September 2009

Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos shared with employees on Wednesday a package of proposed initiatives that he hopes will move the agency down the path toward a more efficient examination environment. The pending plan would give examiners more time for a first action on the merits; time for examiner-initiated interviews with lessened credits for requests for continued examination; and providing consistent credits for transferred or inherited amendments.

Process changes would increase work credit certainty for examiners, increase fairness to applicants, and balance the load on IT systems, he said in a PTO newsletter. The proposal, drafted by PTO managers and union representatives, includes measures that will help examiners to do a high-quality first action, and shift resources from a focus on examiner recertification to front-end quality improvements, he wrote. Examiner briefings on the proposal will begin on Monday, Oct. 5.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue urged the Senate on Wednesday to "hurry up and confirm" former U.S. Assistant Trade Representative Victoria Espinel who was tapped last week by President Obama to serve as the first White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator. The Senate Judiciary Committee first must receive a completed questionnaire that details her background and experience and then a hearing can be scheduled. Espinel, who is highly regarded on Capitol Hill, within industry, and among international IP policy arenas, is expected to easily win confirmation.

"I'm calling on the administration to take the next logical and necessary step," Donohue said during a keynote at a Chamber-sponsored summit. "Work with the business community and Congress to create a bold IP strategy." Such a plan is required under the 2008 legislation that created the IP czar position, he said. The White House must ensure that, once confirmed, Espinel will have "the resources and authority to get things done."

Donohue also pressed the U.S. government to remain strong on protecting the IP behind green technologies as negotiators plan for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. At that meeting, countries will try to reach agreement on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but some governments want carve-outs that Donohue said could diminish incentives for U.S. manufacturers. "We must reject those claims that IP rights are a barrier to climate change innovation," he said, arguing that compulsory licensing could endanger a million jobs by 2020.

Kevin Martin, former Federal Communications Commission chairman, has joined Patton Boggs where he will work at the law and lobbying firm's telecommunications and technology practice. Martin starts at the firm early next month and will oversee the practice with Jennifer Richter. Richter is also slated to become co-chair Patton Boggs' public policy practice.

Martin was named to the FCC as a commissioner in 2001 and was elevated to chairman in 2005 to replace Michael Powell. He resigned from the agency in January of this year and joined the non-profit Aspen Institute. Prior to the FCC, Martin was special assistant to former President George W. Bush for economic policy and served on the White House's National Economic Council.

A new law taking effect this week in the Bahamas, which would restore copyright protection for U.S. pay television content, is a small but important illustration of how ensuring respect for intellectual property and implementing trade commitments can create markets for American innovators, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Wednesday. The new law would provide legal protection against unauthorized broadcasts of American programming and, if properly implemented, could mean "that literally overnight, American cable companies will have a new export market for their shows."

Kirk told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce IP conference that his team is committed to creating similar opportunities with the country's larger trading partners as well as smaller ones. He said this can be accomplished with the help of tools like the USTR's "Special 301" process, which has evolved into a year-round affair, not just an annual report card on the world's worst IP offenders. The USTR on Wednesday launched five out-of-cycle Special 301 reviews that had been announced in April.

"We are committed to using the Special 301 process to highlight the need for reforms to address new challenges like Internet piracy, as we did this year with Canada, and also using the process to recognize meaningful progress, as we did this year with Korea," Kirk said. He added that his is committed to robust and results-oriented dialogues to make progress on IP issues. In the coming weeks, Kirk will travel to China and India for bilateral meetings and IP will be an important component of those talks.

For more coverage of Kirk at the Chamber's IP summit, read CongressDaily's PM Edition.

The Obama administration and the California entity that administers the world's Web addresses inked a deal late Tuesday to extend the formal relationship between the U.S. government and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers hours before an existing contract was set to expire. Under the so-called "affirmation of commitments," ICANN promises to remain a U.S.-based nonprofit and continue its focus on transparency and accountability.

The four page document, which was released Wednesday morning, creates expert panels that will conduct regular reviews of ICANN's work in several areas: network security and stability; the evolution of generic domains such as .com and .net as well as domains not based on the English alphabet; and the continuance of a public database of Web site owners. An accountability panel -- the only one required to have a U.S. government representative -- is also set up under the plan.

In the months leading up to the pact, lawmakers offered a range of recommendations for preserving the link between the ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Among the most prescient was an August letter from Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is slated to vote Wednesday on legislation that would require strong security policies from firms that collect and store individuals' sensitive information and provide for nationwide notification in the event of a data breach. The bill was sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and was tweaked to win his panel's approval in June, but more revisions are expected.

The committee also plans to take up legislation sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., that would regulate peer-to-peer programs and educate consumers about privacy and security risks associated with file-sharing. She plans to offer a manager's amendment to narrow the definition of a covered entity to avoid sweeping in legitimate technologies such as Web servers, e-mail and security software. Read more details about tweaks to both measures here, courtesy of CongressDaily.

A group representing NBC, News Corp., Time Warner and other content providers is circulating nationwide a letter to President Obama and Vice President Biden asking the administration to pursue policies supportive of creators' rights. The broader dissemination of the document, which will be sent by the Copyright Alliance to the White House this fall, follows a swift internal response by members. Within a few days, the document garnered nearly 7,000 electronic signatures, officials said in a press release.

With artists encouraging participation within their personal networks on blogs and Twitter feeds, the letter already has been signed by creators in all 50 states and representing a full spectrum of creative disciplines. Signers include authors, photographers, songwriters, graphic designers, filmmakers, musicians, publishers, jewelry designers, Web designers, photojournalists, illustrators, video game developers, architects, cartoonists, composers, playwrights, animators and others.

"Increasingly, creators are finding their work misappropriated, reproduced and distributed without their knowledge, consent or benefit by those who believe intellectual property should be free for the taking," Alliance Outreach Director Lucinda Dugger said. Alliance Executive Director Patrick Ross added he believes the administration understands and values the contributions creators make but more needs to be done. "We'll be watching with optimism," he said. The letter is available here.

Tuesday is mid-term review time for the FCC's broadband team and Blair Levin and his colleagues will provide the Commission with a major status report on their plan. They have 141 days left before their deadline to send a national broadband report to Congress and there's still a lot of work to do, Levin said in a blog post. Among his deliverables are specifics on broadband speeds; spectrum and fiber resources; the increasing cost of digital exclusion; and the adequacy of tools available to promote universal broadband.

Meanwhile, National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief Larry Strickling offered an update Monday on the work his agency is doing to facilitate broadband deployment through the disbursement of billions of economic stimulus dollars. He told a crowd in Charleston, W.Va., that NTIA last month received 2,200 applications requesting $28 billion in funding (seven times the amount that officials allocated for the first round of solicitations).

The first NTIA broadband grants will be announced in November and he hopes to complete the first round of awards by the end of the year. Strickling also said his team is contemplating whether to combine the projected second and third rounds of funding into one mega-round. If the rounds are combined, NTIA will release a second notice of funds available by December, with an application deadline of early 2010. The timetable should give all interested parties ample time to file, he said.

When President Obama tapped George Mason University professor Victoria Espinel as the first White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator Friday, lawmakers and industry stakeholders let out a collective sigh of relief. The announcement was months in the making, and Espinel, who previously served as assistant trade representative for IP, had been considered the top candidate for the job for some time.

One reason for the delay was that administration officials were conflicted over where to put the IP czar. Eventually they settled on OMB, after ruling out the Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, USTR and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, sources familiar with the process said. OMB oversees strategic planning, interagency coordination and budgeting, and it is seen as a successful coordinator of programs that span multiple agencies.

The fact that Espinel, who is expected to easily win Senate confirmation, would land at OMB is ironic, since that is where 2005 legislation offered by Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, placed the head of a proposed IP enforcement network. At the time, the idea was panned by critics, who thought OMB would be a peculiar locale for the post. Read the entire "Issue Of The Week" from CongressDaily's TechCentral here (subscription required).

After overcoming many challenges, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board launched its new and improved Recovery.gov Web site on Monday. Earl Devaney, who manages the site and oversees economic stimulus spending, explains in a video message [click here] how the site will provide citizens with accountability and transparency. Recipients start reporting quarterly on Thursday and by Oct. 15 the board will post all data associated with contract recipients. Grant and loan data will be posted by Oct. 30, he said. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).

[Updated 4:11 p.m.] The White House announced Friday its long-awaited intellectual property enforcement coordinator. Victoria Espinel, who previously served as assistant trade representative for IP, has been the top candidate for months, but the administration was unsure of where to put her. Officials reportedly ruled out placement within the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council and National Security Council, and now the Senate-confirmed IP czar will be housed at OMB. One of the IP coordinator's first agenda items will be drafting a strategic plan to identify "structural weaknesses, systemic flaws or other unjustified impediments" to cracking down on IP crime, according to the 2008 legislation that created the job (CongressDaily / subscription required).

Here's the official White House personnel announcement:

[Updated 5:05 p.m.] AT&T asked the FCC on Friday to force Google to play by the same rules as its competitors on the heels of reports that the Internet giant blocked calls to rural areas for users of its Google Voice service and, as a result, is reducing its access expenses. The letter from AT&T Senior Vice President Robert Quinn points out that a June 2007 FCC decision prohibits other providers, including those with which Google Voice competes, from taking such action. Google has argued Google Voice isn't a traditional phone service and shouldn't be regulated like other common carriers.

Quinn issued a statement saying that Google is "openly flaunting the call blocking prohibition that applies to its competitors" and is acting in a manner inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC's fourth principle of its Internet policy statement. That principle calls for fair competition among providers of networks, applications, services and content. He added that it is ironic that Google is "flouting the so-called 'fifth principle of non-discrimination' for which Google has so fervently advocated."

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appeared at the Brookings Institution on Monday to outline a multipronged strategy for expanding the agency's "network neutrality" guidelines and strengthening their enforcement. "While Google argues for others to be bound by net neutrality rules, it argues against itself being bound by common carriage," Quinn said. Google officials had not had a chance to review the AT&T letter and could not comment. Google posted a reply to AT&T's letter on its blog saying that the telecom company "is trying to make this about Google's support for an open Internet, but the comparison just doesn't fly."

More than 20 lawmakers are urging Justice Department antitrust chief Christine Varney and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz to view recent European antitrust rulings with a critical eye and weigh the impact of those decisions on U.S. high-tech firms such as Intel, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Qualcomm. Their effort comes on the heels of the European Commission's $1.45 billion judgment against Intel for excluding competitors from the market for chips known as x86 central processing units.

Sept. 18 letters to Varney and Leibowitz, spearheaded by Oregon Reps. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat, and Greg Walden, a Republican, argue the Intel ruling "is the latest evidence of a troublesome trend in Europe toward regulatory protectionism." Other successful U.S. firms have faced hefty fines, are under investigation, or possibly face scrutiny from the Commission's competition directorate, they said. The Intel decision "ignores the reality of a highly competitive marketplace," they wrote in the document initially circulated on the Hill this summer.

Intel, which is the subject of an FTC investigation, was a major contributor to the 2008 races of Blumenauer and Walden and employs more than 15,000 people at Oregon facilities, making it the state's largest private employer. The company also has a workforce of several thousand in New Mexico. Democratic Reps. David Wu of Oregon, Harry Teague of New Mexico, Rush Holt of New Jersey, House Science Chairman Bart Gordon and others signed the letter.

Nearly 100 Internet service providers, backbone providers, content providers, consumer groups, commercial groups, and end-user organizations have joined forces to form the Broadband for America coalition with the goal of getting broadband access to every household and business in the nation. The major thrust of the effort will be to find ways for the private, non-profit, and government sectors to work as a coordinated team leading the development and implementation of a national broadband strategy.

The coalition's launch comes as the FCC prepares a national broadband plan to be presented to Congress in February and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is on the hook to help distribute $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funds. The group's first order of business is an ad campaign -- a pair of 30-second spots that will run in the D.C. area. The coalition's diverse membership includes tech and telecom giants as well as groups not typically associated with Internet issues like the Jewish Energy Project and Livestock Marketing Association. For more on BfA click here.

The California-based entity that administers the world's Internet addresses has assured lawmakers it is committed to a "long-term, formal relationship" with the U.S. government when its current agreement ends next week -- and now the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is ready to party. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom made the pledge in a letter Tuesday to House Judiciary ranking members. Read more in CongressDaily's story here (subscription required). He'll be in town Thursday with ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush for a celebration at one of D.C.'s hottest new addresses.

Santa stopped by Washington on Wednesday to help launch Microsoft's "A Salute to Our Troops" program. St. Nick had a sack full of goodies and was accompanied by the world famous Radio City Rockettes (beats the heck out of elves) who will put on a free show for 8,200 troops and their families Dec. 20. Pictured: Microsoft Vice President Curt Kolcun, Santa and the Rockettes. For more on Microsoft's initiative click here.

Meanwhile, National Journal's Under the Influence blog reports that after 10 years at Microsoft, Ginny Terzano is leaving to join Dewey Square Group, where she will be principle and head up communications. She replaces Kiki McLean who left in June to take a job at Porter Novelli. Read more here.

House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., has introduced a bill that would expand the Universal Service Fund's lifeline assistance program for broadband adoption. The bill directs the FCC to establish a broadband program that provides low-income Americans living in rural and urban areas with assistance in subscribing to affordable broadband internet service. Matsui said her measure would help "fully close the digital divide."

In California, an estimated 96 percent of residences have access to broadband but just over half have signed up for a high-speed connection at home. In most cases, adoption rates are associated with income as seen in recent data from the Public Policy Institute of California, which show that only 58 percent of the state's residents earning under $40,000 a year subscribed to dial-up or broadband at home, according to Matsui's release. In contrast, 97 percent of those earning $80,000 or more subscribed to one of the services.

"It is clear that millions of Americans cannot afford broadband services," Matsui said in a press release, pointing out that in the current economic climate, many cannot afford to pay up to $60 a month for broadband. The legislation models the assistance provided for basic telephone service under the FCC's current lifeline assistance program, which is designed to ensure that quality telecommunications services are available to low-income customers at reasonable rates.

Former Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who was tapped last week to become the new head of the National Association of Broadcasters spoke to reporters on Wednesday for the first time since being named to the post. His conversation with the press, which followed an appearance at NAB's Radio Show in Philadelphia, included a bit of perspective on legislation that would impose new fees on AM and FM stations. NAB has been lobbying hard against the bill, which broadcasters say could do great harm. The music industry has argued paying a royalty is only fair since other platforms already pay performers for the songs they play.

Here's an excerpt:

"I don't care whether you call it a fee, a fine, a tax... It taxes [stations'] ability to stay in business. As someone who, by the way in the Senate was very helpful to the artist community...What I've tried to stop for them is unlawful downloading of their material. That's a different issue than saying 'my business model was broken by my neighbor and so to make that right lets break their business model.' The truth is artists need broadcasters, broadcasters need artists. There's a mutual benefit society here, a community of interest that somehow has been lost by pointing to broadcasters and saying somehow they have to make this right by us. I'm anxious for members of Congress to know that these broadcasters are a vital piece of the economic and cultural life of the community they represent. If you want to buy some radio stations in Oregon there are a lot of them for sale. I want them operating. I don't want them out of business."

As radio executives gather in Philadelphia this week for the National Association of Broadcasters' annual Radio Show, attendees will likely get an earful about legislation moving through Congress that would impose new fees on AM and FM stations. The NAB has waged war against a pair of House and Senate bills, claiming they would impose an unfair burden on an already cash-strapped industry. But music stakeholders argue the bills would bring AM and FM in line with Internet, cable and satellite radio services, which already pay performers.

An NAB spokesman said Tuesday that support for "free and local radio" continues to grow despite the music industry-led effort. The group noted that 251 House members and 25 senators have signed onto resolutions opposing what they believe is a tax on local radio. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., along with Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif.; John Boccieri, D-Ohio; Brian Baird, D-Wash.; Joe Sestak, D-Pa., and Dan Lungren, R-Calif., were the most recent to back the resolutions.

Meanwhile, proponents of the legislation are turning up the heat on one radio giant. The MusicFirst Coalition said Wednesday that two Washington, D.C. area Clear Channel stations -- country station WMZQ and WIHT, "Hot 99.5," -- failed to comply with public disclosure rules for advertisements opposing the Performance Rights Act. MusicFirst argued the stations played NAB spots but an inspection of their public filings found no record of the broadcasts and nothing about the stations' opposition to the legislation.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names Chief Operating Officer Doug Brent defended his group's planned expansion of top-level domains -- such as .biz, .info and .us -- at a House Judiciary Courts and Competition Subcommittee hearing Wednesday, arguing that bringing potentially hundreds of new domains to market will benefit consumers and companies that do business online. He said multiple parties from around the world have already expressed interest in securing new domains (like .eco, .nyc, and .basketball) and there have been numerous venues for public comment.

But Nike, Verizon and Marriott along with trade groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have built up opposition to the ICANN plan, claiming that it could exacerbate cyber-squatting, fraud, and consumer confusion while forcing trademark owners to spend more money to defend their brands. ICANN had targeted February to begin accepting applications for new domains but Brent said that date would likely be missed due to ongoing discussions about how to protect intellectual property rights.

IP concerns are crucial, he said, noting "we cannot and will not allow the expansion if it does not protect trademark holders." Steve DelBianco of the e-commerce group NetChoice said the domain name expansion controversy is indicative of the larger issue of ICANN not being fully accountable to the entire Internet community. He apologized to lawmakers for "dragging you into this food fight" and said it "shouldn't take a congressional hearing to get ICANN to focus on fraud and abuse."

Read a related story in CongressDaily's Wednesday AM Edition here and look for more in the PM Edition (subscription required). More on the hearing testimony can be found here.

A Congressional Research Service report circulated this week on the increasing use of micro-blogging site Twitter on Capitol Hill shows the following:

• 158 members of the House and Senate are registered with Twitter and issued about 1,187 tweets during the two one-week periods in July and August analyzed for the report.
• Approximately 29 percent of House members and 31 percent of senators are registered with Twitter. Members sent an average of 85 tweets per day collectively.
• House Republicans sent the most tweets (54 percent), followed by House Democrats (27 percent), Senate Republicans (10 percent) and Senate Democrats (9 percent).
• More tweets were sent on Thursday than any other day of the week.
• Members' use of Twitter can be divided into six categories: position taking, press or Web links, district or state activities, official congressional action, personal, and replies.
• The most frequent type of tweets were press and Web link tweets, which comprised 43 percent of in-session and 46 percent of recess tweets.
• Official congressional action tweets during session (33 percent) and position-taking tweets during recess (14 percent)

(Hat tip, TweetCongress)

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., urged Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy in a Tuesday letter to insist on a committee vote Thursday on legislation to protect confidential sources of journalists. "There has been ample time for consideration so that amendments should be presented and voted upon and the bill should be reported to the floor promptly," Specter said. Last week, the panel confronted bipartisan opposition on grounds the bill does not do enough to protect national security.

Specter reintroduced the bill in February and it has been on the committee's agenda since May. Since the introduction of the original measure in 2005, the panel has held multiple hearings and heard from 24 witnesses, he pointed out. In October 2007, the committee reported the previous bill on a 15-4 vote. "If there are objections, let the objectors offer amendments without a continuing filibuster," Specter said.

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions have argued the bill could encourage leaks of classified information. Sessions has also claimed it would impede national security investigations and make it difficult to subpoena source material from reporters, especially where the crime is related to classified information. "I'm going to have a hard time voting for this bill," Feinstein said last week.

Major software and hardware executives will be in Washington on Tuesday to meet with senior Obama administration officials, members of Congress and other policymakers. They are slated to visit Commerce Secretary Gary Locke; Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra; Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra; and high-level officials at the General Services Administration and Department of Homeland Security, according to the Business Software Alliance, the trade group that organized the trip.

On Capitol Hill, the group of CTOs will spend time with House Republican Leader John Boehner; Minority Whip Eric Cantor; House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Darrell Issa; and Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., according to a BSA press release. During their meetings, executives from Adobe, Microsoft, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others will present a set of principles for government acquisition of technology to maximize choice, competition, and innovation.

"Good technology-neutral policies drive the economy, make businesses more competitive, and help address social concerns such as health care, the environment, education, and security by ensuring an environment in which IT can continue to develop innovative solutions to these issues," BSA President Robert Holleyman said.

Warning that a free and open Internet "faces emerging and substantial challenges," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday outlined ambitious plans for rules designed to prevent telecommunications and cable broadband providers from blocking or degrading competing content and services. "I believe the FCC must be a smart cop on the beat preserving a free and open Internet," he told a packed audience at the Brookings Institution.

Such rules could potentially insulate the FCC from a lawsuit challenging its authority to enforce its network neutrality principles, which were introduced as voluntary. But the announcement could trigger a reaction from Republicans on Capitol Hill and at the agency, as well as major communications companies, which have argued that heavy-handed government intervention could stifle broadband investment. Industry players generally coupled their criticism with praise for areas where they have common ground, though privately, they are said to be nervous.

"I think they're reluctant to get in his face this early in his tenure," an industry source said, adding it appears that major carriers -- recognizing Genachowski has the votes to move forward -- will seek to shape regulations they can live with. The FCC will vote on the proposed changes at its October meeting, but the new rules are not expected to be in place until the spring, well after it issues a national broadband plan to Congress in February.

Read David Hatch's CongressDaily PM Edition story here and a follow-up piece in Tuesday's AM Edition here (subscription required).

Senate Republican High Tech Task Force Chairman Orrin Hatch on Monday slammed President Obama's same-day speech about innovation, arguing that his words did not match his policy proposals and in several instances "go in exactly the opposite direction." Obama's address at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y., was hailed by a range of technology industry stakeholders as a bold step toward achieving economic recovery and maintaining American competitiveness.

Obama articulated his support for making permanent a research and development tax credit, which is proposed in his FY10 budget request, by noting that it would help companies afford the high cost of developing new ideas, technologies and products. "What he failed to say, though, is that he and congressional leaders squandered the best chance in a generation to do this by not including a permanent extension in this year's stimulus bill," Hatch said. "Instead they opted to expand government social programs."

Also among Obama's talking points was the importance of a lower tax rate on capital gains to spur investments in start-up businesses. He said zeroing out the tax for investments in certain businesses is essential because they are engines of innovation and produce 13 times more patents per employee than large companies. Hatch countered that the FY10 budget "calls for a devastating tidal wave in the form of a capital gains rate increase that will totally swamp the small island of tax relief that he has proposed."

Among the more than 560 amendments submitted by Senate Finance Committee members late last week is a proposal by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to dedicate Internet gambling tax revenue -- generated through implementation of a pending House bill -- to increase low-income subsidies included in Finance Chairman Max Baucus' healthcare reform measure. Wyden also offered an amendment that requires employers to offer at least two choices of health insurance or provide vouchers their employees could use in the insurance marketplace proposed by President Obama.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank's Web gambling bill would overturn a 2006 federal gambling ban and create a framework to permit licensed operators to accept wagers from individuals in the United States. A companion to Frank's legislation introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., would raise revenue for the Treasury Department primarily through ensuring that applicable individual taxes, corporate taxes and license fees on regulated Internet gambling activities are collected.

"We applaud Senator Wyden's proposal to collect and put to good use tens of billions in Internet gambling revenue that would otherwise be lost in the underground marketplace," said Michael Waxman, a spokesman with the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, which backs Frank and McDermott's legislation. The group also pointed to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis that showed collecting taxes on regulated Web gambling would let the U.S. capture up to $62.7 billion over the next decade.

The European Commission on Monday continued to make its case against computer chip Intel by publishing a non-confidential version of a May decision, which carried a $1.45 billion fine for excluding competitors from the market for chips known as x86 central processing units. The documents, which include a summary of the key elements of the ruling, outline specific cases in which regulators believe Intel engaged in so-called conditional rebates and naked restrictions as well as how the firm allegedly sought to conceal its practices to disadvantage rival Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel reached an agreement with antitrust authorities in Japan but has appealed the European ruling and a similar decision in South Korea. The release of the Commission's analysis comes as Intel is being investigated in the United States by the FTC. The company has also faced scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Intel has argued that the model used overseas is worlds apart from the U.S. model and should not be seen as an indicator of how the FTC might proceed. Meanwhile, new Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney had vowed to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement in the Obama administration.

An Intel spokesman issued a strongly worded reaction, saying that there is nothing new in what the Commission released and its decision reflects "the underlying bias we have come to expect from the case team that ran this investigation." "We are convinced that the Commission's conclusions regarding our business practices are wrong, both factually and legally," he said, pointing out that the panel "relied heavily on speculation" and "ignored or minimized hard evidence of what actually happened."

Tuesday is One Web Day, an annual event intended to encourage Internet users to show how the medium impacts their lives. The annual celebration -- launched in 2006 by Susan Crawford (President Obama's special assistant for science, technology, and innovation policy) -- has attracted a global network of partner organizations and individual activists. Last year, One Web Day organizers documented volunteer-driven events 34 cities around the world. Here are a few events taking place in the nation's capital:

Bold Ideas for the Future of the Internet
Rayburn House Office Building Room 2203, 11 a.m.

Speakers include:

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting Senior Vice President Joaquín Alvarado
• Kenneth Boley, District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology Officer
• Amalia Deloney, Media Action Grassroots Network
• Byte Back Inc. Executive Director Kelley Ellsworth
• Amina Fazlullah, U.S. Public Interest Research Group
• Susannah Fox, Pew Internet and American Life Project
• Verizon Assistant Vice President Link Hoewing
• Joanne Hovis, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors
• OneWebDay Executive Director Nathaniel James
• FCC Broadband Initiative Director Blair Levin
• John Wonderlich, Sunlight Foundation

One Web Day Happy Hour
Science Club, 1136 19th Street, NW, 6 p.m.

OneWebDay Yoga Class for Internet Users
Malcolm X-Meridian Hill Park, 16th St., and Florida Ave., NW, 7:15 a.m.

For more details on these and other events around the world, click here. For more of this week's tech-related event listings, visit CongressDaily's TechCentral page here.

Four consumer and privacy groups will ask the Justice Department's top antitrust official on Monday to conduct "a thorough and rigorous examination" of the proposed 10-year advertising agreement Microsoft and Yahoo announced in July. In a letter to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Watchdog and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, argue that the firms have historically operated competing ad-targeting businesses in search, display and mobile advertising, as well as competitive ad exchanges.

"In order to ensure that American consumers and competitors are given the 21st century safeguards they require, both the DOJ and FTC must carefully examine how the proposed
Microsoft/Yahoo agreement will impact the digital marketplace," they write in the letter, which will also be sent to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis. Kohl previously said his panel would closely review the deal. An ad arrangement between Google and Yahoo fell apart in 2008 after regulators warned they would file a lawsuit to block it.

The letter argues that the proposed combination of Microsoft's and Yahoo's search platforms effectively undermines the latter as a meaningful competitor as it gives up its ability to offer marketers a robust search and display combination. DOJ must ask whether the plan is "simply a precursor to the eventual absorption by Microsoft of Yahoo's various advertising holdings" and whether the combination of their data collection, profiling, and targeting technologies could place competitors at a disadvantage, they state.

The Justice Department weighed in on Google's plan to create the world's largest digital library and bookstore late Friday, telling a New York federal court that it should press for changes to a pending $125 million deal in a class-action lawsuit involving the Internet giant, authors and publishers. The government said it has concerns about the arrangement, which stemmed from a 2005 suit, but a properly structured deal could have societal benefits.

DOJ told U.S. Judge Denny Chin who has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 7, that the parties should consider the following changes: imposing limitations on open-ended provisions for future licensing; eliminating potential conflicts among class members; providing additional protections for unknown rights holders; addressing concerns of foreign authors and publishers; eliminating joint-pricing mechanisms among publishers and authors; and providing a way for Google's competitors to gain comparable access.

The U.S. government's top copyright official warned last week that the settlement would encroach on Congress' role in setting copyright policy and would let Google "engage in a number of indisputable acts of copyright infringement." Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters testified alongside fans and foes of the proposal during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said the deal complies with copyright law and will lower barriers to entry for competitors.

Former Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., has been tapped to head the National Association of Broadcasters, the trade group announced Friday morning. Smith, who was defeated by Democrat Jeff Merkley in 2008 after two terms in office, starts Nov. 1. Among Smith's top priorities will be leading broadcasters' effort to stave off legislation that would force AM and FM radio to pay fees to performers whose songs they air.

NAB's former president, David Rehr, stepped down in May after four years on the job. Smith, who served on the Senate Commerce, Finance, and Foreign Relations Committees, will be introduced to NAB members and make brief remarks at the group's annual Radio Show in Philadelphia next week and will meet the entire NAB board in mid-October. While on Capitol Hill, Smith also chaired the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force -- a role that helped foster his interest in new media and technology issues.

His appointment comes on the heels of a string of recent defeats for the NAB, including its failure to block the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger. The association was also a key player in the nation's switchover to digital television signals. Smith issued a statement calling the NAB post "an opportunity of a lifetime." "As radio and television stations embrace new technologies and new business opportunities, I look forward to articulating to public policymakers the unique and positive role played by local and network broadcasters in the fabric of American society," he said.

Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.

President Obama on Thursday named the recipients of the 2009 National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honors bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists, engineers and inventors. Recipients will receive their awards Oct. 7 at a White House ceremony.

"These scientists, engineers and inventors are national icons, embodying the very best of American ingenuity and inspiring a new generation of thinkers and innovators," Obama said in a statement. "Their extraordinary achievements strengthen our nation every day -- not just intellectually and technologically but also economically, by helping create new industries and opportunities that others before them could never have imagined."

Recipients of the National Medal of Science are:

Dr. Berni Alder, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Dr. Francis Collins, National Institutes of Health
Dr. Joanna Fowler, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Dr. Elaine Fuchs, The Rockefeller University
Dr. James Gunn, Princeton University
Dr. Rudolf Kalman, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Dr. Michael Posner, University of Oregon
Dr. JoAnne Stubbe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. J. Craig Venter, J. Craig Venter Institute

Recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation are:

Dr. Forrest M. Bird, Percussionaire Corp.
Dr. Esther Sans Takeuchi, University at Buffalo, SUNY
Team: Dr. John E. Warnock and Dr. Charles M. Geschke (Adobe Systems)
Company: IBM Corp.

A member of the Health and Human Services Department's health IT policy committee is urging the agency to revise what she argues is an overly broad and unreliable provision of an otherwise solid interim final rule on data breach notification. The Center for Democracy and Technology's Deven McGraw voiced her concern with reporters earlier this week ahead of a Friday meeting of the health IT policy panel. The HHS rule, which is set to take effect Sept. 24, sets data security standards that the agency believes are strong enough to eliminate the need to notify consumers of a data breach -- but its so-called "harm standard" is sub-par, she said.

The interim final rule, which was issued last month, states that a breach does not occur unless the access, use or disclosure poses "a significant risk of financial, reputational, or other harm to individual." In the event of a breach, the rule requires covered entities to perform a risk assessment to determine if the harm standard is met. If they decide that the risk of harm to the individual is not significant, the covered entities never have to tell their patients that their sensitive health information was breached.

The language was not handed down as part of the $19 billion health IT section of the economic stimulus package and was expressly rejected by House staffers who helped craft the measure, McGraw said. She noted its inclusion by HHS is likely the result of lobbying on the part of the healthcare industry. CDT and its allies favor the approach taken by the Federal Trade Commission in its own data breach mandate, which takes effect the same day as the HHS rule. The FTC version stipulates that if an individual authorized the discharge of data, its release is not considered a breach.

The Senate Commerce Committee's timetable for advancing broad cybersecurity legislation continues to slip as aides retool key provisions and the bill's co-sponsors -- Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine -- continue their prominent roles in the high-stakes healthcare debate. It appears unlikely that a hearing on the measure will happen this month, Rockefeller aides said Wednesday. An August e-mail from Commerce Committee General Counsel Bruce Andrews to outside groups said the panel was aiming for a hearing and a markup in September or October.

Several sections of the legislation are considered "wet cement," an aide said. One such provision, which high-tech policy watchers argued could give the president the power to effectively shut off the Internet in a Web crisis, is being reworded after lengthy consultations. The goal is to map out the untested responsibilities of the public and private sector in the event of a high-tech hurricane. More prominent in a forthcoming version of the bill will be language that details how the president and pertinent government and industry officials can develop emergency response plans.

Read the full story in CongressDaily's Thursday AM Edition here (subscription required).

3121, the first professional networking tool designed exclusively for congressional members and staff launches Thursday after several months of beta testing. National Journal Group's walled-off Web site offers a secure directory of contacts, communications tools and customizable news feeds so users can find and collaborate with colleagues and create personalized news filters. 3121 has been pre-populated with 9,500 user profiles, with about 56 percent belonging to Democrats and 44 percent to Republicans. Individuals with House and Senate e-mail addresses can log-on to claim and modify their listings. Learn more about 3121 here. FYI: "3121" is the extension for the Capitol Hill switchboard.

Two of the House Judiciary Committee's top Republicans wrote to the new head of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers on Tuesday to express concerns about the proposed introduction of many new top-level domains -- such as .biz, .info, and .us -- and the expiration later this month of a memo formally joining the Commerce Department and the California-based entity that administers the world's Web addresses.

In their letter to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith and Courts and Competition Subcommittee ranking member Howard Coble, R-N.C., said they are worried that a vast expansion of domains will carry "serious negative consequences" for U.S. businesses and consumers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and others have complained that adding hundreds of new domains could exacerbate cyber-squatting, fraud, and overall confusion in the Internet marketplace.

Smith and Coble said the absence of price caps in the new registry deals could mean that legitimate businesses could be discriminated against and asked to pay a premium for each domain they register or renew. ICANN, which has said it plans to begin accepting applications for new domains in early 2010, could bring in an initial $90 million from the plan, according to some estimates. The letter argued the only economic justification put forth so far is an ICANN-commissioned report that has been criticized for failing to include empirical data to support of its claim that the project will benefit consumers.

Legislation slated to come before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday will reflect the end to a copyright feud between cable television and content providers, Democratic aides told CongressDaily earlier this week. Under the deal, cable companies would give the Copyright Office $85 million over five years to cover "phantom signals" -- transmissions that are not viewable by consumers but nevertheless necessitate payment under a 2008 decision by the Copyright Office. Hollywood studios would get a portion of the money. The arrangement also includes money for past obligations, sources said of the deal reached by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Both groups were hesitant to comment ahead of Judiciary Chairman John Conyers' introduction of the broader bill, which would reauthorize sections of the Satellite Home Viewer Act that expire Dec. 31. MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman issued a statement lauding Conyers and his staff for bringing the parties together to reach a consensus. "This is a good agreement for consumers who enjoy entertainment programming, the people who create that programming and the cable systems that retransmit it," he said. NCTA had argued that its members should not have to pay for content that subscribers cannot access but is transmitted as a result of cable company consolidation.

Read the full story in CongressDaily here. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions introduced their version of the reauthorization bill on Tuesday. Read more here. (subscription required)

As Congress contemplates Internet privacy and data security legislation, the FTC will host the first in a series of public roundtable discussions on Dec. 7 to explore challenges posed by the array of 21st century technology and business practices that collect and use consumer information. Such practices include social networking, cloud computing, behavioral advertising, mobile marketing, and the collection and use of information by retailers, data brokers and third parties, the FTC said in a Tuesday notice. The events will help the Commission determine how best to protect consumer privacy while supporting beneficial uses of the information and technological innovation.

The roundtables will consider the risks and benefits of information collection and use in online and offline contexts, consumer expectations surrounding various information management practices, and the adequacy of existing legal and self-regulatory regimes to address privacy interests, officials said. Invited participants will include stakeholders representing a range of views and experiences, such as academics, privacy experts, consumer advocates, industry participants and associations, technology experts, legislators, international representatives, and others.

Individuals and organizations may submit requests to participate as panelists and may recommend topics for inclusion on the agenda. Those should be submitted electronically to privacyroundtable@ftc.gov no later than Oct. 30. Interested parties can also submit written comments or original research. For more details click here.

Even though Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and ranking member Charles Grassley are up to their eyeballs in healthcare reform, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy wants them to keep intellectual property on their radar screen. Coalition Chairman Richard Cotton, who also serves as general counsel for NBC Universal, wrote to the pair Monday commending them for including provisions aimed at bolstering IP protections in their customs and trade enforcement reauthorization bill. The measure was introduced just before August recess.

The legislation would ensure that there is sufficient leadership, resources, and legal tools to sustain effective IP enforcement at the Homeland Security Department, Customs Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Cotton wrote. The measure would allow those agencies "to work smarter and faster to stop the importation of counterfeit goods while also speeding legitimate commerce." Protecting IP is essential to creating quality jobs and growing the U.S. economy, he stated, noting that IP dependent industries in the U.S. account for more than $5 trillion of the gross domestic product and comprise more than half of all exports.

The General Services Administration and White House Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday will unveil a federal cloud computing initiative, the centerpiece of which will be a new Web site, Apps.gov -- an online storefront for agencies to acquire and purchase cloud computing services in an efficient, effective way. Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, GSA CIO Casey Coleman, and GSA Associate Administrator David McClure will brief reporters on the project during an afternoon teleconference.

Coleman spoke at an August conference about the potential of scalable and virtualized resources on the heels of a solicitation for cloud storage, Web hosting and virtual machine services. During her speech, she said agility is first and foremost about giving organizations the ability to rapidly and inexpensively change resources. Cost is greatly reduced since capital expenditures for IT are converted to operational expenses and, since systems are accessed using a Web browser, resources can be used anywhere, she said.

Furthermore, cloud computing improves reliability and security and is environmentally sensitive and energy efficient, Coleman said in prepared remarks at a business conference focused on customer relationship management. "The days of developing massive agency-focused IT infrastructure projects are long gone," she said. "We can try new things, and if they work, great. If not, lessons are learned. If there's an advantage to doing this in a government environment, it's that we are mission driven, not profit driven."

House Cybersecurity Caucus co-chairs Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, urged President Obama last week to swiftly appoint a permanent cybersecurity coordinator within the White House. In a Thursday letter, the pair said the absence of such an official "impedes the ability of federal agencies to move forward in updating and strengthening their aging cyber policies," while complicating efforts to collaborate with private institutions that also play a critical role.

The appointment of a cyber czar was among a number of recommendations offered by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Commission on Cybersecurity, which Langevin and McCaul co-chaired, and the administration's own comprehensive review of the government's cybersecurity infrastructure. Both reports also said the creation of a national security strategy for cyberspace is needed and the lawmakers lauded Obama for getting the ball rolling on that front.

"Foreign aggressors and criminals have been able to penetrate inadequately protected U.S. computer networks," the letter stated. "Those attacks have provided access to vast quantities of valuable information, and while our most sensitive U.S. military communications remains safe, economic competitors and potential military opponents have not hesitated to exploit opportunities presented by our lack of robust cybersecurity protections." The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has scheduled a Monday hearing on the topic.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins over the weekend gave a sneak peek at a Monday hearing intended to examine cybercrime that is directed at small- to medium-sized companies. In a Sunday press release, the pair said the event precedes the introduction of legislation focused on combating high-tech attacks on the private sector. Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, also introduced a broad cyber bill earlier this year.

"The Internet now is a global asset - a new strategic high ground - that simply must be secured just as any military commander would seize and control the high ground of a battle field," Lieberman said. "But unlike a battlefield, securing cyberspace is much more complicated to do since the Internet is an open, public entity. Security cannot be achieved by the government alone." Collins added that for every communications advance, there is a risk that the technology will be misused. She cited estimates that cybercrime may cost the global economy $1 trillion in losses - nearly $8 billion of that in the United States.

Witnesses at the hearing include Heartland Payment Systems CEO Robert Carr; Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center President William Nelson; U.S. Secret Service Office of Investigations Assistant Director Michael Merritt; and Homeland Security Undersecretary for National Protection and Programs Philip Reitinger.

A computer hacker who infiltrated the networks of numerous major U.S. retailers including TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, and Barnes & Noble, pleaded guilty Friday to multiple charges relating to hacking activity and credit card fraud. Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 25 years in prison, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, the Justice Department said. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 8. More than 40 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen from stores as a result of the hacking.

"Consumers must be able to trust that the credit and debit cards they use everyday in thousands of stores around the world are safe from unlawful access," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a statement. Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Michael Loucks added that in the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic growth in the transfer and storage of credit and debit card data on computer networks and it is critical that law enforcement works hard to investigate and prosecute the theft of personal identity data.

In addition to his plea agreement, Gonzalez also consented to an order of restitution for the loss suffered by his victims, and forfeiture of more than $2.7 million as well as multiple items of real estate and personal property, including a condo in Miami, a 2006 BMW 330i, a Tiffany diamond ring and Rolex watches. Included in the forfeited currency is more than $1 million in cash, which Gonzalez had buried in a container in his backyard.

The U.S. government's top copyright official told lawmakers Thursday Google's pending $125 million deal in a class-action lawsuit with authors and publishers will encroach on Congress' role in setting copyright policy. The settlement, which would embolden the Internet giant's effort to create the world's largest digital library and bookstore, would also let the firm "engage in a number of indisputable acts of copyright infringement," Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters told the House Judiciary Committee.

Specifically, the settlement awaiting a federal court's blessing would allow Google to sell out-of-print works without rights-holders' consent, Peters said, calling it "an end-run around copyright law as we know it." The deal would also interfere with lawmakers' recent efforts to rework a statute dealing with "orphan works" -- musical tracks, writings, images, videos or other content whose owners cannot be easily found. The Senate passed such a bill last Congress, but a companion bill stalled in the House.

Read the full story in Thursday's CongressDaily PM Edition here and a related story in the AM Edition here that questions whether the Google feud could fuel a renewed push for copyright reform on Capitol Hill (subscription required).

President Obama on Thursday nominated National Institute of Standards and Technology Deputy Director Patrick Gallagher to serve as the agency's top dog. In his current position, Gallagher provides high-level oversight and direction for NIST, which is a branch of the Commerce Department that develops and promotes measurement, standards, and technology. He received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1991 and joined NIST in 1993 as an instrument scientist at the agency's Center for Neutron Research. He later became director of the center where he served until assuming the role of NIST deputy director in 2008.

From 1999 to 2001, Gallagher was a NIST agency representative at the National Science and Technology Council and he remains active in the area of U.S. policy for scientific user facilities and has chaired the Interagency Working Groups on neutron and light source facilities under the Office of Science and Technology Policy, according to a White House personnel announcement. NIST's FY 2009 resources total $1.6 billion, including $819 million in appropriations from the omnibus bill; $610 million from the stimulus package; $48 million in service fees; and $125 million from other agencies.

Cross-posted from NationalJournal.com's Health Care page:

Curious Americans are turning to the Internet to learn more about health care reform. In the past 90 days, Google searches for keywords like "healthcare reform bill," "House health bill" and "healthcare bill" have risen by more than 5,000 percent. Those words return a plethora of results -- blogs, news organizations, interest groups and government pages -- but if the White House wants to have the authoritative site on the debate, it needs to refine its strategy, experts warn.

For starters, the administration has struggled to debunk misinformation that other groups spread through viral e-mails and campaigns. The White House set up a "Reality Check" site, but it's unlikely you'll end up there after a simple Google search using the most popular health care-related keywords. "I don't think [the Reality Check site] is really well optimized and is helping the campaign," said Michael Fleischner, an expert on search engine optimization. "If we were to type in the most common terms that people are searching on, we would expect [that site] to come up, and [it's] not coming up."

The FCC on Thursday posted Chairman Julius Genachowski's first video blog (see above) and teased additional tech-savvy announcements he would make during an afternoon speech at the Gov 2.0 summit taking place in Washington this week. The four-minute video follows the launch of an FCC blog and Twitter feed last month. "The FCC must be a 21st century agency for the information age," Genachowski said. "New media technologies can help achieve that important goal. Using innovative online tools will enable the Commission to perform more efficiently and communicate more effectively."

Balancing national security with military personnel's use of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace is one of the Pentagon's biggest technology challenges, Army Chief Information Officer Jeffrey Sorenson told reporters at a high-tech conference Thursday. Appearing at the Gov 2.0 summit, he characterized the issue as "a point of friction" within the Defense Department -- and a problem that Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Deputy CIO Dave Wennergren is trying to fix.

Wennergren is working on a policy paper to inform agency leadership on how and whether those Web sites, which let those deployed overseas stay in touch with family and friends, should be accessed on the Pentagon's unclassified computer network. His review comes on the heels of an August ban on Facebook and MySpace by the Marines. "It gets down to management of polarities," Sorensen said, noting the open question is how the military can balance operational capabilities and security.

Social networking sites aside, troops on the ground are leading the Pentagon's efforts to embrace super-secure collaborative technologies that give them a tactical edge while enterprise-level offices are trailing behind, Sorenson said. For its part, the Army has "grown up with a very specific ways of conducting operations" but is increasingly aware that publishing pamphlets makes no sense in the digital age where guidance and training documents can be updated and disseminated in real-time, he said.

An executive at the Biotechnology Industry Organization on Wednesday said his trade group is hopeful that a Senate bill aimed at updating the U.S. patent system will reach the floor and receive a favorable reaction from the House. BIO Vice President for Governmental Relations Brent Delmonte told reporters that a measure that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in April is a "fair, responsible compromise." Chairman Patrick Leahy worked with Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to smooth out contentious language that would alter how damages are awarded in patent infringement lawsuits. Previously divided industry stakeholders lauded the changes.

"We hope that type of process will replicate itself [in the House]," he said. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers introduced a similar bill but his panel has yet to move the measure forward. A House Judiciary Republican aide told CongressDaily recently that there is a "real possibility" that legislation can advance without major changes even though damages language has yet to be tweaked in his chamber. "We'll see over the course of a few weeks whether we can reach a consensus," the aide said. "We've seen great ideas originate on both sides of the Capitol and in both parties," Delmonte said of damages proposals and efforts to adjust the system by which individuals can challenge an issued patent.

Susan Crawford, President Obama's special assistant for science, technology, and innovation policy, selected Wednesday evening -- as her boss began the most important speech to date of his presidency -- to return to the micro-blogging platform Twitter. While Crawford's message (see above) simply noted she was watching Obama's health care address to a joint session of Congress from a couch in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building it's worth noting that it was her first tweet in 71 weeks.

Other White House high-tech gurus who used to use Twitter -- like Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra -- have not resumed tweeting since joining the Obama administration. Crawford's message is also significant because One Web Day, an annual event she founded in 2006 to encourage Internet users to show how the medium impacts their lives, is right around the corner. The Sept. 22 celebration has attracted a global network of partner organizations and individual activists. In 2008, One Web Day organizers documented volunteer-driven events 34 cities around the world.

A formal request from the British government to the Justice Department to obtain terrorist e-mails helped the United Kingdom obtain long-awaited guilty verdicts this week in a costly and high-profile case that has lasted more than three years. On Monday, three men were found guilty of conspiring to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006, using crude but potentially devastating handmade bombs. During the trial, the jury was shown e-mails containing coded references to the plot, which had been sent from the ringleader of the London-based cell, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, and his suspected minder in Pakistan, an Al Qaeda operative named Rashid Rauf.

Those messages had been sent through servers located in the United States. British law prohibits prosecutors from introducing intercepted electronic communications at trial but if the e-mails could be obtained legally by the U.S. government, they could be shared with the British. A DOJ spokesman told National Journal that following "requests for information from the United Kingdom...court orders were obtained and served, and we were able to provide [the] information obtained pursuant to the court orders."

It has been reported by several British newspapers that the e-mails were held by Yahoo, and that a court order for the messages was issued in California, where the company is based. The Justice spokesman said the U.K.'s request was made under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which allows two countries to gather and share information in a criminal case. According to British press reports the e-mails were initially intercepted by the National Security Agency in 2006, while the conspirators were under intense, around-the-clock surveillance by British authorities.

The Obama administration is weeks away from unveiling a comprehensive open government directive to push agencies toward greater accountability and transparency, Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said Wednesday at a high-tech conference. The directive will lay out a structured schedule for the release of data in a machine-readable format and institute reporting requirements for agencies to describe how they will involve the public in open government initiatives, Chopra said.

He also told the crowd at the Gov 2.0 summit that more interactive Web-based platforms are in the works. The Obama administration launched an Internet-based dashboard in June that provides details about every major federal IT project at a single location, including each initiative's goals, schedule, cost outlays, key personnel, and contractors used. The OMB also runs Data.gov, a service that provides the public raw feeds of government information. Read CongressDaily's story here for more details (subscription required).

Some recent stats provided by OMB:

• The IT dashboard has received 53 million hits since its launch on June 30.
• The dashboard displays data from 28 agencies, information on more than 7,000 federal IT investments and detailed data on more than 780 large projects.
• The Data.gov catalog which, as of September, has 110,865 data sets, allows the American people to find, use, and repackage data held and generated by the government.

The National Association of Broadcasters on Tuesday filed comments with the FCC dismissing a complaint filed by music industry stakeholders as nothing more than a "carefully crafted public relations document" that runs counter to the First Amendment, the Communications Act, and precedent set by both the Supreme Court and the FCC. As such, the MusicFirst Coalition's argument that AM and FM stations are threatening and intimidating artists while rejecting the group's ad dollars, should be rejected, NAB said.

Music groups have backed legislation that would require over-the-air stations to pay a fee to performers when their songs are aired. They argue the bill would bring AM and FM stations in line with Internet, cable and satellite radio services, which all provide such compensation. NAB has deemed the effort a ploy by the Recording Industry Association of America to levy a "tax" on local radio. Read a detailed description of the NAB's FCC filing here and MusicFirst's initial complaint here.

Meanwhile, reports that Apple will include an FM tuner in the new iPod Nano highlight the important role music will play in radio's future success, MusicFirst Executive Director Jennifer Bendall said Wednesday. She called the iPod murmur "great news for music and great news for radio." "Radio needs music more than ever before. It must fairly support the artists and musicians who bring music to life and listeners' ears to the radio dial."

Privacy watchdogs on Wednesday gave the Obama administration an "incomplete" for consumer privacy; an "A" for medical privacy; a "C+" for civil liberties; and a "B" for cybersecurity. The scores from the Electronic Privacy Information Center and a coalition of consumer, educational, library, labor and technology stakeholders were unveiled at a National Press Club event that organizers hoped would act as an "early warning system" for the administration.

The rankings follow a December push by the Center and the Privacy Coalition for then-President-elect Obama to tackle identity theft, security breaches and the commercialization of personal data. The letter lauded Obama's early commitments to strengthen the FTC, to protect sensitive information and make sure homeland security databases are used in limited ways. A similar evaluation is expected soon from the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The administration has made progress in some areas, but it is clear that there is more to do to address the public concerns about privacy," EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg said in a press release. EPIC Associate Director Lillie Coney said the Obama team can improve its grades by appointing "pro-privacy" commissioners to the FTC; making the work of the Homeland Security Department more transparent; requiring federal agencies to comply with the Privacy Act; and extending the Privacy Act to social networking services.

Read Wednesday's CongressDaily AM Edition for more on the topic (subscription required) and click here for EPIC's full report card.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers on Wednesday unveiled his witness list for a Thursday hearing on competition and commerce in the digital book industry. The hearing comes on the heels of considerable controversy over Google's plan to digitize mass quantities of libraries' stacks. A New York federal court has scheduled a fairness hearing for Oct. 7 on the $125 million settlement Google reached in a feud with authors and publishers. Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo and others have protested Google's project.

Witnesses include:

• Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond
• National Federation of the Blind President Marc Maurer
• Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken
• University of Chicago law professor Randal Picker
• Amazon Vice President Paul Misener
• Consumer Watchdog John Simpson
• Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters
• Center for American Progress Senior Fellow David Balto

White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra told reporters at a high-tech summit Wednesday that the Obama administration will announce its long anticipated cybersecurity coordinator "in the not-too-distant future." "I've had the pleasure of interviewing a number of candidates that I think are top notch," he said. "I don't think we're in a position to say that we have a candidate picked yet but I'm hopeful." President Obama in late May pledged to handpick his cyber czar -- a position recommended by recent legislation and an administration report.

House Cybersecurity Caucus co-chairs Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, pressed the administration before August recess to move quickly in appointing a high-level official to coordinate agencies' efforts to identify and guard against attacks on public and private sector IT networks. Their statements came on the heels of the news that Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils, was resigning effective Aug. 21.

Christopher Painter, the National Security Council's cyber chief, has been helping Chopra and Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra with cyber planning since Hathaway's departure. Chopra called Painter, a former leader of the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, "an incredibly talented guy." For his part, Kundra has held recent meetings with industry stakeholders -- particularly from the financial services sector -- on strategies to bridge the gap between government and private sector IT security efforts.

Duke Law School professor Arti Rai -- an expert in patent law, administrative law and legal issues facing the biopharmaceutical industry -- is expected to be named administrator for external affairs at the Patent and Trademark Office, sources close to the issue told Tech Daily Dose on Tuesday. The position, which has been vacant for some time, oversees domestic and international policy and intergovernmental relations for the agency. Officials at the PTO, Commerce Department and White House officials would not confirm or deny the report.

Rai was a classmate of President Obama's at Harvard Law School and she served as a member of the agency review team on science, technology, space, arts and humanities as part of administration's transition project. Her current research on innovation policy in areas such as green technology, drug development, and software is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Kauffman Foundation, and Chatham House, according to her Duke bio. Rai has testified in the Senate on innovation policy and, before entering academia, clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of California and was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block.

NextGov's Gautham Nagesh reports that the Obama administration issued a solicitation in August for a contractor to archive the increasing amount of information published online that qualifies as presidential records. The White House wants an automated process to capture, extract and store information posted by employees in the Executive Office of the President on publicly accessible Web sites, including social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to the solicitation posted on FedBizOps and dated Aug. 21. The contractor will be responsible for archiving comments on pages the White House creates and messages sent to the office on those sites.

The notice specified the contract applies to offices subject to the 1978 Presidential Records Act, which requires the White House to preserve the president's records and communications. It notes that the White House already is capturing and restoring communications on several social networking sites, including MySpace and Vimeo. The system must be easy to organize and search captured information, and the contractor would be responsible for ensuring the records are transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration in an acceptable format. NARA did not respond to a request for comment by the time this story was posted. Read the full story here.

A Tuesday report from transparency watchdog OpenTheGovernment.org illustrates modest decreases in secrecy across a variety of indicators in the last year of former President George W. Bush's administration. The 47-page scorecard from the coalition of more than 70 open government advocates also offered a six-month overview of the Obama administration's promise and practice on openness issues and a section on financial transparency during the economic crisis.

"Promising trends began to develop in the last year of the Bush administration, but we have a long way to go to return to the level of government openness and accountability that existed before the September 11 attacks," OpenTheGovernment.org's Patrice McDermott said in a press release. While very few quantitative indicators of secrecy exist yet to compare the Obama White House to its predecessor, the new administration "has a very mixed record on its promise of unprecedented openness," she added.

Some highlights from the report:

• In 2008, the number of original classification decisions decreased to 203,541, a 13 percent drop from 2007.
• The government spent nearly $200 maintaining secrets already on the books for every one dollar the government spent declassifying documents in 2008, a 2 percent increase in one year; 16 percent fewer pages were declassified than in 2007.
• The FY 2008 budget for the National Intelligence Program was $47.5 billion, a 9.2 percent increase over 2007.
• 19 percent of the Pentagon's FY 2008 acquisition budget is classified or "black"
• Justice Department requests for administrative subpoenas known as "national security letters" decreased from 2006 and reported invocations of the "state secrets" privilege continued to rise.

The Music Managers Forum, a member of a coalition backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, royalty collector SoundExchange and other music interests, filed comments with the FCC on Tuesday in support of a petition urging the agency to probe radio stations' refusal to air advertisements backing legislation that would require AM and FM stations to pay fees to performers. National Association of Broadcasters officials have repeatedly noted their members are under no obligation to accept any and all advertising, including spots from the MusicFirst Coalition.

The MMF filing contains a copy of a strongly worded e-mail from college radio station WICB in Ithaca, N.Y., to musician Aimee Mann, which MusicFirst argues illustrates their claim that stations are threatening artists who support the legislation. In the e-mail posted on Mann's online message board, WICB General Manager Chris Wheatley states: "Since you support MusicFirst, WICB hereby drops Aimee Mann... from our playlist like a bad habit." "The very medium that made you a 'star' should now pay for the privilege of promoting your product? MusicFirst is out to kill radio. For you, no airplay = no sales, and no concert tix," the e-mail reads.

Wheatley added that he would encourage other college broadcasters to follow WICB's lead "and the few commercial stations that play your music will be happy to join our cause." WICB is an affiliate of both ABC Radio and the Associated Press. Under provisions of the Performance Rights Act, as passed by the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year, college and other non-commercial radio stations would pay $500 or $1,000 a year, according to MusicFirst, which has documented other instances of performers' tracks being shunned after they spoke in support of the legislation.

Washington reawakens next week after its late summer slumber and there are plenty of high-tech events taking place on and off Capitol Hill. Here's a quick rundown:

• The Gov 2.0 Summit takes place Wednesday and Thursday. Notables include White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra; Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra; Deputy CTO Beth Noveck; Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas; Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf; Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey; Facebook's Tim Sparapani; and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

• The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Privacy Coalition unveils a privacy report card for the Obama administration on Wednesday at the National Press Club. A panel of privacy experts will also discuss the administration's performance on several critical privacy issues.

• The House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee holds a Wednesday hearing on expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and on Thursday holds a full committee hearing on digitizing literature as a result of controversy surrounding the Google Books project.

The FTC urged the FCC on Friday to take into consideration the consumer protection agency's primary missions of promoting competition and safeguarding consumers in the marketplace as the FCC develops its national broadband plan. "The FCC deserves tremendous credit for its leadership in creating a national broadband policy that will help bring high-speed Internet access and services to Americans across the nation," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a press release. "As the agency that shares jurisdiction over broadband and the Internet, we look forward to working with the FCC in fulfilling this historic mission."

The FTC's response to an FCC notice of inquiry points out that competition and consumer protection work together to benefit individuals. Competition pressures producers and service providers to offer customers the most attractive array of choices with respect to price, quality, and other options, the agency said. At the same time, consumer protection policy promotes informed decision-making by customers and requires sellers to provide meaningful, timely information. The FTC's comments also question whether there is significant broadband competition and recommends using analytical tools embraced by the FTC and Justice Department in antitrust cases.

Consumer protections also are essential to help foster greater adoption of broadband, the FTC said. Those include meaningful and timely disclosures of service terms by broadband providers and strong data security policies that will safeguard consumer information and ease potential consumer concerns about online privacy. Privacy protections are particularly important, given new technologies that allow broadband providers to track consumers' online activities, to identify the source and content of much of the data they handle, and to manage that data in increasingly sophisticated ways, such as delivering targeted advertising online, officials said.

The Obama administration and watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Wednesday settled four ongoing cases regarding public access to White House visitor records. The most significant development, CREW said early Thursday, is the commitment by the administration to affirmatively post visitor records online on an ongoing basis, bringing a historic level of transparency to the White House. Visitor records are created by the Secret Service as part of its statutory responsibility to protect the president, vice president, their residences, and the White House generally.

"The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. "The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House. In contrast, the Obama administration - by putting visitor records on the White House Web site - will have the most open White House in history." Because of the policy change, CREW dismissed its lawsuits, which were filed after the Bush and later the Obama administration refused to provide White House visitor records in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

In the Bush era, CREW wanted to review the log of visits by Christian conservative leaders and lobbyist Stephen Payne. The administration argued the records were presidential records, not agency records of the Secret Service, and therefore exempt from the FOIA's mandatory disclosure requirements. U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth disagreed, ruling twice that the records are subject to the FOIA and not within any of the claimed exemptions. After Obama took office, CREW sought records of visits to the White House by health care and coal executives. The government initially refused to turn over those records.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz on Thursday expressed concern about Google's plan to digitize mass quantities of books, saying it "raises serious privacy challenges because of the vast amount of user information that could be collected." He said he was pleased that Google is taking steps to protect the privacy of Google Books users and noted that the Commission will have an ongoing dialogue with Google and others to ensure consumer privacy is protected when new technologies emerge. "As Google Books evolves we'll work to ensure that the privacy of online readers is fact, not fiction," he said in a statement.

Google recently told the FTC that users of Google Books are not and will not be required to have a Google account or register with Google to use most features although an account will be required to access books that a user has purchased. The application will also adhere to Google's existing privacy policy governing how it handles consumer data. Under that policy, Google only shares "personal information" when the consumer tells Google to do so or in certain other narrow circumstances. Google is also in the process of creating a specialized privacy policy specific to Google Books.

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to examine "competition and commerce in digital books" next Thursday and a New York federal court has scheduled a fairness hearing for Oct. 7 on the $125 million settlement Google reached in a feud with authors and publishers. The Open Book Alliance says Google's response to the FTC "essentially boils down to this - trust us." "We think it's too important to leave to blind faith that Google would do the right thing for consumers if the settlement is approved," said the group, whose members include Amazon.com, Microsoft, the Internet Archive, Yahoo and others.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will get an update by Obama administration officials next Thursday on implementation of the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program, Tech Daily Dose has learned. While the panel has not noticed the hearing on finalized a witness list, one might expect officials from the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service to testify. One might also expect those representatives to declare the program's early days a success, given the preliminary figures that have been floated.

The NTIA and RUS said last week that they received almost 2,200 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding for proposed broadband projects across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The initial $4 billion round of grants and loans are aimed at expanding broadband access and adoption to help bridge the technological divide and create jobs building Internet infrastructure. NTIA will utilize $4.7 billion to deploy broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas and other projects while RUS will invest $2.5 billion to facilitate broadband deployment in primarily rural communities.

"Applicants requested nearly seven times the amount of funding available, which demonstrates the substantial interest in expanding broadband across the nation," NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling said in a press release. "We will move quickly but carefully to fund the best projects to bring broadband and jobs to more Americans." RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein added that the overwhelming response "underscores the extensive interest in expanding broadband across the country."

The National Archives is well on its way to loading the electronic records of President George W. Bush into its digitized collection, the agency charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records said Wednesday. To date, more than 85 percent of the total volume has been ingested. The incorporation of Bush administration records is the second stage of five increments planned for the electronic records archives. The Presidential Records Act gives the Archives legal custody of the records and the task of responding to special access requirements at the end of an administration.

On Jan. 20, 2009, when President Obama was sworn into office, the Archives received the Bush records -- and in an unprecedented move, the data was delivered directly to ERA's facilities on storage area network hardware. The transfer was made possible by a partnership between the Archives, ERA contractor Lockheed Martin, and White House IT personnel. In the following months, Archives IT specialists began loading about 77 terabytes of data into the ERA system (roughly 35 times the amount of data received from the Clinton administration).

The project should be complete by late September, officials said in a press release. Use of the system is limited to Presidential Libraries employees who are processing records and responding to special access requests as needed. Presidential records become subject to Freedom of Information Act requests five years after the end of an administration. "Given the volume of electronic records we received from the Bush administration, our ability to have most of our prioritized sets of records available for staff access is a significant achievement," Assistant Archivist Sharon Fawcett said.

Steve Largent, president of wireless association CTIA, told reporters Thursday that his trade group will use the FCC's recently announced notices of inquiry on innovation and competition in the mobile marketplace to share his industry's success story. Having a fact-based examination, which FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski requested at last week's Commission meeting, will "be a good thing for our industry," Largent said. Genachowski has faced pressure from Congress and smaller telecom firms to investigate whether firms like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel are unfairly dominating the space.

Largent insisted, as telecom companies' executives have, that there is vigorous competition in the wireless industry. Prices continue to fall; 95 percent of U.S. consumers have a choice of three or more carriers; consumer satisfaction is up and complaints are down, he said. Largent also acknowledged that the mobile industry has been impacted by the economic slump. "We have not seen the numbers grow the way they have the last three years but nonetheless we're still growing," he said.

CTIA is also lobbying hard for regulators to make available more spectrum. The FCC has held two auctions in recent years, which resulted in the freeing of valuable spectrum, but Largent said more is needed. He said the last auction took about a decade to come to fruition and companies and customers "cannot afford to wait" years for the next auction. Additionally, his group is pressing Congress to change tax laws -- namely placing a five year moratorium on increases to wireless taxes. Consumers pay an average of 15.3 percent taxes on their wireless bill and "that's unacceptable," Largent said.

The Patent and Trademark Office will undergo a significant change in senior management next month when Commissioner for Patents John Doll retires after 35 years at the agency. Doll, who is responsible for all aspects of the patent granting process, will depart Oct. 2, the agency said Thursday. He previously served as deputy commissioner for patent resources and planning and earlier led a group of examiners who studied organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology patent applications.

New PTO Director David Kappos has nominated longtime agency executive Bob Stoll to become commissioner for patents and has named Peggy Focarino as his deputy. Stoll has spent 27 years at the PTO and Focarino has been with the agency for more than 32 years. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who is responsible for appointing Doll's replacement for a five-year term, expressed support for Stoll's nomination. His deep knowledge of the PTO will make him an important addition to the senior management team, Locke said.

"Working hand-in-hand with Peggy, who has shown incredible skill in patents management and operations, I know they will meet the formidable challenges facing the patent organization, including the need to drastically reduce pendency, improve quality and boost efficiency, all while managing costs in a tough budgetary environment," Kappos said. Early in his tenure, Locke asked the PTO to be aggressive in reducing the time it takes to process patent applications and Kappos has made it a priority.

The Motion Picture Association of America has asked the FCC for the authority to selectively control output streams to the television entertainment systems of consumers. A Monday letter to the Commission from the trade group's lawyers at Skadden Arps states that such a waiver would "for the first time enable millions of Americans to obtain access in their homes to high-value content" that major movie studios distribute. Consumer watchdog group Public Knowledge has claimed that the request would leave over 11 million individuals who only have analog outputs without any viewing ability.

In meetings with FCC staff and in correspondence, the MPAA has insisted the change would benefit consumers. "Even as innovative technologies bring consumers new and better opportunities to enjoy media content, there is always a lag between when early adopters take advantage of these opportunities and when they become ubiquitous," the letter said, pointing to the fact that as DVD players were introduced for home use, many households still used VCRs. "That some consumers may wait longer to purchase new devices or take advantage of innovative technologies, however, is no reason to deny all consumers the potential benefits of new offerings," the letter said.

The Consumer Electronics Association has opposed the idea. In a November 2008 letter to the Commission, the high-tech trade group said the MPAA has promised vaguely to distribute "some unspecified type and amount of programming" somewhat earlier than they are able to do now. "This promise hardly amounts to an important public purpose," CEA said. The studios' claim that the threat of piracy arising from high-definition TV necessitates the provision of "unfettered control over all inputs on lawfully-purchased HD TV sets," the group said. New FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has not weighed in on whether he thinks granting the MPAA's request is a good idea or bad idea.

(Hat tip, Ars Technica)

The National Association of Broadcasters has nabbed the FCC's two newest commissioners -- Republican Meredith Baker and Democrat Mignon Clyburn -- to speak at the trade group's upcoming radio conference held Sept. 23-25 in Philadelphia. Commissioners Baker and Clyburn, who attended their first FCC meeting last week, are expected to discuss regulatory issues impacting the radio business and their priorities as new members of the agency. Baker most served as acting administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the Bush administration and Clyburn joined the FCC from the Public Service Commission of South Carolina.

Other notables speaking at NAB's Radio Show include Scott Goodstein, who most recently served as external online director for President Obama's presidential campaign, as well as a number of broadcasting executives from Clear Channel Communications, Radio One, Emmis Communications, Saga Communications, Spanish Broadcasting System, Regent Communications, ICBC Broadcast Holdings and others. R&B artist Brian McKnight, who hosts his own show on Citadel Media Networks, will also perform during the NAB Marconi Radio Awards Dinner on Thursday, Sept. 24. For more on the conference click here.

Internet radio company Live365 has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking an injunction to prevent any further proceedings by a three-judge panel that determines music royalty rates, officials said late Monday. In the complaint Live365, which has 5 million monthly listeners and more than 270 diverse genres, questions the constitutionality of the Copyright Royalty Board and whether its judges were appointed in violation of the Constitution's separation of powers.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recently refused to rule on the CRB's constitutionality in a case brought by licensing firm Royalty Logic. The company had argued the CRB should be forced to vacate its decision in high-profile a proceeding that set the fee structure for webcasters. The panel has convened yet another rate-setting proceeding and music labels, licensing entities, artists, broadcasters and others are expected to spend millions of dollars presenting their cases, Live365 said.

"The constitutional issue is the elephant in the room at the CRB," Live365 CEO Mark Lam said in a statement. "Before any hard-earned artists' royalties and webcaster investments are spent on a potentially invalid royalty setting court, we are just requesting, for the benefit of all parties, to have this significant concern addressed and answered. The National Music Publishers' Association wrote to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers recently calling for legislation that would make moot any constitutional challenges to the CRB.

The House Judiciary Committee is planning a hearing soon after lawmakers return to Washington this month to examine Internet giant Google's controversial effort to digitize mass quantities of books. Sources on Capitol Hill and within industry told Tech Daily Dose on Tuesday that the hearing could occur next week or the following week in Chairman John Conyers's full committee or the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, which is chaired by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga.

A New York federal court has scheduled a fairness hearing for Oct. 7 on the $125 million settlement Google reached with publishers last October that lets authors and publishers cash in on the company's plan to display books online and profit from them by selling access to titles and by selling subscriptions to its collection. The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers filed a class action lawsuit against Google in 2005. The Justice Department formally acknowledged an investigation into the settlement this summer.

In related news, the National Writers Union wrote to former Vice President Al Gore on Tuesday asking him to use his influence to extend a Sept. 4 date for rights holders to opt out of the Google Books initiative and the Oct. 7 court date on the pending settlement. The deal "threatens to monopolize the access, distribution and pricing of the world's largest digital book database," NWU President Larry Goldbetter wrote. Gore serves as a senior advisor to Google and has a personal relationship with co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Update: A House Judiciary spokesman confirmed that a full committee hearing would be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 10.