10 billion per year in new GDP and another $5 billion in unmeasured consumer surplus.
In related news, NCTA posted a six-minute video on its Cable Tech Talk blog featuring the trade group's president, Kyle McSlarrow, discussing broadband stimulus language. Click here to go to the NCTA blog or follow the jump to watch the clip on Tech Daily Dose.
The Justice Department on Friday will launch an Internet-based system to help protect states and consumers from automobile fraud and to provide law enforcement with new tools to investigate fraud, theft, and other crimes involving vehicles. The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, or NMVTIS, will be available for consumers and will be accessible through third party, fee-for-service Web sites. Watchdog group Public Citizen has complained the system is many years overdue since Congress first ordered the federal government to create it in 1992.
Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, and Consumer Action, sued the Justice Department over the delayed implementation and a court ordered that the government issue regulations and make the data available by Jan. 31, with data from private sources by March 31. Under the new system, car buyers will be able to instantly check the validity of a vehicle's title, verify its mileage and learn whether it had been stolen or deemed junked or salvaged. Public Citizen, however, pointed out that some states - including New York, California and Pennsylvania -are refusing to allow their vehicle data to be made public and other states are not reporting data at all.
Since 1997, Justice has committed over $15 million to assist states and other stakeholders in NMVTIS implementation. Currently, NMVTIS has the participation, or partial participation, of 36 states, according to a department press release. Along with implementing the system, the agency has outlined various responsibilities and reporting requirements for states, auto recyclers, junk yards and salvage yards, and insurance carriers. The agency has designed the system consistent with federal law that requires that the system be paid for through user fees and not dependent on federal funding.
The economic stimulus package expected to come before the Senate next week could include $50 million for grants to state and local law enforcement agencies to bolster efforts to fight Internet child exploitation, CongressDaily reported Thursday. The language was championed by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who chairs the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee. She was integral in an effort last Congress to pass legislation that would ratchet up funding for Justice Department-sponsored Internet Crimes Against Children task forces. Overall, the House and Senate stimulus bills contain close to $4 billion in law enforcement funding.
Republicans have questioned the size and scope of the spending plan but Mikulski said in an e-mail that her provision would create jobs while keeping kids safe from predators. "I'm hard pressed to think of twin goals more worthy than that," she said. A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said his boss will work with House Appropriations Chairman David Obey and other appropriators on the best approach to protect children's safety. Parents' groups have asked Wasserman Schultz to push hard for the funding when the House and Senate stimulus bills go to conference.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley has asked the National Science Foundation's inspector general to send him details relating to an internal investigation that found "numerous reports" of agency officials spending large amounts of time accessing online pornography and engaging in sexually explicit Web chat. The claims were part of the foundation's 68-page semiannual report to Congress that was dated September 2008 but posted was publicly in December.
The inspector general "recommended that NSF take immediate action to address numerous reports of employees viewing pornography on their government computers. The multiple investigations opened in the past few months, highlighted the need for systemic corrective actions in order to reduce abuse of agency IT resources.," according to the report. There were six cases of "viewing, downloading, saving, and/or sharing pornographic images and videos and one case of extensive participation in pornographic chat Web sites and the concomitant significant waste of official time."
One NSF official spent up to 20 percent of his official work time viewing sexually explicit images and chatting online, the probe showed. Based on the employee's salary the report identified a potential loss of more than $58,000 in compensation for that personal time. The investigation also determined that the employee charged more than $40,300 to his personal credit card over 24 months to participate in the online chats. To limit future abuse, the report recommended changes in NSF's IT training; limitations on employee server storage; routine screening for and deletion of personal music and image files from network drives; and procurement of necessary filtering software.
Congress needs to pass comprehensive privacy and data security legislation and make sure companies that store and share individuals' information are held accountable, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said at a Wednesday event recognizing Data Privacy Day, which was being celebrated in Washington, around the United States and in 27 European countries. He said businesses should be required to encrypt data, employ an information security chief and retain an outside auditor to ensure compliance.
During his chairmanship of the House Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee in the Republican-controlled 109th Congress, Stearns held more than a half-dozen hearings on privacy and technology. Various data privacy bills were introduced last Congress but were overshadowed. This year, consumer privacy has arisen as a hot topic within the multibillion-dollar health information technology provisions in the House and Senate economic stimulus packages.
On Monday, the House passed a resolution Stearns co-sponsored with Rep. David Price, D-N.C., that formally recognized Data Privacy Day in the United States. The Senate approved a companion resolution on Wednesday that was introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Arlen Specter. Dorgan issued a statement saying that modern technology has connected the world and led to new developments in every aspect of citizens' lives but with those advancements come the potential for people's privacy to be compromised.
The economic stimulus package approved by the House on Wednesday included substantial investments in research and development -- provisions that Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon called "timely and targeted." The allocations, which now await Senate consideration, will create high quality jobs in the short-term while making strides to strengthen U.S. competitiveness in the long-term, he said in a press release. "We need to create jobs now, certainly, but if we do not address one of the roots of the economic collapse -- our competitiveness -- we could create jobs now, only to lose them in the future to foreign competition," he said.
Some highlights include:
▪ Funding to establish the Advanced Research Project Agency, which will support high-risk, high-reward research into energy sources and energy efficiency.
▪ National Institute of Standards and Technology funding for competitive construction grants as well as money for federal programs that provide technical assistance to small manufacturers and financial assistance for small high-tech entrepreneurs.
▪ Efficient electricity grid investments, a portion of which will promote research and development, pilot projects, and federal matching funds.
▪ Funding for energy efficiency, renewable energy and carbon capture and sequestration research, development, demonstration, and deployment.
▪ NASA funding that will to put more scientists to work doing climate change research, including Earth science research.
▪ Funding for National Science Foundation grants that will put scientists to work and keep promising younger researchers in the pipeline.
A new tool for high-tech researchers to deploy Internet measurement tools and provide the public with information about their broadband connections launched Wednesday on the heels of congressional interest over the extent to which high-speed Internet providers can prioritize traffic on their networks. The announcement came as Cox Communications unveiled a pilot project to prioritize certain Web content that it believes to be time-sensitive. Cable giant Comcast was reprimanded by the FCC last year for the way it managed Internet traffic and that battle is still playing out in court. Meanwhile, calls for "network neutrality" have led to ample legislation and lobbying.
Over the next year, Google will provide researchers brought together by the New America Foundation with 36 servers in 12 locations in the U.S. and Europe. All data collected by the Measurement Lab (M-Lab) will be made publicly available for other researchers to build on, officials said at an afternoon briefing sponsored by the foundation's Open Technology Institute and the PlanetLab Consortium. At the moment, M-Lab has "three servers at an undisclosed location in Mountain View," said Sascha Meinrath, research director of New America's Wireless Future Program. In addition to Google, organizers want to bring in more industry players who share the goal of making the Internet more transparent, he said.
Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, who also spoke at the event, said Internet researchers have had trouble figuring out how the network truly works since the termination of a program at the National Science Foundation in 1995. Under that regime, all data about network performance was made available to researchers but since that time, much of the information has been labeled proprietary and closely guarded by pipeline providers, he said. Cerf, who is widely cited as the "Father of the Internet," said the M-Lab components are "geeky in the extreme" and will usher in a new era in collecting and analyzing Internet data. "We're still a long way from having all the tools needed," he added. Read more from Cerf here and read more about the M-Lab here.
As buzz builds inside the Beltway and in Silicon Valley about Symantec CEO John Thompson's candidacy for Commerce secretary, some high-tech groups are already putting out statements of support. Thompson recently told Tech Daily Dose that, if chosen, he would be honored to serve in the new administration and multiple sources have said an announcement from President Barack Obama is imminent. Thompson was in Washington on Inauguration Day and spoke at a TechNet event about the importance of the technology industry in job creation and economic prosperity. He has reportedly also been making the rounds on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.
Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black issued a statement Wednesday saying the Symantec executive "has run an innovative, global company for more than a decade and that experience is just what is needed for the economic challenges our nation faces." He also seems to have the political and policy skills necessary to succeed in Washington, Black said, noting that the nation "needs more innovation to grow the economy and a government that understands how to boost - or at least not suppress - that innovation."
"Thompson clearly has policy experience on issues ranging from cyber security and patent reform to export controls and international trade. We look forward to seeing what he could do leading the Commerce Department," said Black, whose group represents a number of technology firms in Washington including Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. Symantec, one of the world's most prominent computer security and systems management companies, is not presently a member of CCIA. Read more about Thompson here and watch a video of his TechNet speech here.
A handful of high-tech executives were among the business leaders from across industries who met with President Barack Obama on Wednesday morning, sources told Tech Daily Dose. Technology CEO Council members Sam Palmisano of IBM, Greg Brown of Motorola, Steven Appleton of Micron and Mike Splinter from Applied Materials were at the table, talking about the pending economic stimulus plan. Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who served as an economic adviser to Obama on his transition team, was also at the meeting, sources said.
Obama told reporters that "these are some of the leading CEOs in the country. These are people who make things and hire people. They are on the front lines in seeing the enormous problems in our economy right now." "Their ideas and their concerns have helped to shape our recovery package and I'm grateful that they are here today to talk about why it's so important that we act and act swiftly in order to get this economy back on track," Obama said. "I am confident that we can get it passed." The House was scheduled to vote on its package, which includes a number of tech-related provisions, later in the day.
"While our economy is struggling, America possesses the strengths that we will need to lead a global recovery and create a more prosperous and secure future," Splinter said in a press release. "That is why it's essential that Congress invest in the digital infrastructure in broadband, health care and energy to create near-term jobs that will shape our economy for the next generation." Appleton said it was a privilege to be part of the dialogue, adding that the U.S. tech sector "has traditionally been a key component of our nation's economic success and further investments in technology will help drive our economic recovery."
Homeland Security Committee ranking member Peter King quietly introduced a bill earlier this month that would "require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken." The legislation, which has not attracted cosponsors and has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also would prohibit such handsets from being manufactured with a means of disabling or silencing the sound. Enforcement would be through the Consumer Product Safety Commission. King introduced the bill in the 110th Congress as well.
The text of the proposal notes that: "Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone." A spokeswoman for King said the nonprofit Parents For Megan's Law brought the issue to his boss's attention. The Long Island advocacy group fights child predators and staffs help lines that field reports about registered sex offender violations.
On Tuesday, King's office heard from a New Jersey woman who has a pending lawsuit against a major discount retailer because an employee was caught photographing women trying on clothes, the staffer said. The caller said if there had been a noise in conjunction with the picture-taking, she would have known his phone was under the dressing room door. A Consumer Electronics Association spokesman said his trade group understands King's concern but "we should be wary of any presumption that social issues can be resolved by government design mandates on innovators and entrepreneurs."
A key Senate staffer who helped navigate the rough waters of patent reform in the 110th Congress has been named associate counsel to President Barack Obama. Susan Davies most recently worked for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and spent much of the last two years trying bridge ideological gaps between the high-tech sector, pharmaceutical companies, inventors and other patent stakeholders. The controversial bill her boss introduced never made it to the floor. Negotiations with Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter hit a roadblock in the spring after the senators could not arrive at a compromise on language that would change how damages are decided in patent infringement litigation. Leahy and Specter have both said they plan on continuing to work this year on legislation that would update the U.S. patent system.
Before becoming general counsel on the committee, Davies served in the Justice Department Antitrust Division, the Office of the Solicitor General, and the Office of Policy Development. Prior to that, she worked as a litigator at Sidley and Austin in Chicago. Davies also served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer and as a special counsel to former President Bill Clinton. Davies received her bachelor's degree from Yale University and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Davies will serve in the White House Counsel's Office, which is tasked with making sure the administration operates "under the highest standard of ethics and transparency for the American people," Obama said in a statement. A dozen other associate counsels were also named Wednesday.
The top three cable television news Web sites -- MSNBC.com, CNN.com, and FoxNews.com -- attracted a disproportionate increase in the number of Inauguration Day viewers compared to the Internet at large, Web analytics firm comScore reported Tuesday. The 4.1 million viewers who watched video on those sites during the 12-1 p.m. EST hour as President Barack Obama was sworn in one week ago represented a fourteen-fold increase from the previous Tuesday.
"Online video coverage of President Obama's inauguration appears to represent a significant incremental audience to TV, since it presumably includes many people at work who did not have access to a TV," comScore's Tania Yuki said in a press release. "As such, the 13 million online viewers during this time period likely represent a 32 percent addition to the reported 40 million people who viewed the inauguration on TV. And, that so much of this online audience flocked to the Web sites of the major cable TV news outlets reflects a direct channel shift from TV to the Internet."
Although countless video sites carried live inauguration streams, 30 percent of those who watched online gravitated toward cable TV news sites, Yuki said. Much like TV, people have a tendency to tune into specific channels when they consume certain content. Unlike TV, online video offers greater flexibility in how, where and when it can provide these experiences. CNN's Inauguration Day partnership with Facebook is one such example. The cable channel created a special version of its CNN.com Live video player that let users comment via their Facebook "status" on what was happening in real time.
On Wednesday, the United States, Canada, and 27 European countries will celebrate Data Privacy Day -- an international effort to raise awareness and generate discussion about data privacy practices and rights. For the second consecutive year, privacy professionals, the business community, government officials, academics and others will host events and take other actions in observance. The House on Monday got the ball rolling by approving a resolution by Rep. David Price, D-N.C., to formally recognize the event.
The Technology Association of America, the recently merged group formed by the Information Technology Association of America and the American Electronics Association, will host a Capitol Hill briefing featuring remarks by Price and Member of European Parliamentarian Alexander Alvaro as well as key representatives of the privacy community. A networking reception will follow.
Other Data Privacy Day activities:
▪ Protecting National Security and Privacy: Approaches of New Administrations in the U.S. and Europe, Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, Jan. 26-27.
▪ The Privacy by Design Challenge hosted by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the Toronto Board of Trade, Jan. 28
▪ Data Privacy Day Cocktail Event, Brussels, Belgium, organized by European Privacy Officers Forum and International Association of Privacy Professionals, Jan. 28.
▪ Microsoft will host an interactive community event highlighting online privacy concerns and solutions at the San Francisco Public Library, Jan. 28.
Read a comprehensive list of events here.
Senate Sergeant At Arms Terry Gainer planned to engage in a discussion with members of the popular social networking site Facebook on Tuesday afternoon about crowd control problems that occurred on Inauguration Day. Thousands of people with prized tickets to President Barack Obama's swearing in last Tuesday were held in a tunnel under the National Mall and missed the ceremony. More than 5,000 of them joined a Facebook group page called "Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom."
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies quickly apologized for the incident, attributing the problem to unprecedented crowds and many unticketed people moving toward the Capitol and into the 3rd Street Tunnel where the ticket holders were directed. Gainer agreed to log on to Facebook and answer questions on a discussion board for an hour, beginning at 4:30 p.m. The specific thread will not be posted until Gainer signs on and the Web address can be found here. The Facebook announcement ends with the plea: "Please be respectful."
Update: In his 1,000 word welcome, Gainer apologized to those who did not get on Capitol grounds, were stuck in the tunnel, had negative interactions with police officers, and those who experienced all three situations. The number of citizens adversely affected remains unclear, Gainer wrote, but the information he was given was less than 5,000. He has since seen photos from the tunnel and streets near the purple gates and watched hours of video. "I saw thousands of people in massive groups...They yelled for information and guidance. It apparently fell on deaf ears. Whether it is 5,000 or 10,000, it is too many," he said.
A Santa Monica, Calif.-based group that has been pressuring Google to enhance the privacy and security of its various Web applications slammed the Internet giant Tuesday for allegedly lobbying to allow the sale of electronic medical records in the latest version of the House economic stimulus legislation, which could reach the floor Wednesday. Consumer Watchdog, a newcomer in Washington privacy circles, said Google is reportedly "pushing for the provisions so it may sell patient medical information to its advertising clients on the new Google Health database." A Google spokesman called the claim "100 percent completely untrue and highly irresponsible."
In a letter to Congress that was also sent to President Barack Obama, Consumer Watchdog asked for the removal of what it perceives as loopholes in the package's ban on the sale of patient data and to include other privacy protections currently absent from the legislation. "Medical privacy must be strengthened before the measure's final passage, rather than allowing corporate interests to take advantage of the larger bill's urgency," the letter stated. For its part, Google is not advocating in favor of the sale of health data and is actively supporting strong privacy protections for medical records, the company spokesman said.
Tech Daily Dose previously reported that Consumer Watchdog is entirely funded by the Rose Foundation, which believes that "environmental stewardship, community regeneration, consumer protection, robust civic participation and a healthy economy are all inextricably linked." Its benefactors laid down $100,000 in 2008 to fund a so-called "Google Privacy Rights Project." In other health IT news, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard perspectives on protecting patient privacy in the digital age. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
Congressional efforts to postpone next month's switch to digital television signals gained momentum Monday when the Senate passed legislation that would bump the transition from Feb. 17 to June 12, according to CongressDaily's AM Edition on Tuesday. A revised bill sponsored by Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller passed by unanimous consent, putting pressure on the House, where Democrats back a four-month extension but Republicans remain adamantly opposed.
"Delaying the upcoming DTV switch is the right thing to do. I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make this transition at this time," Rockefeller said in a statement after the bill passed. "The Senate acted responsibly to give the Obama administration time to attempt to bring order to a mismanaged process." Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison said last week that she and Rockefeller had agreed to a revised version of the chairman's original bill. A National Association of Broadcasters spokesman said his group supports the move "while providing flexibility to local stations in adjusting to the new date."
Google Maps now has a clear satellite view of the vice president's residence in a development that curiously coincides with the departure of Dick Cheney, the Los Angeles Times, AFP and others reported Monday. The mansion had been digitally blurred on Google Earth during former President Bush's second term in office. Read more here.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who ended his tenure as top dog at the high-tech company last year to devote his time to the charity he started with his wife Melinda, released his first annual letter on the work of the foundation Monday. In the 20-page document, Gates explains why he remains optimistic about the ability of government, business, nonprofit organizations, and individuals to expand opportunity and equity in the years to come. He said hoped his letter will begin a dialogue and inspires action on some of the most pressing issues on the world stage.
In the letter, Gates outlines new, ambitious goals for the foundation's work to improve global health, address hunger and poverty, and improve education in the United States including: cutting childhood deaths from rotavirus in half; helping millions of the poorest farming households in Africa and South Asia triple their incomes by 2025; and by 2025, helping 80 percent of U.S. students graduate from high school. "The wealthy have a responsibility to invest in addressing inequity. This is especially true when the constraints on others are so great," Gates said. He added that if investments are not made, "we will come out of the economic downtown in a world even more unequal."
On the high-tech front, his letter states: "Our optimism about tech¬nology is a fundamental part of the foundation's approach. Ad¬vances in science have played a huge role in improving the living conditions in the rich world over the past century. Technology is also a personal passion of Melinda's and mine. So we try to point scientific research toward the problems of the poor, like agriculture. This is why we tend not to fund other important things like building health clinics or roads, which are better left to governments... Technology is only useful if it helps people improve their lives, not as an end in itself."
Two citizen journalists from the popular social networking community MySpace.com and video-sharing destination YouTube.com have been invited to the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland following online contests on both sites. Rebecca McQuigg from Los Angeles and Pablo Camacho from Bogotá, Colombia will represent MySpace and YouTube, respectively, reporting to their Web fans from the summit, which begins Wednesday and will attract over 2,500 participants.
The MySpace contest asked contestants to submit a video explaining why they should be chosen to report on the meeting for the MySpace community, as well as answer one of the following questions: If you were given the opportunity to take one person (living or historical) to Davos to make an impact on the annual meeting, who would it be, and why? If you could engage the entire MySpace community in doing one thing to help make an economic difference, what would it be? Why do you deserve the chance to attend the meeting as the MySpace special correspondent, and how will your participation engage the audience? Follow McQuigg's coverage here.
Camacho was one of over 250 YouTubers who participated in the Davos Debates, sending in video replies from all over the world including Afghanistan, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. His coverage will be posted here. Tech leaders planning to attend the conference include Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett, Cisco Systems Chairman John Chambers, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, Google co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and others.
A World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel Monday found important aspects of China's intellectual property rights regime to be inconsistent with the country's obligations under a long-standing intellectual property treaty, Acting U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier said. The United States brought claims against China out of concern about shortcomings in the country's legal regime for protecting and enforcing copyrights and trademarks on a range of products.
The WTO panel's ruling is an important victory, he said, because it clarifies key provisions of the IP deal that was negotiated for eight years ending in 1994. Specifically, the panel found that China's denial of copyright protection to works that do not meet its "content review" standards is impermissible. The panel clarified China's obligation to provide for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied to willful trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy on a commercial scale. Allgeier said USTR will "engage vigorously with China on appropriate corrective actions to ensure that U.S. rights holders obtain the benefits of this decision."
Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Dan Glickman issued a statement saying the WTO decision was "welcome news for creators" but he was disappointed that the panel "did not accept the strength of the U.S. argument that China's thresholds for taking criminal action do not deter rampant piracy." Copyright Alliance Executive Director Patrick Ross also cheered the announcement but said it took too long to conclude. "The Chinese government has been passionate in its words but passive in its deeds when enforcing intellectual property rights," he said.
My colleague Winter Casey spoke with former FCC chief Kevin Martin recently about what advice he would offer his successor at the agency and the key issues he anticipates the commission will be tackling in 2009. The Q&A was published on NationalJournal.com's Lost In Transition blog. Some highlights:
Q: What advice would you like to give to whoever takes over as FCC commissioner
Martin: I would tell them that they should make sure and look hard at the facts and the underlying arguments that are being made and -- while they will have whatever ideology they bring to the issues -- they should be prepared to actually examine the underlying facts and have it be more of a fact-based decision-making process as opposed to just an ideological one.
Q: Is there anything in the telecom realm that needs to be changed that you think could move forward with bipartisan support this year?
Martin: I think that we need to make changes to our universal service mechanism to make sure that we move it from a voice-grade connections to broadband connections. We should make some more progress on cable rates -- cable rates have doubled over the last decade and I think consumers need relief in terms of additional choices and additional competition. And I think there needs to be a continued emphasis on how we make sure the regulatory environment provides an opportunity and incentive for people to invest in the infrastructure and at the same time maintain an open platform to any kinds of application or devices on the edge.
Read the rest of the Q&A here.
The tech-savvy generation that helped President Barack Obama win the White House is expected to play an important role in politics and policy in the new administration just as they did on the campaign trail. On Tuesday, a panel of political experts and youth organizers will explain how at "The State of the Youth Vote: Engagement Beyond the Election," an event cosponsored by the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management and 18 in '08 -- a nonprofit dedicated to mobilizing and engaging young people in politics and public policy.
NBC News youth correspondent Luke Russert will moderate. Panelists include:
▪ David Burstein, founder and executive director of 18 in '08
▪ Tom Manatos, youth outreach director for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
▪ Hans Riemer, former youth vote director for Obama for America
▪ Matt Segal, founder of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment
▪ Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent, PBS's "The NewsHour"
In the last three general elections -- 2004, 2006, and 2008 -- young voters have given the Democratic Party a majority of their votes, and for all three cycles they have been the party's most supportive age group, according to a post-election report by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. In 2008, 66 percent of those under age 30 voted for Obama making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972.
A trade group that represents Google, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and other high-tech firms in Washington urged President Barack Obama on Monday to appoint leaders at the Commerce Department and Patent and Trademark Office to who can bring reform and encourage innovation. "We have to recognize that the entire intellectual property system - patents, copyrights and trademarks - is in crisis and loosing credibility," Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said. "IP policy has been administered with a sort of 'you're with us or against us approach' and you couldn't propose reforms without being pigeonholed as anti-IP," he said, noting that he believes too much IP protection can be as harmful as too little.
CCIA also asked the new administration to designate an undersecretary for intellectual property who can address the broad challenges in innovation policy facing the nation. "We need someone who is a visionary, as well as a manager and a diplomat," Black said. The PTO can be important to making innovation work, but it needs to be connected to broader thinking about innovation and concerned with results, not just churning out patents, he said in a press release. In addition, CCIA has advocated for an independent Institute for Innovation Economics and Patent Policy to provide evidence-based analysis -- a key element to making the system work for all. Obama's picks for Commerce secretary and PTO director have not been unveiled but buzz is building about Symantec CEO John Thompson for a Cabinet post.
President Barack Obama highlighted recent layoffs at major high-tech companies Microsoft, Intel Corp. and Sprint-Nextel in Monday remarks on the importance of congressional passage of the economic stimulus package that his team has been working on with Democrats in the House and Senate. Microsoft announced last week that it would make 5,000 job cuts, mainly in Redmond, Wash. where the company is headquartered. Computer chip manufacturer Intel said last week that more than 5,000 jobs would be on the chopping block. Sprint-Nextel's news that it would lay off about 8,000 employees came a short time before Obama's speech.
"These are working men and women whose families have been disrupted and whose dreams have been put on hold," he said before signing executive orders that believes will create jobs, establish energy independence and alter environmental policy. "We owe it to each of them and to every single American to act with a sense of urgency." Obama said he looked forward to signing legislation that would put millions of Americans to work. "These are extraordinary times and it calls for swift and extraordinary action," Obama said, adding that he could not promise a quick fix. No single technology or regulation will do the job, he said.
Over the weekend, the Smithsonian Institution assembled a group of more than 30 Internet and new media experts as well as curators, scientists and administrators to explore how they can make the museums' vast collections, educational resources, and staff more accessible, engaging, and useful to younger generations. "This is about a transformation -- going from a condition where 137 million objects are hardly ever seen by the public to one where they're seen by anybody who has access to the Web," Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough said in a videotaped welcome message.
Guests included Microsoft's James Bernard; Digital Library Foundation Executive Director Peter Brantley; MySpace Senior Vice President Allen Hurff; Facebook Associate Account Manager Jeff Kanter; Target.com Vice President Pete Kocks; Sun Microsystems Chief Gaming Officer Chris Melissinos; CD Baby founder Derek Sivers and a number of other top tech thinkers from industry and academia. Their charge was try to identify how to move the Smithsonian forward toward a "Smithsonian 2.0." About 24 million visitors come through the Smithsonian's doors annually but an estimated 175 million visit on the Internet. Read more about the event here.
As lawmakers consider giving U.S. broadband deployment a boost in the economic stimulus package, the Internet Innovation Alliance has unveiled a new online resource that features hundreds of facts and statistics from more than 60 studies published in the past two years. Separated into areas of interest, the site allows for a range of searches on topics like broadband adoption, the economy, education, energy, network infrastructure, telework, and other fields. The bottom line, according to IIA co-chair Bruce Mehlman: "Informed policymakers make the best policy."
Some sample statistics from the IIA fact book:
▪ E-commerce generates 36 percent less conventional air pollutants than conventional shopping. - American Consumer Institute 2007
▪ A 7 percent increase in broadband adoption could result in $92 billion through 2.4 million jobs created or saved annually. - Connected Nation 2008
▪ Broadband-based remote monitoring for all chronically ill patients could reduce hospital, outpatient, and drug expenses by 30 percent. - Robert E. Litan
"Broadband can positively impact everything from employment to the environment to healthcare. It will be a key driver in the revival of the economy," Mehlman said in a press release. "The IIA Web site is an important educational tool, but we also hope it's an interactive one, allowing researchers and experts to add additional facts to a growing body of knowledge."
On Monday, the New America Foundation will unveil its communications policy agenda for the new administration. Speakers include: FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein; the Consumers Union's Gene Kimmelman; and a number of academics from American University, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers School of Law, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Texas. The Information Technology and Innovation Forum will host a same-day discussion on incentives for broadband deployment in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday will hear perspectives on privacy of personal health records in the digital age. Chairman Patrick Leahy played a key role in the evolution of health IT legislation in the 111th Congress, insisting that safeguards be included in legislation sponsored by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee leaders. The economic stimulus packages making their ways through Congress have health IT components.
Hearing witnesses include James Hester, director of the Vermont State Legislature Health Care Reform Commission; Consumers Union health policy program manager Adrienne Hahn; the Center for Democracy and Technology's Deven McGraw; Michael Stokes, program manager for Microsoft's HealthVault; University of Pittsburgh Medical Center vice president John Houston; and David Merritt of the Center for Health Transformation and the Gingrich Group, which is headed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
On Wednesday, Robert McDowell, temporarily the lone Republican regulator at the FCC, addresses the Media Institute at a luncheon event. Meanwhile, the Information Technology Association of America, which merged recently with the American Electronics Association will recognize Data Privacy Day with a discussion and reception on Capitol Hill.
The high-tech community is pretty pleased with New York Gov. David Paterson's announcement Friday that Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand would fill new Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate seat, officials tell Tech Daily Dose. The two-term Democrat had an 86 percent voting record on tech topics, with her vote against the financial rescue package last fall as the only bad mark, according to the Information Technology Industry Council's scorecard for the 110th Congress. She voted in line with ITI's interests on a range of topics including patent, Internet taxation, competitiveness and energy legislation.
Gillibrand also helped co-found the House High Tech Task Force with Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas. During Paterson's news conference with Gillibrand, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., praised her appointment, saying that she will be "a great partner, a great colleague, a great senator." He noted that they have already fought side by side to bring high-tech jobs to Saratoga County. "She has a reputation as a go-to person. Go to Kirsten Gillibrand and she will get it done," Schumer said.
FunnyorDie.com's latest Internet video sensation, "High-Five Inauguration" includes an impressive line-up of media, political and Hollywood celebrities who were in Washington for President Barack Obama's swearing in. It's worth a look.
The Senate Appropriations Committee late Friday released a list of highlights of its portion of an $825 billion economic stimulus package, including $140 billion for infrastructure and science programs, $125 billion for education and training initiatives and $51 billion for energy programs. About $5 billion would go toward jumpstarting efforts to computerize health records to cut costs and reduce medical errors.
Some high-tech components:
• $9 billion for federal broadband access programs
• $40 billion for Energy Department clean energy programs
• $6 billion for federal building energy efficiency; green technology
• $14 billion for National Science Foundation research and grants
• $1.5 billion for NASA, including $500 million for Earth science
• $16 billion for school upgrades, including energy and technology
Related coverage from Friday's CongressDaily PM Edition (subscription required):
Senate Finance Committee Unveils $18 Billion Health IT Title
Along with its tax title, the Senate Finance Committee today unveiled language that would provide an estimated $17.9 billion to upgrade health information technology. Read more.
Groups Cite Several Health IT Amendments As Problematic
An amendment that the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved late Thursday as it marked up its portion of the $825 billion economic stimulus package might not sit well with high-tech industry stakeholders. Read more.
The U.S.-India Business Council released a statement Friday saying it is hopeful that the India release of the hit film "Slumdog Millionaire" will prompt authorities to recognize the importance of protecting intellectual property and to increase enforcement efforts against film and video pirates. The movie about an orphan growing up in the slums of India received 10 Academy Award nominations this week, including best picture and best director. A recent study commissioned by USIBC as part of its Bollywood-Hollywood Initiative found that India's entertainment and media industry loses some 820,000 jobs and about $4 billion to piracy each year.
"Piracy translates directly into lost opportunities and lost jobs - and squandered creativity," USIBC President Ron Somers said in a press release. "Imagine how many 'Slumdogs' could be conceived, produced and premiered if only there were greater efforts to crackdown on film piracy." Indian media and entertainment is an $11 billion industry growing at over 18 percent annually, USIBC said. "Slumdog Millionaire is just the latest example of the growing connection between Bollywood and Hollywood," said Greg Kalbaugh, the group's director. "The entertainment industries of the U.S. and India are increasingly intertwined, but widespread piracy threatens industry in both countries."
From Friday's daily press briefing with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs:
Reporter: Did the President give his email address to anybody in that bipartisan congressional meeting today?
Gibbs: I was going to think of something cute on the email address, but nothing comes to mind that would be good. I think we covered the BlackBerry yesterday, that there's a small group of people that are able to BlackBerry with the President so that he can stay in touch with them.
Gibbs: I think that the President has certainly asked members of Congress that have ideas to call the White House. I know that Rahm [Emanuel] has certainly given out his cell phone number to members of the House, the Senate and probably a lot of you all in here -- (laughter) -- to stay in touch if people have ideas that meet the President's test of getting the economy moving again.
Reporter: On his BlackBerry, Robert -- the President said yesterday when he left here that it wasn't up and running yet. Is it up and running today?
Gibbs: I will check... I believe that it is. But I will -- I will double check on that.
The House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees approved their sections of the chamber's economic stimulus package after marathon mark up sessions on Thursday. CongressDaily has two extensive reports that can be accessed here and here (subscription required).
Energy and Commerce Highlights:
• Accepted an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich, to set a strict timetable for FCC implementation of a formula for distributing broadband money to "unserved" and "underserved" areas.
• Rejected an amendment by Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that called for areas with no service at all to be helped first, then "underserved" areas.
• Rejected an amendment by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., to prevent states attorneys from filing suits under federal privacy laws.
• Rejected an amendment by Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, to allow hospitals and doctors to share IT and staff.
• Accepted an amendment from Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., to add additional security requirements to protect patients' personal health information.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and other proponents of forthcoming legislation that would end a longstanding music royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio stations circulated a "Dear Colleague" letter on Wednesday advising members that they will likely be presented with a resolution in the coming days that is intended to thwart the effort -- potentially before their bill in introduced. "While the resolution will be framed in terms of preventing a 'tax,' 'fee,' or 'burden' on local radio stations, in reality, the only payment broadcasters would be required to make would be for the use of someone else's property," the letter said.
Conyers -- who was joined by Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., as signatories -- said the resolution being prepared by Texas Reps. Gene Green, a Democrat, and Republican Mike Conaway "is extremely detrimental to thousands of people and businesses, to the protection of American intellectual property abroad, to the economy and the balance of trade.: They urged fellow lawmakers not to sign the resolution and welcomed their participation "in the full discussion on this issue that will be before the Judiciary Committee in the coming weeks." The Green-Conaway resolution gathered more than 200 supporters in the 110th Congress.
National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton fired back, saying it is "implausible to suggest that a government-imposed bailout of foreign record labels estimated to cost up to $7 billion would not cause serious economic harm to U.S. radio stations." He said the media business faces the worst advertising climate in decades and thousands people have lost their jobs in the last few months. "If Congress wants to ensure more job losses... passing the performance tax would be the best recipe," Wharton said.
Greg Garcia, the Homeland Security Department's first assistant secretary for cyber security and communications -- who left his post in December after more than two years -- announced his next move on Thursday. In an e-mail to friends and colleagues, he wrote: "I have known that I want to continue contributing to the mission of cyber security and national security/emergency communications. But rather than commit myself to this mission through just one organization, I have chosen to contribute independently."
"After taking some time off through the holidays, I have formed my own advisory firm, cleverly named Garcia Strategies. This approach I believe will broaden my perspectives, and diversify my partnerships and tools for making progress against a complex challenge," Garcia wrote. "I have also tailored a Web site of rather modest accoutrements, and will try to maintain a blog, which might on occasion have the intended effect to entertain and inform." Find out more here.
President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated former FTC Commissioner Christine Varney for assistant attorney general for antitrust -- a position that has become increasingly important as more high-tech, telecommunications and media mergers and acquisitions face regulatory scrutiny. Varney, who has been partner at Hogan & Hartson since 1997 most recently served as personnel counsel to the Obama transition team and has extensive experience in Internet and technology law.
While at the FTC, Varney pioneered the application of innovation market theory analysis to transactions in both high-tech and biotechnology fields, according to a White House personnel press release. She also focused her efforts on healthcare issues, enforcing the antitrust laws in that industry, while also encouraging the government agencies to be more receptive to innovative delivery modes and models. At Hogan & Hartson, her clients have included the American Hospital Association, Internet auction site eBay, Sun Microsystems, and Dow Jones before its acquisition by News Corp.
In related news, David Kris was appointed assistant attorney general for national security. He is currently deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer media conglomerate Time Warner. Kris previously served as associate deputy attorney general where his unclassified responsibilities included supervising the government's use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, representing department at the National Security Council, briefing and testifying before Congress.
Microsoft's announcement Thursday that it plans to eliminate up to 5,000 jobs across the company is not going to have an immediate impact on its Washington, D.C., office, according to a company representative. The firm's policy shop has undergone a number of changes in recent months; it currently has two lobbying slots that have yet to be filled. "The majority of today's job eliminations are in Redmond, consistent with the high concentration of employees based at our headquarters in the Seattle area," Microsoft spokeswoman Catherine Collins said in an e-mail.
The high-tech giant announced earlier in the day that "in light of the further deterioration of global economic conditions... Microsoft will eliminate up to 5,000 jobs in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, legal, HR, and IT over the next 18 months, including 1,400 jobs." The company said the cuts should reduce its annual operating expense run rate by about $1.5 billion and reduce fiscal year 2009 capital expenditures by $700 million. The company also noted that because of the "volatility of market conditions going forward" it cannot "offer quantitative revenue and EPS guidance for the balance of this fiscal year."
Microsoft spokeswoman Ginny Terzano said the company is in the process of hiring a lobbyist to fill the position of outgoing Barry LaSala who is joining the government-relations firm Elmendorf Strategies. LaSala served as a liaison between the company and Senate Democrats. The company also has not yet filled a House Democratic lobbyist position that was opened when Matt Gelman was promoted to senior director for congressional affairs. Fred Humphries, who had been leading Microsoft's state government affairs team moved to Washington recently to replace Jack Krumholtz as managing director of federal affairs. -- Winter Casey
In his first daily news briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs shed new light on President Barack Obama's BlackBerry. He told reporters that the commander-in-chief will have a handheld device that will allow him to "stay in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends in a way that will be limited and security is enhanced" to ensure effective, protected communication. Those who will be in touch with Obama via Blackberry will be briefed before he is turned loose with his device, Gibbs said. He declined to provide details about who will and will not have e-mail privileges.
The presumption from the White House counsel's office is that most e-mails will be subject to the Presidential Records Act, which has some narrow exemptions for strictly personal exchanges. "[Obama] believes it's a way of keeping in touch with folks -- a way of doing it outside of getting stuck in a bubble," Gibbs said. He said he has received e-mails from Obama (but not in the last couple of days) that range from strictly business content to questions about why his favorite football team did or didn't perform on any given game.
Former Republican National Committee Web whiz Patrick Ruffini thinks President Barack Obama's new WhiteHouse.gov is pretty but he was expecting something "a bit more majestic." The political consultant wrote on his EngageDC blog that: "Obama's design efforts have gotten progressively more workmanlike since the campaign site was refreshed with ethereal, cloud-like design in early 2008. I was expecting a return to something more like that now that Obama actually is the president, rather than pretending to be the president with fake seals and federal imagery."
Other thoughts from Ruffini:
▪ The large, rotating headline feature area to drive key messages was long overdue on a White House site, and the implementation is superb.
▪ A departure from previous Obama sites, WhiteHouse.gov is built in Microsoft's proprietary .NET framework, something that is sure to cause no small degree of consternation among the President's devotees in the open source community.
▪ I am surprised that the Obama team is not doing more to collect e-mail addresses, sticking with the traditional upper right hand placement of the e-mail signup box but little else.
▪ The design seems to be influenced by Andy Rutledge's 2006 critique and suggested alternative, which consisted mostly of making the homepage a glorified sitemap. The current homepage isn't quite that bad, though the extended footer is evocative of it.
David Almacy, who left his post as White House Internet director for former President Bush to join the public relations firm Waggener Edstrom, declined to opine: "Think I am going to wait and see where they go with it. It's only day two," he said in an e-mail.
House Minority Leader John Boehner will take part in a "Digg Dialogg" interview Friday with CNN Political Editor Mark Preston, answering the most popular questions posed by visitors to Digg.com, a platform for Internet users to submit links and stories and vote and comment on submitted items. A spokesman for Boehner's political action committee said that for the next two years, "the key weapon in the GOP arsenal will be communication" and his boss is working hard to make sure his message of freedom and reform reaches the widest audience possible.
"He has always been an early adopter of new technologies and new opportunities to reach voters in unique ways, and the Digg Dialogg is no exception," Don Seymour said in a press release. "The online community targeted by this event is inherently entrepreneurial, solutions-driven, and skeptical of one-size-fits-all approaches -- a natural constituency for the Republican Party." Boehner's Digg Dialogg page -- and the questions that have been submitted so far -- can be viewed here.
The must "dugg" topics include:
"Why is it that drugs (alcohol, tobacco) that kill thousands of people each year are legal, yet other drugs (marijuana) which are used for medical purposes and do far less harm and don't cause death, are illegal?"
"How can the Republican Party reclaim its old positions of small government, low taxes, and personal responsibility?"
"Why should I, a responsible homeowner who pays her mortgage every month, help foot the bill for those who acted irresponsibly, getting way in over their heads, borrowing money that they had no business borrowing?"
The White House Web team is still working out some kinks as the Obama administration transitions to a new site.
The Technology Association of America, the trade group formed from the recent merger of the Information Technology Association of America and the American Electronics Association, urged the Federal Acquisition Regulations Council to return to the drawing board on a proposed rulemaking on IT products. The panel has proposed strict, unlimited liability on government contractors who introduce faulty or counterfeit IT products, the group said in a Thursday press release. FAR's proposed approach is not well suited to enforce contractor performance specifications and is unlikely to prevent "Trojan horses," "back doors" or other security concerns, TAA said.
In a Jan. 20 letter the association noted that "laws and regulations are in place to combat faulty products and fraudulent contractors. If enforced, the existing laws are sufficient to address a situation in which a contractor delivers a defective or faulty product." TAA recommended that "the contractor community and the government act as partners to identify and eliminate counterfeit IT products and demonstrate the security of the supply chain, rather than placing the burden on contractors and systems integrators with strict, unlimited liability."
As a possible alternative solution, TAA suggested that FAR to consider a "safe harbor" approach in which contractors must demonstrate reasonable steps to prevent the delivery of unauthorized products. This would include robust compliance processes throughout each level of the supply chain or production -- and a contractor would not be liable when fraud perpetrated by a supplier cannot be prevented.
Thousands of people with premium tickets to President Barack Obama's swearing on Tuesday were held in a tunnel under the National Mall and missed the ceremony altogether. A day later, they are rallying on social networking site Facebook.com on a group page called "Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom." As of Wednesday evening, there were about 2,300 members. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies apologized for the incident, attributing the problem to unprecedented crowds and many unticketed people moving toward the Capitol and into the 3rd Street Tunnel where the ticket holders were directed, according to the AP.
"It's remarkable that there wasn't a riot," wrote one, Marc Lynch. "I rode the Metro home with a lot of people who had been turned away, including an elderly African-American woman muttering over and over to herself that it had been one of the worst experiences of her life." Another, Denise Fort, wrote that her family came from New Mexico with an 11-year-old child only to wait three hours and miss everything but the cannons. "It was dangerous to be pressed against each other, occasionally being pushed forward, but the high spirits of the crowd helped," she said.
Premium television channel HBO is demanding that video sharing Web site YouTube take down postings of the free public concert that preceded the inauguration of President Barack Obama, including snippets filmed on attendees' cellular phone cameras, according to blog reports on Wednesday. HBO reportedly is claiming it has the exclusive copyright for the video of this event because it purchased a six months license from the inaugural committee, which owns the license. The concert was broadcast on HBO (which descrambled the channel so basic cable subscribers could watch) and on HBO.com.
CCIA President Ed Black denounced HBO's alleged actions, saying that "if their ridiculous interpretation of the law is true, tens of thousands of citizens recording memories at this historic public event could have broken the law and be held liable for statutory damages that can be up to $150,000 each." Black argued that those sharing their memories on YouTube or other formats should be covered under copyright's "fair use" provision. "It's yet another example of the outrageous, excessive attitude of certain big content companies," he said.
The New York Times reported that the "We Are One" extravaganza at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial cost HBO $2.5 million. Within HBO's 29 million subscribing households, the live broadcast and the two prime-time replays on Sunday were watched by a total of 4.1 million viewers. The HBO.com video was viewed about 700,000 times on Sunday and Monday, HBO said.
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Wednesday night that the agency spied on U.S. news organizations "24/7, 365 days a year." Former President Bush and senior officials insisted repeatedly that the warrantless wiretapping program that came to light in 2005 was legal and only targeted those with suspected ties to terrorist organizations. Tice said he did not know what became of the journalists' collected communications nor did he mention news outlets by name.
He told Olbermann he volunteered his expertise to President Barack Obama's campaign and transition team but they did not take him up on the offer. "They knew my background but they never utilized me," said Tice, who has leaked information about the NSA before and has pushed for whistleblower protection legislation. Before appearing on the show, he sent a handwritten note to Obama's camp saying he planned to speak about the NSA activity in more detail.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which works on a range of high-tech, intellectual property and privacy issues, will get three new members, Chairman Patrick Leahy announced Wednesday night. The committee will be comprised of 11 Democrats and eight Republicans. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will join the panel. Leaving the committee in the 111th Congress are Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who last year announced his intention to resign from the panel to concentrate on healthcare reform; former Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who was sworn in as vice president on Tuesday; and Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison welcomed four new GOP colleagues to the panel Wednesday: Johnny Isakson of Georgia; Sam Brownback of Kansas; Mel Martinez of Florida; and Mike Johanns of Nebraska. "Our country faces many challenges in the weeks and months ahead, including the upcoming digital television transition and the need to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration. I look forward to working with them on these and other important issues," Hutchison said.
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., decried the Supreme Court's decision Wednesday not to revive an Internet child safety law that lower courts have struck down as unconstitutional. The Child Online Protection Act, which would have prohibited Web sites from making harmful content available to minors, passed Congress in 1998. Bachus, who sponsored and voted for the law, wrote a letter cosigned by Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., urging the Justice Department to make a final attempt to save the statute.
A challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union has tied COPA up in hearings for more than 10 years, preventing it from ever being enforced, he said. The law required commercial pornographers to put a filter on their teaser pages - the electronic equivalent of a "brown paper bag" - to prevent accidental access by minors. Bachus said the law statute is "a commonsense way to help parents protect their kids from the corrupting influence of graphic pornography on the Internet."
Bachus, who serves as the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, said it is "outrageous to think that pornographers have a right to force this in front of the eyes of our impressionable children and grandchildren. Families across our nation are at greater risk today because of the ACLU's determination to protect pornographers." The ACLU and Center for Democracy and Technology hailed the high court's action, saying it killed what they believe is a bad law, once and for all. Read more here.
Business Software Alliance General Counsel Neil MacBride will be moving into one of the top positions at the Justice Department in the Obama Administration. MacBride has been named associate deputy attorney general, according to the trade group. In his new position, MacBride -- who has been BSA's vice president of anti-piracy and general counsel -- will serve on the senior leadership team of Attorney General-designee Eric Holder and will help manage the agency's 115,000 employees and $22 billion budget.
MacBride will also manage the criminal components of the Justice Department, including the 93 United States Attorneys Offices, the Criminal Division, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and other entities. MacBride will advise the attorney general on criminal justice, law enforcement, and intellectual property issues and oversee the policy and legislative offices in DOJ. Members of BSA include Adobe, Apple, Cisco Systems, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Quest. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, he has lobbied for BSA in the past.
Prior to joining BSA, MacBride served for four years as counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and four years of service as an assistant attorney in the Criminal Division of DOJ. He has also been the chief counsel and staff director to Vice President Joseph Biden when he was in the Senate. MacBride once worked as an attorney at a law firm where he focused on white collar defense and legislative/regulatory issues. He also served as a judicial law clerk for District Judge Henry Coke Morgan, Jr. in the Eastern District of Virginia. MacBride is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. -- Winter Casey
The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will not consider reviving a controversial Internet child safety law that lower courts have struck down as unconstitutional. The Child Online Protection Act, which would have prohibited Web sites from making harmful content available to minors, passed Congress in 1998 but has never taken effect. Sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties for noncompliance included a $50,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
A Philadelphia federal judge in 2007 rejected an attempt by the Justice Department to renew the ban, stating that parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of adults to free speech. That ruling was upheld by an appeals court last year. The justices offered no comment on their decision to reject the Bush administration's appeal.
First Amendment advocates cheered the news. "This finally puts a nail in the coffin of the government's quixotic effort to censor content on the Internet," Center for Democracy and Technology President Leslie Harris said. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Aden Fine added that the court's decision not to hear the case "reinforces that government should not be deciding what people can look at on the Internet -- those decisions should be made by individual and their families." "We're hopeful that Congress will not try to enact a new federal law censoring protected speech on the Internet," Fine said. "If Congress does [act], the ACLU will obviously take a close look at it."
Just before Washington's collective attention turned to inaugural festivities, House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Fortney (Pete) Stark, D-Calif., dropped legislation aimed at overhauling the U.S. healthcare system through advances in technology. Stark introduced a similar bill in the 110th Congress -- much of which was culled from a proposal that emerged from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. His bill would codify the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within the Health and Human Services Department; create a more transparent process for the development of health IT standards by the end of 2009; and establish a voluntary certification process for health IT products.
The bill also provides immediate funding for health IT infrastructure, training, dissemination of best practices, telemedicine, inclusion of health technology in clinical education, and state grants to promote the use of electronic medical records. In addition, the legislation provides financial incentives through the Medicare and Medicaid programs to encourage doctors and hospitals to adopt and use certified e-health systems. Physicians would be eligible for as much as $65,000 for showing they are meaningfully using health IT and hospitals would be eligible for several million dollars. Incentive payments would continue for several years but would be phased out over time.
On the privacy front, Stark's bill would establish a federal breach notification requirement for health IT and would let patients request an audit trail showing all disclosures of their health information made through an electronic record. The legislation would change existing laws to include new entities that were not contemplated when federal privacy rules were written as well as entities that do work on behalf of providers and insurers. The measure also would ban the sale of an individual's health information without their authorization and would require providers to attain authorization from a patient in order to use their health IT for marketing and fundraising activities.
Google's inaugural party didn't disappoint as Hollywood, Hill and high-tech celebrities mingled at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on Tuesday night. Here's a quick rundown of the Internet company's A-list guests:
▪ From Hollywood: Jessica Alba, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, John Cusack, Glenn Close, Tate Donovan, Joaquin Phoenix and Sarah Silverman.
▪ From high-tech: Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google co-founder Larry Page, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, Google chief legal officer David Drummond, and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.
▪ From the Hill: Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Roland Burris, D-Ill., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.
▪ From the Obama transition team: Jon Favreau, Beth Noveck, and John Podesta
▪ From the media: CNN's Wolf Blitzer, NBC's Dan Abrams, MSNBC's Willie Geist, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, and Arianna Huffington of HuffingtonPost.com
"Welcome to the new WhiteHouse.gov. I'm Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and one of the people who will be contributing to the blog. A short time ago, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and his new administration officially came to life. One of the first changes is the White House's new website, which will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world."
"Millions of Americans have powered President Obama's journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the internet to play a role in shaping our country's future. WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration's efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement. Just like your new government, WhiteHouse.gov and the rest of the Administration's online programs will put citizens first. Our initial new media efforts will center around three priorities..." Read the full post here.
John Thompson, chairman and CEO of computer security and systems management firm Symantec -- who is rumored to be a finalist for the job of Commerce secretary in the new administration -- spoke at the TechNet reception on the rooftop of the Hay Adams hotel moments before President Barack Obama passed by on his parade route. "Clearly we need to get the financial engine running -- but we also have to make sure that in that process we create as many jobs as possible -- that we put Americans back to work," he said. "No industry in this country has done a better job of putting people to work -- of creating more jobs -- than the tech sector has." "We are the driving force of the U.S. economy," he said. Thompson told Tech Daily Dose that, if chosen, he would be honored to serve in the Obama administration.
Electronics superstore Best Buy offered one lucky Inauguration Day crowd a warm place to watch the festivities, grab a snack and buy memory cards, batteries and other essentials at DAR Constitution Hall.
Thousands flocked to the Newseum on Monday night for one of Washington's hottest Inauguration Eve parties. The soiree was hosted by pundit Arianna Huffington and her left-leaning news and opinion Web site HuffingtonPost.com and was sponsored by cable giant Comcast, social networking site MySpace.com and others. Rock legend Sting, pop singer Sheryl Crow and hip-hop star Will.i.am performed for the boisterous crowd. Intel also offered demos of the ePALS online community. Watch a video clip of the scene and Will.i.am's "It's A New Day" number here. More photos after the jump...
The stars of NBC-Universal as well as corporate executives, lawmakers, lobbyists and members of the media schmoozed over mimosas, sushi and sweets at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on Monday. Among those who sipped and snacked at the company's pre-inaugural brunch included Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Al Roker of the "Today" show; "Nightly News" anchor emeritus Tom Brokaw; MSNBC's "Morning Joe" ensemble and a host of other famous faces.
NBC-Universal CEO Jeff Zucker and General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt greeted the crowd (see video above) and demos of Hulu.com, a streaming video Web site launched by NBC and Fox in 2007, took place on the mezzanine. Immelt said Tuesday's swearing in of President-elect Barack Obama will be a momentous occasion but the next day "we'll all wake up in the worst economic crisis in our lifetime." He capped off his remarks by saying: "Have a great day, and on Wednesday morning, lets go back to work."
The U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Knight Center of Digital Excellence will host a Sunday discussion about how making investments in broadband technology can connect, enable, and transform communities. The event takes place in conjunction with the mayors' annual winter meeting in Washington. Panelists include USCM President Manny Diaz, mayor of Miami; Akron, Ohio Mayor Donald Plusquellic; Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibarguen and others.
At the organization's June meeting, members voted in favor of a resolution calling on the president, Congress and the FCC to develop a comprehensive national broadband strategy that includes high-speed deployment to cities as an imperative and preserves the ability of local governments to provide broadband capability and services within their communities. The resolution also urged the FCC to begin immediately collecting detailed information on broadband coverage and use and share said data with local governments.
The event precedes the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has spoken frequently about the need for America to lead the world in broadband penetration. "As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband," the transition team's Web site states. He believes that can be accomplished by overhauling the universal service fund; improving the use of U.S. wireless spectrum; promoting next-generation technologies; and tax and loan incentives.
On Saturday, the FBI's Washington Field Office provided a demonstration of its tactical response vehicles that will be on standby during Tuesday's inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. The emergency rigs include a state-of-the-art mobile command post, an armored assault vehicle, WMD response vehicles, evidence recovery team vehicles, and bomb trucks. The photo above is a shot inside the high-tech mobile command center. Upon closer inspection the monitors appear to be tuned to: Martha Stewart's show, a soap opera and a Care Bears cartoon (click here for a larger photo). Read more here.
From CongressDaily's PM Edition on Friday...
Some high-tech watchdogs are worried about a relationship unveiled this week between popular video-sharing site YouTube.com and Congress. The Google-owned site launched two new platforms where people can watch videos uploaded by members of the House and Senate. The pairing was endorsed in a welcome message by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that has been viewed more than 230,000 times since Monday. The announcement, however, is prompting questions about the propriety of lawmakers singling out a commercial Web tool. Critics also cite privacy concerns -- namely, what happens to data collected about users who view lawmakers' videos.
The project was made possible by changes to outdated House and Senate rules last year that clarified the circumstances under which members are allowed to place content on external Web sites. Steve Grove, head of YouTube's news and political content, said in a blog post that the service has "the potential to make Congress more transparent and accessible than ever before." But the Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester warned Google is "taking a lobbying tactic developed in part by C-SPAN years ago -- offer members of Congress a free service so they can be seen by the public." On his Web site, he warned that such an "electronic or digital campaign contribution helps insure that Congress will think twice about biting -- or regulating -- the video hand that feeds [it]."
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, one of Washington's tech-savviest lawmakers, is going to be documenting Inauguration Day in his own special way -- with a live video feed from his cellular phone camera. Culberson's raw footage from around Capitol Hill -- and even from the platform where members will be seated during President-elect Barack Obama's swearing in -- will appear on his Qik.com Web page. The Houston Chronicle, BBC and possibly the New York Times plan to link to his content, a spokeswoman said.
On Friday, he gave viewers a sneak peek at the path through the Capitol's basement rotunda that Obama will walk with President Bush on Tuesday [watch that video above]. Culberson is also an avid user of Twitter, a service that lets users post short messages on a Web site from their cellular phones or computers. Last year, he campaigned mightily to ensure that outdated House rules were revised to allow members to communicate with constituents through a variety of platforms in the Internet age.
Change.org -- not to be confused with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team Web site Change.gov -- announced the winners of its "Ideas for Change in America" competition on Friday. Since Election Day more than 650,000 votes were cast for more than 7,500 ideas for how the Obama administration and 111th Congress should change America. Change.org founder Ben Rattray followed the announcement by launching a national advocacy campaign behind each winning idea.
The 10 winning ideas reflect diverse interests like: securing universal heath care, lesbian/gay/bisexual transgender rights, and sustainable green energy. The list also includes ideas often left off of the national agenda but with powerful grassroots support, organizers said. Those included: restoring civil liberties, ending the prohibition on medicinal marijuana, and advancing peace through new government institutions. All the winners can be viewed at www.change.org/ideas.
The National Press Club event included a panel discussion about how the incoming administration and advocacy groups can use the Web to deepen civic participation. Scheduled speakers included Chris Hughes, director of My.BarackObama.com and co-founder of Facebook; Jose Antonio Vargas, political reporter for the Washington Post; Democratic strategist Joe Trippi; MySpace political director Lee Brenner; and Macon Phillips, director of new media for the presidential transition team.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee has selected Microsoft's Silverlight technology to enable live and on-demand video streaming of President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony at www.pic2009.org on Tuesday, the high-tech company announced. Additionally, as part of its efforts to hold the most open and accessible inauguration in history, the committee will stream video of a Baltimore, Md. event on the Whistle Stop Tour that will take Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden to D.C. from Philadelphia.
"Microsoft is proud to be part of this event by helping to bring the inauguration activities online," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in a press release "Just as during the campaign itself, Internet technology is enabling people around the world to participate more directly in historic events in new and exciting ways." In August the 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee used Silverlight to stream convention proceedings, including Obama's acceptance speech.
President-elect Barack Obama should appoint a Patent and Trademark Office director who is a lawyer with patent and trademark experience; is knowledgeable of both domestic and international intellectual property laws; and has management skills sufficient to oversee the operations of the ever-growing agency, the American Bar Association's IP law section said in recommendations sent this week to the transition team. U.S. law contains a similar but less demanding statement of qualifications for the director, the ABA pointed out.
The group said the PTO should be statutorily allowed to keep the fees it collects from applicants and not have that money diverted to other federal projects. While congressional appropriators and the Bush administration have let the office do this in recent years, the change should be codified in law, the ABA said. Another recommendation was to expand the right of the public to submit "prior art" in pending patent applications -- a modification that would ensure an examiner has all the relevant information. The ABA also suggested the PTO take a number of steps to ensure that it retains and recruits a high- quality workforce. Read ABA's full submission here.
Democratic strategist Joe Trippi and Internet law expert Lawrence Lessig have joined forces to create Change Congress, an effort to reduce the influence of special interests in government. They sat down with Atlantic Media staff on Jan. 9 to talk about their new campaign. See the video above and read a Q&A with them here.
Legislation to strengthen and provide transparency to the multi-agency National Nanotechnology Initiative, which passed the House in the 110th Congress 407-6 but stalled in the Senate, was reintroduced Thursday by House Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon. It requires departments participating in the effort to develop a plan for understanding the potential environmental, health, and safety risks of nanotechnology -- and a roadmap for implementing it.
The bill would require near- and long-term goals and the funding required, by goal and by agency. It would also seek to leverage private sector investments in nanotechnology and facilitate technology transfer by strengthening public/private partnerships. "The range of potential applications of nanotechnology is broad -- from solar cells to sunscreen, from electronics to energy transformation and storage, to medicine and health," Gordon said, noting it is important to address the potential downsides of the technology early and in a straightforward and open way.
The House Appropriations Committee Thursday unveiled an $825 billion economic stimulus package that includes $550 billion in spending and $275 billion in tax cuts to individuals and businesses over two years. The proposal would provide $20 billion for health IT; $6 billion for broadband; $32 billion for smart energy grid investments; and $15 billion for new K-12 school, classroom and laboratory renovation and technology. High-tech and telecom stakeholders cheered the news.
Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield said the package "uses technology to put Americans back to work, creating jobs and new spending at a time when the country needs it most." New investments in electronic medical records, increased spending on science and technology in our nation's classrooms, new and faster reach for broadband and energy efficiency are "sound and sensible ways to jumpstart the economy," he said. He urged the House and Senate to move quickly to pass the legislation.
Stimulus investments in broadband are a valuable first step toward a comprehensive national broadband effort, the Internet Innovation Alliance said. President-elect Barack Obama has shown "tremendous foresight" in recognizing the need for increased deployment and his belief that America should lead the world in broadband penetration, the group said. "Investing in broadband expansion is good for our economy and key to our future competitiveness."
From NationalJournal.com's Under The Influence blog...
Believe it or not, the Senate is dragging its feet into the modern era of information-sharing and is still using a hard copy system for filing campaign finance reports. With paper filing, final disclosure reports of senatorial candidates are not available to the public until after the election due to the time it takes the Federal Election Commission to process the paperwork. What's stopping senators from e-filing when campaigns have all the information available electronically? That's exactly the question Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has been asking.
He is the author of the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, which would require reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 hours. In the past, Feingold has signed up 47 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle; his bill failed to pass in the last Congress but his office tells National Journal the senator plans to re-introduce the legislation in the 111th Congress. In testimony to the Senate Rules Committee almost two years ago, Feingold said filing on paper "involves a completely wasteful expenditure by the FEC of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to re-enter information into databases."
A traditionally secret federal intelligence court issued a rare public ruling Thursday that validated the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order. The ruling [opinion/order] was initially made by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in August and was then released in unclassified, redacted form. The decision marks the first time since the disclosure of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program three years ago that an appellate court has tackled the constitutionality of the government's wiretapping powers. It is only the second public ruling by the panel in its 30 year history.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the agency was pleased with the ruling, saying the court upheld the lawfulness of directives issued under 2007's Protect America Act, concluding that the surveillance at issue fell within the foreign intelligence exception to the warrant requirement and was otherwise reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The case involved a challenge by a private party to directives that were issued under the law to assist the government in conducting foreign intelligence surveillance against targets reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.
If a bill introduced Thursday by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, becomes law, inmates in some prisons would be banned from using smuggled cellular phones. The bill would allow the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a governor or a governor's designee to petition the FCC for a wireless jamming device in a particular correctional facility. Under the measure, the FCC would have to consider whether the jammer would interfere with emergency or public safety communications outside the prison's walls. Current law prevents interference with wireless services. According to news reports in Texas, death row inmate Richard Tabler used a smuggled phone to make threatening calls to a state senator. Tabler's phone was found in the ceiling above a shower and officers found 11 additional phones belonging to other death row inmates while looking for it. "This legislation will fight criminal enterprises behind bars and protect innocent victims and public officials from harassment and threats from criminals," Hutchison said. Corrections officials have reported a surge in phones infiltrating prisons and in some states, the number confiscated phones has doubled in two years.
After many months of negotiating, digital royalty collector SoundExchange and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have come to an agreement on Internet royalties for non-commercial educational public radio. The arrangement, which stems from a controversial May 2007 ruling of the Copyright Royalty Board, covers a period from Jan. 1, 2005 through Dec. 31, 2010. Under the deal, SoundExchange will receive a single payment of $1.85 million plus consolidated usage and playlist reporting from CPB on behalf of the entire public radio system.
The settlement will cover about 450 public radio webcasters including CPB supported stations, National Public Radio, NPR members, National Federation of Community Broadcasters members, American Public Media, the Public Radio Exchange, and Public Radio International. NPR has also agreed to withdraw its appeal of the CRB royalty rate decision. "This important agreement will ensure that the artists heard on public radio station Web sites will receive compensation and will enable public radio webcasters to continue to meet their public service, non-profit missions," CPB President Pat Harrison said in a statement.
SoundExchange still has plenty of work to do, executive director John Simson told Tech Daily Dose. The group continues to negotiate with the Digital Media Association, which represents major digital content services, but "every time we seem to get really close, some new issue crops up," he said. Simson's staff is also in talks with the National Association of Broadcasters to reach an agreement on fees for programming that is simulcast online. Additionally, SoundExchange is hammering out a royalty scheme for a group of small commercial webcasters and a separate agreement with noncommercial entities that are not part of NPR or CPB, Simson said.
The ongoing U.S. economic crisis will trim $30 billion in cumulative information technology spending over the next five years, according to a recent report by consulting firm INPUT. This will come as states and localities try to come up with roughly $250 billion in new revenue and spending cuts to align budgets to the levels that preceded the multi-year real estate boom that ended in 2007. INPUT estimates the compound annual growth rate for the state and local IT market has slid to 4.3 percent from the 6.4 percent.
"We've seen so many projects held back in this quarter that we wanted to provide some concrete estimates for companies looking at 2009," INPUT's Chris Dixon said in a press release. "State and local revenue projections from last spring just haven't held up." Dixon said the market needs federal fiscal relief for state Medicaid and unemployment funds; then it needs the credit markets to loosen so states and localities can sell bonds to fund capital projects, including major IT systems.
Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia are facing a collective mid-fiscal-year shortfall of $31.2 billion, INPUT said. However, the 10 states with individual deficits of about $1 billion or more will likely account for $22.5 billion (72 percent) of that total. California alone will likely account for more than a quarter of the national total, the firm stated. An August/September survey of 154 city and county IT officials conducted by the Public Technology Institute and INPUT found that 13.7 percent of respondents expect their overall IT budget to increase over the next two years.
House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Joe Barton unveiled his GOP subcommittee line-up on Wednesday. Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida will be the top Republican on the Communications, Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, which is chaired by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. GOP subcommittee members include: Fred Upton and Mike Rogers of Michigan; Nathan Deal of Georgia; John Shimkus of Illinois; John Shadegg or Arizona; Roy Blunt of Missouri; Steve Buyer of Indiana; George Radanovich and Mary Bono Mack of California; Greg Walden of Oregon, Lee Terry of Nebraska; and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
Radanovich will be ranking member of the Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee. Members include: Stearns, Bono Mack, Terry, and Rogers as well as Ralph Hall and Phil Gingrey of Texas; Joe Pitts and Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania; Sue Myrick of North Carolina; and John Sullivan of Oklahoma. Walden will be the top Republican on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Members include: Deal, Radanovich, Sullivan, Blackburn, Gingrey and Michael Burgess of Texas. Republicans received one additional seat on the full committee that has not been filled.
From NationalJournal.com's Lost In Transition blog...
Those preparing to depart from the Executive Office of the President may be packing up their picture frames and coffee mugs, but, because of a district court ruling made Wednesday, they'll have to turn over their memory sticks, CDs and DVDs before they walk out the door. United States District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. granted an emergency motion from the National Security Archive that requires the EOP to search all of its computer workstations. All EOP employees must surrender any media that may contain e-mails from March 2003 to October 2005.
The archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics have an ongoing suit against the EOP and the National Archives and Records Administration, seeking to preserve as many as 5 million White House e-mails that were declared missing during the Scooter Libby trial. The archive is hoping to find out more about how the e-mails were lost by looking at the EOP media. All of the physical records from the White House will be carted away to NARA on the morning of Jan. 20.
National Security Archive counsel Meredith Fuchs told National Journal that there is a hearing today to address whether additional steps need to be taken during the physical transfer of e-mail backup tapes. Fuchs spoke with the magazine in November about the need for a stringent e-mail archiving system in the executive branch.
Members of the House or Representatives are under no obligation to keep records of their actions online. This would include the e-mail correspondences and comments that could take place on social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. "There is no member archiving requirement. The committee passed a resolution encouraging member offices to explore archiving opportunities last session," Kyle Anderson, spokesman for the House Administration Committee, said in a statement.
Anderson did note, however, that "many member offices do maintain archives" anyway. New rules adopted by the committee in October allow members to maintain Web sites in addition to their official House.gov site and post material on third-party Web sites so long as it complies with federal law and House rules and regulations applicable to official communications. He said the initial discussion to update the rules focused on posting video within House domains but regulations that passed do not specifically indicate video. "The new rules can be interpreted as allowing for Members to have Facebook and MySpace presence," he said.
Members of Congress have started to use their own YouTube channels and post videos directly from their Washington offices. Google announced Monday that it was launching a Senate Hub and House Hub. -- Winter Casey
The head of President-elect Barack Obama's technology, innovation and government reform team today said recent estimates from "very reliable sources" about the size, scope, and structure of the proposed broadband portion of the forthcoming economic stimulus package that Obama wants to send to Congress are "off target." In his first public speech since joining the transition team, Blair Levin would did not elaborate on the plan, only to say that the team wants to work collaboratively with Capitol Hill leaders and is driven by "letting the best ideas win."
"People are confusing national broadband goals generally with the very specific goals of broadband in the economic recovery package," he told the Congressional Internet Caucus's State of the Net conference. "It misses the different problem sets we're solving for." Levin, who refused to take questions from reporters after his speech, is on leave from his position as managing director of the investment firm Stifel Nicolaus and he previously served as chief of staff for former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. Hundt is another key Obama backer.
Internet telephony and video service Skype has experienced a surge in worldwide subscribers and plenty of publicity since its launch five years ago but one of the biggest weapons in its PR arsenal recently has been Oprah Winfrey. The company's CEO Josh Silverman told the Congressional Internet Caucus's State of the Net conference on Wednesday that the talk show queen is passionate about his product and uses Skype regularly on her television program.
Winfrey uses the software's computer-based video calling capability to bring viewers and guests onto her show remotely. In the past, she would have had to spend money and resources on a satellite feed, he said during an on-stage lunchtime chat with Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who co-chairs the caucus with Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. Silverman also noted that many local news outlets used Skype, which was acquired by Internet auction giant eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, at the Democratic and Republican national conventions last summer.
Silverman, whose company's main issue on Capitol Hill is network neutrality, has not been impacted much by the global economic downturn. "Our user metrics are growing quickly -- faster now than a year ago," he said. Skype has more than 370 million registered users globally and is used in almost every country on Earth. Additionally, users have made 100 billion minutes worth of free Skype-to-Skype calls, according to the company's Web site.
A Cabinet-level office that has been a leader in embracing new communications technologies has not put up a Facebook or MySpace profile in part because of the difficulty it would have in attempting to keep internal records of everything that might take place on such pages. "The federal government requires everything we post online to be archived as a record internally," said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
While the agency has been able to set up an archiving system for its official blog posts and messages on Twitter, a microblogging site, it has found it much more difficult to meet the records requirement for other online technologies. "How do you keep records of status updates, photos and correspondence on Facebook internally?" Lemaitre asked. "Maybe in the next administration we can figure out a way to do that."
President-elect Barack Obama has made online transparency and citizen participation priorities for his administration. But balancing the quest to use new technologies with the need to preserve information will pose a challenge to the new administration, as evidenced by the continuing struggle to preserve the electronic records of the Bush White House.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has had a video blog since the fall of 2008 but as of Monday he has opened his blog up for commentary, according to Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti. His blog had over 3,500 registered users on Tuesday -- but they can be denied access if they use the site for commercial or advertising purposes or use bad words that promote discrimination or hatred. Comments, whose authors must include a screen name as well as their age, education, e-mail and country or region where they live, are edited before being published, the news service reported.
Medvedev had 603 comments on his blog on Thursday evening and 132 in line to be edited. There are 10 employees who handle the traffic on the president's Web site and some of the more interesting comments may be answered by the president himself. The news service notes that Medvedev has promoted the use of computers in Russian schools and he personally has three computer screens on his office desk. In 2008 The Guardian reported that Medvedev told government officials they should either learn how to use a computer or look for new jobs. The publication also reported that Medvedev would like to see increased Internet penetration in Russia and greater government use of the Internet to promote transparency.
America's longstanding dominance of new U.S. patents may be slipping but the economic downturn has not stemmed the overall flow of patent activity, according to a compilation of the world's top-ranked U.S.-patent companies released Wednesday from IFI Patent Intelligence. The analysis shows the Patent and Trademark Office issued 157,774 utility patents in 2008, up slightly over 157,284 in 2007.
IBM still tops the list and is ahead by a relatively wide margin but "the scales of patent-quantity supremacy may be shifting away from corporate America in favor of companies overseas, especially to those in Asia," the firm said. IBM set a new all-time record of 4,186 patents, up 33 percent over 2007. Samsung was in second place with 3,515, up 29 percent; followed by Canon at number three, with 2,114. Microsoft ranked fourth with 2,030, up 24 percent over the prior year. Other notable companies include Intel, Broadcom, Cisco, Hon Hai of Taiwan, Fujifilm and LG Philips LCD.
"American companies garnered a minority share of the total number of corporate U.S. patents last year, it's important not to confuse quantity with quality," IFI's Darlene Slaughter said in a press release. "Many of the world's largest companies are placing a higher priority on protecting their intellectual property. Securing patents may be even more important in a down economy, since it gives patent-holders an edge over their competitors." She noted that many of the patents granted in 2008 were applied for in 2005 and 2006, so the economy had little, if any, effect on approvals.
An Internet safety task force made up of state attorneys general offices, academics, nonprofits and high-tech and telecommunications giants -- who had been under pressure from Congress to enhance online child protection capabilities -- capped off a year's worth of work Tuesday by releasing its final report. The 278-page document, which was shared with 52 attorneys general in December, makes a number of recommendations to the Internet community and parents.
The key takeaway from the group, which had representation from big names like America Online, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo: Attorneys general should not "endorse any one technology or set of technologies to protect minors online." State officials should continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders "to help enhance safety for minors online and reach out to some -- like those involved in mental health and social services -- who are not currently involved in helping find solutions to protect minors online."
According to the report, members of the Internet community, including social network sites, should continue to develop and incorporate a range of technologies as part of their strategy to protect minors from harm online. While they should consult with experts, technologists and law enforcement, they should not overly rely upon any single technology or group of technologies as the primary solution to protecting minors.
Two prominent business executives' names are being circulated among Washington insiders as potential nominees for Commerce secretary just a week after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson -- President-elect Barack Obama's first choice -- withdrew his name, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state government. Several high-tech industry officials and congressional aides say John Thompson, chairman and CEO of computer security and systems management firm Symantec, and former Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons, are two of the top contenders for the job. A spokesman for Obama's transition team declined to comment.
Thompson announced in November he would retire this spring, and a source confirmed that Thompson has been talking with Obama's transition team. Thompson was spotted on Capitol Hill last week, presumably for meetings with key lawmakers about the Commerce job and Symantec's legislative agenda under its incoming CEO, Enrique Salem, officials said. He is no stranger to Washington, having served on President Bush's National Infrastructure Advisory Committee -- a panel that focused on protecting U.S. national security and economic critical infrastructures. His name had been floated as a contender for the federal government's first-ever chief technology officer.
Parsons, who some sources said is already being vetted by the transition team, became Time Warner chairman in 2003, served as its CEO from May 2002 to December 2007 and stepped down from the board last month. Parsons serves on Obama's economic advisory panel but is also on Citigroup's board. He is said to be a leading candidate to become chairman of the embattled financial giant -- a factor that could impact his Commerce candidacy. Earlier in his career, Parsons worked as counsel for New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and followed him to Washington when he became vice president. He also worked as a senior White House aide under former President Gerald Ford.
The Future of Privacy Forum on Tuesday recommended that President-elect Barack Obama appoint a chief privacy officer to promote fair information practices in the public and private sector and ensure that interactive tools used by government are transparent to citizens. Obama has already expressed interest in naming a chief technology officer within the White House. The recently launched group, which is backed by AT&T, also called for a standard definition of "personal information" and said the FTC should be given more technology and research resources as well as enhanced criminal law enforcement support.
The recommendations follow a December letter to Obama by 30 privacy, consumer and civil liberties groups that stressed the importance of protecting privacy in his administration. Obama has stated support for strengthening of privacy protection by harnessing the power of technology to hold government and businesses accountable for violations of personal privacy. The coalition said in the letter that there "is a clear need to address the spiraling problems of identity theft, security breaches, and the commercialization of personal information."
"We are in an era where the personal use of data brings opportunities for advancements that can improve millions of lives, but the misuse of data can also negatively impact millions of citizens," FPF co-chair Christopher Wolf said in a release. "Traditionally, government privacy protections were intended to limit the collection of data by government about its citizens. In today's web 2.0 environment, citizens expect to interact electronically by exchanging information with government leaders and agencies," added co-chair Jules Polonetsky. "Charting the appropriate user controls around this data is critical."
On Inauguration Eve, progressive grassroots organization MoveOn.org; the Service Employees International Union; actresses Rosario Dawson and Heather Graham; and R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe will host an invitation-only soiree in honor of Manifest Hope: DC, an art exhibit celebrating the swearing in of President-elect Barack Obama. The event will feature performances by Rolling Stone's 2008 "Artist to Watch" Santogold; Hip Hop Hall of Fame artists De La Soul; and 2009 Grammy nominee Moby, who will DJ after the live set. Comedian Sarah Silverman and others are set to attend, officials said.
The Manifest Hope: DC art gallery, which features an array of the nation's most talented visual artists under one roof to mark the inauguration, will be open Jan.17-19. The project's goal is to encourage artists and activists to maintain the momentum from the presidential campaign and "bring real reform in three key areas: healthcare, worker's rights, and the green economy." On Jan. 19, Shepard Fairey's iconic "Hope" image will be on display at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. It will be the first portrait of Obama to be hosted at the gallery. For more information on the gallery, click here.
An industry group representing the interests of major high-tech and media companies in the patent reform battle on Capitol Hill lauded a report released Monday by the Center for American Progress that called for legislative solutions to enable the patent system to promote, rather than inhibit, innovation and economic recovery. "We applaud CAP for recognizing that current patent law standards governing assessment of damages and the locations where suits may be filed are obstacles to innovation that must be reformed," the Coalition for Patent Fairness said in a statement.
Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman also lauded the paper, saying that he was "pleased that another important, influential organization... has joined a growing list of advocates calling for patent reform." Key critics of legislation that advanced in the House and Senate in the 110th Congress include the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as well as independent inventors and small firms whose business models depend largely on patent licensing. For more on the CAP report, read CongressDaily's coverage here (subscription required).
About one in four stalking victims in the United States reported some form of cyber-stalking such as e-mail (83 percent) or instant messaging (35 percent), according to a Justice Department report released Monday. The Bureau of Justice Statistics findings, based on the largest data collection of such behavior to date, also showed that electronic monitoring was used to stalk one in 13 victims and video or digital cameras were equally likely as listening devices or bugs to be used to electronically monitor victims (46 percent and 42 percent). Global positioning system technology comprised about a tenth of the electronic monitoring of stalking victims, officials said.
Overall, an estimated 3.4 million people identified themselves as victims of stalking during a 12-month period in 2005 and 2006. About half of them experienced at least one unwanted contact per week from the offender and 11 percent had been stalked for five or more years. The most common types of stalking behaviors were receiving unwanted phone calls from the offender (66 percent), receiving unsolicited letters or e-mail (31 percent), or having rumors spread about them (36 percent). Nearly 75 percent of victims knew their offender in some capacity, and about one-tenth were stalked by a stranger. Read the DOJ report here.
If Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan is confirmed as President-elect Barack Obama's Solicitor General, she will have the opportunity early in her tenure to weigh in on a major copyright case pending before the Supreme Court. On Monday, the court asked for the views of the federal government's top litigator on new technology for downloading cable television programs but did not specify a timeline for the advice. With eight days left in President's Bush term, the duty will most likely fall to the new administration.
The case in question -- Cable News Network, et al., v. CSC Holdings - was originally brought by several audio-visual content creators against Cablevision, which has developed a service used to make numerous copies of copyrighted programming and re-transmit them to customers without licensing that delivery from copyright owners. A lower court found the service to be a violation of copyright law but an appeals court overturned that decision. An array of copyright holders offered briefs on the matter.
The SCOTUS Blog called the case "a modern sequel to the breakthrough for consumers that originated in 1976 when Sony Corp. introduced Betamax, allowing users to use time-shifting devices to record TV programs for later viewing." The Supreme Court, in Sony v. Universal City Studios in 1984, ruled that consumer time-shifting does not infringe copyright in the programs. Since then, there have been two generations of successor technology. The latest of those is at issue in the new case, the blog stated.
A trade group representing American songwriters told President-elect Barack Obama's transition team last week that network neutrality as defined in recent debates on Capitol Hill "is a principle with surface appeal" that proposes that Internet service providers should not interfere with or regulate traffic on their own networks. But the practical result of such a barrier would be more piracy -- a problem that has been devastating for musicians, the Songwriters Guild of America said in a briefing document.
The solution lies not with net neutrality proposals but in an emerging common ground between creators and some ISPs, SGA said. The group believes ISPs must be allowed the flexibility to manage traffic on their networks in a manner that: (1) permits, protects and encourages legitimate online commerce; (2) does not discriminate among providers of legitimate content; (3) deters illegitimate conduct such as music piracy; and (4) provides the ISPs with sufficient incentive to continue to build and expand their networks.
Net neutrality proposals as now structured could prevent forward-looking ISPs from taking such actions, SGA said. Recent debates over the topic have positioned ISPs in opposition to the consumer and have completely ignored creators' rights, the group said. SGA President Rick Carnes has testified repeatedly before Congress and the FCC against "an absolute policy of net neutrality that would simply enshrine the current mass looting of the works ofsongwriters and music copyright owners."
The Office of National Drug Control Policy is embracing technology one step at a time. It announced on its blog last week that it has begun using Twitter, a near real-time short messaging service. "ONDCP will use the service to post frequent updates on upcoming drug policy-related announcements, interesting policy-related news links, and other information reflecting Federal anti-drug priorities and initiatives," the blog entry said. "This effort will enable ONDCP to reach more Americans online and illustrates how public institutions can adapt to meet the rapidly changing nature of today's communications environment."
The use of Twitter microblogging technology will "allow ONDCP to expand its ability to share accurate drug information and help more Americans understand how their government is working with communities to reduce drug use," the post continued. In 2005, ONDCP launched the first blog for a cabinet-level agency. In July 2008, the blog received over 90,000 page views and over 300,000 hits. ONDCP also claims to be the first federal agency to have used video-sharing Web site YouTube.com. -- Winter Casey
Popular video-sharing site YouTube.com in conjunction with the House and Senate on Monday launched two new platforms aimed at helping increase citizens' access to members' YouTube channels: The Senate Hub and the House Hub. Steve Grove, head of YouTube's news and politics offerings, said in a blog post that the new services "have the potential to make Congress more transparent and accessible than ever before -- but only if citizens continue to connect and engage with their government." Watch a special message from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell above.
The Senate Rules Committee and House Administration Committee each adopted changes to their chambers' Internet usage regulations last year to clarify the circumstances under which members are allowed to place content on external Web sites. The process was a somewhat benign one in the Senate but was hotly debated in the House. In July, Boehner and Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., who chairs the Commission on Mailing Standards, traded blows over proposals that were under consideration. Read CongressDaily's coverage of that debate and here.
The Sunlight Foundation's open source development team is offering $15,000 to the best "mash up" applications based on data from the government transparency watchdog and its partners that makes Congress more accountable, interactive and transparent. The Apps for America contest is also offering one second place award of $5,000, four third place awards of $1,000 each and 10 honorable mentions at $100 each, the organization said Monday. Submissions are due March 31 and winners should be announced on April 7.
Entries must be applications that use a host of government information APIs or datasets, including the Sunlight Labs API, OpenSecrets.org API, the FollowtheMoney.org API, the Capitol Words API and other Sunlight APIs and datasets. Apps for America entries will be judged by iStrategyLabs CEO Peter Corbett; EveryBlock founder Adrian Holovaty; technology journalist Xeni Jardin; Aaron Swartz, director of Watchdog.net; and Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs. The group received more than a dozen entries to its first mash-up contest in 2007.
A key Senate proponent for U.S. intellectual property protection confirmed Monday his plans to not seek re-election in 2010. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, issued a statement in advance of an already scheduled afternoon news conference saying that "after prayerful consideration and much thought, my wife Janet and I have decided that I will not seek a third term." "These next two years in office, for me, will be the most important years that I have served in my entire political career," Voinovich said. "I must devote my full time, energy and focus to the job I was elected to do, the job in front of me."
Early in the 110th Congress, Voinovich partnered with Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., to introduce an IP enforcement bill -- portions of which were combined with a multifaceted proposal by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Arlen Specter. In October, President Bush signed the Leahy measure, which toughened civil and criminal laws against counterfeiting and piracy, provided enhanced IP enforcement and prosecutorial resources, and improved IP coordination within the executive branch. Voinovich becomes the fourth Republican Senate incumbent to decide to step down in 2010. More details on Voinovich's decision and the field of likely candidates to replace him will be available in CongressDaily's PM edition.
Cable giant Comcast and social networking site MySpace.com are pairing up with
the left-leaning news and opinion Web site HuffingtonPost.com next week to "celebrate change in Washington, the rise of new media, and a renewed commitment to service and the environment." They are hosting an invitation-only Inauguration Eve party at the Newseum with a handful of others. Hip-hop star Will.i.am, who made headlines during the campaign season for his "Yes We Can" YouTube video in support of now President-elect Barack Obama, is slated to perform.
Other hosts and sponsors include the AARP; Global Green USA, which is focused on stemming global climate change through green building; wind turbine manufacturer Vestas; the Service Nation campaign; clothing designer Kenneth Cole; the Musk Foundation -- which provides grants for research in the fields of renewable energy, space exploration, pediatrics, and science and engineering education -- and social change grant-maker Atlantic Philanthropies. For more inauguration party coverage, click here, here and here.
My NationalJournal.com colleague Theresa Poulson has produced this timely Web video about the oft discussed high-tech prowess of President-elect Barack Obama. Take a look.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., will chair a hearing of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Thursday that will focus on the development of a nationwide system of electronic medical records. HELP Chairman Edward Kennedy and ranking member Michael Enzi sponsored health IT legislation in the 110th Congress but cost and privacy concerns stalled the bill and it never reached the floor. Key Senate staffers have been discussing how such language might be incorporated into a forthcoming economic stimulus package. This is the first in a series of hearings planned by Mikulski who was tapped by Kennedy to lead a Senate work group on improving health care quality.
Witnesses include Jack Cochran, executive director of the Permanente Federation; National Quality Forum President Janet Corrigan; Government Accounting Office IT Director Valerie Melvin; Microsoft Health Solutions Vice President Peter Neupert; and the Health Leadership Council's Mary Grealey. In related news, Booz Allen Hamilton will hold a health IT briefing Monday on a study that calls for "a consumer-centered, quality healthcare system." Speakers include Booz Allen officials and representatives from the Federation of American Hospitals, American Medical Informatics Association and Vanderbilt University.
Delaying the nation's Feb. 17 switchover from analog to digital television would lead to considerable consumer confusion and additional costs for the U.S. government and the private sector, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin warned during an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Saturday. Earlier this week President-elect Barack Obama proposed pushing back the deadline and it was announced that the federal program to help subsidize the cost of converter boxes for analog TV sets had run out of money. "Ultimately this is up to Congress to decide," Martin told Tech Daily Dose. "But something needs to be done to make sure coupons [for converter boxes] are issued again." he said.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller issued a statement Thursday saying Obama's team "deserves time to bring to order what has been an appallingly mismanaged process by the Bush administration" and he would support delaying the date "unit we can do it right." Ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, however, said it was too early to call for a delay and members should focus on the coupon shortage. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a senior member of the House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, said moving the date would involve significant logistical challenges but Congress should immediately consider the feasibility of Obama's proposal.
Technology can be used to drastically transform economies in emerging countries, Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett and Cisco Systems Chairman John Chambers told a crowd of thousands at the Consumer Electronics Show on Friday. During his keynote, Barrett announced the launch of the Small Things Challenge -- a campaign based on the premise that every small action can make a big difference. He bolstered his message with some star power: Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine (pictured) and Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz -- both of whom support the Intel-sponsored effort. Each spoke on stage about the importance of nurturing the global community.
"Technology can be used in tremendous ways to impact people's lives on the ground," Barrett said. "There are huge opportunities today and real examples of how technology is changing the lives of people." Technology accessibility, connectivity and content are "absolutely key," but education is potentially the most powerful component, he said. "Ultimately, economies are competitive if they have smart people who generate smart ideas," Barrett said. The event also featured a panel discussion with Seven Fund cofounder Michael Fairbanks; Grameen Solutions CEO Kazi Islam; inventor William Kamkwamba; and Microsoft's Kentaro Toyama.
The Republican Steering Committee on Friday approved adding Reps. Ted Poe of Texas, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, Tom Rooney of Florida and Gregg Harper of Mississippi to the House Judiciary Committee. The panel lost three GOP members in November when Reps. Tom Feeneyand Ric Keller of Florida and Steve Chabot of Ohio were defeated by Democratic challengers.
Ranking member Lamar Smith issued a statement saying there is "much work to be done in the year ahead," including strengthening national security by reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act, protecting children from sexual predators by funding the Adam Walsh Act and continuing to battle illegal immigration through increased enforcement. He said the new members' expertise will "help promote a strong agenda" in the Judiciary Committee.
It's been musical chairs in the government affairs office of The Information Technology Industry Council. Josh Ackil, the lead Democratic lobbyist, left ITI more than a year ago to start his own lobbying shop, the Franklin Square Group. Others to leave ITI in the past year include Jonathan Hoganson and Brian Peters. Now Kara Calvert, a Republican, is the latest ITI lobbyist to jump ship. She has joined Ackil at Franklin Square.
Long time Republican lobbyist Ralph Hellmann, ITI's senior vice president of government relations, says he is "in the process of interviewing a lot of great candidates" and plans to fill the positions formerly held by Hoganson and Calvert and to bring his staff up to five full time lobbyists. Hellmann views the turnover "as a positive development," he says, because "we have kind of become a great proving ground for good lobbyists who go on to our companies. In the end the companies and some of these [lobbying] firms just have more money and more resources and that is something that is hard to compete with from an association perspective."
Hellmann notes that ITI has "lost 12 lobbyists over the past 5 or 6 years but to our member companies and they are great because when they get to their companies they are big advocates of ITI and of the broader tech agenda." The result is, ITI just has a "bigger family," says Hellmann. "Franklin Square is almost like an adjunct office of ITI," Hellman adds jokingly. -- Winter Casey
Once President-elect Barack Obama announces the nation's first chief technology officer, the White House tech guru will have no shortage of recommendations from the private sector on how to spend his time and energy. Intel Corporation CTO Justin Rattner, for one, plans on sending the chosen one a list of suggestions -- with a little help from his friends. Attendees who visited the computer chip manufacturer's mega-booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week were invited to share their thoughts via an online questionnaire -- and enter to win a an ultra-portable "netbook" computer. An Intel official said hundreds of people completed the survey on the first day of CES alone.
Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro hilariously volunteered to be the guinea pig for YooStar, an interactive entertainment publisher whose product debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. The system allows users to star in their favorite movie scenes with the original actors and share their performances online. The start-up has secured hundreds of movies from Paramount, Universal, MGM and Lions Gate for its digital library. Watch the video above to see what YooStar can do. In a speech on Thursday, Shapiro said the small firm "epitomizes what CES is about -- innovation, content, technology and enhancing life."
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab urged President-elect Barack Obama's administration Thursday to continue the momentum on an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which the United States and several trading partners have been working on for more than a year. Since the deal involves the rapidly evolving high-tech and content industries, time is of the essence, she told CongressDaily at the Consumer Electronics Show. "Unless we find a way to protect intellectual property we're going to continue to hemorrhage billions of dollars worth of income and jobs," she said. Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition.
The tech and telecom policy community was abuzz Thursday (in D.C. and at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas) over the news that Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., will take over the Energy and Commerce Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., will head the panel's Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee. The lawmakers (both known for their tech prowess) basically swapped seats.
Some reactions from my email inbox:
National Cable and Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow said his group looks forward to working with Boucher "as he pursues the important goals of expanding broadband deployment and adoption and completing a successful DTV transition."
U.S. Telecom Association President Walter McCormick said Boucher's "vast experience with communication issues, in particular those affecting rural America, will serve him well in his new role." "Broadband investment can make an essential contribution to our nation--from job creation to economic development to advancing health care, education, the environment and other key priorities," he said.
One of the most eagerly anticipated announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show this week was the unveiling of smart phone manufacturer Palm's new operating system. The company is scrambling to compete with Apple's iPhone and the Blackberry. The high-tech firm touted its new handheld device called "Pre" at a swanky, dimly lit lounge tucked away in a corner of the bustling Las Vegas Convention Center. The invitation-only space featured demos of the product, a DJ, a coffee bar, specialty cocktails and light fare.
The Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday hosted a panel that I would have definitely covered had I not been moderating the line up of tech and telecom policy superstars. "Washington Update: The Times They Are A Changin'" featured NetCoalition Executive Director Markham Erickson; Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute; Center for Democracy and Technology President Leslie Harris; Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn; and National Association of Broadcasters President David Rehr (not pictured). If you weren't there, you should have been. Panelists covered lots of ground -- including a discussion about what role President-elect Barack Obama's chief technology officer will play and how tech issues will fare in the 111th Congress.
Movie star Tom Hanks tries out some new high-tech glasses alongside Sony Corporation CEO Howard Stringer at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday. The effervescent Hanks also poked fun at Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro''s on-stage pacing and somewhat monotone delivery during his State of the Industry speech. "What a wake-up, cup of coffee Gary is!" Hanks laughed.
From CongressDaily's AM Edition:
President-elect Barack Obama will have a greater interest in and appreciation for the technology industry than has been the norm in the Bush administration, a panel of public policy experts agreed Wednesday. Obama's use of the Internet during the campaign helped him mobilize supporters and win the election -- and that momentum has continued through his transition team's multifaceted, content-rich Change.gov Web site. His plan to name the federal government's first chief technology officer -- a high-level White House staffer whose identity and job description has not been disclosed but could come to light this week -- is the most significant indicator of the importance Obama places on using technology to improve the business of government, they said. Read the full story here (subscription required).
President-elect Barack Obama is expected to draw an impressive crowd for what is being touted as a major economic speech at George Mason University on Thursday -- and at least one Washington high-tech industry leader was among the guests invited by the transition team. Dean Garfield, the Information Technology Industry Council's recently named president, will be in the audience, sources told Tech Daily Dose. Garfield, who replaced longtime chief Rhett Dawson late last year, is best known for helping to sink illegal Internet file-sharing operations Grokster and Kazaa. Before joining ITI, which represents Apple, Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other major high-tech companies, he was chief strategic officer for the Motion Picture Association of America.
During his speech, Obama will make the case for urgent action on an American recovery and reinvestment plan that will save or create over three million jobs while investing in priorities like healthcare, energy, and education -- all of which he believes are necessary to keep the country strong and competitive in the 21st century. Additionally, Obama will call for "an open and honest discussion" about the recovery plan and will urge Congress to move quickly, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks released by the transition team. Like many groups inside the Beltway, ITI submitted a handful of recommendations for the new administration. That document can be found here.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addressed the deepening U.S. economic crisis early and directly in his first-ever Consumer Electronics Show keynote in Las Vegas on Wednesday evening. Ballmer took over the top spot at the company -- and the opening night stage at the annual high-tech extravaganza -- when founder Bill Gates decided to dedicate the bulk of his time to philanthropy. His was an upbeat message for a crowd of roughly 4,000 industry insiders, analysts and media: "Even at a time when we may be tempted to temper our optimism and scale back our expectations... our digital lives will only continue to get richer."
The power of ideas and innovation will drive the country forward regardless of the economic environment, Ballmer said. "When people are struggling to make every dollar count... the choice that offers the most power, the most value for the money is the PC," he added. Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro, who introduced Ballmer, said that after a proliferation of "tough news," he was ready for some optimism and innovation. Microsoft delivered. Ballmer announced the beta availability of the Windows 7 operating system and partnerships with computer manufacturer Dell, social networking site Facebook and Verizon Wireless.
Ballmer's speech was not all somber. He joked that a number of people sent him messages before his big address, including Gates, who told him to make sure he was at CES, "not that other convention in Las Vegas" (the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo). He added that outgoing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang sent him a message saying: "Why do you keep ignoring my friend requests on Facebook?" His keynote also featured a performance by Tripod, an Australian musical comedy act who sang about an epic struggle between playing a videogame and spending quality time with a woman.
More photos...
Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg received a lifetime achievement award Wednesday evening at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards. Unfortunately, the event occurred at the same time as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote speech to launch the Consumer Electronics Show -- so here's a photo of the shiny trophies. Read more about the ceremony here.
The trade group that represents the adult entertainment industry is expanding its mission in 2009. The Free Speech Coalition said it will remain the first line of legal defense against what it believes is "burdensome anti-adult legislation and litigation" but will also move forward with projects to address issues that affect members, including content piracy, workplace safety and better business practices. The changes will better position the industry "in a challenging and ever-changing business environment," FSC Executive Director Diane Duke said in a press release. Her group is in Las Vegas this week -- but not for the Consumer Electronics Show. The AVN Adult Entertainment Expo takes place at the same time, in some of the same venues around Sin City.
"The industry is evolving so that creates an opportunity for the FSC to expand its focus," FSC Membership Director Joanne Cachapero said. "The time is right to update the image and focus so that people in the industry have a better understanding of what the FSC is all about, as well as the importance of having an industry trade association." The coalition is overhauling its Web site and a page on popular social networking site Facebook. Both are scheduled to go live at the end of January. Meanwhile, CNN reported Wednesday that Hustler magazine's Larry Flynt and Joe Francis (the brains behind Girls Gone Wild videos) will lobby for a $5 billion economic bailout for the adult industry.
Exhibitors and organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday were busy setting up for a projected 130,000 attendees who will visit the Las Vegas Convention Center over the next few days. The high-tech extravaganza kicks off with an evening keynote by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Some on-site photos:
"Joe The Plumber," the Ohio man who became a household name during the presidential campaign is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site PJTV.com -- an offshoot of blogger network Pajamas Media, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. The Toledo area resident whose name is actually Samuel Wurzelbacher said he will spend 10 days covering the fighting there. He told WNWO-TV that he wants to let Israel's "'Average Joes' share their story."
Wurzelbacher gained attention during the final weeks of the campaign when he asked now President-elect Barack Obama about his tax plan. He then joined Republican John McCain on the campaign trail. Wurzelbacher has been keeping busy since Election Day. In November, he started working to educate people about the nationwide conversion to digital television coming this February and founded a watchdog group called Secure Our Dream. He is also promoting his book: "Joe the Plumber - Fighting for the American Dream," which was co-written by novelist Thomas Tabback.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Tuesday introduced a pair of data security bills -- one that would require businesses to notify consumers in the event of a security breach and another, co-sponsored by Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, would ban the sale or display of an individual's Social Security number without his or her consent. The legislation, which she also offered in the 110th Congress, was part of a package of "first day" bills she sponsored as members returned to Capitol Hill, according to a release.
Specifically, her breach bill would require a federal agency or business entity to quickly notify an individual of a security breach involving personal data and would require notice to the Secret Service if records of more than 10,000 individuals are obtained or if the database breached contains more than a million entries, is owned by the federal government, or involves national security or law enforcement. The Social Security measure would prohibit federal, state and local governments from displaying the numbers on records posted online or from printing them on government checks. It would also place limits on when businesses can ask customers for their Social Security numbers.
Chart-topping rapper Soulja Boy Tell'Em explained Wednesday at Billboard's Digital Music Live event, which is affiliated with the Consumer Electronics Show, how the Internet helped launch and sustain his successful career. The Grammy-nominated musician's song "Crank That" became a MySpace sensation and an instructional dance video to accompany the track was a hit on YouTube. Pictured: Michael Crooms (a.k.a. Mr. Collipark), Soulja Boy and Billboard's Bill Werde
From CongressDaily's AM Edition:
Two high-profile trade groups that represent music industry interests on Capitol Hill are joining forces in a no-holds-barred battle against the National Association of Broadcasters as the 111th Congress begins. The Recording Artists' Coalition, which gained attention for its superstar supporters like Christina Aguilera, Don Henley and Madonna, is being swallowed by the Recording Academy, the group best known for producing the annual Grammy Awards and Grammys on the Hill educational program, officials told CongressDaily.
A bill sponsored last year by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers passed a key subcommittee and a companion measure was introduced by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy. Broadcasters called the proposal "a tax on local radio" and mounted a campaign in opposition. A resolution by Texas Reps. Gene Green, a Democrat, and Republican Mike Conaway, garnered over 200 co-sponsors. Read the full story in CongressDaily (subscription required).
Tech Daily Dose Extra: Daryl Friedman, the Recording Academy's top lobbyist, said there is plenty more on his group's agenda on Capitol Hill. A tax bill that passed years ago in the wake of the Enron scandal but took effect this year to limit a loophole in executive compensation could negatively impact musicians who get advanced payment for their work, he said. It is a common practice in the music business to pay a portion of an artist's fee before the end of a contract. The sporting industry is also worried about the tax law change and will likely team up with Friedman's group to push for a legislative correction.
Despite rumors swirling in the blogosphere about Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas leaving the agency before the end of the Bush administration, a spokeswoman for his office says he is staying put until Jan. 20, the day that President-elect Barack Obama takes the reigns. The PTO is, however, having a reception next week where employees will have an opportunity to say goodbye to Dudas.
A notice that went out in the PTO's employee newsletter read:
"Director Dudas will be leaving the USPTO in mid-January. The Office of the Under Secretary and Director is hosting a farewell event from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday, January 12, 2009, in the South Madison Auditorium, on the concourse level of the Madison building. It is an opportunity for Director Dudas to thank you for making his time at the USPTO so rewarding. If you would like to say farewell to Director Dudas in person, please feel free to stop by the auditorium on Monday afternoon."
Amid a growing sea of phishers, spammers and other Internet-based crooks, the most daunting cyber challenge faced by law enforcement agencies is identifying how best to secure the U.S. national high-tech infrastructure writ large, Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip told the International Conference on Cyber Security this week in New York City, which was organized by the FBI and Fordham University. "We must secure our cyber infrastructure in a manner that addresses threats from foreign armies, adversary intelligence services, criminals, and terrorists. It's hard to exaggerate how important this is or how hard it is to accomplish fully," he said in remarks released Wednesday. "We've made real progress in this area, but we all know there's a lot to do."
Filip outlined some successes like an FBI center in Pennsylvania that brings together private parties and government investigators together to work on cyber breaches and threats, but said that effort and others are in their early stages. The Justice Department and FBI are also ramping up collaborations with other agencies to address cyber espionage and cyber terrorism threats. That work is done at places like the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the National Counterterrorism Center.
In the coming years, those who safeguard the IT space will encounter the same kinds of spies, criminals, terrorists, and armies -- "but we're now living in a world where technology moves much faster than the government typically moves, and where our adversaries are anxious to exploit every vulnerability that technological change can offer," Filip warned. For that reason, the government's response must be nimble and effective at working with the private sector, he said. He also mentioned President-elect Barack Obama's interest in creating a White House position to coordinate cyber policy across agencies but would not offer an opinion on the wisdom of that model.
"Any city in the world would give their right arm to have 130,000 people come for a convention like this," Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said in a Tuesday interview with Tech Daily Dose, reflecting on the impact of the annual Consumer Electronics Show on his city's economy. He acknowledged that attendance for this year's show is lower than in the past but said the 300 companies (of about 2,700) exhibiting for the first time at the high-tech exposition is a sign that the industry and multi-day mega-meeting remain healthy. But Goodman is concerned about the local and national economy and stressed the importance of Congress passing a "Main Street stimulus package." Such a proposal was the focus of a U.S. Conference of Mayors teleconference earlier in the day, he said. "Our city has been very aggressive in capital improvement projects and we're not putting anything on hold," Goodman said. He cited the development of a Frank Gehry-designed brain research institute and a massive new performing arts center as proof that "it's full steam ahead."
--Special thanks to CEA's Meghan Henning and Sony's Gregg Nole
Popular game show "Jeopardy!" will mark its 25th anniversary by unveiling a state-of-the-art 18,000 square foot set at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. The legendary program's new home can accommodate 600 audience members and features Sony's latest high definition, low energy consumption 42-inch LCD displays. The show is hosted by Alex Trebek and produced by Sony Pictures Television. While at CES, the studio will shoot 10 Tournament of Champions episodes and an additional single installment of "Celebrity Jeopardy!" featuring Elizabeth Perkins and Tom Bergeron, according to a release. The HD shows will air in March. Some of us got a sneak peek at the new set Tuesday and it's quite a stunner.
"Jeopardy" has won 28 Emmy awards since its debut in 1984 and was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most awards won by a TV game show. Nearly 39 million viewers tune in each week making the series the #1-rated quiz show in syndication. Sony Pictures Television will also demo its new multiplayer mobile game, "Jeopardy! Live" at CES. The game allows users to play along live via cell phone with real-life contestants while the show airs on broadcast television. The game will also give players at home or on the go the chance to create communities where they can compete against each other. CES attendees are invited to play along at demonstrations in the Sony booth, which is adjacent to the new game show set.
From CongressDaily's PM edition:
The Consumer Electronics Show is bracing for a smaller turnout this week as a result of the economic downturn -- and the newly elected lawmaker representing the city's suburbs is worried the shift indicates more gloom for the state's fragile economy. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said the high-tech convention, often billed as one of the world's largest expositions, is among the most important conventions in town. "Our bread and butter is conventions, so when attendance drops, it really hurts," Titus told CongressDaily Monday. This year's pageant of gadgets, gizmos and government-focused dialogue, which begins Wednesday with a keynote by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, is expected to draw 130,000 people. That's down from the 141,150 who attended in 2008, according to projections from the Consumer Electronics Association, which puts on the event. Read the story at CongressDaily (subscription required).
National Public Radio will introduce captioned, braille, and blackboard radios as well as a new radio reading service receiver to high-tech manufacturers at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in hopes of securing partnerships with companies to develop receivers that would serve millions of deaf, hard of hearing and blind people worldwide and people who are located in remote communities needing access to schools. The technologies' debut comes after years of research by NPR Labs, America's only not-for-profit broadcast technology R&D center. NPR plans to award funds for prototyping that would bring the radios into production and into consumers' hands within two to five years.
Also at CES, which kicks off Wednesday evening, NPR -- along with Apple, Google, Ibiquity and others -- will receive a Vision Free Award, presented by soul singer Stevie Wonder for their work in accessible digital radio and broadcast services for the sensory impaired. Wonder will host the Vision Free Awards reception on Friday. "There are 650 million people worldwide who are sensory impaired and whose quality of lives could be greatly improved by use of new digital radio technologies," NPR Chief Technology Officer Mike Starling said in a release. The services will "break down sound, sight and location barriers for these underserved populations," he said. For more information, click here.
About 15 minutes before Change.gov posted its latest list of transition donors, the folks at Blist.com got a phone call. It seems President-elect Barack Obama's staff had finished uploading its list of thousands of names and had created a widget to display on their site. Expect more traffic than normal. As Blist staffers arrived Monday morning, they manned e-mail accounts and replied to questions from new users who'd stumbled upon the site, which lets anyone post a database and make it searchable to the public for free. Others kept watch on the servers. "It is certainly a nice spike," said Jon Byrum, senior product manager at Blist. "Our servers have been able to handle it without a problem so far."
Obama's Web team might have newfound power to anoint aspiring technologies just by using them. For Blist -- which is still in beta testing, having launched only last February -- it's hard to imagine a better promotional vehicle. Just in the last day, the site was mentioned by dozens of blogs. Still, the leaders of Change.gov want to avoid appearing to endorse any product and would not comment on why they selected Blist, which has several competitors. The Obama team first contacted Blist a week earlier with questions about whether the Blist system could be revised so users could be warned if they left Change.gov while using the widget's features. The government requires the notice, and the president's team would like to use Blist's service, the company was told. Of course, Blist was happy to oblige.
Government officials, business executives and association leaders who support "technology serving humanity" will celebrate the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20 at the 2009 LINK-live Presidential Inaugural Gala being held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The $1,000 per ticket event -- one of the most wired presidential galas -- will promote the advancements of science, information and communications technologies (ICT) to address workforce development skills, e-government services, healthcare and telemedicine, and research and development of green ICT solutions for energy and environmental challenges.
The gala's steering committee will recognize four individuals for their commitment to science, technology and education in their area of expertise. They include: Secretary of State-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; Nobel laureate physicist Steven Chu, who is Obama's nominee for Energy Secretary; Gen. James Jones, a retired a former Marine Corps commandant who has been tapped by Obama to serve as national security adviser; and Laura Chinchilla, former vice president of Costa Rica. The LINK-live program will be broadcast live on the Internet. The gala is also using Twitter, ScribbleLive, UStream and Flickr.
The event is being hosted by the LINK AMERICAS Foundation (LAF), The Alliance for Public Technology (APT), The Children's Partnership (TCP), Education Development Center (EDC) and the George Lucas Educational Foundation - Edutopia.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., told House leaders Tuesday that few members of Congress have availed themselves of secret briefings meant to educate them about outsiders trying to penetrate lawmakers' computers and steal sensitive information. Despite "repeated assurances" that the House leadership would inform members of Congress about threats to their computer systems and personal electronic devices, members are still at risk of being hacked by foreign and domestic sources, Wolf wrote in a letter [PDF] sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders, which was obtained by National Journal. In September of last year, the Republican and Democratic caucuses held classified briefings for lawmakers about cyber risks, but "the meetings were sparsely attended," Wolf wrote. "I fear that Members are no better informed today than they were before."
Continue reading Hacked Lawmaker Calls For Cyber Briefings .
Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman is preparing to run for California governor in 2010, the Associated Press reported Monday. The Silicon Valley leader who served as an adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., stepped down from the boards of eBay, Procter & Gamble Co. and DreamWorks Animation SKG as of Dec. 31, her spokesman confirmed. He said it was for "personal reasons and time commitments" but would not elaborate.
A person who is knowledgeable about Whitman's political aspirations told the AP that the 52-year-old wants to run for governor and her resignations were "a strong indication" that she wants to clear any commitments that might interfere with a run for political office. She will make the announcement official in four to six weeks, the individual said. Whitman is one of three Republicans who are considered front-runners in the 2010 California gubernatorial race. The others are state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Rep. Tom Campbell. GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cannot run again under the state's term-limits law.
If Whitman were to win the GOP primary, she is likely to face a well-known Democratic opponent in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 13 percentage points, the AP said. Former Gov. Jerry Brown, 70, now the state's attorney general, is thought to be the leading Democratic candidate if he decides to run -- unless Sen. Dianne Feinstein jumps into the race. Read more news about the race here.
One of the nation's leading media and entertainment lawyers -- and a court crusader for the recording industry -- is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for associate attorney general. The announcement about the appointment of Tom Perrelli, currently managing partner of Jenner & Block's Washington, D.C. office and co-chair of the firm's entertainment and new media practice, was made Monday along with picks for several other Justice Department posts. If confirmed, Perrelli will not be new to DOJ headquarters. He served for two years in the late 1990s as counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno and subsequently rose to deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration.
In 2005, Perrelli was named one of the nation's 40 most promising lawyers under 40 by The National Law Journal for exhibiting "extraordinary achievements" in his career. At Jenner & Block, he has represented the recording industry in intellectual property, technology, and anti-piracy litigation. Proceedings have included a host of cases arising under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and a series of copyright royalty proceedings before the Copyright Royalty Board. Perrelli has also represented Democratic voters and elected officials in redistricting litigation arising out of the 2000 Census.
The Computing Technology Industry Association is undergoing some changes with the exit of head lobbyist Roger Cochetti and new CEO Todd Thibodeaux moving in. Thibodeaux, a former senior vice president of industry relations at the Consumer Electronics Association, assumed the role of president and CEO of the group on Sept. 1. Thibodeaux succeeded John Venator who is currently running CompTIA's Educational Foundation. Cochetti is returning to his consulting practice, RJC Associates.
CompTIA spokesman Mike Wendy said Cochetti's position will not be filled for the time being and Chris Katopis, who is director of intellectual property, will take over Cochetti's federal responsibilities. CompTIA remains financially strong thanks to revenue from its IT skills certification programs, Wendy added. The public policy group plans to become more streamlined and focus more on workforce issues, green IT, and small business. CompTIA's federal government affairs team currently includes four other lobbyists: Robert Kramer, Trista Roehl, Ted Bush, and Lamar Whitman -- Winter Casey
China's State Council has given the green light to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to issue third-generation licenses to operators, China Daily reported Monday. Li Yizhong, head of the ministry, said that three permits will be issued in early 2009. The long awaited permits will enable the recipient companies to legally offer Chinese citizens upgraded mobile services.
Authorities have, however, opted to give China Mobile a license to operate services based on China's homegrown TD-SCDMA technology while China Unicom -- the country's second largest wireless carrier -- will get a license to offer services on WCDMA, which is widely used in the European Union. China Telecom will receive a permit for CDMA2000, which is used in the United States. China Daily said the change could influence the competitive landscape of China's mobile market as firms with the established international standard licenses could have a leg up. -- Winter Casey
President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has a reputation for being tech-savvy -- and that extends to its record-keeping and disclosure through Change.gov. In keeping with Obama's pledge to run the most open and transparent transition in history, his staff is voluntarily releasing the names of its donors on a monthly basis through a nascent Web application called Blist. The Seattle-based start-up launched its program in beta form in February and is backed by Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures.
Having buy-in by Obama isn't a bad start for Blist founder Kevin Merrit who previously worked for FrontBridge Technologies and Microsoft. His invention is similar to an online spreadsheet, but users can join tables together, create nested tables, and layer on social networking features that allow users to find data created by others. As of Dec. 15, 2008, $3.8 million had been raised from 53,853 donors, according to the transition team's latest figures. The average donation is $70.62 per donor. Blist has raised $6.5 million in a first round of funding from venture capitalists, according to the VentureBeat blog. Review Obama's donor list here.
The Consumer Electronics Show -- often billed as the world's largest convention and exposition -- kicks off Wednesday in Las Vegas with a keynote by Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. The gathering, which features more than 2,700 exhibits, is a must-attend event for high-tech junkies who want to see the latest, greatest gadgetry -- but there is also plenty of policy talk to be had.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Robert McDowell are slated to speak -- as are Meredith Baker, acting chief of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab. Other big-ticket talks will feature Sony Corporation CEO Howard Stringer, Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally, Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, and Cisco Systems Chairman John Chambers.
While visitors to Las Vegas this week should not expect the Hollywood stars, paparazzi and red carpet that make the Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles so scrumptious, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards is a fitting tribute to innovators as part of the Consumer Electronics Show. The awards were launched 60 years ago to honor developments in broadcast technology and recognize companies, organizations and individuals for breakthroughs that have a significant effect on television engineering.
Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Wednesday evening ceremony. Seidenberg was instrumental in forming Verizon through a number of mergers and acquisitions including Bell Atlantic and NYNEX in 1997; GTE in 2000; and MCI in 2006. He also helped Verizon create what is now Verizon Wireless in 1999 and championed the deployment of the company's high-speed fiber-optic FiOS Internet, telephone, and TV service. Other honorees include DirecTV, Harris Corporation, Hitachi, Intel, Philips, Scripps Networks, Sony Corporation, Tandberg Television, Toshiba, and XOrbit. Read more about the awards here.
Just weeks after being tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be Commerce Secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending probe into a company that has done business with his state government. Richardson issued a statement saying the federal grand jury investigation into a firm, which contributed to his political career and won a sizable state contract, "promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps, even months."
Richardson, who would have led an agency that oversees the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Patent and Trademark Office, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he and his administration have "acted properly in all matters" and the investigation will bear out that fact. However, he concluded the probe would have forced "an untenable delay in the confirmation process." Obama issued a statement calling Richardson "an outstanding public servant" and said it is was a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he removed himself from the running. Read more in CongressDaily (subscription required).
The foundation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects on the Internet achieved its goal of raising more than $6 million to sustain Wikipedia -- one of the world's 10 most-visited Web sites -- officials announced Friday. Over 125,000 donors gave to what they said was the most ambitious and successful in the Wikimedia Foundation's history. The funds will be used to maintain and grow its technical infrastructure, which includes managing global traffic for Wikipedia.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales wrote a thank you letter to supporters saying that the fundraiser "has proven that Wikipedia matters to its users, and that our users strongly support our mission: to bring free knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising." Wales, who has been increasingly active in Washington in recent years (including testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in late 2007), posted a personal appeal online Dec. 23, which resulted in more than 50,000 contributions and closed the gap toward the revenue goal.
Meanwhile, the Valleywag gossip blog reported Saturday that Wales may be out of a job. His seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's board was set to expire Dec. 31. CNet, however, quoted officials saying Wales was sticking around. "Jimmy is a much-valued board member of the Wikimedia Foundation, and I expect he will hold that role permanently: I know of no reason for anyone to speculate otherwise," a spokeswoman said.
President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday reiterated his interest in overhauling the nation's healthcare system "to cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help reduce healthcare costs by billions of dollars each year" through the power of information technology. In his weekly radio address, Obama said such changes would "save not only jobs, but money and lives." He also mentioned electronic medical records during a speech in December where he outlined a massive public-works program and a plan to "renew our information superhighway."
In this speech, he said "to make America, and our children, a success in this new global economy, we will build 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries." Policymakers must enact an "American recovery and reinvestment plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term," Obama said, adding that it must be designed in a new way. "We can't just fall into the old Washington habit of throwing money at the problem," he said. "We must make strategic investments that will serve as a down payment on our long-term economic future. We must demand vigorous oversight and strict accountability for achieving results."
Obama is scheduled to meet next week with leaders from both parties to discuss his plan. "There is no reason we can't do this. We are a people of boundless industry and ingenuity. We are innovators and entrepreneurs and have the most dedicated and productive workers in the world," he said in the speech, which was also posted on YouTube. "We have always triumphed in moments of trial by drawing on that great American spirit -- that perseverance, determination and unyielding commitment to opportunity on which our nation was founded. In this new year, let us resolve to do so once more."
FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Shawn Henry and Deputy Director Christopher M.E. Painter are among several key law enforcement officials slated to speak at the International Conference on Cyber Security next week in New York City. Henry, Painter and Louis Grever, executive assistant director for the FBI Science and Technology Branch, will speak on Tuesday while Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip will deliver remarks on Thursday. The event is being held at Fordham University at Lincoln Center.
The FBI has teamed with Fordham's Department of Computer and Information Sciences to bring together global leaders in emerging cyber threat analysis and enforcement for the first of its kind conference. This gathering of international cyber security experts will host more than 300 delegates from around the world, officials said in a press release. ICCS -- which is sponsored by Google, Booz Allen Hamilton, BAE Systems and others -- will consist of three full days, 50 unique lectures, cutting edge demonstrations and networking opportunities. Read more about the Jan. 6-8 conference here.
Congress and President-elect Barack Obama's administration should include broadband-related investment in forthcoming legislation designed to promote economic stimulus, and the federal government needs to begin with better data about broadband availability, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Daniel O'Connell urged the chairs of Obama's transition team in a letter last week. In particular, Congress should supplement the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which passed last October without appropriated or authorized funding levels. An earlier version had included $40 million for the Commerce Department to allocate to state-led initiatives.
O'Connell also urged flexibility in the way that states structure their individual broadband programs, extending stimulus funds to spur broadband demand among the poor, and recognizing that some forms of communication, like satellite service, are inferior methods of delivering broadband, according to BroadbandCensus.com. His letter included a five-page memo on the role of broadband investment in the economic recovery and laid out approaches states are taking with regard to broadband infrastructure. Read the story here.
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