President Obama on Tuesday signed legislation that would allow months of royalty negotiations between the music and Internet industries continue while delaying full implementation of a controversial rate-setting for webcasters imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The measure replaces a Feb. 15, 2009 deadline that was part of legislation that passed the 110th Congress, with a 30-day window from the date of enactment for a deal to be reached between digital royalty collector SoundExchange, which is negotiating on behalf of copyright owners and performers, and Internet services represented by the Digital Media Association and others.
The bill's sponsor was Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., who had support from Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and others. Its Senate sponsors were Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan. A source told Tech Daily Dose that so-called "pureplay" negotiations have been completed and a deal could be signed as soon as stakeholders return from Independence Day vacation. As soon as that happens, the proposal will be announced and submitted to the Register of Copyrights for publication. "Pureplay" webcasters refers to those whose sole business activity is to stream sound recordings over the Internet.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, a charismatic former candidate in the 2008 presidential election whose bizarre YouTube "Rock" video became an Internet phenomenon, chatted with Tech Daily Dose at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference Tuesday about President Obama's high-tech and cybersecurity agenda. As expected, Gravel has a lot on his mind. Enjoy!
One day after officially assuming the top post at FCC, Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered a Tuesday speech to staff during which he stressed that the Commission's "potential as a force for good remains constant." "With each passing day, communications devices and networks become more essential to the fabric of the daily lives of all Americans," he said. "Our communications infrastructure is the foundation upon which our economy and our society rest. And it has never been more important that we unleash its potential." Genachowski, a Harvard Law School classmate of President Obama's and former chief of staff to Clinton-era FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, said the nation is at a crossroads. "We face a number of tremendous challenges: our economy, education, healthcare, and energy, to name a few. If we do our jobs right and harness the power of communications to confront these challenges, we will have chosen the right course, and we will make a real positive difference," he said.
Read the full text of his remarks after the jump.
Karen Evans, administrator of e-government and information technology at the Office of Management and Budget in the Bush administration lauded her successor's Tuesday launch of an Internet-based dashboard that makes available in a single location details about every major IT project of the federal government but warned of potential challenges on the horizon. The interactive Web site unveiled by Vivek Kundra at the Personal Democracy Forum's conference lets the public see each initiative's goals, schedule, cost outlays, key personnel, contractors used, and where the effort stands in real time. Read more coverage in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
Data quality will continue to be an issue, Evans told Tech Daily Dose. "The management of the agency's IT portfolio is a complex process and there are many reasons why a project may not be on schedule which then, affects performance and costs. With the public availability of the data, OMB and the agencies' CIOs will need to be prepared to respond to the corrective actions they have in place for investments which are not necessarily performing optimally." Additionally, the dashboard should serve as a tool to highlight areas that need attention rather than as a punitive mechanism for lack of performance, she said.
The future challenge is to avoid compliance reporting and to get true management oversight of IT investments, Evans said. She pointed out that the dashboard's level of transparency far exceeds what was available under the annual management watch list and the high risk list -- the OMB's standard methods of assessing troubled projects. "The departments and agencies have worked diligently to put management practices into place to ensure results for their investments," Evans said. "The IT dashboard is taking this detailed information and making it available to public and the Congress. Transparency is always a good thing."
When President Obama addressed calls for legalization of marijuana during his March online town hall, he proved that "when the people lead, the leaders will follow," Internet activist Jim Gilliam argued Tuesday at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference. Leading up to the big White House event, citizens were asked to vote on economic questions they wanted the commander in chief to answer. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws spearheaded a grassroots effort to push questions tying Mary Jane to economic improvement and job creation to the top of the heap. [Read related Tech Daily Dose coverage here].
"I don't know what this says about the online audience," Obama laughed during the webcast. "The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy." Over 92,000 people submitted over 100,000 questions and cast over 3.5 million votes. More than 67,000 people watched the event online. After the town hall, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was pressed for details on the administration's pot policy, the California Budget Office released an estimate on revenue that could be generated by a marijuana tax, and Obama's drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said he would stop referring to the "war on drugs" because it was unhelpful.
"Obama knew what he was doing... He wanted outrage," said Gilliam, the creator of a Web site that imagines how the White House might work if it was run completely democratically by thousands of people over the Internet. On WhiteHouse2.org, decriminalizing marijuana ranks 22nd and legalizing medical marijuana ranks 44th. The site's top five user generated priorities for Obama include: replacing the federal income tax with a "FairTax;" restoring, upholding and defending the Constitution; ending corporate welfare; securing all U.S. borders; and letting banks that make bad loans go out of business.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce Department are heartened by Tuesday reports that the Chinese government is indefinitely postponing a mandate requiring all personal computers sold and manufactured in the country include a controversial Internet filtering program. "We understand that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is delaying the implementation of the Green Dam software requirement. The United States welcomes the opportunity to engage with the relevant Chinese authorities on our concerns regarding the software," the agencies said in statement. The rule would have taken effect July 1.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke wrote to China last week arguing the government's plan could run afoul of World Trade Organization obligations. Their joint letter also laid out for Industry and Information Technology Minister Li Yizhong and Commerce Minister Chen Deming the fears raised by high-tech firms, Chinese citizens and media about the software's stability, the scope and extent of filtering, and potential security weaknesses. China is putting companies in "an untenable position" in its stated attempt to safeguard children from inappropriate content, they wrote. [Read more in CongressDaily here]
High-tech groups cheered the news. "This shows that when U.S. trade officials get involved, they get results," Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said. "For too long, companies have been left on their own to negotiate with other nations. Companies don't want to be caught in the middle. You need governments to fight governments." Black went on to say the Green Dam flap is part of a larger struggle between openness and repression -- not just in China but Iran and North Korea. He called for the U.S. government to negotiate Internet openness and freedom issues as part of future trade and other international agreements.
Republican National Committee New Media Director Todd Herman stood before an auditorium full of technology experts on Tuesday, many of them left leaning, with the message that the Grand Old Party is preparing for a Web-based revolution. Tech-savvy conservatives have finished licking their campaign 2008 wounds and are ready to take advantage of the same kinds of Internet innovations that helped President Obama win his bid for the White House. "We'd be fools to not admit what happened," Herman told the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference. The GOP was slow to rally Web supporters and got spanked on Election Day.
"I can tell you that's changing. Conservatives online are dying to organize," said Herman, who previously served as MSNBC's video evangelist. For starters, the RNC plans to re-launch GOP.com in about 45 days. While he refused to offer details on the new site's features, he said RNC Chairman Michael Steele told him to "take the lid off" when it comes to the party's Internet strategy. A memo Herman posted on GOP.com promises "[a] new look and a more enjoyable, modern, open and participatory way to share our ideals with the country." "The Web site you see today is difficult to update, hard to use, and locked in a Web 1.0 environment. It is also stale. It is in need of a massive spring clean," he wrote.
The House Armed Services Committee last week offered its support to the Army's controversial high-tech effort to increase awareness and knowledge of the military among recruitment-age youth. In a report accompanying the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill, which passed the House last Thursday, the panel commended the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia and its transportable counterpart, the Virtual Army Experience. The initiatives are examples of projects "that hold great potential to reshape recruiting techniques and conduct recruiting operations on a more cost effective basis," the report said. Critics argue the 14,500 square-foot center encourages youth to play violent videogames and in May, several groups including Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace held a protest outside the facility.
"The committee believes this type of investment is essential if the Army intends to keep pace with societal changes regarding the subjects that capture the attention of young people and methods young people use to gather information and socially interact," the House Armed Services report stated. "The committee understands that during periods when recruiting is relatively easy, investment in experimental programs draws increased scrutiny." The document urged the Army to invest in the projects to maximize their immediate value and learn more about how the military can further adapt technology to harness the power of the information age to support its recruiting mission. At the May protest, Iraq veteran Jesse Hamilton called the center "an abomination" that targets impressionable minors and glorifies war.
White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra on Tuesday unveiled a new Internet-based dashboard that makes available in a single location details about major information technology projects pursued by the federal government. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
On Tuesday, White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and White House New Media Director Macon Phillips will unveil an Internet-based interactive dashboard that will make available in a single location details about every major information technology project pursued by the federal government. The big reveal will take place at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference in New York City. The Web site will let the public see each initiative's goals, schedule, cost outlays, key personnel, contractors employed, and where the effort stands in real time, Kundra has said. He launched a similar program as chief technology officer for the District of Columbia, where he worked before joining the administration. The plan is aligned with legislation introduced earlier this year by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Financial Management Subcommittee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del., which called for a Web site to be updated quarterly with the price, schedule and performance details of major federal projects. Read more about the initiative in a recent CongressDaily story here and check in Tuesday for more details.
Blair Levin, the FCC official in charge of coordinating the development of the Obama administration's new national broadband plan, said Monday that a new Web site -- Broadband.gov -- will launch in a matter of days. His remarks came at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference where he spoke about the future of the Internet. Levin recently returned to the Commission where he served in the 1990s as chief of staff to former Chairman Reed Hundt. Before rejoining the FCC, Levin was managing director of Stifel Nicholaus and worked on President Obama's transition team. His speech was followed by a policy panel featuring Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver; National Cable and Telecommunications Association Executive Vice President James Assey; AT&T Vice President Hank Hultquist; and PDF co-founder Andrew Rasiej.
Meanwhile, Monday was FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's first official day on the job and he announced a handful of new hires. His chief of staff will be Edward Lazarus who hails from the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Genachowski also appointed two senior advisors and two legal advisors to assist him on a range of policy issues. Colin Crowell, longtime telecom adviser to Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., will serve as senior counselor and Bruce Liang Gottlieb, who was legal advisor to Commissioner Michael Copps, will become chief counsel. Priya Aiyar, Sherrese Smith, Sherry Gelfand, Daniel Ornstein, Mary Beth Richards, and Ruth Milkman will round out his team. (Hat tip, NextGenWeb.org)
At a reception honoring the winners of Virginia's Innovative App Contest on Saturday, Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Jim Shelton, head of the Education Department's Office of Innovation and Improvement, shared the stage to give remarks and field questions from the audience. Technology's role in the classroom is less about hardware and software and more about the marriage of ideas and relevance, Chopra said. The tech guru was careful not to endorse a particular product in a room full of educational technology vendors. The State Educational Technology Directors Association hosted the event as part of a five-day forum on emerging technologies.
The forum overlaps with the National Educational Computing Conference, which began Friday with opening remarks from popular author Malcolm Gladwell. The event ends Wednesday afternoon. When asked what tops his ambitious agenda on leveraging technology to improve education, Chopra stated that data and analytics are the key. "We know more about retailing than we know about the educational experience," he said. Shelton agreed, adding that improvements to the infrastructure of education must be made to enhance decision making. Shelton also emphasized the importance of boosting access in education through broadband. -- Eliza Krigman
The longstanding belief that the U.S. government cannot fail continues to propagate a low tolerance of risk among agency Web managers despite the Obama administration's ambitious high-tech agenda, the team leader for a unit of USA.gov that provides online training and tools told a crowd at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference Monday. "We're told don't screw up because it will get on front page of Washington Post. That underlies everything you do," Sheila Campbell said. That culture of hesitancy paired with a personnel system that lets poorly performing employees stay in jobs without adequate tech training for many years, is impeding innovation, she added.
At the same time, watchdog groups that criticize the U.S. government for being slow to improve its Web presence need to realize that federal Web managers are drowning in data. Campbell acknowledged that no one truly knows how many government Web sites actually exist but said a good estimate is around 24,000 -- and some have more than one million pages apiece. Adding to the complexity is the fact that outdated content on those pages is not taken down in a timely fashion and laws like the Paperwork Reduction Act have not kept pace with the Internet era. Campbell said a variety efforts are underway to overhaul aging rules and recruit innovative people. President Obama has led by example, hiring Aneesh Chopra, Vivek Kundra, Beth Noveck and others.
National Music Publishers' Association President David Israelite urged House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and ranking member Lamar Smith late Friday to consider introducing legislation that would clear up any confusion surrounding the constitutionality of a federal panel that sets copyright royalties. The request comes on the heels of a May complaint from licensing firm Royalty Logic asking that the Copyright Royalty Board be forced to vacate its decision in a controversial proceeding that set the fee structure for webcasters. The filing claims the CRB is unconstitutional because the Librarian of Congress, who is not technically the head of a government department, appoints its three judges.
If successful, the protest could mean the unraveling of all of the CRB's decisions since its judges were appointed in 2006. "This could cause complete chaos in the marketplace," Israelite wrote in a letter. In it, he notes that in the proceeding in question, songwriters, music publishers, digital media firms and record labels negotiated a landmark deal on the rate and terms for musical works delivered by interactive streams and limited downloads. The board's decisions "should not be thrown away because of a technicality," he said. NMPA wants Conyers and Smith to sponsor a bill that would make moot any challenge to the CRB based on the appointments clause of the Constitution as well as uphold its determinations.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would not hear a case in which Hollywood studios and some cable networks sued Cablevision for providing a remote digital video recorder service where the copy of the recorded program resides on the cable operator's servers rather than on a hard drive in the home. The studios alleged that the so-called "buffer copies" and the copies residing on Cablevision's servers were a violation of its right to reproduce the program and that the recordings sent to the customer infringed on its public performance right. A lower court in New York City sided with the studios but an appeals court reversed that decision.
Since there is no further litigation pending in this case, Cablevision is now free to implement the remote DVR service and other providers will likely follow suit, Stifel Nicolaus analysts said in an e-mail. The remote functionality saves Cablevision storage costs, reduces expensive truck rolls, and allows their customers greater flexibility, they wrote. The issue could arise again in a later suit by the content owners against another cable company that implements its own remote DVR and could wind up back at the Supreme Court, the analysts added. Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro lauded the ruling, saying it was a "slam dunk" from a common sense standpoint.
Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge called the action "a tremendous victory" but said he remains mindful of the potential implications for ad skipping and the concerns this has raised in the programming community. "We believe there are ways to take this victory and work with programmers to give our customers what they want -- full DVR functionality through existing digital set-top boxes -- and at the same time deliver real benefits to advertisers," he said in a statement. Copyright Alliance Executive Director Patrick Ross said the high court's ruling "is unfortunate and potentially harmful to creators and creative enterprises across the spectrum of copyright industries."
When Rod Beckstrom accepted the top job at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers last week, a former Homeland Security Department colleague warned him that his tenure as director of the National Cybersecurity Center was a walk in the park compared to being CEO of the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet address system. "I hope you enjoy jumping out of frying pan and into the fire," the colleague said in an e-mail. But the Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author and computer security expert says he is ready for the challenge. ICANN, which is based in California but has ramped up its Washington presence in recent years, has faced intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill as it prepares to end its formal relationship with the Commerce Department in September.
Lawmakers and industry stakeholders have raised concerns about the international entity's transparency, accountability, budget processes and stakeholder affairs. Most recently, a chorus of lawmakers called for an extension of the U.S. government's formal role and closer scrutiny over how the 11-year-old organization has evolved. At a House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee hearing earlier this month, ICANN's departing CEO Paul Twomey came under intense questions, while Internet executives voiced an array of concerns. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said ICANN was "far from a model of effective and sustainable self-governance", and Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., said ICANN seemed "better at furthering its own interests than those of the millions of Internet users it's supposed to look out for."
Read the full "Issue of The Week" at CongressDaily's TechCentral page here.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking a page from White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra's playbook by announcing a new annual competition that will let his tech-savvy constituents repurpose raw government data to create innovative Internet applications. The forthcoming "Big Apps" project will be housed on NYC.gov and while the size of the initial data dump was not specified, Bloomberg told the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference it would be "huge." "The point of collecting data is to manage information effectively... so why not allow the private sector to help us do so?" he reasoned during a keynote via a Skype video call.
Kundra spearheaded a similar project called "Apps For Democracy" while serving as chief technology officer for the District of Columbia government and in May launched Data.gov, a Web site that offers raw feeds of information from a range of federal agencies. Bloomberg's contest will offer cash prizes, publicity and networking opportunities to those who take part, he said. The billionaire businessman said he will also take the winners of the contest out to dinner "and we'll definitely order some apps." The 2008 D.C. government competition produced 47 applications in 30 days using open source programming for iPhones, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps and others.
The man who helped President Obama win his White House bid through a groundbreaking Internet mobilization effort offered some advice to the Republican Party on Monday during remarks at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference in New York City. To rebound in 2012, the GOP needs new leaders who not only understand technology but also can embrace "the wants, needs and desires of regular people across the country," new media strategist Joe Rospars said. "It will not only help them electorally but will also drag the leadership back toward the middle." During an exchange with Mark McKinnon, who advised Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on the campaign trail, Rospars argued the GOP has veered too far right and despite making some technological progress in recent years is still stuck in the pre-Web world.
"We got millions of people to do stuff... in a substantive way," Rospars said of the Obama campaign. "You have to capture something both at an emotional level and at a this-matters-to-me level." McKinnon agreed, saying the future of conservatism hinges on connecting with people in new ways. Republicans have to get "leaner, tougher and smarter" while using emerging online tools to spread the message that they understand what the American people care about. McKinnon said his party is suffering from a "leadership deficit" similar to the one Democrats experienced a decade ago. But he believes the GOP can regain its footing as voters begin to feel disenfranchised by the party in power. "I hope President Obama is an extraordinary success for the sake of our country [but] the hard stuff is just beginning," he said.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., is among the first in the political world to embrace ChallengePost.com, a Web site that lets users create and join challenges to accomplish goals. The New York City based start-up launched Monday at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual Internet and politics conference. Gingrich's wishes include:
• "Create a method of learning math and science that kids like, and that enables us to leapfrog India and China."
• "Create a method for reusing nuclear waste to make Yucca Mountain, Nevada unnecessary as a repository."
• "Create the first privately financed permanent lunar base."
• "Create a reusable system that could get people into space at 10% of the current cost, thus enabling genuine space tourism and launching an age of exploration."
• "Create a cheap method for turning large quantities of seawater into fresh water."
• "Create a modestly priced, mass-manufacturable hydrogen engine for cars, which would be the biggest single contribution to reducing carbon loading of the atmosphere and reducing subsidies through high oil prices to dictatorships."
• "Create a low-cost vaccine or preventive intervention for malaria -- possibly the single biggest potential improvement in the quality of life in poor tropical countries."
ChallengePost founder Brandon Kessler got the idea after seeing 23-year-old Colin Nederkoorn's contest to run Windows XP on an Intel Mac in 2006. Donations poured in, bringing the cash award to more than $13,000. The ChallengePost community can similarly add prize money to competitions they think are worthwhile. Read more here.
Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will soon introduce legislation to sanction any company that sells sensitive technology aiding the Iranian regime in monitoring or blocking the Internet connections or cellular phone conversations of protesters. The bill, which will be filed in the coming days, would require the Obama administration to identify foreign firms that export certain equipment to Iran and those companies would be barred from applying for contracts with the U.S. government, or renewing expiring ones, unless they first terminated those exports.
That requirement could be waived if the president determines such a waiver would be in the national interest of the United State but he would have to report to Congress on the reasons for the waiver. "It is utterly outrageous that Western companies sell equipment that allows the Iranian government to spy on their citizens, prevent communications between citizens and thwart any type of uprising against the regime," Schumer said in a press release. "This legislation is going to crack down on these companies so that we can do our part in preventing this regime from controlling the Iranian people."
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the systems used by Iran to spy on its citizens and stifle communications were installed by Nokia and Siemens. According to a federal spending Web site, Siemens has almost 2,000 contracts with the U.S. government, including 300 contracts with the Pentagon as well as other deals with the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, and the Department of Energy. The deals total over $250 million in 2009 alone. The joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks, has at least six contracts with the U.S. government, totaling $5 million.
Foreign trade groups and their counterparts in the United States pressed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday to halt a July 1 mandate for all computers manufactured and sold in China to be shipped with Internet filtering software, which the government has claimed would help protect children from inappropriate content. The letter from the American Chamber of Commerce in China, Business Software Alliance, Business Roundtable, Consumer Electronics Association, Information Technology Industry Council and others says the requirement "raises serious concerns for us and seems to run counter to China's important goal of becoming a vibrant and dynamic information-based society."
The correspondence comes on the heels of a similar message sent to high-level Chinese government officials by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke earlier this week and a letter from business groups the week before. "The Green Dam mandate raises significant questions of security, privacy, system reliability, the free flow of information and user choice," the most recent document said. The letter points out, however, that "effective and responsible parental controls" are the way to go. "Ensuring that our youth can enjoy the full benefit of the Internet while keeping them out of harm's way... is an important objective we all share." Read related coverage in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
The Obama administration could ask Congress for regulatory changes to create "far-reaching incentives" for prioritizing cybersecurity in the private sector, which controls much of the nation's critical IT infrastructure, a high-ranking Department of Homeland Security official said Thursday. Acting Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications Michael Brown said a range of proposals are being considered by the White House and the department as their cybersecurity plan unfolds. The department is moving quickly to ramp up its cyber processes, Brown told an Armed Forces Communication & Electronics Association conference. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's selection of under secretary Philip Reitinger to head the National Cybersecurity Center this month, was another step forward, he said. Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
In related news, Reitinger spoke about cybersecurity to a standing-room-only crowd at Google's Washington office on Friday. He was joined by Senate Commerce Committee Chief of Staff Ellen Doneski; TechAmerica Vice President Liesyl Franz; Defense Information Systems Agency Chief Information Assurance Executive Richard Hale; and Christopher Painter, director of cybersecurity for the National Security Council.
It's official! Former Homeland Security Department National Cybersecurity Center Director Rod Beckstrom will become the new president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a nonprofit group that oversees the Internet address system. ICANN's board approved him for the job moments ago at a meeting in Sydney, Australia. Paul Twomey, who has held the top ICANN spot for six years, announced his departure in March. Beckstrom brings a unique background to the post. In his role at DHS, he cooperated directly with high-level officials at the Justice and Defense Departments, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Beckstrom left DHS abruptly earlier this year and his resignation letter was published by the Wall Street Journal. In it, he said it was a "bad strategy" to have the National Security Agency play a major role in cybersecurity. Prior to his stint in federal government, he founded and sold two tech companies and helped start a global CEO peace network that initiated diplomatic efforts between India and Pakistan. He also co-authored four books including The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, which offers advice on analyzing organizations and competitive strategy.
In an exclusive interview with Tech Daily Dose, Beckstrom said his appointment symbolizes a "fresh start" for ICANN's relationship with Congress and the Obama administration. ICANN has faced scrutiny on Capitol Hill in the run up to September's expiration of a formal oversight relationship with the Commerce Department. Lawmakers worry about the group's transparency, accountability and budget processes.Read more about Beckstrom, his outlook for ICANN and the challenges he will face in CongressDaily's latest "Issue Of The Week" feature, which is published every Monday on the TechCentral page.
The Senate on Thursday confirmed two FCC commissioners and a Commerce assistant secretary. Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, will be the chairman of the FCC, replacing Republican Kevin Martin, who resigned this year. Genachowski is a Harvard Law School classmate of President Obama's and was chief counsel to Clinton-era FCC chief Reed Hundt. Republican Robert McDowell was confirmed as an FCC commissioner. Lawrence Strickling was confirmed as assistant secretary of Commerce for Communications, and will head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps congratulated Genachowski, saying he "brings just the right blend of talent, experience and dedication to lead the FCC toward the more active role it must play if all our citizens are to enjoy the blessings and bounties of 21st century communications." He also lauded McDowell's confirmation, saying he values his
"friendship, his collegiality, and the dedicated way he goes about his work." Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison said she was pleased "we are two steps closer toward a complete FCC panel."
Obama also nominated Meredith Attwell Baker to fill a Republican slot on the FCC on Thursday. The daughter-in-law of former Secretary of State James Baker is the former acting assistant secretary of the NTIA in the Bush administration. Obama previously nominated Mignon Clyburn, the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, to fill a Democratic FCC commissioner slot. The younger Clyburn, a member of the South Carolina Public Utilities Commission, is an expert on energy issues.
A Chinese government rule slated to take effect next week that would require all computers produced and sold there to install controversial Internet filtering software has piqued the interest of lawmakers, according to Thursday's CongressDaily AM Edition. In the story, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force chairman; Helsinki Commission co-chair Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., each weigh in on the proposal. Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., also chimed in late Wednesday, telling Tech Daily Dose that China's purported plan "is just the latest example of China's obsession with controlling the free flow of information." "They have been unrelenting in making sure the government's position is the only position on every issue," he said.
The initiative also drew ire from Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. The high-ranking Obama administration officials sent a joint letter to the Chinese government warning the plan could run afoul of World Trade Organization obligations Their joint letter also laid out for Industry and Information Technology Minister Li Yizhong and Commerce Minister Chen Deming the fears raised by high-tech firms, Chinese citizens and media about the software's stability, the scope and extent of filtering, and potential security weaknesses. U.S. business and tech groups wrote to China last week saying the effort "seems to run contrary to China's own goal of becoming a leading IT and information-based society."
For the full CongressDaily story, click here (subscription required).
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions came to the rescue of the Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday night when they introduced a bill that will allow the agency to use funds designated for its trademark portfolio to be used to address its growing backlog of patent applications. The trademark budget, which is statutorily untouchable, has a $60 million-$70 million surplus. CongressDaily reported this week that Commerce Department and PTO officials had been making the rounds on Capitol Hill to let key lawmakers know how the office was struggling in the recession and offering up legislative ideas like the loan plan.
The PTO, which is funded through fees collected from its users, suspended overtime pay for patent examiners effective Sunday and earlier this year instituted a hiring freeze amid a slump in the number of patent applications filed. Under the bill, the PTO can make use of the money "to support the processing of patents and other activities, services, and materials relating to patents" if the office's director certifies to Congress the use of funds "is reasonably necessary to avoid furloughs or a reduction-in-force." The borrowed money would have to be put back in the trademark basket no later than Sept. 30, 2011.
If the agency and lawmakers deem the situation urgent enough, the bill could advance without a new PTO director in place. IBM executive David Kappos, President Obama's pick for the job, was only named last week and has to trudge through the confirmation process presumably after Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is considered. John Doll is acting director. Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee on Wednesday approved its FY10 spending bill, giving the PTO full funding at $1.9 billion. Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said the allotment could help attack the backlog in patent applications.
Update: A Leahy aide on Thursday said the bill did not get introduced Wednesday night but could move soon.
On the eve of a major White House immigration summit, technology industry stakeholders are urging participants to make high-skilled immigration part of the discussion. President Obama and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders will take part in the Thursday event and Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Charles Schumer, D-N.Y, earlier today highlighted the need for high-skilled immigration to be one of seven key principles for reform. His first priority in crafting legislation is making a serious stand against illegal immigration, and suggested that a biometric-based employer verification system would be a key element as well. Schumer added he remains optimistic that immigration legislation, which he intends to introduce, can become law as soon as this year.
"Many of our nation's finest entrepreneurs, business leaders, doctors, scientists and Nobel laureates are foreign-born and contribute to the success of America's economy," Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield said in a press release. "Any reform to our immigration policy should ensure that America's doors remain open to these individuals and business leaders." While the guest list for the summit has not been officially released, ITI understands that a number of high-skilled immigration proponents have been invited. Garfield said he hoped congressional consensus over retaining a top notch workforce is not sacrificed by contentious items in the immigration debate.
A high-tech watchdog group filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department on Wednesday demanding the public release of the surveillance guidelines that govern investigations of Americans by the FBI. The protocols took effect in December 2008 and detail the bureau's procedures and standards for implementing the attorney general's guidelines on approved surveillance strategies. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's complaint comes after DOJ failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for a complete copy of the document. FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni has acknowledged that "the expansion of techniques available [to the bureau] has raised privacy and civil liberties concerns."
Investigations can include the electronic collection of information from online sources and computer databases, as well as the use of grand jury subpoenas to obtain telephone and e-mail subscriber information, EFF said in a press release. Other recent policy changes allow the FBI to engage in free-ranging investigation of Internet sites, libraries, and religious institutions, the group said. "Americans have the right to know the basic surveillance policies used by federal investigators and how their privacy is -- or is not -- being protected," EFF senior counsel David Sobel said. Read EFF's full complaint to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia here.
Update: An FBI spokesman would not comment on the lawsuit but said: "It is the FBI's job to protect Americans, not only from crime and terrorism, but also from incursions into their constitutional rights. That effort starts with the FBI's commitment to scrupulously protect privacy rights of civil rights and civil liberties in the course of its investigations."
CongressDaily's AM Edition on Wednesday reports that the Patent and Trademark Office is asking Congress to help stabilize the agency, which is facing a substantial decrease in the number of patent applications filed. Acting Director John Doll broke the news to employees in a Tuesday memo. The agency, which is funded through fees collected from its users, this week suspended overtime pay for patent examiners and this year instituted a hiring freeze. All of this has been done with an eye toward avoiding furloughs. "We're now putting forward a number of different options to bridge any possible gaps, and we'll also be soliciting ideas from members of Congress," Doll wrote, acknowledging that in the recession, fee collection could continue to decline. With the support of Commerce Secretary Locke, the PTO is seeking additional cost reduction measures that would save an additional $20 million in FY09, he said. Click here to read the story (subscription required), which details some of the options floated to aides for key lawmakers. The Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to consider the FY10 appropriations bill, which funds the PTO, later today.
Internationally renowned chef Wolfgang Puck flew to Sydney, Australia for this week's meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to promote a forthcoming .food Internet address amid fears by big brand owners like Marriott, Nike, and Verizon that a planned expansion of the domain name system will require them to spend big bucks protecting their name from fraudsters and cybersquatters. Web site names and e-mail addresses ending in .food -- such as www.wolfgangpuck.food, www.spagorestaurant.food, www.yourname.food and millions more -- will provide restaurants, retailers, caterers, food-lovers and chefs worldwide a unique opportunity to own meaningful new web addresses, Puck said in a press release.
"This is a great way for the finest food enterprises to stand out from the crowd on the Internet," said Puck, who owns more than 100 fine dining and casual restaurants in the United States as well as a national catering company and several consumer product lines. "Owning a .FOOD address is like opening a business on the best street in any city in the world." Puck told attendees at the ICANN meeting that a portion of the proceeds from .food will be donated to philanthropic organizations like Meals on Wheels and scholarships at the Culinary Institute of America, among others. Early next year ICANN will begin approving applications for top-level domains named after cities, companies, brands and entrepreneurial ventures.
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch announced his support earlier this month for a .NYC Web address. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in February that the City Council and Office of the Mayor will pursue the .NYC domain. ".NYC is the best real estate opportunity in New York City since the Dutch bought Manhattan. I can't wait to sign up for edkoch.nyc, and while I'm at it I'll probably sign up for mayorkoch.nyc as well," Koch said. Former Vice President Al Gore has also backed the domain name expansion offering support for .eco, an address to promote environmental awareness. "This is a truly exciting opportunity for the environmental movement and for the Internet as a whole," Gore said in a press release. Read a related story in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
As staffers for Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy resume negotiations with stakeholders who are divided over sections of his bill to overhaul the U.S. patent system, (see CongressDaily's AM Edition for coverage), aides for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are trying to build support for a proposal that would essentially let the Patent and Trademark Office examine information that was not considered during an earlier patent review. Officials from the generic and brand pharmaceuticals industries as well as biotechnology interests met with Hatch's team on Monday. Under the longtime intellectual property crusader's plan, if a patent is issued, the information in question may not be used to hold the patent unenforceable.
Language that Hatch prepared to introduce when Leahy's panel marked up the broader bill in April also clarifies that requesting the reissue (or the decision not to) cannot alone be the basis of an "inequitable conduct" challenge. The proposal would leave untouched the underlying doctrine, which generic drug makers believe is vital to ensure timely market entry of medicines. Hatch, an original cosponsor of Leahy's bill, announced during the mark up that he could no longer support the final product and was one of four members who voted against the measure. "[The bill] has the very real potential to undermine the stimulatory effects of not only our patent system but those abroad," he said at the time.
Generics manufacturers previously argued Hatch's proposal would incentivize deception before the PTO. It's a back door "but for" test that would do away with the inequitable conduct defense, they said. But the senator's office is trying to engage in good faith negotiations with key players and hopes to reconvene the group for further talks after the Independence Day recess, sources said. One individual who attended the Monday meeting said there was "a great deal of positive interaction," with all parties trying to understand each others concerns. If the patent reissue problem can be solved, Hatch is more likely to rally his GOP colleagues in support of Leahy's bill as it heads toward the Senate floor.
Former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said Tuesday that he does not want the job of President Obama's cybersecurity coordinator despite recent rumblings that he was one of the top contenders for the position. "If I'd wanted to stay in government, I would have stayed in Congress," he said at a National Press Club briefing. "I don't have any real interest in going back." Davis joined the federal services team of consulting firm Deloitte last year after serving as chairman and ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee where he took the lead on legislation aimed at improving e-government, information security and critical infrastructure. When pressed further by reporters, Davis said he was "not a candidate for anything... [but] you never say never." He has maintained his departure from public service is only a sabbatical.
His main concern with the cyber czar position, which Obama described on the campaign trail and formally announced last month in conjunction with a wide-sweeping report that examined the federal cybersecurity posture, is the job description remains vague. Davis said it is unclear what the position would entail and how much authority the individual, who would report jointly to the National Security Council and National Economic Council, would have. "For this job to work you'd better get some understandings up front," he said. Davis lauded Obama for recognizing the need for a strong cybersecurity leader but said he thinks the administration has brought on too many czars. Melissa Hathaway, a senior adviser to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, is potential candidate. Former Microsoft security chief Howard Schmidt's name has also come up.
Four congressional leaders on competitiveness Monday asked the National Academies to form a panel to examine the standing of the nation's research universities amid growing concerns that U.S. schools could be outpaced by foreign institutions. The group would answer the following question: "What are the top 10 actions that Congress, state governments, research universities, and others could take to assure the ability of the American research university to maintain the excellence in research and doctoral education needed to help the United States compete, prosper, and achieve national goals for health, energy, the environment, and security in the global community of the 21st century?" The request is similar to one in 2005 that led to an Academies report that became the basis for competitiveness legislation that passed the 110th Congress.
Members who signed the letter to the Academies were Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former education secretary and chairman of the Senate Republican Conference; House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon and ranking member Ralph Hall. "America's research universities are powerhouses of innovation, incubators for the ideas and breakthroughs that have made America an economic superpower," Mikulski said in a press release. "We need the best minds working on what steps we can take today to keep our nation innovating tomorrow and every day after that." Alexander called U.S. research universities "our secret weapon for creating jobs" but warned that other nations are catching up.
Five individuals pleaded guilty in a Detroit, Mich., federal court Monday for their roles in a wide-ranging international stock fraud scheme involving the illegal use of bulk commercial e-mails, or spamming, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Terrence Berg announced. Alan Ralsky faces up to 87 months in prison and a $1 million while his son-in-law Scott Bradley faces up to 78 months in prison and a $1 million fine. Berg said Ralsky was at one time the world's most notorious spammer. He, Bradley and three co-conspirators stand convicted for an operation that sent billions of illegal e-mail advertisements to pump up Chinese "penny" stocks and then reap profits by causing trades in these same stocks while others bought at the inflated prices.
"Using the Internet to manipulate the stock market through spam e-mail campaigns is a serious crime, and this case serves notice that federal law enforcement has the both the capability and the will to successfully investigate, prosecute and punish such cybercrimes," Berg said. The pair's cohorts -- John Bown and William Neil -- also face stiff penalties. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Bown acknowledged he faces up to 63 months in prison and a $75,000 fine. Neil faces up to 37 months in prison and a $30,000 fine under the federal sentencing guidelines. A fifth man, James Fite, faces up to two years in prison and a $30,000 fine. The group is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct 29. Breuer said the prosecution is the largest to date under the CAN-SPAM Act and it underscores the agency's "strong and steadfast commitment to ridding our financial markets and cyberspace of e-fraudsters looking to prey on innocent victims."
Silicon Valley social networking sensation Facebook -- which earlier this spring hired former American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani as public policy director for its growing Washington, D.C. office -- took another inside-the-Beltway step late Monday. The company submitted its first ever lobbying registration forms for Sparapani and his colleague Adam Conner with the House's Legislative Resource Center and the Senate's Office of Public Records. The chief focus of their Capitol Hill efforts will be Internet privacy, according to the forms. Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, who is also a Democratic candidate for California attorney general, testified last week at a joint hearing on the issue held by the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Consumer Protection subcommittees.
In his testimony, Kelly told members that if they choose to legislate, they should focus on "actors that undermine instead of enhance user control over personal data." He was joined at the witness table by executives from Google and Yahoo -- two companies that have mature lobbying operations. Earlier this month, Yahoo announced that it will bring in Margaret Stewart, a former assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for legislative affairs. She serves as director of federal public policy, working under David Hantman. In the first quarter of 2009, Yahoo disclosed $460,000 in lobbying expenditures toward a range of topics including organized retail crime, Internet advertising and online child protection. In addition, Yahoo worked with outside lobbyists like Kountoupes Consulting; Ryan, MacKinnon, Vasapoli and Berzo; Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti and others.
Google's team -- Alan Davidson, Pablo Chavez, Harry Wingo, Richard Whitt, and Robert Tai -- spent $880,000 lobbying in the first quarter on similar topics. They also weighed in on patent and copyright reform, cloud computing, and broadband and spectrum issues. Their efforts were aided by Van Ness Feldman; Franklin Square Group; Podesta Group; King & Spalding; McBee Strategic Consulting; Wilmer Culter Pickering Hale and Dorr; and Dutko Worldwide.
High-tech efforts to publicize President Obama's June 4 speech in Egypt aimed at forging a new relationship with the Muslim world exceeded organizers' expectations so the administration is planning a similar outreach attempt next month, a State Department official said Monday. Obama will give a speech while in Ghana July 10 and 11, which will be his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office. Victor Riche, who heads State's IT office, said the White House will again transmit the talk via text message in multiple languages. "I'm sure we'll double, triple, or quadruple the text messaging," he said of the Ghana event. The Cairo speech was translated into 14 languages on America.gov and spurred a flood of activity on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Riche told a Homeland Security Department privacy and technology workshop that the State Department has been a leader in embracing the Internet to broadcast the country's diplomatic message and engage in an international dialogue. Following on an array of webcasts, digital video presentations, social networking and forays into the virtual world Second Life, the agency is planning even more tech-savvy projects under the leadership of Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale. Some staffers were plucked from Riche's office last week and placed in a new unit where they will focus on social media, he said. "The department is moving forward in a big way in this area," he said, noting that technology is "the perfect complement to public diplomacy."
Riche, who spoke on a panel with representatives from DHS, the Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Academy of Public Administration, said he is working with McHale and others on formulating formal rules for social media use at the State Department. That guidance should be finalized next month, he said. Look for more coverage from the DHS summit in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
National Journal's latest issue is a bit bigger than normal. That's because it's devoted to profiles of 366 of the top officials in the Obama administration -- from high profile personalities like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Hillary Rodham Clinton to deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, and chiefs of staff at various Cabinet agencies. Here's a sampling of tech and telecommunications dossiers in Decision Makers 2009:
• John Holdren / White House
• Aneesh Chopra / White House
• Vivek Kundra / White House
• Macon Phillips / White House
• Jesse Lee / White House
• Gary Locke / Commerce
• Larry Strickling / Commerce
• Julius Genachowski / FCC
• Michael Copps / FCC
• Robert McDowell / FCC
• Mignon Clyburn / FCC
• Jon Leibowitz / FTC
• Roger Baker / VA
• Arden Bement / NSF
• Tara O'Toole / DHS
President Obama chuckled his way through the world premiere of JibJab's latest cartoon creation -- a catchy little superhero ditty called "He's Barack Obama" -- at Friday's Radio & Television Correspondents' Association Dinner. The JibJab guys, Evan and Gregg Spiridellis, were on hand to gauge the commander in chief's reaction in person (watch the video above). Organizers also showed a special RTCA reel of the Onion News Network, the online video companion to the popular satirical Onion news Web site. The evening's decidedly geeky stand up routine was provided by "Daily Show" John Hodgman, also known as the "I'm a PC" guy from those amusing Apple ads. In addition, two of the dinner's main sponsors were the Telecommunications Industry Association and Microsoft. Not a bad night for the tech industry.
President Obama on Thursday nominated IBM Assistant General Counsel David Kappos to become director of the Patent and Trademark Office. As reported in CongressDaily's AM Edition, the news was uniformly welcomed by lawmakers, industry leaders and members of the legal community. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said Kappos is "exceptionally qualified" to lead the PTO, which faces serious challenges in the recession and a spokesman for Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions said his boss believes Kappos' credentials and experience are impressive and looks forward to evaluating him. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke issued a statement saying Kappos "will be a strong voice for patent reform" and will be charged with making a big dent in the growing application backlog, which now exceeds 750,000.
Foley & Lardner attorney Jon Dudas, who served as PTO director in the Bush administration, said Kappos is an excellent choice. "He is deeply respected in the intellectual property community, the U.S. government and internationally," Dudas said. "Dave also has the leadership and management skills to inspire the thousands of incredibly professional colleagues he will soon lead." American Intellectual Property Law Association Executive Director Todd Dickinson, who served as head of the PTO under former President Bill Clinton, said Kappos "has a genuine appreciation for the tough issues facing intellectual property policy and administration today." His nomination offers an opportunity for a fresh start, Dickinson said.
Groups involved in the ongoing congressional battle over patent reform also hailed Obama's pick. The Coalition for Patent Fairness and Innovation Alliance, which have been at odds over pending legislation, both backed Kappos. CPF said he has the experience needed to lead the PTO "at a time when it faces significant operational challenges in an ever-evolving competitive global marketplace." The Alliance said its members "look forward to working with him in what will be a very difficult, but important effort to revitalize the PTO, which all agree is under funded and overburdened." Congress should provide PTO the funds it needs to upgrade its technology, improve the patent application process, and attract and retain professional talent, the group said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and a handful of other senators urged President Obama on Thursday to protect intellectual property as talks begin on a global climate change treaty. Proposals have surfaced by representatives of some countries to allow foreign producers to copy or infringe patented technologies. "The United States government cannot afford to sit idle while others seek to weaken IP protections," they wrote. "America must continue to set the standard for IP protection, and be willing to confront those countries and organizations that attempt to weaken IP rights." Hatch collected signatures from Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; Robert Bennett, R-Utah; Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; Arlen Specter, D-Pa.; George Voinovich, R-Ohio; John Thune, R-S.D.; Judd Gregg, R-N.H.; and David Vitter, R-La.
The senators explain that some governments mischaracterize IP rights as an obstacle to progress and require compulsory licenses of IP or forced technology transfers. China and India claim they cannot meet future global emission requirements without free or significantly discounted access to climate change mitigation technologies. "These short-sighted approaches to IP rights will curtail growth and development, and stagnate the very industries that these countries depend on," they wrote. A coalition backed by the Chamber, General Electric, Microsoft, Siemens and other multinationals has been putting similar pressure on the Obama administration. A series of meetings will culminate at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, where parties will seek agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Although the White House personnel announcement has yet to emerge, Google executive Andrew McLaughlin's alma mater is reporting his appointment as deputy chief technology officer for the Obama administration. CTO Aneesh Chopra already has one deputy, Beth Noveck, who focuses on open government issues. Harvard Law School posted the news about the Internet giant's former head of global public policy on its Web site Thursday. "As Google's first public policy executive, McLaughlin built the company's presence in Washington, helping to promote its position on topics such as online privacy, net neutrality and copyright," the memo said.
McLaughlin is an emeritus fellow of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, joining in 1998 as an associate director and fellow. He taught "The Law of Cyberspace" with Internet visionary Jonathan Zittrain, "Digital Democracy" with Berkman founder Charles Nesson, and led the Center's initiatives in developing countries. During that time, he was also vice president and chief policy officer at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a nonprofit group that helps coordinate the Internet's address system. McLaughlin served on Obama's transition team as a member of the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform Policy Working Group.
Tech Daily Dose previously reported that a pair of high-tech watchdogs had urged the White House to halt the pending appointment. Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson and the Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester claimed it would violate the intent of President Obama's ethics rules. Both are vocal Google critics and wrote that the company's Washington influence is not the primary reason for the objection. "We believe no special-interest connected person should assume a position of vital importance to the country's future," they said. Read more about their complaint here.
Computer security expert Rod Beckstrom, who served as director of the Homeland Security Department's National Cybersecurity Center in the Bush administration, could become the new president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, sources close to the California-based nonprofit tell Tech Daily Dose. Paul Twomey, who has held the position for six years, announced his departure in March. Since that time the group has faced intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill in the run up to September's expiration of a formal oversight relationship between ICANN and the Commerce Department. At a hearing earlier this month, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee called for an extension of the arrangement amid concerns about the 11-year-old organization's transparency, accountability, budget processes, and stakeholder relationships.
If approved by the ICANN board, Beckstrom would bring a unique background to the post. In his role at DHS, Beckstrom reported to the DHS Secretary and was charged with cooperating directly with high-level officials at the Justice and Defense Departments, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. At age 24, Beckstrom launched his first company, CATS Software, and grew it into a global enterprise. He sold the business and later cofounded Mergent Systems, a database firm that was acquired for $200 million. The Stanford University graduate also cofounded a global CEO peace network that initiated diplomatic efforts between India and Pakistan.
Additionally, Beckstrom co-authored four books including The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, which offers advice on analyzing organizations and competitive strategy. ICANN Vice President Paul Levins would not confirm Beckstrom's selection but said a "leading candidate" had been chosen and initial contract discussions were underway. The candidate will attend a major ICANN meeting slated to begin in Sydney on Sunday. There he will meet with the board face-to-face and will be introduced to members of the ICANN community, Levins said. The board expects to be in a position to approve the new CEO when it convenes next Friday, he added. Read more about ICANN's Sydney meeting here.
This just in... President Obama has announced his intention to nominate IBM Assistant General Counsel David Kappos to become director of the Patent and Trademark Office. His bio, included in the White House announcement, is pasted after the jump. Kappos, who joined the company as a development engineer in 1983, was among several rumored top contenders for the job. Others included American Intellectual Property Law Association Executive Director Q. Todd Dickinson, who was PTO director under former President Bill Clinton, and Jim Pooley, a Silicon Valley attorney who was installed earlier this week as the World Intellectual Property Organization's deputy director general for patents. Look for more in CongressDaily's AM Edition on Friday.
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Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly shows a House Energy and Commerce Committee staffer how to adjust privacy settings for her profile on the popular social networking Web site. Kelly, who is also a Democratic candidate for California attorney general, was in Washington testifying before a joint hearing on Internet privacy held by the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Consumer Protection subcommittees. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
Trade groups representing high-tech, manufacturing, retail, and financial services firms wrote to House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders Wednesday urging them to "use extreme caution" when crafting Internet privacy legislation and refrain from imposing duplicative, inconsistent and ineffective regulations that could hurt consumers and businesses. The letter, sent to leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Consumer Protection subcommittees on the eve of a high-profile hearing on the topic, acknowledges there are "important issues around online privacy that Congress is looking into, issues that industry takes seriously as well." But during deliberations, lawmakers should take into account the range of industries, companies, and jobs that could be impacted by potential legislative or regulatory action, they said.
"The vast majority of companies of all shapes and sizes are online in some capacity and use the Internet to communicate with consumers, employees, existing customers, potential customers, and business partners around the world," added the letter signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Financial Services Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers, National Retail Federation and others. The FTC also weighed in, sending lawmakers its recent staff report on behavioral advertising. An accompanying letter states the Commission "has actively encouraged industry to embrace new measures relating to behavioral advertising to inform and empower consumers and is monitoring developments" so privacy is protected.
The Senate late Wednesday passed legislation intended to promote more openness regarding statutory exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act by tacking the measure onto another bill that would prevent the release of photos of detainees in U.S. custody. The FOIA bill, sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, "will make certain that when Congress provides for a statutory exemption to FOIA in new legislation, Congress states its intention to do so explicitly and clearly," the senator said in a statement. He said new statutory exemptions to FOIA should always be carefully considered before they are enacted and his bill will help to stop that practice and "shine more light on the process of creating legislative exemptions to FOIA." The Sunshine in Government Initiative's Rick Blum lauded the FOIA bill's passage, saying it "lets the public cry foul when secrecy ideas are overbroad or unjustified." He said he hoped the House would act on companion legislation soon. The detainee photo measure was sponsored by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Following on swift action in the House, the Senate on Wednesday passed legislation by unanimous consent that would allow months of royalty negotiations between the music and Internet industries continue while delaying full implementation of a controversial rate-setting for webcasters imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The legislation was sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., would replace a Feb. 15, 2009 deadline that was part of legislation that passed the 110th Congress, with a 30-day window from the date of enactment for a deal to be reached between digital royalty collector SoundExchange, which is negotiating on behalf of copyright owners and performers, and Internet services represented by the Digital Media Association and others.
A companion bill sponsored by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., passed the House earlier this month with support from Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and California Democrats Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo. DiMA Executive Director Jonathan Potter lauded the action and used it as a platform to press his members' agenda pertaining to a bill that would end a longstanding royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio. "Hopefully, as Congress continues to focus more broadly on sound recording performance rights legislation, more comprehensive legislation will soon level the regulatory playing field for all forms of digital radio."
The online marketing practice known as behavioral advertising, which is being employed increasingly by Internet companies that want to tailor Web surfers' content, will come under scrutiny on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Executives from Google, Facebook, and Yahoo will take the hot seat alongside some of their most prominent critics at a joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Consumer Protection subcommittees. House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., is preparing legislation that he hopes would give Internet users greater confidence in how information collected about them is used and would offer consumer control over that use. "That will encourage people to engage in electronic commerce more readily," he said earlier this year. At the time, Boucher had not decided what rules could be in the measure.
The rare joint session "is but one hearing along a continuum of legislative activity examining the domains of the online and offline consumer privacy and how companies handle and treat consumers' personal information," Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said in an excerpt from his opening statement. He will point out there are no federal laws specifically aimed at behavioral advertising nor is there a comprehensive general privacy law on the books. Google Deputy General Counsel Nicole Wong, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly and Yahoo Vice President of Policy Anne Toth plan to defend their business practices and tell lawmakers that high-tech advances in advertising lead to more enjoyable Internet experiences for users. Read the full preview story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here and look for more coverage in the PM Edition.
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin thinks the Mountain State can make a good case for getting some of the $7 billion broadband money that was included in the economic stimulus package that passed Congress earlier this year. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is responsible for doling out more than $4 billion in grants and the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service has the job of distributing $2.5 billion. Both have to act fast with Manchin and other state officials eager to put the money to use. Manchin, a pioneer in the broadband space, delivered a keynote address at an Internet Innovation Alliance symposium Wednesday and spoke with reporters afterward. He also received IIA's Broadband Innovator of the Year award for his efforts to advance deployment and adoption in West Virginia.
Since taking office in 2004, Manchin has emphasized that high-speed Internet is as important a commodity as water and electricity, he told Tech Daily Dose. The economic success and global competitiveness of the United States depends on it, he said. Last year, Manchin advanced a bill in the state legislature that would set up a fund to pay those who successfully apply to expand Internet access in underserved areas of the state. He also proposed that the entire state have high-speed Internet access by 2010. Several years ago, Manchin set up a broadband deployment council to track access throughout the state. "It was the first of its kind in the nation and it pulled everyone under one tent to make sure we were using all the resources available," he said.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., on Wednesday stepped down as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, following his announcement Tuesday that he had an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer. Ensign, whose exit sets up a vacancy for the fourth-ranking job in GOP leadership, served two consecutive terms as chair of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force. "His voice for tech interests at the leadership table will be missed," one industry insider told Tech Daily Dose. "Hopefully, a tech savvy Senator like John Thune will come in to replace him." GOP leadership aides told CongressDaily that Thune of South Dakota is considered the front-runner at this point but Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina has expressed interest in the past. Thune is a member of the high-tech task force, which is being chaired this Congress by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Thune also recently joined Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va.; Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
Two high-tech watchdog groups that filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2008 against the U.S. government over a perceived lack of transparency in Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations have reluctantly dropped their complaint. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge said Wednesday that the Obama administration's decision to support Bush-era concealment policies prompted the move. Federal judges have very little discretion to overrule Executive Branch decisions to classify information on national security grounds and government lawyers recently informed the court that they intend to defend the classification claims on those grounds, officials said.
Negotiating texts and background documents for the trade deal have been made available to representatives of major media copyright owners and pharmaceutical companies yet private citizens have had to rely on unofficial leaks for substantive information about the treaty, EFF International Policy Director Gwen Hinze said in a press release. "This can hardly be described as transparent or balanced policy-making," she said. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk on Friday announced that representatives from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mexico and other countries will meet in Morocco next month to resume ACTA discussions with an eye for completion in 2010.
Read related CongressDaily coverage here (subscription required).
A number of U.S. and international business groups expressed concern to the Chinese government Tuesday about a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology notice mandating the installation of so-called "Green Dam" Internet filtering software on all computers sold in China, beginning July 1, 2009. "This mandate raises significant questions of security, privacy, system reliability, the free flow of information and user choice," the groups said. "A technology-specific mandate such as this also seems to run contrary to China's own goal of becoming a leading IT and information-based society." The signatories also urged "the use of effective and responsible parental controls" and said they would welcome a dialogue with China on how best to advance that objective.
Tech stakeholders signing the letter to Minister Li Yizhong included the Business Software Alliance, Consumer Electronics Association, Information Technology Industry Council, Semiconductor Industry Association, Software and Information Industry Association, TechAmerica, and the Telecommunications Industry Association. Broader business groups that joined them included the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, US-China Business Council, and the American Chamber of Commerce in China. Reports that the Green Dam software is compulsory on all computers are "a misunderstanding," according to China Daily. An official said the software's setup files must be present on all PCs or on an installation CD but installation is up to users.
A key European Union working group late last week released a report urging social networking sites to conform with the organization's data protection directive and to uphold and strengthen the rights of users. The report, which could have major implications for sites like MySpace and Facebook, comes as U.S. lawmakers prepare to scrutinize Internet companies' privacy and advertising practices at a Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill. The joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee and Consumer Protection Subcommittee will hear testimony from Google, Yahoo and Facebook executives. "Of paramount importance, [social networking sites] should inform users of their identity from the outset and outline all the different purposes for which they process personal data. Particular care should be taken by SNS providers with regard to the processing of the personal data of minors," the report stated.
The document recommends that users should only upload pictures or information about other individuals with the individual's consent and considers that SNS also have a duty to advise users regarding the privacy rights of others. The paper notes that online communities and, in many cases third party application providers, are data controllers with corresponding responsibilities to users. Robust security and privacy-friendly default settings are advocated throughout the opinion as the ideal starting point with regard to all services and access to profile information emerges as a key area of concern. Topics such as the processing of sensitive data and images, advertising and direct marketing on SNS and data retention issues are also addressed. Read the full report here (PDF).
From CongressDaily's AM Edition:
Nominee For FCC Chairman Urged To 'Fix' The Agency
Julius Genachowski, President Obama's pick for FCC chairman, played it safe during his confirmation hearing Tuesday as senators delivered marching orders on fostering more transparency at the agency, bolstering broadcast indecency enforcement and extending broadband to homes lacking access. Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller stole the show with a stern request for Genachowski to repair the damaged reputation of the commission, known for its bitter negotiating environment, by operating more openly and not kowtowing to powerful corporate interests. "Fix this agency, or we will fix it for you. Prove to us that the FCC is not battered beyond repair," Rockefeller warned.
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Kohl Pushes For More Competition In Cell Phone Industry
Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., urged the FCC Tuesday to "take all necessary action" to remove barriers to competition in the cell phone marketplace and prevent giants like AT&T and Verizon from gaining a stranglehold on the industry. He also pressed the Justice Department to closely scrutinize mergers and allegations of anti-competitive practices in the wireless sector. Nowhere is the changed market for cell phones more noticeable than in the text messaging space, Kohl argued at a hearing. From 2006 to 2008, the price of sending and receiving messages among the four largest carriers increased from 10 to 20 cents per message within weeks or months of each other. The price increases occurred despite the fact that the cost to cell phone providers for texting -- less than a penny per message -- has not increased.
Read the full story here. (subscription required).
Telecommunications analyst Scott Cleland, whose work is bankrolled by companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, also signed on as a hired gun for Microsoft earlier this year, according to a summary of testimony he plans to deliver Thursday at a joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee and Consumer Protection Subcommittee. The focus of the session is Internet privacy and behavioral advertising. Cleland, a frequent critic of Google, runs Precursor, an industry research and consulting firm, and chairs NetCompetition.org, which he describes as a "a pro-competition e-forum funded by broadband companies."
While Cleland asserts that his testimony reflects his personal views and not the views of his clients, Google sympathizers wonder if his new affiliation with Microsoft might further fuel what they believe is an already staunchly anti-Google agenda. Last December, Precursor issued a report alleging that Google "is by far the largest user of Internet bandwidth," the company's share of bandwidth usage is rising rapidly, and it's bandwidth use "is orders of magnitude greater than its payment for its cost." Google's telecom counsel Richard Whitt responded to the attack, calling the report "payola punditry." Google Associate General Counsel Nicole Wong will testify Thursday, presumably in defense of her firm's practices.
Regardless of who signs Cleland's checks, his testimony concludes that if Congress decides to legislate on Internet privacy, a competition/technology-neutral framework is the way to go. According to Cleland, such a proposal would: emphasize protecting people not technologies; empower consumers with the control/freedom to choose to either protect or exploit their own privacy; prevent competitive arbitrage of asymmetric technology-driven privacy policies with a level playing field; stay current with ever-evolving technological innovation; and accommodate both privacy and public interests by empowering real consumer privacy choice.
Update: Cleland told Tech Daily Dose his work with Microsoft has been focused on Internet security and safety.
"Technology is the future of education," House Committee on Education and Labor Chairman George Miller said Tuesday while playing with a computer simulation of a dissected frog during a showcase of up-and-coming education technologies. "Now the frogs don't have to die," he joked. Earlier in the day, Miller presided over a hearing on how technology is transforming the public school system. President Obama's recently confirmed Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra testified. "We need to harness the power and potential of technology and innovation to revamp our educational system," Chopra said.
At the post-hearing demonstration sponsored by the State Educational Technology Directors Association and the Software & Information Industry Association, Miller was joined by educators and other lawmakers, including Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who is also a member of the Education and Labor Committee. The gadgets ran the gamut from data management software to interactive whiteboards that have touch-screen capabilities. "The goal is to show, not just tell, what's possible using technology in education," said Mary Ann Wolf, a former teacher who now serves as SETDA's executive director. SETDA, the principle association representing state directors for education technology, organizes several meetings a year including a leadership summit and an educational forum. -- Eliza Krigman
Jessica Rich, who has served since 1998 as an assistant director in the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, has been promoted to acting associate director for the division of privacy and identity protection. She previously worked in the division of financial practices. During her tenure at the agency, she has worked on a variety of matters related to consumer privacy and data security, including investigations, enforcement, rulemakings, workshops, reports, and testimony to Congress. Prior to her appointment as assistant director, Rich served as a legal advisor in the bureau and before that was an attorney in private practice in New York City.
The Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester said Rich is "deeply interested" in privacy and her promotion is a sign that new Consumer Protection Bureau Director David Vladeck, who started this week, "takes privacy and online marketing issues seriously." Chester said the appointment of both officials "means this issue is awakened after a long digital Rip Van Winkle-like slumber." CDD has repeatedly urged the FTC to bolster its activity in the privacy arena. Online and mobile commerce represents a new and expanding marketplace for which the ground rules of competition and marketing are still being formulated, Chester and other watchdogs said in a recent letter to President Obama.
More than 40 percent of Internet users now utilize social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, up from 27 percent a year ago, according to a new report from the Conference Board and TNS. More than half of social networkers log on at least once a day, and the majority log on several times a day, the report found. The majority of users log on at home, although a quarter of social networkers log on at work, and 10 percent connect through their phone, officials said, citing the Consumer Internet Barometer, a quarterly study that surveys 10,000 households across the country. Among those surveyed, the most popular site was Facebook (used by 78 percent), followed by MySpace (42 percent), LinkedIn (17 percent) and Twitter (10 percent).
Social networking spans all generations, polling showed. About 19 percent of those age 55 and over visit these sites, up from just 6 percent a year ago. Women are more likely than men to use social networking sites (48 percent vs. 38 percent), but usage has increased dramatically among both groups in just a year. "Online social networks are more than just a fad among the younger generation. They've become an integral part of our personal and professional lives," the Conference Board's Lynn Franco said in a press release. "They're powerful communication tools, and are becoming an essential part of successful marketing strategies." Read more about the report here.
High-tech attorney Jim Pooley, one of several top contenders for the job of Patent and Trademark Office director, was approved by World Intellectual Property Organization leaders on Monday as deputy director general for patents. Pooley has been a partner in the litigation department of the Palo Alto office of Morrison & Forrester and has practiced in Silicon Valley since 1973. He is immediate past president of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and president of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Other new deputy directors general are: Geoffrey Onyeama (Nigeria), cooperation for development (including development agenda and WIPO Academy); Wang Binying (China), trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications; and Johannes Wichard (Germany) global issues (including enforcement, arbitration/mediation, communications, and the committee on genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore). For more, click here. (Hat tip, William New)
As CongressDaily's AM Edition reports, House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., on Monday released a narrow discussion draft of a bill to reauthorize for five years provisions of the Satellite Home Viewer Act set to expire Dec. 31. As written, the proposal leaves out language opposed by broadcasters that would allow satellite and cable providers to import signals of stations in adjacent markets. CBS, NBC and FOX have argued the change could be disadvantageous in retransmission consent programming negotiations.
Another key section attempts to level the playing field between local stations and those deemed by the FCC to be "significantly viewed." The draft would update the statute to account for last week's nationwide shift to digital television and directs the FCC to update its predictive modeling methods for gauging how well certain locations receive satellite signals in an all-digital environment. At a hearing on the topic Tuesday, Boucher's panel will hear from Walt Disney Executive Vice President Preston Padden, DirecTV Executive Vice President Derek Chang, Dish Network General Counsel R. Stanton Dodge and others.
Padden will urge the subcommittee to "avoid interference with workable marketplace relationships" that exist in great abundance today in the multi-channel video programming market, according to written testimony. He will also argue those who invest billions of dollars to produce content should have the ability to determine where and on what terms that content is licensed and distributed. In his testimony, Chang will urge members to modify the current regime "to give consumers the stations that truly serve their communities." He will also ask lawmakers to modify how consumers can qualify for distant signals, "to ease their burden when local signals are not available to them."
Look for more coverage in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
Here's a sneak peek at the expected witness line-up for Thursday's eagerly anticipated Internet advertising and privacy hearing to be held jointly by House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill. The event is a follow up to a session Boucher held in April that featured broadband providers. He is working on privacy legislation that he hopes will ensure Internet users a secure Web surfing experience. Rush has already introduced a separate data breach notification bill.
• Jeffrey Chester, Executive Director, Center for Digital Democracy
• Scott Cleland, President, Precursor LLC
• Charles Curran, Executive Director, Network Advertising Initiative
• Christopher Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook
• Edward Felten, Director, Center for IT Policy, Princeton University
• Anne Toth, Vice President of Policy, Yahoo
• Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel, Google
Some Internet policy watchers fear the hearing might strike a decidedly anti-Google tone with Chester and Cleland on deck. Both are prominent critics of the Web giant's growing presence in Washington and in the Web marketplace. Chester's group is funded by philanthropic foundations and individual donors but does not take corporate funding. Cleland runs NetCompetition.org, whose members include AT&T, Comcast, Qwest, Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Facebook and Yahoo have also taken heat in recent years for privacy-related practices.
High-tech and healthcare stakeholders monitoring the implementation of economic stimulus package provisions intended to spur a nationwide network of electronic health records will have their first look Tuesday at what might constitute "meaningful use" of health IT products. A subgroup of the Health and Human Services Department's health IT policy committee will unveil a report on the topic and the full panel will deliberate. The paper will also be released for a formal public comment period and recommendations will ultimately be sent to David Blumenthal, the Obama administration's health IT coordinator. Final HHS guidance will let healthcare providers know how they can qualify for incentives included in the $19 billion section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
In related news, President Obama spoke on Monday about the importance of moving away from a paper-based healthcare system. He told the annual meeting of the American Medical Association it does not make sense that patients in the 21st century are "still filling out forms with pens on papers that have to be stored away somewhere." "As Newt Gingrich has rightly pointed out -- and I don't quote Newt Gingrich that often -- we do a better job tracking a FedEx package in this country than we do tracking patients' health records," Obama said. He went on to say that patients should not have to tell every new doctor about their medical history nor should they have to endure repeats of costly tests. "All that information should be stored securely in a private medical record," he said.
Arrive early and brace for a crowd if you'll be attending Tuesday's highly anticipated FCC nomination hearing, when Julius Genachowski, President Obama's choice to run the agency, appears before the Senate Commerce Committee. Also appearing at the session, which kicks off at 2:30 p.m. in Room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, will be FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican who has been nominated for a second term. Genachowski -- a close friend and law school classmate of the president, and Obama's chief technology adviser during the campaign -- is expected to oversee an ambitious agenda if confirmed, with new broadband policies as the centerpiece.
Speaking of which...The Internet Innovation Alliance, a coalition of businesses and non-profits, hosts a Wednesday event at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. on the development of the FCC's national broadband strategy. Guest speakers at the gathering, which runs from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., include West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin. And that's followed Thursday and Friday by the annual Broadband Policy Summit sponsored by Pike and Fischer, to be held at the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington, Va. Keynote speakers Thursday are House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and the head honcho at the FCC pending Genachowski's confirmation: acting Chairman Michael Copps.
For more tech-related happenings this week, check CongressDaily's TechCentral page.
The U.S. Telecom Association on Monday formally unveiled its new and improved NextGenWeb.org -- a Web site meant to facilitate engagement in a range of issues surrounding broadband deployment and educate those interested in the societal benefits of broadband. The trade group beefed up the site with enhanced social media applications and added Shana Glickfield as its official blogger and online community director. "The innovative new site reinforces key themes that help to drive broadband deployment and adoption: connect, innovate and collaborate." said Glickfield, who also founded DCConcierge.com, a service that helps Internet users find goods and services in Washington. "As we blog, livestream, podcast and tweet from policy and industry events taking place in Washington and across the country, NextGenWeb will serve as a central resource for the latest news on how broadband is transforming lives and be a place for honest debate," she said in a press release.
Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has been working on legislation that would let states impose the local tax on Internet sales where the seller is out of state. That's going to hurt e-business, says Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Utah-based Internet retailer Overstock.com. National Journal's Winter Casey sat down with Byrne on Friday, when he was in Washington to discuss education reform. Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: What are your thoughts on Internet taxes?
Byrne: We have been supporting a permanent moratorium on Internet taxes. It doesn't make sense for the states to be taxing the Internet for a number of reasons. First of all there's the Supreme Court decision from 15, 16 years ago, where the Supreme Court said, "Look, it's just unreasonable to expect somebody in the catalog business to know the different taxes in 7,000 jurisdictions."...
Now the argument is being made that it would be possible to overcome that inexpensively -- a couple hundred million dollars, say -- with technology to keep track of the tax rates on every product in 7,000 jurisdictions. They haven't done that, and even if they did I'd say it's not fair because we and other catalogers and Internet companies, we don't put the same load on the local infrastructure that it does to have a retail store there. We don't have employees, we don't have kids in school there and so on and so forth, we are just based in Utah and use UPS and FedEx. We don't put the load on states' budgets that a local brick-and-mortar retailer does. Therefore it is not fair.
CongressDaily's Chris Strohm writes in TechCentral's latest Issue Of The Week that House appropriators have approved most of what the Obama administration requested for Homeland Security technology programs and even gave it credit for "some hard decisions" not to seek money for certain efforts. By the time they voted Friday to send to the House an FY10 Homeland Security spending bill with $42.6 billion in discretionary spending, it was clear the Democratic-led Appropriations Committee is far more closely aligned with the Obama administration than it was with the Bush administration in the previous Congress. Floor action on the bill is expected this week.
In a report accompanying the bill, the committee commended the department for such budget decisions as not seeking funding for advanced cargo scanning technology and an electronic system to verify when foreigners leave the country. But no budget request goes through Congress unscathed. When appropriators disagreed with administration decisions, they didn't hesitate to say so. "The committee understands the demanding nature of the department's mission, as well as resources and technology limitations that make it difficult to consistently satisfy the wide range of expectations from Congress, state and local governments, industries, citizens, other federal departments and foreign governments," appropriators wrote.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Rep. Gary Peters, R-Mich., helped launch MakeItInMichigan.org on Monday -- a Web campaign aimed at pressuring General Motors to build its newest car in the Great Lake State. The American automobile giant, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month, has announced that it will choose between three plants -- one in Tennessee, another in Wisconsin and one in Michigan -- to manufacture its latest subcompact model. "It makes good business sense to build in Michigan," Peters said in a videotaped welcome message. "Our state is home to GM's key auto suppliers, GM headquarters and the tech center -- and the most talented engineers, skilled trade, and line workers in the world." The former states senator and lottery commissioner notes that Michigan has been GM's home for 100 years and the state has invested in the company in good times and in bad. Not surprisingly, the Orion, Mich., assembly plant being considered is in Oakland County, which is part of Peters's district.
Television makes history at midnight. When 974 broadcasters across the country begin turning off their analog signals early Friday morning, with shut-offs continuing throughout the day, they will mark the end of an era that began with the U.S. debut of TV technology at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. After more than two decades of planning, a four-month delay imposed by Congress this year and billions spent in federal and private dollars on outreach and converter box coupons, officials finally think the digital switchover is under control. The FCC has dispatched 200 staffers to trouble spots, deployed 4,000 operators to man its hotline around the clock through Monday, and established more than 500 walk-in centers and DTV clinics. Yet no one in charge is predicting a trouble-free transition. "We know there will be some disruption over this weekend and the coming weeks, but it won't be for our not trying," said William Lake, the FCC's DTV transition coordinator, during a briefing today in which officials involved with planning were largely upbeat. Read the full story in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
NextGov.com's Jill Aitoro writes that the Homeland Security Department's science and technology office plans to triple spending on cybersecurity research and development. The acting undersecretary told Congress Tuesday that most of the additional funds in President Obama's fiscal 2010 budget request are focused on new ways to protect the nation's critical infrastructure, including transportation and the electric grid. The Directorate for Science and Technology, which is the primary research and development arm of DHS, requested $968 million for fiscal 2010, a 3.8 percent increase over the previous year's enacted budget. Of the $35 million in additional funds requested, DHS would earmark $5.4 million for cybersecurity, Brad Buswell, the directorate's acting undersecretary, told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism.
Buswell said cybersecurity would gain a 300 percent funding increase, compared with fiscal 2009, for the development of "leap-ahead technologies" that secure the nation's computer networks and information infrastructure -- including energy, transportation, telecommunications, and banking and finance. Pointing to the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate as the office's primary customer for cybersecurity technologies, Buswell emphasized the need for coordination with the private sector to ensure the department's research and development doesn't overlap with work in industry. "The work we're doing [in cybersecurity] is work that the private sector is not doing for a number of reasons," he said. "But we're very mindful of the fact that we don't deploy the technology -- we develop the technology. Much of this is deployed by private sector, so we need to keep them closely involved in all development to make sure we're not duplicating efforts."
Read the full story here.
Vivek Kundra, the Obama administration's newly appointed chief information officer; Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark; Mark McKinnon, former media adviser for President George W. Bush; and Joe Rospars, the Obama campaign's new media director, are among the keynoters at the sixth annual Personal Democracy Forum in New York City later this month. The June 29-30 conference will draw a range of Internet, new media and political experts who will discuss how technological advances and Internet trends are affecting politics and government. Tech Daily Dose readers can get a $100 discount on the registration fee by clicking here.
TechAmerica continued the American Electronics Association's tradition of hosting an annual "Technology for Government" soiree on Wednesday but opted for a more economic spread of colorfully named appetizers and specialty cocktails rather than a formal sit-down banquet. AeA and the Information Technology Association of America merged to form TechAmerica in January. Although Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, also known as the "Father of the Internet," was billed as the evening's star power, the event's creative menu stole the show.
Transparency & Innovation Station:
Cocktail: "Clearly Classic" (vodka martini with a citrus twist or olive)
Bits & Bytes: Cocktail nuts, marinated olives, Chipolina olives
Digital Dips: Sun-dried tomato, olive tapenade, and artichoke
Cloud Computing Café:
Cocktail: "Cloud Martini" (grapefruit vodka, Red Bull, cotton candy garnish)
"Cumulus" cupcakes
"Puffy Pastries" (meringues, éclairs, cream puffs)
Tech America Diner:
Silicon Valley sliders (mini beef burgers)
Eastern Shore crab cakes
Low Country mini quiches
Beltway BLT bites
Midwest cheese straws
Cyber Security Lounge:
Cocktail: "Malware" Mojito
"Sandbox" sandwich (mini Cuban)
"Phishing" tacos (tilapia filled tortillas)
"Computer" chips (sweet and spicy plantains)
The House voted overwhelmingly late Wednesday to establish new U.S. policy in opposition to any global climate change treaty that weakens the intellectual property rights of American green technology as part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act. The vote comes as diplomats prepare for December negotiations as part of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. "American innovations in clean energy technology create good-paying jobs today and will fuel our country's economic growth in the future," said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who offered the amendment with Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. Kirk, a member of the U.S. delegation to Kyoto in 1997, emphasized that jobs will not be created if foreign competitors are allowed to seize U.S. inventions.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman's core bill included language to increase resources and training for enforcement of intellectual property rights. Berman is a longtime leader on IP issues and chaired the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property in the 110th Congress. Under the bill, the Secretary of State would appoint 10 new IP attachés to serve in embassies or other diplomatic missions with priority placement given to countries with particularly egregious IP regimes. "This legislation will play a vital role in efforts to protect job-creating intellectual property abroad," said Mark Esper, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global IP Center.
Former American Library Association legislative counsel Miriam Nisbet has been tapped to become director of a new office within the National Archives and Records Administration that will mediate disputes under the Freedom of Information Act. Congress created the Office of Government Information Services in 2007. Nisbet most recently served as the director of the information society division at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), where she worked on issues of global access to information and digital libraries. She also served as secretary of the Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Programme. Nisbet previously worked at NARA from 1993 to 1999 where she first occupied the post of special assistant to the Archivist of the United States and then special counsel for information policy.
She was staff attorney at the National Association of Attorneys General in the late 1970s before joining the Department of Justice from 1978 to 1994 where her past position was deputy director of the Office of Information and Privacy. "While the federal FOIA mediator's office is still a long way from mediating its first FOIA dispute, it took a strong step forward today with the naming of its new director," said Sunshine in Government Initiative coordinator Rick Blum whose group represents nine associations that work for openness and transparency in government. "She's a long-time advocate for open government, and this is a promising start for those who want the FOIA to work better."
France's Constitutional Court on Wednesday struck down a key portion of a recently enacted law that gave the government the ability to disconnect Internet users who illegally download music and movies. Under the so-called "three strikes" regime, which President Nicolas Sarkozy endorsed and lawmakers approved in May, users who download content without paying for it would get an e-mail from the government followed by a letter and a third warning before their Web connectivity is cut off for as long as one year. Concerns about a similar proposal permeated talks between the United States and a handful of trading partners as they work toward completion of an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
The high court also found that access to the Internet in is among citizens' fundamental freedoms that cannot be curtailed or interrupted without intervention from a judge. The ruling came as a number of foreign entertainment industry executives gathered in Washington for the World Copyright Summit. French Minister of Culture and Communication Christine Albanel was scheduled to speak Tuesday but she canceled due to the likelihood that the court would rule this week. International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers Secretary General Eric Baptiste broke the news to attendees, saying his group was disappointed with the decision.
Sarkozy's supporters are not wasting time formulating a new plan. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Executive Vice President Shira Perlmutter told the conference that policymakers are already crafting a modified bill that will maintain the same graduated response approach but transfer some powers to a special court. The French movement was an important step forward in recognizing that music stakeholders need to work with Internet service providers, Perlmutter said during a session about the role of ISPs, which lacked a broadband provider representative. "It put in place a system that would be more effective and less draconian than having to sue a lot of individuals," she said.
One-size-fits-all policymaking does not produce favorable outcomes when developing countries are trying to formulate solid intellectual property regimes, World Bank Senior Vice President Anne-Marie Leroy told the World Copyright Summit on Wednesday. That's why her organization has supported a range of projects in various countries aimed at helping them stand up personalized IP protection processes and avoid the pitfalls of cutting and pasting regulations from other legal systems. In the late 1990s, the bank offered millions of dollars to Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico for that purpose, Leroy said. Additionally, a multi-million dollar trust fund program has supported investments in the music industries of Ghana, Senegal, Jordan and Nigeria.
"Domestic IP policies and laws should adapt standards that are well within their domestic institutional capacity to implement," she said, noting that it's important to avoid creating what she called "systemic internal inconsistencies" that eventually lead to failures in IP enforcement. Distortions in a country's IP framework provide gaps and opportunities for abuse and corruption, Leroy added. In the big development picture, however, intellectual property is only one component for stimulating competitive commercial infrastructures, she said. Other key ingredients include reforming tariff and tax policies; reducing the cost of trade; and advocating for export promotion policies.
Key business groups offered support Tuesday for a legislative amendment that would reaffirm intellectual property rights for U.S. technologies developed to deal with climate change, CongressDaily's AM Edition reported. The National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the United States Council for International Business said that as talks proceed on a climate change treaty, proposals have surfaced to allow foreign producers to copy or infringe patented technologies. On a parallel track, a coalition backed by the Chamber, General Electric, Microsoft, Siemens and other multinational firms is putting pressure on the Obama administration and key lawmakers as trade negotiators prepare for U.N. climate change talks this summer.
"While progress on these environmental negotiations is vitally important, such compulsory licensing is not the answer," the groups said in a letter Tuesday backing a proposal by Reps. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., offered as an amendment to the foreign relations authorization bill expected on the House floor soon. The House Rules Committee approved a slightly modified version of the amendment Tuesday that will be considered with the bill on the House floor. Business groups worry that countries like Brazil, China and India will push for mandatory carve-outs for alternative energy innovations. A series of meetings begin this month and will lead up to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, where parties will seek agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Read CongressDaily's recent coverage of this issue here and here (subscription required).
Privacy watchdogs have long questioned whether U.S. Customs and Border Protection policies permit agents to search laptops and other electronic devices of travelers without suspicion of wrongdoing and now the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to find solid answers. On Wednesday, the group filed a Freedom of Information Act with CBP, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, to learn how the agency's search policy, first made public in July 2008, is impacting international travelers' constitutional rights. According to the ACLU's request, giving the government unchecked authority to search travelers' personal documents and devices is a violation of Fourth Amendment privacy rights and the First Amendment freedoms of speech, inquiry and association.
The ACLU FOIA request seeks records related to: CBP's authority to search, review, retain and disseminate information possessed by individuals who are encountered by CBP at the border; the number of documents or electronic devices retained by CBP; the length of retention, reasons for retention and the ultimate disposition of retained material; and the dissemination of documents or electronic devices throughout DHS, other agencies, or to entities outside government. The FOIA also asks for complaints filed by individuals or organizations affected by CBP's search policies; statistics reflecting the number of travelers subject to suspicionless searches; and statistics reflecting the race, ethnicity, country of origin, citizenship and gender of individuals subjected to suspicionless searches.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced in January that she was reviewing a range of immigration and border security policies and in May said clarification is needed with respect to the laptop issue. She said a team at DHS will "issue pretty firm guidance and protocol for how you conduct a laptop search," but noted that in the course of the few laptop searches that actually have been done, agents have found significant criminal activity. "We are a global society, people going from country to country all the time, they're crossing the border, they need to take their laptops to do business, we need to have a better policy that takes into account some of those IP concerns, some of the privacy concerns. That's what we're drafting now," Napolitano said.
A group backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, digital royalty rights collector SoundExchange and other music interests filed a complaint with the FCC late Tuesday claiming that AM and FM radio stations belonging to the National Association of Broadcasters have threatened performers, refused to run their advertisements, and made misleading statements to the public. The filing by the MusicFirst Coalition comes as Congress contemplates whether to end a long-standing royalty exemption afforded to terrestrial radio. "For more than 80 years radio stations have been using the work of artists and musicians without compensating them, now they're using the public airwaves unfairly for their own self interest," said MusicFirst Executive Director Jennifer Bendall. "We respect the First Amendment rights of broadcasters to air their views in this and any debate, but they've crossed the line."
NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton issued a statement calling the allegation "an act of desperation by a record label lobby losing on Capitol Hill and in the court of public opinion." He added that Will.i.am, a vocal proponent of the performance fee legislation, and his group The Black Eyed Peas currently hold the No. 1 slot on Billboard's Pop 100 Airplay Chart with the song "Boom Boom Pow." "If there's an FCC probe involving the music business, it ought to focus on claims from numerous artists -- from The Beatles to Prince to Cher -- that they were cheated out of royalties by their record labels," Wharton said. The House Judiciary Committee recently approved the bill backed by MusicFirst and a companion measure awaits action in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
An innovative Google advertising tactic helped Virginia state legislator Creigh Deeds clinch Tuesday night's Democratic gubernatorial primary victory. Starting Monday afternoon, the Deeds campaign launched a Google network blast (sometimes called a Google "surge") to capitalize on his weekend gains in the polls and get out the vote for Election Day, according to an email from a Google spokeswoman. His display ads, which encouraged Virginians to "vote today" and referenced a Washington Post endorsement, reached over 80 percent of people online in Northern Virginia on top sites like WashingtonPost.com and WSJ.com.
The ads were geo-targeted, which means they were only visible to people in Northern Virginia or Washington, DC proper (to capture people that work in the District but live in Virginia). Deeds also recently pulled ahead of his rivals in terms of volume of searches on Google. Searches for his name first surpassed former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and state legislator Brian Moran on May 29 and, as of June 5, searches for Deeds were up more than 25 percent compared to McAuliffe, Google said. Deeds will face Republican Bob McDonnell in November.
Congressional Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention Caucus Co-Chair Robert Wexler warned an international crowd of copyright executives Wednesday that the intellectual property policy push outside of Washington and Brussels has not gained enough steam. Most average citizens would be unable to describe what IP piracy is and others don't see it as a threat, the Florida Democrat said during a luncheon keynote at the World Copyright Summit. He cautioned that momentum for international IP infringers is building and offered as proof the fact that Sweden's Pirate Party won a seat in the European Parliament early Sunday. The group, buoyed by young people and first-time voters, became known earlier this year for its support of the controversial file-sharing Web site Pirate Bay.
Government and private sector efforts to make IP theft taboo have fallen short, he said. "Those of us who understand the importance of IP law fail to do the job of educating others toward our point of view," Wexler said, urging creators, governments and industry to spread a cohesive message. "We have a great story to tell but we must tell it better." Traditional advocacy is not enough because it gets lost in a sea of detractors who "don't necessarily play by the rules," Wexler said. Groups like Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants more free Internet content, woo supporters with attractive prose that is not based in fact, he said. "We end up with the difficult task of explaining the finer points of copyright law to a public that has little or no interest in an explanation," Wexler said.
High-tech lobbyists Sharon Ringley and Elizabeth Frazee announced the creation of TwinLogic Strategies, a government relations firm leveraging their combined expertise in a range of business related issues. The pair, who are each mothers of twins and have had parallel careers (hence the firm name), bring extensive experience to the new venture, including work with senior members of the House, Fortune 100 corporations, and managing independent lobbying practices. Ringley served as deputy chief of staff for Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.; director of federal affairs for Internet auction site Amazon.com and was a vice president at the Bockorny Group in addition to running her own independent firm. Frazee was formerly legislative director and counsel for Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; director of government relations for the Walt Disney Company and vice president for America Online and AOL-Time Warner, as well as operating her own shop since 2003.
In other lobbying news, Randy Dove is heading the federal government affairs shop for Hewlett-Packard, according to a source speaking on background. Dove previously worked for former Sen. Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., R-Md. The technology giant has not yet announced who it will hire to serve as vice president for global government affairs and lead the company's government relations and public policy initiatives. In addition, the government affairs teams of both HP and EDS have begun operating out of the same office space on Pennsylvania Avenue. HP has been working on integrating the lobby shop of EDS with its Washington team since HP's acquisition of EDS closed in August 2008. In the meantime, HP has had some departures, including David Isaacs of HP and Bill Sweeney, the former head of EDS's global government affairs office. (Hat tip, Winter Casey).
The House on Tuesday passed legislation under suspension of the rules that would allow many months of royalty negotiations between the music and Internet industries continue while delaying full implementation of a controversial rate-setting for webcasters imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., with support from Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and California Democrats Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo. It would replace a Feb. 15, 2009 deadline that was part of legislation that passed the 110th Congress, with a 30-day window from the date of enactment for a deal to be reached between digital royalty collector SoundExchange, which is negotiating on behalf of copyright owners and performers, and Internet radio services represented by the Digital Media Association and others.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a companion measure with Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., last month and the bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. SoundExchange and the National Association of Broadcasters already reached agreement on Internet radio royalties earlier this year that provides discounts on previously set rates for 2009 and 2010 and establishes rates for 2011-2015. Under the arrangement, which involves AM and FM radio stations that simulcast programming over the Internet or that create new stand-alone Internet stations, simulcasts or Web channels operated by local stations are reduced for the first two years by about 16 percent then gradually increase through 2015 -- from $0.0015 per streamed sound recording in 2009 to $0.0025 per stream by 2015. Read more on the topic here.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday he is hopeful the Senate Judiciary Committee will move forward on its intellectual property agenda as early as this summer despite a packed schedule of judicial appointments, most prominently that of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Among the issues awaiting the panel's attention include a proposal to end an AM/FM radio royalty exemption; overhauling a portion of U.S. copyright law that deals with musical tracks, images, videos or other content whose owners cannot be easily located; and a bill to reauthorize expiring provisions of a statute that lets satellite systems retransmit local and distant TV signals into markets across the country. His comments at the World Copyright Summit echoed Thursday remarks by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy.
"There's no question that radio play promotes artists and their sound recordings," Hatch, himself a songwriter. "There's also no question that radio stations profit directly from playing artists' recordings." Despite an oppositional lobbying blitz by the National Association of Broadcasters, a bill that would require payments to performers passed the House Judiciary Committee last month. Representatives from both camps faced off at the conference with NAB and Recording Industry Association of America executives predicting a lengthy, potentially multi-year fight. "The question is not will this pass, but when will it pass," RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol said. Digital Media Association Executive Director Jonathan Potter and Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn urged for a broadening of the effort to ensure parity across music platforms, including Internet radio.
NationalJournal.com's David Herbert writes that Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial spirit has given us personal computers, iPods and Google. What the sun-drenched tech capital hasn't produced is a political heavyweight -- a fact that California gubernatorial hopefuls Meg Whitman (R) and Steve Poizner (R) are hoping to change next year. Before Whitman, former eBay CEO, and Poizner, a former tech executive turned state insurance commissioner, the only tech whizzes to jump into statewide politics were engineer and former Rep. Ed Zschau (R), who lost his bid for Senate in 1986, and former eBay executive Steve Westly (D), who served as state controller for four years but lost his 2006 bid for governor. Whitman and Poizner are treading on unfamiliar ground, to be sure. But are they blazing a trail for more Valley crossovers or are they merely two more footnotes in the Valley's thin political history? One thing is for certain: Silicon Valley has begun to throw its immense wealth around. Read the full story here.
Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to employ "a nuanced, balanced" approach to naming key intellectual property posts in the federal government. President Obama has yet to name a White House IP enforcement coordinator, as mandated by a law that passed the 110th Congress, or Patent and Trademark Office director. She told the World Copyright Summit that the IP czar should not be a policymaker but instead must focus on harmonizing efforts by a range of agencies that have enforcement authority. "There needs to be someone to get them all on the same page," Sohn said, lauding the work of the Bush administration's key IP officer Chris Israel who was stationed at the Commerce Department. "We don't think the job should change -- it just has more gravitas," she said.
Copyright Alliance Executive Director Patrick Ross, who regularly finds himself at odds with Sohn's viewpoint, agreed that filling vacant IP positions are important and he has been pleased with the administration's appointments to date. His group, which represents major IP owners and content creators, was pleased to see two entertainment industry lawyers -- Thomas Perrelli and Donald Verrilli -- join the Justice Department. Sohn's group, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Consumer Electronics Association and other tech stakeholders complained in a letter to Obama that both previously represented "the concentrated copyright industries" and future appointments should be more evenhanded.
Electronic commerce trade group NetChoice launched a new project Tuesday intended to "track dangerous legislation and mobilize citizens in defense of core Internet principles." The Internet Advocates' Watchlist For Ugly Laws (iAWFUL) identifies the top 10 legislative and regulatory proposals that its creators believe are "truly bad bills that threaten the future of e-commerce and online communication." The roster will be regularly updated to reflect the most immediate dangers, based on severity and likelihood of passage. "Some of the most serious threats to the Internet arise when lawmakers try to 'fix' it," NetChoice Executive Director Steve DelBianco said in a press release. "Knee-jerk, overly prescriptive laws can destroy whole business models or stifle innovations in e-commerce and communication before they even have a chance to prove themselves."
Topping the inaugural iAWFUL list is a New Jersey social networking bill, which the group argues would force a large number of Web sites to become law enforcement investigators. The measure would impose civil and Consumer Fraud Act penalties on social networking sites for failure to promptly probe and report to law enforcement a user's complaint of sexually offensive and harassing communications. Other bills making the iAWFUL top 10 include proposals from California, Connecticut, North Carolina, Nevada, Texas, New York and federal bills aimed at curbing organized retail crime. Some measures would penalize environmentally friendly digital download purchases, hobble the use of online marketplaces, and harm local businesses, iAWFUL stated.
Geneva, Switzerland -- A persistent international shortage of books and other material adapted for visually-impaired people has led to a push in Geneva for a global treaty that would also mesh with U.S. efforts to address the problem. Technologies exist to overcome the disparity, but access continues to be limited by economic and legal arguments related to copyright, and the situation is even worse in developing countries. "There is no longer any technical reason that could bar a blind person from reading a book," Dan Pescod of the Royal National Institute for the Blind told the U.S. Copyright Office in a May 18 hearing.
That hearing was part of a consultation on the issue launched by the Copyright Office, which also included written submitted comments. Central to the consultation, according to the March 26 Federal Register notice, is a treaty on access for the visually impaired proposed by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay in late May at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The proposed WIPO treaty, the subject of domestic consultations by governments in the coming months until the next WIPO copyright committee meeting, would create rules for import and export of works in accessible formats.
The reasons for a new global instrument, according to Manon Ress of Knowledge Ecology International, include: "The legal uncertainly over cross-border sharing of works, the very limited role of voluntary licensing of works, the recent disabling of text to speech by all Random House owned e-books, the enormous inefficiencies of making duplicative accessible format versions of works, and the paucity of works available to reading disabled persons, particularly in developing countries, or in foreign languages." Read CongressDaily's "Issue Of the Week" feature here.
A California appeals court's reinstatement of an antitrust lawsuit against a firm that administers the .com and .net domain name registration systems could add a new wrinkle to the ongoing debate in Washington over the future of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and its relationships with various entities that have a stake in the security and stability of the World Wide Web. The unanimous 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last Friday will allow an Internet industry trade group to proceed to trial on claims that Mountain View-based VeriSign inflated the cost of domain names by engaging in predatory and monopolistic behavior. The court reversed an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte, who dismissed the suit brought by the Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) four years ago.
The lawsuit alleged VeriSign secured the ICANN contract through 2012 without a competitive bidding process. After solidifying its control of Internet addresses ending in .com, VeriSign has incrementally increased registration fees. At a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee last week, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., asked VeriSign Chief Technology Officer Ken Silva whether his firm planned to raise rates again in 2009. Silva could not answer. At the same hearing, an executive at Web hosting firm GoDaddy argued the manner in which the VeriSign-ICANN deal was negotiated lacked transparency and an official from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration pledged to conduct "a fulsome review" involving the Justice Department and others when the contract's expiration nears.
The White House Web team unveiled yet another Web page on Monday -- WhiteHouse.gov/Recovery -- that provides snapshots of economic stimulus package dollars at work around the country. The "Roadmap to Recovery" features details about the broad range of activity planned across the United States in the second 100 days of implementing the $787 billion federal boost. The page will also provide an opportunity for visitors to share stories through comments, photos and videos. Recovery.gov remains the go-to site for tracking Recovery Act spending, officials said. "What we want to do is we want average Americans as they're watching this happen this summer, as they're watching it happen in their neighborhoods, the parks they're visiting, whatever, we want them knowing that what we're doing is fully transparent, we're fully accountable, and we want them to watch us closely, and we want their input," Vice President Biden said.
In other transparency news, House Minority Leader John Boehner continues to pummel President Obama over his pledge to post non-emergency legislation online for five days before signing it into law. To date, Obama is one for 23 in providing that review period, Boehner's office said. "No one - not a member of Congress, anyone in the administration, or any American - read the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' spending bill before Congress passed it and the President signed it into law," Boehner said in an e-mailed statement. "If the public had some time to review the bill, perhaps the American people would have discovered that it authorized the AIG executive bonuses, sent checks to the deceased, and paved the way for some truly astonishing government waste." The GOP leader has pressed for a 72-hour mandatory minimum public review on spending legislation.
463 Communications, the Washington PR firm that represents Cisco Systems, VeriSign, the Consumer Electronics Association and other technology clients has formally joined with polling firm Zogby International to form Zogby463 -- an initiative that will track public opinions on a variety of topics pertaining to technology and the economy. The companies have been collaborating since 2005 on a range of strategic communications and opinion research projects for clients including the Tech CEO Council, Symantec, Skype, Dell, and IBM. "At the heart of every successful strategy is insightful data," 463 CEO Tom Galvin said. The joint venture will offer what Galvin called "evidence-based communications" that guide strategy decisions and drive and define policy debates.
To launch their partnership, 463 and Zogby hosted a Monday luncheon with remarks about U.S. innovation by former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, longtime tech lobbyist Chris Caine, and Democratic campaign veteran turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur Donnie Fowler. Caine, who recently started his own consulting firm after working for IBM, warned there is a "deep under-appreciation" in the United States about how extensively and rapidly the world is changing. "I don't think we've focused enough in the executive branch and legislative branch in being the most welcoming environment" for a new generation of global citizens, he said. Fowler noted the majority of venture capitalist money still comes from the United States and this country continues to offer the best universities and graduate programs in the world.
The 2009 World Copyright Summit kicks off Monday night with some star power: Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees hosts a cocktail party on the pavilion of the Reagan Building and International Trade Center - where the conference runs through Wednesday. Gibb is not the only cultural icon in D.C. for this week's gathering: Attendees also include filmmaker Milos Forman and artist Frank Stella. But if your taste veers more to policy than foreign films, abstract art or the "Saturday Night Fever"/1970s disco craze, there's plenty of that, too.
The formal part of the conference gets underway Tuesday with a keynote speech by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (who occasionally takes a break from his day job by composing songs), and the Wednesday morning keynoter is Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (one of the Grateful Dead's better known fans). Also on the agenda: House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, who delivers a Wednesday afternoon keynote, and Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property Stan McCoy, who appears Tuesday.
And, if you miss Robin Gibb at Monday's cocktail party, you can catch him at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday when he delivers the closing speech of the conference - which is being hosted by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, of which Gibb happens to be president. For further information, contact (202) 778-1305 or go to the summit's Web site. For more details on this week's tech and telecom policy events, visit CongressDaily's TechCentral page here.
Proponents of proposed changes to the U.S. patent system are getting antsy as the increasingly packed House and Senate calendars dash their hopes for swift action on legislation this year. At its recent meeting, the Intellectual Property Owners Association board of directors adopted a resolution urging the Senate to bring a bill sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to a vote soon. The bill passed his committee in April and staffers for Leahy and Majority Leader Harry Reid have begun discussing how and when to move the measure to the floor. "We are still taking a look at this complicated issue and how it fits into the broader floor schedule," a spokeswoman for Reid said Friday. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and other judicial appointments will consume much of Leahy's time in the weeks ahead.
IPO's board approved a number of other resolutions for 2009, including:
• Support for legislation to repeal the qui tam cause of action of Section 292(b) of the patent statute for false marking of products.
• Support for U.S. Customs and Border Protection statutory and regulatory authority over design patents by creating a registry similar to what currently exists for goods protected by trademarks or copyrights.
• Opposition to legislation that does not respect the essentially territorial nature of patent rights by providing that it shall not be an act of infringement in the United States to use, offer to sell, or sell within the United States, or import any patented invention based on first sale abroad of the patented invention by or under authority of the owner or licensee of an applicable U.S. patent or corresponding foreign patent.
Read more IPO resolutions here.
Stifel Nicolaus managing director Blair Levin will return to familiar territory at the FCC, Acting Chairman Michael Copps announced Friday. Levin, who served as chief of staff to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt from 1993 until 1997, will join the agency to coordinate development of the new national broadband plan starting Monday. During his tenure at the commission, Levin oversaw the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, the first spectrum auctions, the development of digital television standards, and the FCC's Internet initiative. More recently, he worked on President Obama's transition team where he oversaw a technology, innovation and government reform work group and was a rumored contender for FCC chairman. That job will go to Julius Genachowski, a close friend of Obama's, if he wins Senate confirmation.
Levin's encore performance at the FCC won early praise from tech policy watchers. Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black issued a statement saying he is glad the administration recognized the depth of Levin's experience. "The quality of our new national broadband plan will benefit greatly from his direct involvement," Black said. He also praised the promotion of Mary Beth Richards, currently deputy general counsel, to acting managing director. Black said she is "a superb addition to the 8th floor team with stellar public service credentials in telecommunications and consumer protection."
NextGov's Aliya Sternstein reports that a comprehensive online warehouse of downloadable federal statistics is expected soon to add clickable tags that allow users to search and catalog related content. "We want to be able to get multiple tagging. We've seen in social networking, that's been extremely useful," White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra said of the features coming in a few months to the next version of Data.gov. Toward the end of June, Kundra's office also will unveil a publicly accessible Web application that will quantify the progress of federal IT programs, allowing taxpayers to see whether the projects are on schedule and within budget. "We're going to power a lot of that through Data.gov," he said Thursday. "The idea is it's better to create platforms that are horizontal in nature, [but] what I don't want to do is give the impression that this is all going to happen overnight."
The goal of the government data depot, which launched May 21, is to encourage nongovernment users to mash agency information with other data sets to generate new services and sites and to enhance search engines. For instance, a real estate developer could map the migration patterns of wildlife, obtained through a live data feed from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite, on top of blueprints to pinpoint areas where construction could harm the ecosystem. But the government's outdated information technology systems prohibit much of that innovation now, Kundra stressed. "The federal government has over 10,000 systems and a lot of these systems are old," he said, noting that eventually the government will need to transition to hardware and software that can provide real-time feeds. "What we want to make sure is that we bake all of that [transparency] into new procurements."
Read the full story here.
Senate Rules Chairman Charles Schumer and ranking member Robert Bennett offered colleagues some tips this week on how to use Internet-based new media since September 2008 changes allowing senators to move beyond their official Senate.gov sites to take advantage of innovations like the micro-blogging service Twitter and video sharing site YouTube. At that time, offices were instructed that "care needs to be taken not to violate Senate rules, regulations, standing orders and statutes governing Senate operations, including the prohibition on using Senate Internet resources for personal, promotional, commercial, or partisan political/campaign purposes."
Their Wednesday letter points out:
• Senate business must be separate from political/commercial/promotional activities.
• No official resources (office funds, staff time, equipment, space) may be used for the creation or maintenance of political, commercial, or promotional material on these sites.
• Members maintaining sites outside Senate.gov domain should ensure that public commentary, if permitted, is clearly distinguished from official content.
• Certain Web sites may collect data from users and members are cautioned against having an official presence on sites that may use such data for political or commercial activities.
• Sites with official Senate content may not require a fee or service charge for viewing.
• Certain sites, especially those that are not official sanctioned by the Senate Rules Committee, may place advertising on pages containing official member content. This can pose risks to members who may have no control over the content.
• At this time the only third-party Web site that has formally entered into an agreement to keep all promotional, commercial, or partisan advertising and commentary from member sponsored pages is YouTube.
• The Rules Committee is actively working with other sites to include them on the list of sites that agree to the Senate Internet regulation requirements.
On Friday, the National Association of Broadcasters' president and chief executive officer will say goodbye to the trade group he has led for the past four years and on Monday will report for work at communications firm Crosby-Volmer. David Rehr announced his departure last month and will join the advisory council for the PR shop whose clients have included NAB and the National Beer Wholesalers Association, where he was previously CEO. Other clients include Lufthansa, Prudential, and Honda. "It has been an honor serving America's radio and television broadcasters and seeing NAB's growth as the broadcast industry's strongest advocate," Rehr wrote in his final CEO Update to members. "I hope our paths cross again in the future."
The association has had a string of defeats, including its failure to block the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger, and faces an uphill battle in seeking to stave off legislation that would force AM and FM radio to pay performance fees. The group has also been a key player in the nation's switchover on June 12 to digital television signals. "Fighting the performance tax continues to be NAB's top radio priority," Rehr wrote, noting that a majority of the House has signed on to a non-binding resolution opposing the bill. He called that "a great achievement" but stressed that more cosponsors are needed "to signal to the House leadership that members of Congress are opposed to this onerous tax." Rehr urged members to take the fight to the airwaves by "informing listeners that the music and stations they love are under attack by the record labels." On the DTV transition, Rehr touted NAB's $1.2 billion campaign to ensure all Americans are ready for the change. More than 700 stations have already made a smooth transition, he added.
Susan Crawford, special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation policy, warned a federal advisory committee on Internet child safety on Thursday to be wary of several pitfalls as they begin their work. "Be reluctant to engage in overstated or overheated rhetoric. This issue makes tempers run high," Crawford told the inaugural meeting of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Online Safety and Technology Working Group. In offering what she called an "administrative benediction," Crawford urged them to beware of three pitfalls:
• Avoid exaggerated statements about the risks to kids online. "There are risks but these risks may not be more significant from risks they face offline. The risks are far more subtle than popular media would have us believe," she said. Crawford also urged the panel to steer clear of anecdote and focus on concrete evidence "and what we know is happening to kids." Additionally she warned them not to demonize the Internet, which is the locus of enormous economic growth.
• Pay attention to legal precedent. "There's been lot of litigation in this area," Crawford said. "You should avoid insensitivity to constitutional concerns that have given rise to those cases." The past 13 years have seen a multitude of challenges to the Communications Decency Act and the Children's Online Protection Act, which led to the striking down of portions of those laws.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy on Thursday reaffirmed his commitment to moving forward on several technology-related measures this summer. In opening remarks at his panel's first business meeting since Memorial Day recess, he stressed the importance of voting on a number of key judicial nominees, which have stalled in his committee, so members could begin to advance their legislative priorities on the intellectual property front. "Both the list of nominees and our legislative agenda continue to grow with new and important matters. We really need to make progress," Leahy said. While Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will consume much of the committee's time in the weeks ahead, the Performance Rights Act is still among his top priorities. That bill would end a long-standing copyright royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio stations that has been backed by the music business but panned by broadcasters.
Leahy also said he wants the Judiciary Committee to consider provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that are slated to sunset on Dec. 31. The expiring sections include a "roving wiretap" provision that allowed government bugs on a phone used by a person being tapped as well as language broadening law enforcement access to library and bookstore patrons' records. Also set to sunset is a "lone wolf" amendment to a related intelligence law that covers a noncitizen who engages in or prepares for international terrorism. Another bill awaiting action would extend the Satellite Home Viewer Act, "so that those of our constituents who watch television through satellite reception do not see their service interrupted," Leahy said. The statute permits satellite systems to retransmit local and distant TV signals into markets across the country.
Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, plan to reintroduce legislation Thursday that would grant a five-year moratorium on new telecommunications taxes. Currently, telecom services are taxed at a rate that rivals - and in some places exceeds - taxes on tobacco and alcohol. Their Mobile Wireless Tax Fairness Act will also be cosponsored by Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. The measure stalled in the Senate Finance Committee last year. Related bills were introduced in the 110th Congress by McCain and Reps. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. Lofgren also reintroduced her legislation in March.
Upon introduction of his identical bill last session, Wyden stressed that it would not impact a single current tax that has been levied by a state or locality nor would it remove a dollar from their communal coffers. "What it will do is guarantee our wireless network providers protection from even greater taxation at a time when we are asking them to implement the largest technology upgrade in history -- an upgrade that will bring economically important, true broadband speeds to wireless customers for the first time," he said. "There are lots of problems with the way federal, state and local taxes are levied on telecommunications services. This legislation addresses only one of those problems, but it is a big one," he said.
Wyden's prior bill won support from CTIA-The Wireless Association and other groups like FreedomWorks, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group led by ex-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. At the time, CTIA CEO Steve Largent called the current taxation regime "unfair and discriminatory" and said that Wyden and Snowe's states are examples of places that have reasonable taxes. He pointed out that the average U.S. wireless customer pays more than 15 percent of his or her monthly bill in taxes and fees -- more than twice the rate imposed on other goods subject to sales tax. "This is an indefensible level of taxation for most any product, let alone one that allows millions of Americans to constantly stay connected with the world around them," Largent said.
A chorus of House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee members today called for an extension of the U.S. government's formal oversight agreement with the nonprofit that administers the Internet domain name system, citing concerns about the 11-year-old organization's transparency, accountability, budget processes, and stakeholder affairs. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers remains "far from a model of effective and sustainable self-governance" and it would be unwise to shrink the federal government's role amid increased cyber attacks and rapid Internet innovation, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said at a hearing. Subcommittee ranking member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., Mike Doyle, D-Pa., John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Lee Terry, R-Neb., each backed the extension of a joint project agreement between ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
"ICANN seems better at furthering its own interests than those of the millions of Internet users it's supposed to look out for," Doyle said. Terry and others emphasized the issue is a matter of national security and must be examined carefully." Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said ICANN does not have the independent, authoritative governance structure to keep other governments from abusing their power to interfere with Internet governance and citizens' use of the platform. Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., is reportedly drafting a letter to NTIA with the backing of Stearns and Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton that recommends a one-year extension of the agreement. Boucher told Tech Daily Dose after the hearing that he had not made a firm decision on how to proceed but would be doing so in the near future.
Amid continued banking industry belt-tightening, the Financial Services Roundtable has acquired the Financial Services Technology Consortium, the groups announced Thursday. The consortium, which sponsors non-competitive collaborative research and development of interbank technical projects affecting the financial services sector, will become a division of the Roundtable, which represents 100 of the largest integrated financial services companies. The merger creates a Roundtable Technology Group that will allow the best practices and technology policy developed by the Roundtable's BITS division to be translated into technical solutions by the FSTC division, providing full stewardship to member companies, according to a press release.
"The total is greater than the sum of the parts," Roundtable CEO Steve Bartlett said. "Having BITS and FSTC under one umbrella will dramatically provide better resources for less overhead. We are pleased that FSTC's relationship with the vendor community will bring another unique element to the Roundtable." Historically, BITS and FSTC have collaborated while maintaining separate but similar memberships. By combining the organizations, the merger will eliminate redundancies and streamline resources within the financial services industry, as well as formalize the pipeline of BITS-developed business requirements into FSTC's technical development projects, the groups said. Neither group has planned layoffs but the Consortium will reduce its use of contractors.
Google's recruitment of Seth Webb, the House Financial Services Committee's second-most senior Republican aide, is the latest in a string of recent GOP hires by major high-tech companies in Washington. The trend, some policy watchers believe, demonstrates the tech lobby hasn't shied away from wooing Republicans even as much of K Street has augmented its Democratic workforce since President Obama took office. Webb, who is Financial Services ranking member Spencer Bachus' deputy staff director, served as chief of staff for Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., and before that was a senior aide to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. He will join the ranks of recently hired Republicans at IBM and SAP. Also this spring, IBM brought on Chris Padilla, former Commerce Department undersecretary for international trade under former President George W. Bush to run its government affairs office. Padilla, who replaced veteran IBM executive Christopher Caine, spent three years at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and lobbied for AT&T. Caine opened a consulting firm, Mercator XXI. Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
TechAmerica, one of Washington's largest high-tech trade groups, offloaded another staffer Wednesday bringing the total pink slip count to eight since the beginning of the year. The organization, officially formed in January by a merger of the American Electronics Association and the Information Technology Association of America, has also hired one individual in recent months bringing the total number of staff to 97. "Since TechAmerica was created, we anticipated and acknowledged that there would be elimination of some redundant positions in order to manage the association as efficiently as possible on behalf of its members," spokesman Charlie Greenwald said. "Over the course of the months since the merger we have identified some positions and taken appropriate action, primarily in areas of back office support."
Greenwald added that the group "will continue to manage this organization responsibly on behalf of its members and that means, among many other things, continuing to review the level of staff support in light of the merger and the economy." AeA was long known for its state lobbying efforts while ITAA has been a heavyweight at the federal level, particularly in the area of government procurement. ITAA previously acquired the Cyber Security Industry Alliance and the Government Electronics and Information Association. TechAmerica, which represents about 1,500 member companies, is led by former AeA President Chris Hansen and former ITAA President Phil Bond.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked the chamber's Chief Administration Officer Dan Beard to enforce a new level of disclosure for official expenditures from the offices of House members and to post the documents online as soon as possible. She announced the expansion of House rules, which is part of her larger effort to increase transparency and accountability on Capitol Hill, on her blog Wednesday. Member's expenses are currently collected and published as bound paper volumes called the "Statements of Expenditures" but Congress has not made this public information available in an online format, the Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich said on his group's blog. The watchdog group called for online disclosure of the expense records in December 2008 and again last Wednesday, he pointed out.
Transparency watchdogs have argued that failing to make disbursement reports available online gives them an air of secrecy that is largely unwarranted given the uncontroversial content of the reports. As Sunlight advocates in its model Transparency in Government Act, a transparent 111th Congress will open up its books for review by the public, "and will find that this painless endeavor helps to begin to restore the public's trust in the accountability of the institution," Wonderlich said. By instructing the CAO to place the expenditures on the Internet, Pelosi is opening lawmakers' expenditures to unprecedented public scrutiny, he added. The move follows a recent scandal in the United Kingdom where Members of Parliament faced scrutiny for expensing personal items on the public dime. Read more here.
Widespread adoption of health information technology as part of the larger U.S. healthcare reform movement holds great promise but also potential perils, according to a Tuesday report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers. "Systematic examinations of the merits of different treatments and dissemination of the results of those examinations to patients and providers is one mechanism for promoting high-value care," the report said, noting health IT may play a key role in increasing the rate at which new information spreads and is incorporated into practice behavior. At the same time, providers have strong financial incentives to compete on the basis of technology adoption rather than price, which could lead to excesses of IT equipment and services (for example, MRI machines and minimally invasive vascular diagnostic and procedure suites). That could amount to higher rates of utilization and costs, the report stated.
In most fields, technological progress is generally cost-reducing as individuals discover more effective ways of accomplishing things that were already being done, the paper stated. In medicine, however, technological progress in recent decades has been almost exclusively cost-increasing, without generating a commensurate increase in value. Undoubtedly, provider incentives, which largely reward finding an expensive way of treating a previously untreated condition rather than finding a less costly alternative to an existing treatment, contribute to this trend, the council stated. Nevertheless, the council estimated potential savings generated by overall healthcare reform could amount to as much as $1.7 trillion over 10 years. Read the report here.
Shameless plug: I'll be moderating a Wednesday panel of health IT experts at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference at George Washington University. Speakers include: Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology; Patient Privacy Rights Executive Director Ashley Katz; Joel Slackman, managing director for the Office of Policy and Representation at BlueCross BlueShield; e-MDs CEO Michael Stearns; and Microsoft Director of Consumer Affairs Frank Torres.
A pair of watchdogs on Wednesday urged the White House to halt the pending appointment of Google's top global public policy executive to the position of deputy chief technology officer under CTO Aneesh Chopra, saying it would violate the intent of President Obama's ethics rules. Although the choice of Google's Andrew McLaughlin for the position has been widely reported, it has yet to be announced. Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson and the Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester, both vocal critics of the Internet giant, wrote that Google's Washington influence is not the primary reason for the objection. "We believe no special-interest connected person should assume a position of vital importance to the country's future," they wrote, noting it would be just as inappropriate for a Microsoft or Yahoo lobbyist to take the job.
"Appointing someone from a [sic] lobbying shop to this position sends the wrong message - that the well-connected can still make a quick trip to the White House through a special interest revolving door," they said in the letter. "The goal of the Obama administration to use new technology to improve how the government works requires someone whose background ensures they can make independent decisions that will benefit all Americans." The pair note that McLaughlin is "very good at what he does -- lobbying around the world for Google's interests" but that's not what the deputy CTO gig requires. "It should not go to any person whose most recent position has been advocating policy for a technology company," they said.
Before joining Google, McLaughlin worked at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, where his studies focused on the law and regulation of Internet and telecommunications networks. He also helped to launch and manage the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, serving as vice president, chief policy officer, and chief financial officer. In the late 1990s, he served as counsel to Rep. Henry Waxman, now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A Google spokesman would not comment on the letter but confirmed McLaughlin is departing. Rachel Whetstone, who has led Google's communications and public affairs efforts, will take his job (Hat tip, Winter Casey).
On the eve of a congressional hearing to examine the future of the government's relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the California-based entity that administers the Web addressing system is getting some celebrity support. Former Vice President Al Gore has joined with Vint Cerf, known to many as one of the fathers of the Internet, in acknowledging the success of the group's multi-stakeholder, bottom up governance. Gore led an interagency panel 12 years ago that was charged with coordinating the U.S. government's electronic commerce strategy, which led to the creation of ICANN.
"What we have all those years later is an organization that works," Gore said. "[ICANN] has security as its core mission, is responsive to all global stakeholders and is independent and democratic. We should make permanent those foundations for success," he said. Cerf, who long-served as ICANN's chairman and is now Google's chief Internet evangelist, argued the past decade has shown the ICANN model has worked. "The ICANN of today is larger, more capable, more international, and better positioned to fulfill its mandate." ICANN has benefited from a joint project agreement with the U.S. government, which is slated to expire in September, but "the time has now come to conclude it," Cerf said.
Cerf's comments are contained in written testimony, which ICANN will ask the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee to accept for the record on Thursday. Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., has been be urged by Internet industry stakeholders to hold the hearing amid continued concerns about ICANN's accountability and transparency. Invited witnesses include: National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Fiona Alexander; ICANN President Paul Twomey; Verisign Senior Vice President Kenneth Silva; GoDaddy General Counsel Christine Jones; Verizon Vice President Sarah Deutsch; and Thomas Lenard, president of the Technology Policy Institute.
A non-binding resolution opposing legislation that would end a long-standing royalty exemption granted to AM and FM radio has gained majority support in the House. The measure, which was sponsored by Texas Reps. Gene Green, a Democrat, and Republican Mike Conaway, had 219 cosponsors as of Tuesday, aides said. The latest additions that put it over the 50 percent mark were Reps. Ron Kind, D-Wis.; Bob Inglis, R-S.C.; Dale Kildee, D-Mich.; Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla.; Leonard Lance, R-N.J.; Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.; Harry Teague, D-N.M.; Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M.; Ed Royce, R-Calif.; and Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa. In the 110th Congress, Green's resolution gathered more than 220 backers.
"This is our base whip list," Green said in a recent interview. "This is nonbinding but if someone signs on and votes another way, they'd have to explain that to a lot of constituents." If the House royalty bill, which is sponsored by Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and has already cleared his committee, makes it onto the floor, Green said he hopes he will have enough supporters to vote it down. News of the mounting opposition came as Conyers hosted a town hall meeting in Detroit aimed at drumming up support for his bill, which would give a boost to performers and record labels. Minority owned Radio One, which has several stations in the Motor City has panned the measure, arguing it could put some broadcasters out of business.
Meanwhile, the MusicFirst Coalition, which supports the Conyers bill, circulated an annotated side-by-side comparison [PDF] of the legislation and Green's resolution on Monday in an attempt to debunk critics' claims. A number of changes were made during House Judiciary Committee deliberations that proponents believe would lessen the burden on small and medium-sized stations as well as minority broadcasters.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday that the administration will go to great lengths -- and employ various Internet technologies -- to ensure that President Obama's speech in Cairo, Egypt on Thursday is distributed as far and wide as possible. The speech is expected to open up a new dialogue with the Muslim world and could provide the most significant guidance from Obama yet about advancing the Middle East peace process. "I think there will be a great effort on our part to distribute this through different means, social networking sites, in order to get this in front of as many eyes throughout the world as we can," Gibbs said.
But when pressed on the tech-related specifics of the plan, Gibbs was unsure of what platforms will carry Obama's message:
Q: Robert, just a quick procedural question. You said that you guys are going to distribute the Cairo speech on social networks. Are you guys going to be Twittering it?
GIBBS: No -- that'd be awkward, wouldn't it? We can't even get that on the computers here. No, I think what I mean by that -- and we'll have some more in-depth on this, but obviously our goal is to ensure that the greatest number of people with an interest to see this -- not just through newspapers and television, but can see this through Web sites, I think it will be broadcast -- I'm pretty sure it will be broadcast on our Web site and the Internet team here is working with a host of others to get this information to as many platforms as humanly possible so that people will get a chance all over the world to see what the president has to say.
The Seattle-based start-up that helped fuel President Obama's Web-based transition team donor disclosure effort has changed its name, hired a Washington, D.C. public relations firm and on Tuesday launched a social network that aggregates public data from around the world in a single destination. Socrata, formerly known as Blist, is piggybacking on the administration's zeal for open government by offering a Web site intended to increase agencies' transparency; promote civic participation and community collaboration; and improve policymaking. Building on more than a year of beta test feedback from more than 40,000 public and private sector customers, Socrata.com initially is providing free access to more than 200 public datasets. The Obama administration recently unveiled Data.gov, a Web destination for citizens to gain access to agencies' raw data feeds. Socrata offers a wide range of feeds on everything from government agencies to those bilked by financier Bernard Madoff to seafood and chicken recipes.
"Much has been discussed in recent months about government transparency and citizen participation. Socrata truly allows government transparency to come to life," Socrata CEO Kevin Merritt said in a press release circulated by tech PR firm 463 Communications. "We are providing publicly available data in an interactive, social format that enables citizens, for the first time, to discover, read, manipulate and share publicly available data with a tool we all have -- a Web browser." Until now, sites focused on public datasets have been hard to navigate and often required tedious downloading of raw file-types to proprietary applications for offline use by IT experts, Socrata said. Plus, most of those sites were not engineered for Web 2.0. The firm is backed by Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures and raised more than $6 million in its first round of funding.
In related news, the Sunlight Foundation recently launched a contest for to Web engineers to use Data.gov information in creative and helpful ways. First prize is $10,000 and the winner will be announced later this summer. Read more about that effort here.
Craig Newmark, the founder of popular online community Craigslist.org, said Tuesday he is considering whether to "dedicate a big chunk of my life" to those who are driving change in Washington and wants to spend more time practicing his own brand of public service. Was his comment during a keynote at the annual Computers Freedom & Privacy conference a hint he is considering joining President Obama's stable of tech-savvy advisers or running for Congress? Probably not (although he was involved in Obama's campaign). But the Web freedom advocate is eager to get more engaged in the policy debate in the nation's capital. As the government tries to figure out how to effectively use consumer products like micro-blogging site Twitter and photo-sharing site Flickr, Newmark wants to weigh in. "Things are changing in ways we've never seen before in human history," Newmark said, noting that agency Web managers and IT experts may feel "as if the darkness suddenly lifted."
The Internet entrepreneur said he wants to "find the people who are doing the real work" and act as their cheerleader and champion. "As a nerd and former engineer I'm used to being the person who does stuff. Now they tell me my great value is primarily being a person who talks about the good work other people do," Newmark said. He lauded the Obama administration's recently launched open government initiative and Data.gov, a site intended to "democratize data" by offering raw feeds of government information, but warned their ambitious efforts will take time. "When you have a large organization... you have a lot of people with a lot of entrenched power and lot of stakeholders whose buy-in you need," Newmark said. At the same time, the administration will have to routinely analyze the effects of its tech-related projects.
The State Department on Wednesday afternoon will host the first ever U.S. government-sponsored Technology, Entertainment, Design, or TED, event. Speakers include social-media analyst Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody; philanthropist Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of the Acumen Fund; futurist Stewart Brand, author of the Whole Earth Catalog; economist Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion; and data visionary Hans Rosling, Karolinska Institutet Professor of International Health. Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, State's Special Representative for Global Partnerships, will introduce the speakers, and Chris Anderson, curator of TED, will moderate a question-and-answer session. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton launched the Global Partnership Initiative on April 22, which seeks to establish public-private partnerships with foundations, businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities, and faith communities. TED is an annual invitation-only event in Long Beach, Calif., that began in 1984 where the world's leading thinkers and doers are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). First Lady Michelle Obama and former Vice President Al Gore have both given recent TED talks. Video from the State Department event will be posted on the TED Web site, www.TED.com.
The Justice Department said this week it will give a one-year extension to states and other jurisdictions struggling to comply with technology-related provisions of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, which was included in a larger 2006 child protection bill that set a July deadline for adherence. States have complained about signification costs and unforeseen difficulties in implementing the law and without the extension, some jurisdictions would have faced financial penalties. To date, no state has met the requirements mandated in the law and are experiencing mounting funding concerns amid the economic downturn, according to a press release by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy. The law permits up to two one-year extensions by DOJ.
Leahy joined with Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder in March urging him to extend the deadline -- a move that was supported by champions of the statute including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Part of the problem was that the DOJ office charged with writing the final rules did not make them available until June 2008. "Everyone wants to strengthen the tools and resources available to law enforcement to protect our children," Leahy said in a Tuesday statement. "Vermont and other states across the country are working to comply... This much-needed extension will provide needed time to meet those requirements."
Even though the Obama administration has made important, early strides in its first 133 days as part of its technology policy agenda, a key adviser to the president on Tuesday said the White House has a long way to go. "We need your criticism, your engagement, your involvement, and your help," Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy, told the Computers Freedom & Privacy conference. After "timely, targeted and tapered" economic stimulus package implementation, the administration's focus will turn to job creation -- and that weighs heavily on high-tech investment, said Crawford who is also a member of the National Economic Council. Innovation is tied to a range of priorities from diminishing the country's carbon footprint and creating clean energy jobs to reducing the cost of healthcare and educating the next generation.
Crawford also spoke about the need to bolster broadband deployment and bridge the gaps between urban and rural areas and rich and poor Americans. She said the United States is "definitively behind" its international counterparts and Obama cares deeply about the issue. "This is not about national pride. This is about restoring American competitiveness for the future," Crawford stressed. Addressing the problem will require "civility, thoughtfulness and attention" and that work has begun at the FCC and elsewhere in the administration, she added. On the international front, Crawford pointed out that the State Department is using technology to expand its traditional government-to-government outreach to incorporate citizen-centered approaches to advancing U.S. diplomatic and developmental goals. "A networked public can meaningfully shape international politics," Crawford said. Also from CFP: White House Aide Warns Online Advertisers To Be Monitored (Dow Jones).
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider what types of business methods qualify for patent protection in a case with ramifications for the software, biotechnology and financial services industries, Bloomberg News reported. The justices said they will review a lower court decision that narrowed the class of patentable inventions, excluding some innovations that do not have a physical component. Because it came from the federal appeals court that handles all patent appeals, the ruling had marked a watershed in U.S. intellectual property law. The case (Bilski v. Doll) will mark the first time since 1981 the Supreme Court has ruled on the types of innovations covered by the U.S. Patent Act.
Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said he was pleased with the additional opportunity the case provides for legal clarity. "The lack of limits on patentable subject matter as a result of the State Street decision has created chaos in the marketplace and provided fertile breeding ground for patent trolls," he said. "We are pleased by the federal circuit decision in Bilski because it cuts back on what has been an extremely problematic area in the patent system that stems from granting patents on abstract subject matter. We hope the Supreme Court will return to the wisdom of its earlier rulings and affirm strong principles about the limits of patentable subject matter."
More details about the case: Patently-O Blog, SCOTUS Blog, The 271 Patent Blog.
Washington will be crawling with high-tech executives Tuesday and Wednesday as the Business Software Alliance hosts a major fly-in for members to meet with movers and shakers on Capitol Hill and in the Obama administration. The timing and purpose of the gathering is critical given that a range of top policy debates have implications for the future of software and IT networks. Economic recovery and jobs, healthcare reform, tax reform, infrastructure investment, energy independence, workforce skills, openness in government, global cooperation and other topics have the potential to create new opportunities -- as well as risks and challenges -- for the software sector.
The fly-in also comes on the heels of President Obama's Friday remarks about his sweeping cybersecurity agenda and his view that the issue be treated as a top national priority. In March, BSA co-hosted a meeting of IT industry executives with Melissa Hathaway -- a top adviser to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair who conducted a 60-day review of the federal cybersecurity posture -- and submitted detailed recommendations. BSA members who will be making the rounds include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen, and Symantec Chairman John Thompson, who at one time was a rumored contender for Commerce secretary under Obama.
TechCentral's latest Issue Of The Week reports...
Now that the results of President Obama's cybersecurity review are out, the focus has shifted to the yet-unnamed White House cyber czar who will carry out five broad goals: developing a comprehensive strategy to secure networks; coordinating with states and cities to respond to any future attacks; strengthening coordination between the government and the private sector; ramping up government investments in research and development; and launching a national campaign to promote cybersecurity awareness while building a digital workforce for the 21st century. It is a tall order, but experts on Capitol Hill, at think tanks and within industry are willing to assist.
Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, introduced a bill before the administration's 60-day review was completed, and more are expected since multiple committees share jurisdiction over the issue. The Rockefeller-Snowe bill and the administration report both call for the cyber czar post, increased federal research and development, and enhanced public-private partnerships. The senators issued a statement Friday urging Obama to give his cyber chief "the heft and authority the position requires."
Not everyone was as keen on the position. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ranking member Susan Collins said the appointment of another White House czar will hinder congressional oversight and do little to resolve bureaucratic conflicts, turf battles, and confusing lines of authority. High-level coordination is not enough, she said in a statement: "Securing critical systems will require effective day-to-day management, including the authority to recommend best practices, modify information technology procurement standards, coordinate action to prevent and mitigate vulnerabilities, encourage innovation, and, when necessary, enforce compliance."
Read the full Issue Of The Week feature here. Read additional perspectives about Obama's cyber czar in Monday's CongressDaily PM Edition here (subscription required).
The FCC has cleared the decks for a Wednesday public meeting slated to focus solely on the final phase of the nationwide shift to digital television signals on Friday, June 12 -- nine days after the FCC session -- when more than 900 stations will cut their analog transmissions. In a replay of previous agency meetings addressing the same topic, federal officials, broadcasters, advocacy groups and other stakeholders will provide status reports about the switchover. The meeting kicks off at 9:30 a.m. at FCC headquarters.
Meanwhile, the buzz over the Obama administration's Friday release of its comprehensive cybersecurity review continues this week -- initially with a noon briefing today sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. Panelists will discuss the report, the role of the forthcoming White House "cyber czar" and the potential challenges in implementing the recommendations coming out of the White House review. Included on the panel are former Homeland Security Department Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker; James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman; Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology; and Marcus Sachs of Verizon.
The White House cybersecurity report will also be the subject of discussion and debate at the 19th annual Computers Freedom and Privacy conference this week. Attendees will hear from Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy and a member of the National Economic Council -- who appears Tuesday. Other panels at the conference -- which runs through Thursday at George Washington University's Marvin Center -- will address issues including privacy, health IT, cloud computing, and Web safety. The conference also features a keynote by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark as well as officials from the FTC and FBI.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has spruced up its Internet presence with the launch of a Web site that has a fresh look and a focus on providing more information to the public about the Obama administration's trade policy initiatives. The site features a blog and an interactive map that will track USTR Ron Kirk's global travel as well as pages on geographical areas, trade agreements, and key trade issues with interactive tools to allow for easier public participation. Americans will also have the opportunity to submit their trade questions and trade stories to Kirk through an "Ask the Ambassador" initiative. A social networking component is forthcoming, officials said in a press release. Kirk issued a statement saying one of his goals as USTR is to use technology to connect directly with citizens and the agency's site will help accomplish that while fulfilling the president's commitment to create a transparent, participatory and collaborative government.
June is widely known as National Internet Safety Month but Congress has yet to pass a resolution recognizing that fact. In 2008, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a measure in May and it passed the chamber within days. The year before, her resolution was approved by unanimous consent on the same day it was introduced. Reps. Gene Green, D-Texas, and Melissa Bean, D-Ill., introduced similar resolutions in the House in 2007 and Bean's bill passed under suspension of the rules 12 days into the month aimed at protecting kids online. Last Congress, the House approved a measure giving a nod to Internet Safety Month and the FTC's OnGuard Online program -- in July.
This year, Green was early to act by introducing a resolution in January that points out, among other things, that 77 million children have Internet access; one in five youth who use the Internet regularly have reported receiving a sexual approach or solicitation in the past year; and one in 17 youth reported being threatened or harassed online in the past year. Only a fraction of all unwanted Web encounters were reported to authorities such as the police, an Internet service provider, or a hotline, the resolution stated. Green's bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Off of Capitol Hill, Internet advocacy groups offered statements Monday in support of Web awareness. Family Online Safety Institute CEO Stephen Balkam and FOSI Chairman Brent Olson, assistant vice president for regulatory policy at AT&T, urged government, law enforcement, industry, teachers, parents and children themselves to build a culture of Internet responsibility. "With the Internet playing a vital role in the lives of many teens and tweens these days, it has become especially important to teach them to make wise choices online," Balkam said. Olson said he looked forward to using Internet Safety Month to reach a broader audience to encourage online awareness and education. June is also Adopt-A-Shelter Cat Month, Dairy Month, Great Outdoors Month, and Turkey Lovers Month.
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