April 2010

There are several technology and telecom-related events this week. Here are some of the highlights:

Tuesday:
The New America Foundation will hold a noon discussion on "Federal Communications Commission: Toothless Regulator or Cop on the Beat?"

Wednesday:
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a 10:15 a.m. hearing on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee is holding a 2 p.m. hearing on reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Thursday:
The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a 10 a.m. hearing on building a high-tech workforce in the United States.

Joel Gurin, the chief of the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, will hold his first press availability at 11 a.m. at the FCC.

FCC staff host a workshop at 3 p.m. to release a technical paper on the cost estimates related to deploying broadband.

Friday:
The American National Standards Institute and the Internet Security Alliance will hold a congressional briefing at 11:30 a.m. on the economics of cybersecurity.

A bipartisan group of House Energy and Commerce Committee members Friday asked Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to request that the FTC brief the panel on its investigation of Google's proposed acquisition of mobile advertising provider AdMob.

In the letter, Reps. John Barrow, D-Ga., Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Steve Scalise, R-La., note recent press reports that indicate the FTC may impose conditions on the Google-Admob deal and of calls for the commission to provide close scrutiny of the deal.

"The need for thorough review is particularly pressing given Google's dominant position in search advertising including mobile search advertising and its growing influence over other forms of online advertising," they wrote.

The five lawmakers, along with several other committee members, sent a letter to the FTC in March urging it to investigate privacy concerns raised about Google's new social networking service Buzz and also about Google's purchase of AdMob and its impact on competition in the mobile advertising market.

In Friday's letter, the lawmakers asked that the FTC brief the committee on whether Google and AdMob are the leading providers of ads to mobile devices and whether combining their mobile ad services would "control a substantially greater share" of the market than their closest competitor. They also asked the FTC for information on whether the deal would allow Google to leverage its control over pc-based Internet advertising to the mobile ad market; lead to Google's "entrenched dominance" in the mobile and search advertising markets; and result in higher prices. In addition, they asked that the FTC indicate whether it has been assured that adequate privacy safeguards will be in place if the deal is approved and whether the mobile ad market is too "nascent" to justify antitrust attention.

"Given the huge economic potential of the mobile Internet and the critical role that mobile advertising will play in its growth, we believe these issues merit serious attention," they added.

Google has defended its proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob, saying it will give "advertisers and publishers more choice in this growing new area." It also notes that the two firms currently specialize in different areas. "Though Google offers many forms of mobile advertising, its focus to date has been on mobile search ads, while AdMob's focus has been mobile display ads and in-application ads," it noted.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Friday released its annual "Special 301" report that identifies countries that are not doing enough to protect U.S. intellectual property and noted that three Eastern European countries have been moved off the watch list by making significant progress on the issue.

The report "identifies a wide range of serious concerns, ranging from troubling 'indigenous innovation' policies that may unfairly disadvantage U.S. rights holders in China, to the continuing challenges of Internet piracy in countries such as Canada and Spain, to the ongoing systemic IPR enforcement challenges in many countries around the world," according to the report.

USTR said it removed Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland from its watch list. On Hungary, the report notes that "it has taken proactive steps to address the growing threat of Internet piracy, and its customs and police officials have developed their ability to effectively identify infringing products." Hungary was praised for taking "some initial steps to address Internet piracy concerns," while USTR noted the Czech Republic's passage of a law enhancing penalties for IP infringement.

Still despite this, the report highlighted several other trouble spots including China, which along with 10 other countries has been placed on its "priority watch list." USTR singled out China's indigenous innovation policies that favor home-grown technologies and intellectual property over foreign firms or which require foreign firms to share their IP with Chinese partners. "Procurement preferences and other measures favoring 'indigenous innovation' could severely restrict market access for American technology and products," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.

The report also noted that the U.S. music industry claims that "the vast majority of all illegal downloads of music" are associated with China's largest search engine, Baidu.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., warned Thursday that he would oppose any efforts to attach legislation that would require AM and FM radio stations to pay a fee to musicians for playing their music on the air to another must-pass bill.

Nelson, who is a co-sponsor of a non-binding Senate resolution opposing the performance rights bill, made the comments at the start of a Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing on the Library of Commerce fiscal year 2011 budget request. The Library of Congress' Copyright Royalty Board would have a role in the negotiations over fees paid by larger radio stations to performers under the bill.

"I continue to hear from a number of organizations concerned about the performance royalties bill that would affect local radio stations," said Nelson, the subcommittee chairman. "And along with many of my colleagues, I continue to oppose this bill and wouldn't support an attempt to attach such legislation to an appropriations bill whether it is this one or any of the others for that matter."

Performance rights legislation has been approved by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees. But the leaders of those panels have urged broadcasters and music industry officials to try to reach a compromise.

Martin Machowsky, spokesman for the musicFIRST Coalition, which is made up of about a dozen music industry groups, would not comment on whether his group is pushing to attach the measure to another bill. He did say, however, that "discussions with [the National Association of Broadcasters] are current and ongoing; that is where our focus is."

Faced with the possibility of greater regulatory responsibilities, the Commodities Future Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission must upgrade their information technology systems, CFTC and SEC heads told Senate appropriators this week, Nextgov.com reported.

"While market participants have the technology to automate their trading, we do not yet have the resources to employ modern technology to automate our surveillance," CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. "Significant changes in the markets demand new systems capable of efficiently receiving and managing massive amounts of raw data and converting it to useful information for analysis by skilled market experts, economists and technologists."

President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget recommends spending $18 million on IT to cover current and potential new authorities for CFTC, an agency that has long been underfunded, according to financial executives and agency officials. CFTC requested $23.3 million for IT in fiscal 2010 but was only allocated $9.3 million. Senators on Wednesday held a hearing to learn more about the budget requests for both commissions.

The full Senate is in the midst of a debate over legislation to reform financial regulation, partly by empowering the government to police over-the-counter, or privately exchanged, derivatives, which are complex financial contracts between two parties that hedge against what could happen in the future to other assets. Some proposals would move all derivatives onto trading systems that CFTC and SEC would be able to examine with the appropriate technology.

According to its 2011 proposal, new program requirements mean CFTC needs to expand its entire infrastructure, including communications circuits, overall circuit capacity, cabling and connections, switches, routers, servers, data storage and backup. Gensler noted on Wednesday that, at present, surveillance systems process more than 1 billion transactions annually.

During the past year CFTC's systems have had trouble accepting data from market participants, according to financial industry officials who did not attend the hearing and spoke on condition of anonymity. To read more, click here.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs escalated his fight with Adobe Systems Inc. over the software known as Flash, a battle that could shape the evolution of video and gaming on mobile devices," the Wall Street Journal reports.

Apple and Google got a scolding Thursday from key Senate Commerce Committee leaders for failing to accept an invitation to testify at a Commerce subcommittee hearing on updating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., praised Facebook and Microsoft for appearing at the hearing and went on to chastise Apple and Google for not showing up to testify.

Rockefeller jokingly questioned whether it was too expensive for Apple and Google, both of whom have Washington offices, to send an "associate legal counsel?" He then got more serious, saying "When people don't show up ... it increases our interest in what they are doing and why they didn't show up. They made a stupid mistake by not showing up. I say, shame on them."

Pryor said the absence of Apple and Google is "unfortunate because they are major players in this area," adding that it's an issue the panel would continue to explore in the future.

A Google spokeswoman said the firm did not have a comment on Rockefeller's remarks. And an Apple spokesman did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Representatives from three major Internet service providers and five industry trade groups sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Thursday to discourage the agency against classifying broadband as a telecommunications service, which would boost the FCC's power to regulate broadband providers.

In the letter, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and other signers pushed back on the argument that classifying broadband in this way would be returning to oversight schemes that existed before the FCC was under the control of the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, which consumer advocates say imposed deregulatory policies.

The companies said the letter aims to "set the record straight" by explaining that "the commission has never classified any kind of Internet access service (wireline,
cable, wireless, powerline, dial-up or otherwise) as a ... telecommunications service, nor has it ever regulated the rates, terms and conditions of that service -- Internet access service has always been treated as a Title I information service."

The historical sticking point has taken on significance in the public relations battle over how to classify broadband. If changing the status of broadband is viewed as the mere reversal of flawed Bush policies, the Democratic FCC might be less hesitant to pull the trigger. However, if the administrative maneuver is seen by the public as a "nuclear option," as the companies sometimes describe it, the FCC might be less likely to take that road.

After the companies filed the letter, consumer advocates quickly shot back. "This latest letter from the telephone and cable industries is yet another sign that the industry will make any argument to avoid the simple fact that consumers deserve protection against companies [that] block or degrade service and deserve more competition in Internet services," Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld said in a news release.

Feld argued that the carriers got the facts wrong and that "the Internet flourished with much more regulation on the telephone companies (which should have also been applied to cable companies) than anyone is discussing now."

As the FTC weighs whether to update its rule implementing a law aimed at protecting children's privacy online, Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Thursday that he believes Congress may need to weigh in with possible changes to reflect new technologies such as mobile broadband.

Since the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1998, "the whole world has changed," Rockefeller said during a Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance Subcommittee hearing on the law. He added that "I really think Congress has to take a hard look at whether COPPA should be updated if the FTC is not going to do it."

The FTC is currently reviewing its rule implementing COPPA, which imposed certain requirements on Web sites directed at children including that they obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under the age of 13. The commission is collecting comments on whether it should apply the rule to new technologies such as mobile devices, interactive television and interactive gaming; on age verification systems; and other issues.

Facebook Director of Public Policy Tim Sparapani noted that while there is no way to verify a child's age online, Facebook imposes several safeguards aimed at blocking children under 13 from opening accounts on the social networking site. He urged Congress not to weigh in with legislation at this point, saying it might discourage innovative ideas aimed at enhancing teen and children safety. "In fact, any amendments might undue many of our innovative privacy and safety tools," Sparapani said.

Microsoft Associate General Counsel Mike Hintze echoed this view, saying the law has proven to be effective in encouraging Web sites to be more transparent and limit the amount and types of information they collect from children. "We don't believe legislative amendments are needed at this time," he said, adding that the FTC has appropriate flexibility to update the COPPA rule to reflect technological changes.

Electronic Privacy Information Center Executive Director Marc Rotenberg and American University Communications Professor Kathryn Montgomery both encouraged the FTC to provide protections for teens who are increasingly revealing vast amounts of personal information online through social networking services and other Web sites. Montgomery said she is "not arguing for a parental verification system" for children over 13 but would like the FTC to develop a set of fair information and marketing practices tailored to the needs of adolescents.

Rotenberg noted that children over 13 must rely on the privacy policies imposed by Web sites, which often change those policies after collecting vast amounts of information on these users. "I don't think the FTC has been as aggressive as it needs to be to go after unfair and deceptive trade practices," he said.

Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Thursday attempted to assuage industry concerns over the scope of his panel's cybersecurity bill, saying the legislation does not seek to give the government new emergency powers or the authority to dictate business operations.

"Let me be very clear: When it comes to cybersecurity, the familiar 'regulation versus leave-it-to-the-market' debate that always dominates discussions between the government and the private sector is a dangerous false choice," Rockefeller said in his written remarks at the Business Software Alliance's 2010 Cybersecurity Forum.

"The government cannot do this on its own, and neither can the private sector. This has been demonstrated and proven."

Rockefeller defended the bill he wrote with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, as striking a balance between government and business interests. The bill was introduced last year but an updated, reworked version was released and approved by his committee in March.

"We have worked closely with you and other stakeholders to refine the language," Rockefeller told industry officials. "In case there is any remaining confusion, let me be clear: This bill does not create any new emergency powers for the president or anyone else in government. It simply requires all key players to get together ahead of a crisis and prepare."

He noted that the bill seeks to give companies incentives to adopt good cybersecurity practices. The government could compel companies that fail to do so to adopt remediation plans.

A bipartisan group of 10 House members have raised new questions about proposals from two firms to create motion picture futures exchanges based on speculation over movie box office receipts, proposals staunchly opposed by movie industry groups.

In a letter Wednesday to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, the lawmakers voiced concern about approving the trading of movie futures while Congress is in the midst of debating financial regulatory reform and possible changes to the commission's jurisdiction over commodity-based derivatives. Several other lawmakers also have raised concerns about the exchanges.

The letter was signed by Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Debbie Halvorson, D-Ill., Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., Betsy Markey, D-Colo., Bill Posey, R-Fla., George Radanovich, R-Calif., Tom Rooney, R-Fla., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Lee Terry, R-Neb.

The commission has already backed applications from Media Derivatives and Cantor Futures Exchange to be contract markets, the first step in their bid to offer futures based on movie box office receipts. The CFTC, however, has yet to approve futures contracts that would be traded on such exchanges.

The lawmakers questioned whether such exchanges serve any "public service," noting that several movie industry groups, which "are purported to benefit from hedging against risks incurred from failures in box office receipts" oppose the proposed exchanges. A CFTC official told a House Agriculture subcommittee last week that the commission would try to exclude those with insider knowledge from being involved in the movie futures exchanges. The lawmakers, however, questioned whether "this type of product is inherently prone to abuse and manipulation from the start."

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Wireless companies are zeroing in this week on" Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., "who is blocking an industry-backed proposal that may generate billions of dollars for federal coffers and telecommunications providers such as Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile," Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• "Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to buy smart phone maker Palm Inc. -- which helped spark the mobile digital revolution with its renowned PalmPilot device in the mid-1990s -- in a cash deal for $1.2 billion," the Los Angeles Times reports.

The House Science and Technology Committee approved legislation Wednesday that would reauthorize a law that aims to double authorized funding for research and development at key science agencies, enhance support for science and math education and other programs aimed at boosting U.S. innovation.

After wading through dozens of amendments, the committee approved the bill (H.R. 5116) on a 29-8 vote with all the no votes coming from Republicans. It would reauthorize the 2007 America COMPETES Act for five years and authorize about $82 billion in funding for the bill's programs. The overall funding was reduced by 10 percent after the panel approved a manager's amendment that stretched the timeline to 2017 for doubling authorized funding for R&D activities at the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Energy Department's Office of Science. The 2007 law called for doubling research funding at these agencies by 2014.

Republicans offered numerous amendments that attempted to cut authorized funding levels in the bill and aimed to reduce the bill's timeline from a five-year authorization to three years, which was the length of time covered by the 2007 law. "I remain committed to investing in basic research and development, but I am also mindful of our current dire economic situation," House Science and Technology ranking member Ralph Hall, R-Texas, said.

House Science Chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., said he made a concession to such budgetary concerns by reducing authorized funding as part of the manager's amendment, which brought down the bill's funding total by about $9.4 billion from the $93 billion originally proposed.

The panel, for the most part, rejected GOP efforts to reduce the amount of time the bill's programs are authorized for and to cut authorization levels. However, the panel adopted by voice vote an amendment from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif, that would authorize the Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, which aims to pursue high-risk, high-reward energy technology projects, for five years instead of the 10 years called for by the bill. The panel, however, rejected by voice vote Rohrabacher's first amendment on the issue, which would have reduced the authorization for ARPA-E to only three years.

Aides to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, met with Facebook representatives Wednesday to discuss concerns over new features on the social networking site that have raised objections from privacy advocates who say the firm over shares user data with outside sites. Schumer had urged the FTC this week to produce norms for how Facebook and other social networking sites should treat user information.

At the meeting, Facebook promised to explore and respond to the staff's concerns, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said. (Noyes is the former editor of Tech Daily Dose) "We appreciate their thoughts and look forward to their assistance in helping make sure users understand the controls they have over their information and what happens with information they share," he said.

Facebook executives downplayed the significance of public criticism over the new features during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. "Many of our innovations when they were first introduced were not received well by the community," Elliot Schrage, Facebook's global communications vice president, said. He pointed to backlash after the site expanded beyond college campuses and when it introduced its newsfeed feature. Concern fizzled as users "saw the benefits" of these tools, according to Schrage.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, said Wednesday that while he does not expect action on his non-binding resolution opposing performance rights legislation favored by the music industry, he believes his measure gives a good indication of where lawmakers stand if the bill makes it to the floor.

Green said in a brief interview before a House vote that his resolution opposing legislation that would require AM and FM radio stations to pay performers a fee for playing their music on the air is more of a "whip count" that indicates the level of opposition to the performance rights bill. Green's resolution currently has 259 bipartisan co-sponsors in the House, while a similar measure in the Senate is backed by 27 senators on both sides of the aisle.

The National Association of Broadcasters and other critics say the performance rights bill would place a financial burden on already struggling radio stations, adding that musicians benefit from the exposure they get from radio airplay. To underscore that point, the NAB Wednesday highlighted a recent video message to radio stations from country star Carrie Underwood, which was recorded following her recent win as Entertainer of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Noting all the "amazing things" that have happened to her, Underwood said "none of it could've been possible without country radio."

Music industry groups argue that the bill is a matter of basic fairness by ensuring that musicians get paid for their work. The legislation has high-profile support in both chambers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has come out in favor of the bill, while Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., has signed on as a co-sponsor to the Senate bill. In addition, the AFL-CIO announced Tuesday that it plans to help the music industry mobilize support for the bill in several key states.

Green said that even with Pelosi's support, the bill still faces a steep climb. He noted that Pelosi has blocked other measures that she supports from coming to the floor because they are too controversial.

Ahead of schedule, the White House has posted assessments of agencies' plans for incorporating Obama's principles of open government into their missions, NextGov.com reported.

Each agency was required on April 7 to submit a roadmap for increasing civic participation, private sector collaboration and transparency in government. White House officials that day said, by May 1, the administration would hold agencies accountable by evaluating the plans based on criteria outlined in a December directive. Instead, the administration chose to have each agency evaluate its own plan against the directive's requirements and post those self-evaluations on Tuesday.

"The assessments show that we are off to a good start -- but have much more work to do as we transition our overall efforts towards effective agency implementation," wrote federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra on a White House blog.

The self-reviews were based on a checklist of 30 criteria, such as the inclusion of a key, flagship activity. Detailed evaluations are located on each agency's open government homepage and a summary assessment is posted on the open government dashboard. Agencies that met a criterion got a green flag, while those that have more work to do got a yellow flag. Many of the flags are colored yellow. To read more, click here.

Like most other U.S. sectors, the high technology industry lost more than 245,600 jobs in 2009, but may be among the first to help pull the nation out of the economic downturn, according to Tech America's annual Cyberstates study released Wednesday.

The 4 percent decline in tech jobs is still less than the 5 percent reduction from the private sector as a whole. The tech industry still employs 5.86 million workers, Tech America said during a Tuesday briefing on the 13th edition of the report. Tech America President and CEO Phil Bond said the tech sector was one of the last sectors to be hit by the recession and looks like it will be one of the first ones helping to pull the nation out of the deep recession.

Tech manufacturing had the steepest decline among the four tech sectors, losing 112,600 jobs or 8.1 percent of its workforce last year. Software services had the smallest number of job losses with only a 1.2 percent decline, or 20,700 jobs.

"The one bright spot was software services," said TechAmerica Foundation Research Director Josh James. The foundation conducted the study, which is based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, for TechAmerica. He noted that software services actually started adding jobs, 10,100, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The tech industry also paid much higher wages on average than the rest of the private sector. The average tech wage of $84,400 was about 86 percent higher than the average private sector wage of $45,400, based on 2008 BLS wage data.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, four Democratic senators wanted the social networking tool "to simplify its privacy controls as it makes user data widely available on non-Facebook websites," USA Today reports.

• "An influential Senate subcommittee is quietly laying the groundwork for possible legislation this year that would overhaul a federal law governing access to video programming and expand its reach to the Internet -- moves that could have a direct impact on the pending merger of Comcast and NBC Universal," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., "raised concerns Tuesday that federal regulators are wasting taxpayer dollars by funding duplicative broadband infrastructure projects as part of the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program," CongressDailyAM (subscription) also reports.

The AFL-CIO will support local lobbying efforts on behalf of legislation that would require AM and FM radio stations to pay performers for airing their songs, the labor group announced Tuesday at a rally on Capitol Hill. The event was organized by the musicFIRST coalition, which includes a dozen music industry groups including the
Recording Industry Association of America.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said that "all 11.5 million members of the AFL-CIO stand united" behind the legislation hailed at the event. "The labor movement was founded on the principle that a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay. That's the principle at stake in the fight for the Performance Rights Act," he said in a statement.

The legislation has been approved by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees and is backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. But congressional obstacles remain for a measure that is staunchly opposed by the National Association of Broadcasters, which says the new fees would bankrupt local stations. It has attracted broad congressional support for non-binding resolutions in both chambers opposing the performance rights legislation.

The Tuesday rally drew House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., as well as Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, John Garamendi, D-Calif., Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., and Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. It also featured a performance by Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary.

The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that a compromise patent overhaul bill can pass easily with just two days of debate, though it is unclear when it will reach the floor.

The bill has now been reviewed on both sides of the aisle to see if any senators have objections to moving it by unanimous consent. And while at least a few Democrats want to offer amendments there are not major problems, senators and aides said.

"It was hotlined and cleared without the kind of objections that indicate a prolonged battle," Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said. Senate Majority Leader Harry "Reid can bring the bill up with confidence it's not gonna turn into a big imbroglio that would hamper his ability to move other items," he added.

Sessions and Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., unveiled a compromise version of the bill last month that is expected to be offered as a manager's amendment on the floor to the bill approved by the Senate Judiciary last year. The compromise addressed outstanding issues that remained after committee action on the bill such as the post-grant review process, willfulness and supplemental examinations.

A new survey released Tuesday found that 40 percent of adults who use the Internet are surfing for data about the business of government, a proportion that shocked researchers, Nextgov.com reported. "People want to know what's going on in government," said the report's author Aaron Smith, a researcher at the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. "I think the number of people doing that was extremely surprising to us."

For years, surveys by Pew, the American Customer Satisfaction Index and other researchers have indicated an upward trend in the use of the Internet to access government services, including the latest ACSI quarterly report, which also was issued on Tuesday. But the Pew survey is the only one that indicates people also are going online for raw government data, such as spending statistics, policy statements and campaign contributions.

Pew's last detailed assessment of online government was conducted in 2003. "There was no YouTube. There were no social networking sites. There was very little text-messaging," Smith said. "It's effectively the first report of its kind."

He attributed the large number of Americans seeking data to the government's outreach efforts and the public's interest in the information. "This is a fairly recent trend on the government's side to push for openness and transparency in government data," Smith said.

Pew surveyed via telephone 1,676 Internet users age 18 and older and conducted its research between Nov. 30 and Dec. 27, 2009, during the debate over health care reform. The error rate was plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. The survey found that in the last year 23 percent of adults looked online to see how money from the 2009 economic stimulus package was being spent; 22 percent downloaded or read the text of bills; and 16 percent visited a site that provides access to government data, such as Data.gov, Recovery.gov or USAspending.gov. To read more, click here.

Pop star Jordin Sparks joined Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Tuesday to urge drivers not to text message and drive. The Washington event is the latest effort by LaHood to bring attention to the dangers of texting while driving and other forms of distracted driving.

The event highlighted an effort launched by insurer Allstate called the "X to TXT" campaign, aimed at encouraging teen drivers and their parents to pledge not to text while driving and to urge lawmakers to pass legislation that would ban texting while driving.

Texting and other driver distractions contribute to a quarter of all police-related traffic crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A study conducted by researchers at Virginia Tech University and released last summer found that drivers who send text messages on a cell phone are about 23 times more likely to get into some type of crash or near-miss than non-distracted drivers.

Allstate said in a news release that 75,000 people have signed its pledge not to text and drive, while 5,000 individuals have signed its petition urging Congress to pass legislation banning texting while driving.

"Distracted driving has become a deadly epidemic, and we need to work together to stop thousands of unnecessary injuries and deaths every year," LaHood said in the news release. Sparks, a former American Idol winner, added that "it can be easy to forget the dangers of texting and driving when you get behind the wheel. That's why it is important for teens, their friends and families to acknowledge the risks and pledge together not to do it."

Visa Inc. announced Tuesday that it would it would bar Web merchants from providing Visa cardholder information to other companies without consumers' knowledge and "active" consent.

Visa made the announcement in the wake of a Senate Commerce Committee investigation that has highlighted controversial marketing practices by some Web firms that involve transferring consumer credit and debit card information to third-party marketing firms, a process known as "data pass." The information is usually passed on to such firms as part of the checkout process for consumers who shop at some popular Web retail sites. The committee found that consumers are deceptively lured to sign up for services offered by these third-party firms in response to an offer for a discount or reward.

"Consumers who shop online using their Visa cards should be confident that they will only be charged for the products and services they legitimately intend to purchase -- not those that are foisted on them through deceptive data pass schemes," Martin Elliott, Visa's senior business leader for U.S. payment system risks.

While Visa already prohibits merchants from sharing a cardholder's account number or other Visa transaction data with anyone else who is not directly involved in completing a transaction or preventing fraud, merchants will now be required under the new rules, which go into effect on Saturday, to ask consumers to re-enter their card information to accept an offer from a third-party merchant. Visa said it will help ensure consumers realize they are being charged for a second purchase.

Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said while he is pleased with Visa's efforts to curb data-pass scams, he said legislation is needed to crack down on bad actors. "While I am pleased that Visa is changing its rules so that more consumers are protected, I still believe that legislation is needed to ban this deceptive practice once and for all," Rockefeller said in a statement. "In the coming weeks, I intend to introduce legislation that will address the concerns raised by the committee's e-commerce investigation."

A committee report released late last year following an investigation focused on three firms, Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty, that had partnered with numerous well-known Web retail sites to enroll millions of consumers in discount club memberships using data-pass tactics that netted more than $1 billion in revenues for these firms and their partners. Many consumers were unaware they had signed up for such memberships

A new study released Tuesday argues that while much attention is placed on protecting industries that create intellectual property, more focus should be placed on ensuring the future growth of firms that benefit from fair use of IP and produce economic benefits for the U.S. economy.

"While policy makers devote significant attention to copyright infringement, exceptions to copyright protection also promote innovation and are a major catalyst of U.S. economic growth," according to the study released by the Computer & Communications Industry Association. "Specific exceptions to copyright protection under U.S. and international law, classified here under the broad heading of 'fair use,' are vital to
many industries and stimulate growth across the economy."

The report was conducted for CCIA by the economic consulting firm Capital Trade Inc. and was based on data from 2007. The study found that fair-use dependent industries combined grew faster than the economy as a whole between 2002 and 2007, rising 36 percent during this period. From 2002-2007, revenues grew from $3.4 trillion to $4.7 trillion. The study also noted that the industry contributes significantly to U.S. employment, with firms that benefit from fair use employing about one out of every eight U.S. workers. In addition, it also claimed that exports from companies that benefit from fair use grew by 41 percent between 2002 and 2007.

Companies that the study defined as dependent on fair use of IP include manufacturers of consumer devices that allow individual copying of copyrighted programming, educational institutions, software developers, and Internet search and Web hosting providers.

"Broader regulation of economic activity by copyright might encourage additional creativity, but it will deter certain types of technology innovation, and may undermine competition and free expression," CCIA President Ed Black said in the study's preface. "Our information policy must therefore balance the incentives that IP regulation creates against the disincentives that result."

However, Copyright Alliance Executive Director Patrick Ross, whose group represents a broad range of IP creators, disputed the report's findings, saying it is based on an overly broad definition of companies that benefit from IP and includes firms that only occasionally engage in fair use of IP.

"Missing is a recognition that in every single case, fair use builds upon an existing, original copyrighted work. Without that creation, there is no fair use to practice," Ross said. He added that the report unnecessarily pits creators of IP against other innovators. "If everyone in the economic food chain is to succeed, then high-quality, professionally developed creative works must continue to be available, and that will only happen if copyright is respected and creators are able to earn a living from their work," he said.

In an effort to fend off increased FCC oversight, Internet service providers stressed growing industry agreement around best practices for network management in comments due Monday in the commission's "open Internet" proceeding.

The overtures follow efforts by the industry's top lobbyists to present such norms as an alternative to increased FCC oversight during recent meetings with agency commissioners and legal advisers. Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke pointed to existing efforts to improve self governance in meetings with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and her legal advisers earlier this month.

He made the same point in a blog post Monday about Verizon's FCC filing. "We continue to work with Google and others to find common ground by focusing on an approach that empowers and protects users and incents industry innovation and investment," he wrote.

Comcast took up the same charge in its comments, raising norms as the first point in a 54-page filing. The company said it sees "consensus that third-party technical groups such as standards setting" bodies might be able to "play an important role in helping the industry understand, refine, and address the various technical issues underlying key policy determinations." Stakeholders who favor tough network neutrality rules, which would require Internet access providers to treat all content the same, have argued that self regulation would not keep access providers in check.

Meanwhile, Google failed to endorse entreaties by peers in the Open Internet Coalition who said the FCC should kick off proceedings to classify broadband as a heavily-regulated telecommunications service rather than a lightly regulated information service. Google said it is "impartial" to where the agency finds legal basis for enforcing open Internet rules, but reiterated support for such regulation.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The Federal Trade Commission could become a more powerful watchdog for Internet users under a little-known provision in financial overhaul legislation that would expand the agency's ability to create rules," the Washington Post reports.

• "The National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Monday awarded the nonprofit One Economy Corp. and the Broadband Opportunity Coalition, an alliance of civil rights groups, with $28.5 million in broadband stimulus money -- the largest single award for promoting adoption of the technology," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "Citizens are actually using the data made available by government agencies, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project," The Hill reports.

• "The CIA announced a five-year strategic plan that would invest heavily in new technologies to combat non-traditional threats like cyber attacks from overseas and gain better intelligence on rogue states like Iran," the Wall Street Journal (subscription) reports.

The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Monday awarded the nonprofit One Economy Corp., and the Broadband Opportunity Coalition, an alliance of civil rights groups, with $28.5 million in broadband stimulus money -- the largest single award designed to promote adoption of the technology. Private sector donations from partners AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, the wireless association CTIA, Google and the National Association of Broadcasters will add additional support valued at $23 million.

The corporate contributions raise the total to $51.5 million for broadband initiatives to be implemented by One Economy and the coalition, whose members include organizations representing Asians, blacks, Latinos and other minorities. The financial assistance will be used toward an array of goals, such as bringing affordable connectivity to 159 housing developments and conducting a national digital literacy awareness campaign targeted at 20 million people. One Economy also plans to dramatically expand its Digital Connectors program, which trains youngsters in at-risk communities about Internet and computer technology.

The federal dollars are part of the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program, created by last year's economic stimulus package. "Ten years ago, One Economy had a dream to put 21st century technology into the hands of every single American, regardless of income, so that they could change their lives for the better," Rey Ramsey, co-founder of One Economy and chairman of its board, said in a statement. "Today, thanks to President Obama, the Recovery Act and this historic coalition, we are that much closer to making that dream a reality," added Ramsey, who also is president and CEO of TechNet, an industry association representing Silicon Valley companies.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that strict copyright laws are increasingly essential for helping independent artists thrive without the need to rely on traditional institutions, such as publishing companies, to disseminate their work.

"'Independent artist entrepreneurs' are emerging who create works and use the Internet to distribute directly to consumers through Web sites, blogs, online magazines, e-books, and other methods. Some use publishers and some do not," he said at a World Intellectual Property Day forum hosted by the Institute for Policy Innovation.

Goodlatte praised the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which updated the nation's copyright laws for the digital age, and the No Electronic Theft Act, a 1997 law authored by Goodlatte that makes it illegal to engage in online IP piracy even when the perpetrator does not benefit economically. He argued that there have been few problems with the DCMA beyond insufficient penalties when infringers fail to respond swiftly to charges of copyright breach.

The law, however, has come under fire by advocates of "fair use" policies for not going far enough to allow for creative use of copyrighted material. Goodlatte warned against calls to re-open the DMCA, arguing that it is essential to "jealously guard creators' intellectual property rights in order to foster new content and innovative products."

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk Monday defended efforts to craft an international agreement aimed at curbing the counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property against those who say it will not adequately protect the rights of IP users.

Following a Capitol Hill forum to commemorate World Intellectual Property Day, Kirk told reporters that some groups that have been critical of the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement put out "a lot of the misinformation about ACTA." He added that the release of a public text last week of the draft ACTA has shown that a lot of the rumors about the bill's provisions, many of which related to the agreement's Internet provisions, were not accurate.

"We're still in the middle of the process," Kirk said, adding that "let's not prejudge anything." He also said his office has "gone to great lengths to hear" from all the stakeholders involved in the ACTA debate and will continue to do so.

When asked if ACTA can be concluded this year as many IP groups have urged, Kirk said he didn't want to handicap the agreement's timeline but added that it is in the interest of the United States to get the strongest agreement possible.

Prior to the release of the ACTA text, some critics voiced concern that ACTA might mandate that Internet service providers implement a graduated response system to crack down on serial IP infringers that could lead to a cutoff of Internet service. Sean Flynn, associate director of the Information Justice and Intellectual Property Program at American University's Washington College of Law, noted that while the latest draft does not include language requiring such a system, it does contain bracketed text that states the agreement "shall not effect the possibility" of countries to implement such graduated response systems.

To mark the 10th anniversary of World Intellectual Property Day, the Justice Department said Monday that it has appointed 15 new assistant U.S. attorneys and 20 FBI special agents who will focus on combating domestic and international intellectual property crimes.

The new U.S. attorneys will work in the Justice Department's Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property program and will be located at offices in 10 states and Washington, D.C. The 20 new FBI agents will add to the 31 agents already dedicated to investigating IP crimes. These new agents will be deployed to Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., locations that already have IP squads.

"Intellectual property law enforcement is central to protecting our nation's ability to remain at the forefront of technological advancement, business development and job creation," Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler said in a statement.

Broadcasters and the music industry have dueling commentaries in a Washington Post publication Monday over the long-simmering demand that AM and FM radio stations pay a fee to musicians and record labels for playing their music on air.

The commentaries, which appeared in the Washington Post's new Capital Business publication, highlighted both sides' long-standing arguments on the issue. Jennifer Bendall, executive director of the music industry coalition MusicFIRST, argued in her piece that legislation that would require radio stations to pay a performance rights fee is a matter of basic fairness: "Everyone deserves to be paid for their work."

She added that broadcasters are being hypocritical in opposing such legislation as they battles cable firms for retransmission fees. "Broadcasters themselves cannot honestly oppose paying for the music they play at the same time they are asking cable systems to pay them for use of their TV programs through retransmission consent agreements," Bendall wrote.

National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Gordon Smith countered in his own commentary that the legislation would hurt already struggling local radio stations; at least half of the fees would go to big record labels many of which are foreign owned; and that musicians already benefit from the exposure they receive from radio airplay.

"No one disputes the need for artists to be paid for their work," wrote Smith, a former GOP senator from Oregon. "But like every other business in America, those payments should come from their employer, the record label, not from the local radio stations that have propelled their careers to stardom."

The performance rights legislation has been approved by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees, but the leaders of those panels have urged the two sides to try to reach a compromise.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Monday announced he has appointed an inter-agency Spectrum Task Force that will help the commission as it looks for more efficient ways to use spectrum.

The task force, which will be co-chaired by Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman and Office of Engineering Technology Chief Julius Knapp, will help promote coordination and collaboration within the FCC as it seeks to identify spectrum that can be used to help promote wireless broadband, one of the key recommendations of the commission's national broadband plan.

"To lead the world in mobile, the FCC must ensure that our nation's spectrum is being put to its highest and best use," Genachowski said in a statement. He added that the broadband plan "lays out a comprehensive roadmap for promoting greater spectrum efficiency and flexibility, and ensuring sufficient spectrum for broadband. The Spectrum Task Force will keep us on this charted course."

An industry coalition that favors Senate legislation aimed at overhauling the patent system urged Senate leaders Monday to act on a compromise version of the measure unveiled last month by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Noting the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day and the importance of intellectual property protection, the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform urged the Senate to back the compromise, which will be offered as a manager's amendment to the bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year when it goes to the Senate floor. The compromise addressed outstanding issues that remained after committee action on the bill such as the post-grant review process, willfulness and supplemental examinations.

Leahy has been working to get floor time for the bill but is competing for floor time against several other pieces of legislation that Senate leaders want to move before the Memorial Day break.

"Congress has debated and continuously refined several comprehensive patent reform
measures since 2005," the coalition, which represents such companies as 3M, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble and Texas Instruments, said in a statement. The Leahy-Sessions' compromise "is the culmination of this deliberative process, a carefully balanced compromise that addresses the key aspects of the patent system."

The compromise gained the support in recent weeks of the Commerce Department and has helped bring on a broad range of interests including labor groups, biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, some information technology companies such as IBM, and large research universities.

However, another key industry group, the Coalition for Patent Fairness, opposes the compromise, saying it's worse than current law. The group, which represents big IT companies such as Apple, Google, Intel and Oracle, has been pushing for changes to the Leahy-Sessions compromise.

A new report released Monday from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center argues that intellectual property "intenseive" industries contribute heavily to the U.S economy, making up about 60 percent of total U.S. exports in recent years.

The study, which covers 2000-2007, notes that IP-intensive industries create jobs at all skill levels, pay higher salaries, and invest in more research and development than other industries. For example, the study found that the average salary of employees in IP-intensive industries was about 60 percent higher when compared with workers in other industries, $59,041 compared with $37,202 for non-IP intensive industries.

Among the industries listed as "IP intensive" include those involved in coal and petroleum, chemicals, transportation and medical equipment makers, computer and electronic products and information software. Non-IP-intensive industries include those that make food and beverages, electrical equipment and appliances, wood products, furniture, and paper and plastics.

The study was released on World Intellectual Property Day and comes as IP groups are pushing trade officials to conclude work on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which is aimed at trying to curb IP piracy and counterfeiting, and as the White House's new IP enforcement coordinator works on a national strategy for bolstering IP protection.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Congress continues its scrutiny of federal regulatory efforts to expand access to high-speed Internet service with two hearings this week," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "Senator Charles Schumer," D-N.Y., "on Sunday urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to provide guidelines for social networking sites, like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, on how private information submitted by online users can be used and disseminated," ABC News reports.

Monday:
Microsoft is helping to sponsor the Imagine Cup US Finals at the Newseum at 9 am. Students from across the country compete to use technology to solve societal problems.

To help celebrate World Intellectual Property Day, the Institute for Policy Innovation is holding a day-long event starting at 9 a.m. with remarks and panels featuring U.S. Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters, Rep. Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., and others.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center will host another World IP Day event at 9:30 am where Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro will help unveil a new report on the effects IP has on the U.S. economy.

The Patent and Trademark office along with the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the World Intellectual Property Organization will host a Capitol Hill World IP Day event starting at 2:30 pm. Speakers include House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., U.S. Commerce Under Secretary David Kappos and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs Robert D. Hormats will speak about the importance of IP at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at 3 p.m.

Tuesday:
TechAmerica holds a briefing at 10 a.m. to discuss its 2010 Cyber State report on the high-tech economy.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Grammy-nominated singer Jordin Sparks and others will discuss the dangers of texting and driving at an 11 a.m. news conference.

Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Peter Yarrow of the Peter, Paul and Mary folk group and others hold a news conference at 3 p.m. to discuss a new effort to build support for performance rights legislation.

Wednesday:
The House Science Committee holds a 10 a.m. markup of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010.

The House Judiciary Committee holds a 10 a.m. hearing on H.R.2695, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2009, which would amend antitrust laws to ensure competitive market-based rates and terms for merchants' access to electronic payment systems.

Thursday:
Government Executive magazine holds a briefing at 7:30 a.m. on health information technology focusing on the use of virtual reality software and other new technologies in the treatment of returning veterans.

The Senate Commerce Committee holds a 10 a.m. hearing on children's online privacy protection.

The House Energy and Commerce Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee holds a 10 a.m. hearing on "The National Broadband Plan: Competitive Availability Of Navigation Devices."

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee holds a 10 a.m. hearing, "Running Out of Time: Telecommunications Transition Delays Wasting Millions of Federal Dollars."

One of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's signature regulatory initiatives -- a controversial effort to strengthen guidelines designed to preserve the Internet's openness -- could be derailed, the agency's senior Republican member said Friday.

CongressDaily reported that Commissioner Robert McDowell blamed a recent federal appeals court decision that faulted the FCC for overstepping its legal boundaries when the agency disciplined Comcast for impeding Internet service to bandwidth-hogging customers. "I think the open Internet proceeding is in big [legal] trouble as a result of the Comcast decision," McDowell said during a news conference.

Genachowski, a Democrat, unveiled the planned expansion of the agency's net neutrality guidelines in September to help lay the foundation for a national broadband plan submitted to Congress last month. The proposal was adopted on a tentative basis in October by a 3-2 party line vote, with the agency's Democrats voting in the affirmative.

Dominant industry players such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon worry that tougher neutrality rules would interfere with management of their networks, while supporters contend that more safeguards are needed to ensure that all Internet content and services remain equally accessible. In the wake of the court decision, Genachowski has been contemplating shifting broadband from its classification as a lightly regulated information service under Title I of the 1934 Communications Act to a heavily regulated telecommunications offering under Title II. To read more, click here. (Subscription required)

The age of destructive nationwide viruses has faded and tailored attacks targeting individual data are on the rise, according to an annual Symantec Internet security report.

The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report outlining international trends about malicious hacking from 2009 had Brazil ranked third as the source of malicious attacks behind the United States, which is first, followed by China.

The report, released earlier this month, indicated that while accusations of Chinese and North Korean hacks against the government get media attention, only 25 percent of malicious attacks in 2009 targeted a government. Brazil is the source of 48 percent of those attacks against governments. The report showed developing countries like Brazil, India and even Vietnam skyrocketing in rankings for cybercrime activity like spam, phishing for data and malicious code as their computer infrastructure grows.

Attacks like the Hydraq Trojan, which emerged in January, were analyzed in the report with explanations of how large enterprises can be infiltrated by these slow, sustained leaks called advanced persistent threats, rather than more prominent smash-and-grab hacks.

FBI Director Robert Mueller announced Friday that he has promoted Gordon M. Snow to assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, where he will be responsible for leading the agency's efforts to help combat cyber attacks and other technology crimes.

Snow most recently served as the Cyber Divisions' deputy, a post he has held since November. He began working for the FBI in 1992 as a special agent and has held numerous FBI posts. In recent years, Snow has focused on cybersecurity issues including working in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2008 where he helped lead a government-wide effort to draft the Cyber Counterintelligence Plan.

"Protecting the United States against cyber crimes is one of the FBI's highest priorities and, in fact, is the FBI's highest criminal priority," Mueller said in a statement. "Gordon's broad range of investigative and leadership experience will serve the Cyber Division well as they carry out this mission."

House Science and Technology is expected to take up legislation Wednesday that would reauthorize the America COMPETES act, which aimed to spur innovation by authorizing a boost in funding for basic science research and development and enhancing science and math education.

House Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., said in a statement when he introduced the bill (H.R. 5116) Thursday that he is aiming for House floor action on the bill before the Memorial Day break. "I expect we'll have some changes to this bill between now and the full committee markup next week to incorporate good ideas that came up recently at the subcommittee level, and I look forward to more constructive conversation with our vembers on both sides of the aisle as we move through the process," he said.

The 2007 America Competes Act authorized a doubling in funding over seven years for research and development activities at the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Energy Department's science office, while also supporting improvements in science, technology engineering and math education (STEM).

Gordon said the reauthorization bill builds upon the 2007 law by also including provisions aimed at helping small- and medium-sized manufacturers access capital by including a provision that would authorize technology federal loan guarantees for such firms. The bill calls for creating regional innovation clusters, aimed at improving communication between collections of businesses and organization in the same, similar or complementary fields. The bill also aims to improve the coordination of STEM education activities across the federal government.

Government investments in cloud computing will contribute to the creation of a clean energy economy, the federal chief information officer said during Earth Week, Nextgov.com reported.

Agency CIOs are taking a cue from an October executive order that committed the government to lead by example in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, partly through energy-saving information technology. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra said on Wednesday that by consolidating data centers, working from home and sharing IT resources on an online-subscription basis -- or cloud computing -- agencies will become more environmentally responsible.

He likened the shift to Web-based computing to the emergence of the electrical grid and centralized water supply. "The old model went to duplicative and wasteful spending, when you had to have your own well and your own electrical generation capability. You had all this fragmentation that didn't lead to better resource utilization," Kundra said. "We want to shift to an environment where we can use computer power on demand."

If agencies don't start conserving computing power, the energy output from the federal government is expected to spike, he said. In 2006, computer servers exhausted more than 6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, and that number is expected to double to 12 billion by 2011, unless the government adopts green IT practices.

In February, Kundra sent a memo to agency CIOs on data center consolidation that noted the number of federal data centers grew from 432 in 1998 to more than 1,100 in 2009. Agencies are using only about 6 percent of their infrastructure, he said on Wednesday, and certain agencies are seeing a sharp rise in server demand on a seasonal basis. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, strains its infrastructure around the April 15 tax filing deadline. His memo directed agencies to develop data center consolidation plans that identify opportunities for cloud computing by June 30. The plans will be incorporated into fiscal 2012 budgets by Aug. 30. To read more, click here.

Concerns are mounting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., might try to advance a hastily drafted immigration reform bill to satisfy demands that legislation is introduced by May 1, CongressDaily reported.

Sources said such a move would be disruptive to business and labor groups, which resumed delicate negotiations Wednesday to find compromises on several issues, including how to bring workers into the country to meet labor needs. Talks had broken down last month but resumed in hopes of producing a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would be introduced by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Reid and congressional Democratic leaders are under escalating pressure from grassroots Latino and pro-immigration groups to introduce legislation by next weekend or face repercussions, including mass demonstrations, civil disobedience and diminished support at the ballot box in November.

Sources familiar with the talks doubt a bill will be ready by then, as Schumer and Graham have yet to circulate firm legislative language. One source said good progress was being made in the negotiations. Both sides are focusing on how to develop a visa system that brings workers into the country to meet business needs, rather than establishing a temporary worker program that is opposed by labor unions, especially the AFL-CIO. To read more, click here. (Subscription required)

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Citing safety and budget concerns, members of a Senate appropriations subcommittee Thursday voiced strong opposition to plans to have private rockets transport astronauts to the international space station by the middle of the decade," the Wall Street Journal (subscription) reports.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is pressing Senate leaders to bring his patent overhaul legislation to the Senate floor before the Memorial Day break. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday that Leahy would like Senate leaders to bring up the patent bill after the Senate finishes action on financial regulatory legislation, expected to come up next week, and food safety legislation.

"Senator Leahy would like floor time for patent reform," Durbin said.

Durbin, however, said that a small business jobs bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., wants to pass this work period could bump the patent bill. Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, also wants to move a supplemental defense spending bill before Memorial Day. Reid will determine which bills get priority.

"Sen. Leahy has sought Senate consideration of the patent reform for some time and will continue to work with the majority leader to identify floor time for it," a Judiciary spokeswoman said.

Leahy and Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., unveiled a compromise patent bill last month aimed at bringing more stakeholders on board. It is expected to be offered as a manager's amendment when the bill goes to the floor.

A coalition of about 50 business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is fighting the inclusion of language in financial regulatory overhaul legislation that would give the FTC greater rulemaking authority, CongressDaily reported.

Language expanding the FTC's rulemaking authority was included in the House-passed financial regulatory bill, giving the commission power similar to other agencies' "notice and comment" rulemaking authority under the Administrative Procedure Act. Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has been working with Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on possibly including such a provision in Dodd's legislation, which is expected to hit the floor next week.

"As we consider Wall Street reform and the creation of a new consumer protection entity, we must recognize the important role of a vibrant FTC," Rockefeller said in a statement. "I am working closely with Sen. Dodd and my colleagues to give the new consumer financial protection bureau and the FTC the tools they need to stop bad actors and protect Americans from fraudulent financial products and services."

A coalition of consumer groups sent a letter to senators Thursday urging them to include the House language in the Senate financial regulatory bill.

"Currently, the FTC is hindered in its ability to carry out its duties and protect consumers. It is essential for the Senate to modernize the FTC's legal and regulatory framework," said the letter, which was signed by the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumers Union, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and others.

A long list of business groups released an ad in a Capitol Hill newspaper Thursday urging lawmakers to oppose the FTC language. They included groups ranging from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers to the Consumer Electronics Association to the National Retail Association. To read more, click here. (Subscription required)

House members Thursday echoed Senate concerns over proposals to create movie futures exchanges, a prospect opposed by the movie industry, CongressDaily reported.

During a House Agriculture subcommittee hearing, Robert Pisano, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, urged panel members to support a provision in financial regulatory reform legislation approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee Wednesday that would ban such exchanges.

The proposed exchanges would allow investors to buy and sell futures contracts linked to movie box-office receipts under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC has taken the first steps toward approving such exchanges, but the process is ongoing.

Pisano said these trades would be susceptible to insider manipulation and could hurt the commercial success of movies. "This should be marketed as, 'From the producers who brought you the derivatives debacle,'" he said. Panel members seemed receptive to the argument that there could be fallout from the introduction of a complicated, new financial instrument.

Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., described the prospect as "sheer folly" in the aftermath of the derivatives crisis, while Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., asked if such exchanges should only be approved with rules excluding trading by people with conflicts of interest.

Information Technology Industry Council CEO and President Dean Garfield is touting information technology as one of the key drivers helping to pull the country out of the current economic downturn.

In a column Thursday in the Huffington Post, Garfield pointed to recent positive earnings reports from such companies as AMD, Apple, eBay, Google and IBM as evidence of the industry's "lead role in laying the foundation for a new pro-growth economy."

He noted that the IT industry has been a major source of job creation in recent years. Garfield said a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found between 1999 and 2008, more than 688,000 new information and communications technology jobs were created. "History shows us that high-tech is a proven economic catalyst," he said, noting the contributions the personal computer, the Internet and new technologies such as social media have made to U.S. economic growth in the last 30 years.

Of course, he said the industry could be doing even better if policymakers took action on some key issues including making the research and development tax credit permanent, passing comprehensive immigration legislation that would make it easier for high-skilled workers and foreign students with advanced to degrees from U.S. universities to stay in the country permanently, and push to improve science, technology, education and math education.

"If this week's earnings reports from industry bellwethers are any indication, our economy is set to emerge from the recent downturn stronger, more efficient and more competitive," Garfield wrote. "But in many respects, the major policies we have in ... place in the areas that matter most to economic growth -- education, immigration, trade, taxes -- are the same policies we had in place for the last 50 years."

Tech America announced Thursday that its former CEO will be leaving the group's foundation. TechAmerica Foundation President Chris Hansen will be leaving at the end of the month to become president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

The foundation will be headed in the short term by Matthew Kazmierczak, who was named senior vice president and interim director. TechAmerica announced in January that Hansen was giving up his role as CEO to head the group's foundation. Hansen and TechAmerica President and now-CEO Phil Bond jointly led the group after the two associations they led, AeA and the Information Technology Association of America respectively, were merged into one group.

Kazmierczak most recently served as TechAmerica's senior vice president of operations where he was responsible for the group's day-to-day operations.

Meanwhile, TechAmerica announced other staff changes this week. Chris Wilson is joining the group as director and regulatory counsel for e-commerce and telecommunications. Prior to joining TechAmerica, Wilson was an associate in the communications law practice at the Wiley Rein law firm and once worked for Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.

TechAmerica also announced that it has hired Randi Meyers to serve as its counsel and director of federal government relations. She most recently worked as legislative counsel for Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., serving as his lead staffer on the House Energy and Commerce Communications, Technology and Internet Subcommittee.

"These hires signal our continued commitment to pursuing the broadest technology agenda on behalf of the industry's broadest association membership in Washington, the states and around the world," Bond said in a statement.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk disappointed some at the Consumer Electronics Association dinner Wednesday night by failing to discuss the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement released the same day, which has come under fire by some consumer advocates for failing to shut the door on harsh punishments for copyright infringers.

In a keynote address, Kirk did not mention the multilateral effort to establish international standards to curb counterfeiting and piracy. Instead, he reitered the Obama administration's commitment to combating copyright breaches and intellectual property theft. The administration is working to make sure "your creativity, inventions, and products are protected," he told representatives from Internet, telecommunications, and consumer electronics companies.

Subsequent speakers were less shy about alluding to ACTA. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., touted the need for "fair use" policies and said that policies presented in ACTA may be "improved over" earlier drafts but "that does not mean it's ready for enactment yet."

The dinner honored Doyle for his work on fair use and "open Internet" issues, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., for efforts on job creation, and Vint Cerf, one of the "fathers of the Internet" who now works at Google. All seemed star struck by Cerf. "I'm up here with the same man who made the Internet possible," Doyle said. "Something doesn't sound right here."

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "House Homeland Security ranking member Peter King," R-N.Y., "introduced legislation Wednesday that would require that a controversial chunk of spectrum be reallocated for use by public safety officials instead of being auctioned to commercial bidders, as the FCC has proposed in its national broadband plan," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "Despite strides in the use of technology, many Members' Web sites still don't incorporate basic features, a new report on the growing digital divide in Congress notes," Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• The Federal Communications Commission "took a giant leap" Wednesday "toward implementing more than 200 proposals in its national broadband plan by unanimously adopting six regulatory measures stemming from the technology blueprint," CongressDailyPM (subscription) reports.

Agencies soon will be required to digitally monitor the security of their computer systems and feed summaries of their findings to a central Web site under new federal information security rules the White House issued on Wednesday, Nextgov.com reported.

The continuous reporting requirements outlined in an OMB memorandum are intended to improve the execution of the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act. Critics say FISMA demands too much burdensome reporting and takes attention away from security. Several lawmakers are pushing to update the law, but for the time being the White House is working within the confines of the statute to alleviate reporting hassles.

"We're automating the process," said White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt, adding reports to the Office of Management and Budget and Congress will be "based on real-time information as opposed to a snapshot in time."

The key to this new approach will be software that transmits data on the status of controls directly from each division of an agency. The data feeds will include information about an agency's inventory of systems and software, external connections, security training and user access.

Agencies must submit this information through a new Web-based gateway called CyberScope by Nov. 15, and starting in 2011, they must file reports monthly, according to the memo. To read more, click here.

Representatives of top telecommunication companies, industry stakeholders and some government officials gathered on Capitol Hill Wednesday to discuss mobile Internet communications with much debate focused on how to ensure future growth and innovation is not stifled by limits on the availability of spectrum.

At the second annual State of the Mobile Net Conference, telecom experts chewed over the possibilities and constraints of the wireless industry, one of the fastest-changing sectors of the U.S. economy.

"We are just scratching the surface of what you can wireless enable," Glenn Lurie, president of emerging devices at AT&T, said during a keynote address. Lurie outlined some of the mobile products AT&T will provide networking capacity for including a pet-tracking collar and a pill-bottle cap that will remind the user to take their medication.

Much of the discussion, however, circled back to the growing demand for spectrum to accommodate the growth of the mobile Internet. "Integrating market mechanisms into the spectrum allocation process" is critical for the future, Blair Levin, executive director of the FCC's broadband task force, said. Allocating spectrum based on history, rather than markets, Levin stated, has been the traditional practice of government.

National Telecommunications and Information Administration Deputy Administrator Anna Gomez outlined two priorities for the future of spectrum: national security agencies' growing need for it and the importance of evaluating both commercial and government uses of spectrum.

The Obama administration is supporting a compromise on patent overhaul legislation unveiled last month by Senate Judiciary Committee leaders, CongressDaily reported. In a letter Tuesday to Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said the compromise "improves the reported bill and incorporates critical elements of patent reform."

Senate Judiciary members approved the panel's version of patent overhaul legislation last year. The Leahy-Sessions compromise, expected to be offered as a manager's amendment on the Senate floor, has helped attract a broad range of supporters, including labor groups, some information technology firms, biotech companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

However, a coalition of large IT companies known as the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which includes firms such as Apple, Intel and Google, said it opposes some of the changes in the compromise -- concerns that have been echoed by key members of the House Judiciary Committee. These House lawmakers have been working with Leahy and Sessions to address their concerns.

Locke said he was pleased with provisions included in the compromise to allow the PTO to adjust patent and trademark fees as needed and with post-grant review procedures for "reviewing questions about patent validity that will serve as a faster, lower-cost alternative to litigation."

Leahy urged Senate leaders in a statement Wednesday "to schedule floor time soon for this important job-creating legislation."

A new paper released Tuesday by the Patent and Trademark Office claims the patent overhaul legislation will help spur innovation and economic growth. "By enhancing the ability of America's innovators to secure high-quality patents with greater speed and certainty, this legislation will speed the delivery of innovative goods and services to market and fuel economic growth and job creation," PTO Director David Kappos said in a speech Tuesday.

The paper notes that 76 percent of startup managers say venture capital investors consider patents when deciding whether to provide funding and it also points to reports that argue that the backlog in approving patent applications could cost the U.S. economy billions in "forgone innovation."

The FCC took a giant leap Wednesday toward implementing more than 200 proposals in its national broadband plan by unanimously adopting six regulatory measures stemming from the technology blueprint, CongressDaily reported.

Highlights of the proposals approved at a public meeting include tentative rules to reorient the $8 billion federal Universal Service Fund toward supporting broadband deployment and adoption.

The FCC also recommended a "standard interface" that would allow any electronic device to connect to any broadband network, enabling televisions to serve as Internet gateways. That goal would be achieved in the near-term with a special adapter available in stores by Dec. 31, 2012, but eventually, the technology could be built into smartphones, televisions and other gadgets.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski emphasized that plenty of work lies ahead as the commission prepares to initiate more than 60 regulatory proposals spurred by the plan, submitted to Congress last month. But looming over the developments are lingering questions about the agency's authority to regulate the Internet in the wake of a recent federal appeals court decision.

After coming under pressure by public interest groups and some lawmakers, the negotiating parties involved in a proposed trade agreement aimed at curbing global counterfeiting and the piracy of intellectual property released a public text of the proposal Wednesday.

The release of the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement does address calls by some U.S. and European lawmakers for greater transparency in the negotiating process but is unlikely to quiet the controversy surrounding the measure.

The European Commission, which was urged to push for release of the ACTA draft by an overwhelming European Parliament vote, said the public release of the document will hopefully dispel rumors that the proposal would "lead to a limitation of civil liberties or to 'harassment' of consumers." The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative gave similar assurances last week following the most recent round of ACTA talks in New Zealand.

"The text makes clear what ACTA is really about: It will provide our industry and creators with better protection in overseas markets which is essential for business to thrive," European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said in a statement. "It will not have a negative impact on European citizens."

Mark Esper, executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center, also said the release of the latest ACTA draft "will show that many of the claims made by ACTA critics and anti-IP activists to stop this agreement were false. ACTA promises to improve cooperation and enhance the collective efforts of nearly 40 countries against the growing scourge of counterfeiting and piracy--in both the online and physical environments--that is killing jobs, stunting our economic recovery, and harming consumers."

House Homeland Security ranking member Peter King, R-N.Y., introduced legislation Wednesday that would require that a controversial chunk of spectrum be realloacted for use by public safety officials instead of being auctioned off to commercial bidders as the FCC has proposed in its national broadband plan.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Homeland Security Emerging Threats Subcommittee Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., would allocate the D-block of spectrum in the 700 megahertz band for public safety use and would reserve an additional 10 megahertz of spectrum for use by public safety officials. In a statement, King said the proposal would double the amount of broadband spectrum that is currently allocated for public safety use.

In its broadband plan, the FCC proposed auctioning off the D-block of spectrum to a commercial bidder with no strings attached. The FCC has suggested that the commercial bidder could, but isn't required to, enter into an agreement with public safety officials. The FCC proposal follows a failed effort in 2008 by the commission to auction the D-block to a commercial bidder willing to enter into a public-private partnership with first responders. The broadband plan calls for the creation of a nationwide wireless broadband network for public safety officials to be built using 10 megahertz of spectrum already under the control of emergency responders and adjacent to the D-block of spectrum.

State officials, however, have expressed concern with these proposals and have called on Congress to pass legislation that would reallocate the D-block for public safety use. In a letter earlier this month to key members of Congress, the National Governors Association and other state and local groups argued that an FCC proposal to provide "public safety roaming and priority access on other commercial 700 megahertz networks for a fee" would not ensure that emergency first responders have the "reliable and resilient communications capabilities" they need to meet public safety needs.

In a statement, King echoed these concerns and noted that the D-block spectrum is "ideal" for use by public safety officials because of its "in-building penetration capability." He added, "We cannot place brave Americans' lives at risk through a piecemeal approach to our spectrum allocation. We must ensure that America's public safety professionals have the communications spectrum to do their jobs and save lives."

Congress needs to update telecommunications law to better address broadband issues. That's a single idea that united speakers with starkly different ideas on FCC authority at the Politics Online conference on Monday.

Panelists disagreed on the merits of net neutrality regulation, arguing over whether the FCC should regulate traffic management practices by Internet access providers. But they all thought that Congress should clarify who regulates broadband issues.

"Frankly, the law -- the Communications Act -- just doesn't fit the communications technologies we have today," said Link Hoewing, Verizon's vice president of Internet and technology policy, echoing comments by former Rep. Tom Tauke, R-Iowa., now the company's top lobbyist.

"We don't disagree that there may be a need for new legislation," said Staci Pies, director of government and regulatory affairs for Skype. But, she said, "Just knowing the way Congress works, it's not around the corner."

That's something else the panelists agreed on: Congressional action is unlikely this year.

The panel, which included Rick Chessen, senior vice president for law and regulatory policy at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, and Chris Riley, a policy counsel at Free Press, also discussed how the net neutrality debate will proceed in the aftermath of FCC v. Comcast.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is blocking Senate legislation that seeks to implement a key spectrum-related recommendation in the" Federal Communications Commission's "national broadband plan, delivering the commission and its month-old technology blueprint the latest in a series of setbacks," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

Public interest groups Free Press and Public Knowledge said Tuesday that recent reports that telecom provider RCN has settled a class action lawsuit alleging it interfered with the ability of some of its broadband subscribers to use peer-to-peer file-sharing services highlights the need for FCC authority to address such issues.

In a notice of settlement posted on its Web site and dated Monday, RCN, "without admitting any wrongdoing or liability, has agreed to cease and desist all network management practices" for 18 months starting as of May 1, 2009. A hearing on whether to approve the settlement is set for June 4 in federal district court in New York, according to the notice.

"This is yet another example showing why the Federal Communications Commission needs to be given the authority over Internet access service," Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said in a statement. "As of now, there is no federal cop on the beat to protect consumers. Not every consumer will take a case to court, and not every cable company would be willing to settle what could be prolonged litigation."

The FCC's authority over broadband providers has been put in doubt in the wake of an appeals court ruling earlier this month, which said the FCC overstepped its authority when it cracked down against Comcast for taking similar network management actions as those alleged in the RCN case. Groups like Public Knowledge and Free Press have been calling for network neutrality rules that would require broadband providers to treat all content the same.

Free Press Research Director Derek Turner argued in a statement that "RCN appears to have been utilizing tactics that enabled the company to block or degrade its users' Internet experience. These suspicious 'network management' techniques appear to be occurring throughout the industry. ... This company's behavior provides further evidence that we need strong Net Neutrality rules and clear disclosure to protect consumers and to prevent these deceptive practices from becoming the norm among Internet providers."

Turner will be among the witnesses at a House Energy and Commerce Communications subcommittee hearing Wednesday on the FCC's national broadband plan.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission Tuesday approved a second firm's application to be designated as a "contract market," one of the regulatory steps it needs to clear before it can begin its bid to operate a movies futures exchange.

Cantor Futures Exchange is the second organization to gain CFTC approval as a contract market, one of the regulatory steps needed before it can offer an exchange based on speculation over movie box office receipts. The commission gave similar approval on Friday to Media Derivatives, which also is seeking to operate a movie futures exchange. Both firms must still gain approval for any futures they wish to list on their exchanges. "The commission has not approved the trading of any futures or options related to box office receipts at this time," the CFTC said in a news release.

The CFTC is coming under pressure from the movie industry and some lawmakers not to approve the movie futures exchange proposals. The industry argues that such exchanges would be detrimental to the movie industry and are akin to gambling. A financial regulatory bill being marked up in the Senate Agriculture Committee Wednesday would ban movie futures exchanges, while a House Agriculture subcommittee is set to hold a hearing Thursday on the proposed exchanges.

"We believe that the CFTC had ample discretion under the law to reject this proposal by Cantor Futures Exchange L.P. But this is just one in a series of upcoming regulatory steps, and the commission made clear today that Cantor needs CFTC approval before attempting to offer a box-office wagering service," a coalition of movie industry groups including the Motion Picture Association of America said in a statement. "In the upcoming days, we will continue to urge the CFTC to finally reject both the Cantor proposal and a separate proposal by Media Derivatives, Inc."

As the FCC grapples with how to proceed with implementing the national broadband plan in the wake of a recent appeals court ruling, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski reminded stakeholders Tuesday that his agency wrote the blueprint for expanding broadband access and adoption at the direction of Congress.

Genachowski reminded a room of Hill aides and industry representatives at a Capitol Hill forum that the FCC only got started on the broadband plan after "Congress passed Congressman [Ed] Markey's language directing the FCC" to move and that the plan's release was "consistent with the directive we were asked to take on."

His emphasis on this congressional mandate, which was included in last year's eocnomic stimulus package, came as the FCC huddles with its lawyers over how best to shore up its legal authority to act on pieces of the plan. Uncertainty about its power to do so has come in the wake of a federal appeals court decision earlier this month that seemed to undercut one legal avenue the agency uses to exercise authority.

Both Genachowski and FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick have acknowledged that acting on some pieces of the plan could be complicated by the ruling. The agency has sometimes called on authority that is "ancillary" to the Communications Act rather than directly stipulated by statutory language. The FCC has yet to signal which legal avenue it will take to move on recommendations in the broadband plan.

Still, it is unlikely it will be able to find a legal foundation for acting on the broadband plan in the stimulus act. This analysis unites thinkers at Public Knowledge and the Progress & Freedom Foundation, which have diverging views of how much authority the FCC should have.

"The stimulus bill did not expand the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction in any regard," said Barbara Esbin, PFF senior fellow and director of its center for communications and competition policy. "It simply directed the FCC to prepare a broadband plan and that the plan include a discussion of the items listed in the stimulus bill."

Genachowski's comments came during a clean tech exhibit hosted by the wireless industry group CTIA, where Genachowski toured industry booths with Markey, D-Mass., and Sprint CEO Dan Hesse.

House Republican leaders are urging House Democrats to allow House members to use video conferencing software applications such as Skype, to communicate with their constituents.

In a letter Monday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Administration Chairman Robert Brady, D-Pa., House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio and other members of the House GOP leadership noted that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are looking for new and innovative ways to communicate with their constituents. "Significant strides have recently been made in the use of direct media by members of Congress for such purposes. However, notable barriers remain," the GOP leaders said.

They note that current House rules allow House members to use taxpayer funds for "often expensive, video teleconferencing activities with their constituents, but forbid them from using Skype - which is practically free - for such activities." They added that, "We are certain that Skype, an increasingly relevant communication tool for Americans already widely used in the private sector, could be easily implemented in Congress in a manner that would not reduce the security of the House IT infrastructure."

Key senators Tuesday expressed outrage that U.S. border security efforts are falling short, with Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman suggesting the Obama administration terminate a multibillion-dollar virtual fencing contract and build more reinforced physical fencing along the Southwest border, CongressDaily reported.

In a bipartisan fashion, senators ripped into the Homeland Security Department's troubled SBInet virtual fencing program, which has been beset by technical problems and schedule delays. "This thing needs to be shaken up," Lieberman, I-Conn., told U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin during a hearing.

Lieberman told Bersin to either terminate the SBInet contract with prime contractor Boeing Co. or fix the problems. The department has spent nearly $800 million to date on the project, which has yet to yield a fully operational system. To read more, click here. (Subscription required)

Google launched a new tool Tuesday that provides information on requests by governments around the world to remove data or other information from Google services.

"Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services. Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography," Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a blog post. He added, "Data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship."

The Government Requests tool includes requests by individual countries to remove data such as content from search results. The data is broken down by whether Google complied with the requests. However, the tool provides little information about what information was taken down and why, an issue Drummond said Google plans to address in the future. Of the data currently available, Brazil made the most requests for data to be removed, which could be linked to Google's Orkut social networking site, which is popular in Brazil.

The data currently available on the tool is based on requests from July-December of last year. Google said it plans to update the data every six months. Information related to criminal investigations, alleged defamation, hate speech and impersonation are some of the types of requests for removal included in the data highlighted by Google's new tool. It did not include requests to remove child pornography because Google said it automatically removes such content whenever it is notified that such content exists on its systems. In addition, it did not include requests by governments for removal of copyrighted material on Google's YouTube site because most of those requests are made by private parties.

Google has gained praise and attention for its decision earlier this year to stop censoring search results for users in China. It now redirects users in China to its uncensored Hong Kong-based site.

President Obama warned supporters Monday evening that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., could lose her bid for re-election this fall unless they work hard to help her.

Obama issued the warning at a fundraiser for Boxer, who will face the winner of the June GOP Senate primary, this fall. Republicans competing to take on Boxer include former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif., and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. A Field Poll released last month showed Fiorina trailing Campbell by six points in the race for the GOP Senate nod, while DeVore was in a distant third place.

"Unless she's got our support, she might not win this thing. And I don't think that's an acceptable outcome," Obama said at the Los Angeles event.

In response to the president's visit, Fiorina held a conference call with reporters Monday in which she argued that Obama's support underscores the trouble Boxer is facing this fall. "The president is out here today because Barbara Boxer is vulnerable, and the Democratic establishment is working overtime to prop her up in a way they have never done before," Fiorina added.

When asked why Obama's visit to help Boxer is any different from a visit Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., recently made to California for Fiorina, she argued that "I think the president's time is quite a bit different from any senator's time. And I think it's quite early on in the game for the president of the United States to be helping an incumbent senator who's not even yet in a general election."

Privacy commissioners from 10 countries have written to Google voicing concern about what they see as the firm's failure to adequately protect privacy in some of its new products, citing in particular the troubled launch of its social networking service Google Buzz.

Privacy commissioners from Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom wrote Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt Monday voicing concern that Google has failed to adequately ensure privacy in the rollout of its new products, citing its launch of Buzz as the most prominent example but also voiced concerns with Google Street View, which gives a panoramic, street-level view of various locations around the world.

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, who helped organize the Google letter, and the privacy commissioners from France, Israel, the Netherlands and Spain are scheduled to hold a news conference Tuesday in Washington to discuss their concerns with Google.

"We are increasingly concerned that, too often, the privacy rights of the world's citizens are being forgotten as Google rolls out new technological applications," the commissioners wrote. "We were disturbed by your recent rollout of the Google Buzz social networking application, which betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws. Moreover, this was not the first time you have failed to take adequate account of privacy considerations when launching new services"

The commissioners chastised Google, saying it should have realized the privacy flaws in Buzz before it was rolled out to the public. "It is unacceptable to roll out a product that unilaterally renders personal information public, with the intention of repairing problems later as they arise. Privacy cannot be sidelined in the rush to introduce new technologies to online audiences around the world," they wrote.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Under pressure from broadcasters and Congress," Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski "has ceded significant ground in a dispute over television spectrum by promising not to force stations to relinquish airwaves to Internet service providers," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "A person with direct knowledge of the investigation" of a cyberattack in January "now says that the losses included one of Google's crown jewels, a password system that controls access by millions of users worldwide to almost all of the company's Web services," the New York Times reports.

Texting is the communication tool of choice for teens who want to connect with their peers, a new survey focusing on teen mobile phone use released Tuesday found.

The survey from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, which was conducted with the help of University of Michigan researchers, found that for teens, texting has surpassed all other forms of daily interaction with their friends including talking face to face, e-mailing, instant messaging, social networking and voice calling. Of those surveyed, 72 percent of teens use text messaging. That number is even higher among teen cell phone users, 88 percent of whom say they text, according to the survey.

"The typical American teen sends and receives 50 or more messages per day, or 1,500 per month," according to a statement from the center, which also found that one-third of teens send more than 100 texts a day, or more than 3,000 texts a month.

The survey was conducted with 800 teens, ages 12-17, and their parents between June 26-Sept. 24 and had a margin of error of four percentage points. It found that 75 percent of teens now have cell phones - a big jump from the 45 percent who reported having cell phones in 2004.

"The widespread availability of unlimited texting plans has transformed communication patterns of American teens, many of whom now conduct substantial portions of their daily conversations with their friends via texting," the report's co-author Amanda Lenhart, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, said in the statement. "But what's important to remember here is that this is a shift in the location and style of teens' communication with friends, not necessarily a radical change or expansion of it."

The survey also revealed that those teens who do not have a computer at home tend to use their cell phones to go online more than those who have a computer at home. The survey found that 41 percent of teens from households earning less than $30,000 a year say they use their phones to go online. About 70 percent of teens from these households have a computer at home compared with 92 percent of families from households that earn more than $30,000 a year. Among minorities, 44 percent of black teens and 35 percent of Hispanic teens use their cell phones to go online, compared with 21 percent of white teens.

Google Monday released comments it filed with the FTC last week on ways to enhance consumer privacy online as it finds its advertising practices and those of other online firms under increased scrutiny by privacy advocates.

In its comments, Google outlined its support for self-regulatory standards that provide transparency, user control and security. It also said it supports federal privacy legislation that would establish "baseline privacy protections" and also backs an overhaul of the law outlining government access to online records. In addition, Google said it would like to see the FTC take the lead in developing global privacy standards that are "comprehensive, flexible, and effective."

"The current patchwork of rules and enforcement across multiple jurisdictions does not provide adequate protection for consumers or sufficient certainty for companies offering services on the global Internet," Google Policy Counsel Will DeVries said in a blog post Monday.

Google has come under fire by some consumer advocates for failing to adequately protect user privacy when it launched its social networking service, Google Buzz. In addition, some groups have called on the FTC to do more to rein in online behavioral advertising by Google and many other online firms, which they is leading to a growing market in data on Internet users.

An AT&T executive said Monday that the FCC should follow the European Commission competition minister's lead on network neutrality and wait to impose restrictions until there is a need for intervention.

In a blog post, Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs, highlighted a speech made last week by European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes in which she embraced the FCC's four open Internet principles, while urging caution against imposing new restrictions aimed at preserving an open Internet. "AT&T could not agree more, and hopes that the U.S. will exercise the same judgment and follow the same deliberative path as Commissioner Kroes has outlined for Europe," Cicconi wrote in his post.

Kroes said the debate over net neutrality, the idea that broadband providers should treat all content the same, is not as mature in Europe as it is in the United States and as a result, "we must also avoid over-hasty regulatory intervention."

She noted the FCC has called for two additional principles, transparency and non-discrimination, to the open Internet principles the FCC has followed since 2005.

"While the importance of increased transparency is clear, the real meaning and consequences of the non-discrimination principle should be carefully considered," Kroes said. "In fact, some are interpreting the non-discrimination principle as essentially preventing telecom operators from seeking commercial payments or agreements with content providers, which deliver their highly capacity-consuming services through broadband networks and require a certain level of service for their transmission to be effective."

She added that such an approach "raises a number of delicate and complex
issues" that should be carefully examined and pledged she would not be "someone who comes up with a solution first and then looks for a problem to attach it to."

Kroes outlined the principles she believes should govern the debate over net neutrality in Europe. They include freedom of expression; a requirement that broadband providers provide transparent rules for their users; promoting investments in "efficient and open" networks; ensuring competition among broadband providers; and support for innovative business models.

The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee Monday asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate the effects of infringement originating from China of U.S. intellectual property and Chinese policies that they say harm the U.S. firms.

In a letter to ITC Chairwoman Shara Aranoff, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked the commission to craft two reports on Chinese policies that they say harm the U.S. economy and jobs.

"China needs to step up to the plate, live up to its international obligations and protect and enforce U.S. intellectual property rights," Baucus said in a news release.

Among the issues they would like the reports to examine include concerns over "indigenous" innovation policies they say favor Chinese products over foreign products. Several U.S. industry groups including the Business Software Alliance, the Information Technology Industry Council and TechAmerica have voiced concern about a Chinese policy unveiled late last year that would require companies that want to sell certain products to Chinese government agencies to ensure the intellectual property used in those products is developed and owned in China.

In the first report requested by the Finance Committee leaders, which is due Nov. 19, the commission is asked to detail China's indigenous innovation polices and their effects on the U.S. economy and jobs. The second report they asked the ITIC to conduct should detail the size and scope of IP infringement in China and its effects on U.S. firms. The second report is due May 2, 2011.

In their letter to Aranoff, Baucus and Grassley noted that IP infringement from China affecting both physical and online IP costs U.S. firms "billions of dollars a year." They added that more than 80 percent of IP-infringing goods seized at U.S. borders come from China. "And troubling recent developments in China, including China's 'indigenous innovation' procurement policies, may exacerbate these losses by limiting the ability of U.S. innovative companies to participate in the Chinese market," they wrote.

The FTC will host a June 2 workshop that will examine whether the commission should make changes to a law imposing certain requirements on Web sites aimed at children.

The FTC is currently collecting comments on possible changes to its 2000 rule implementing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The law requires Web sites to obtain parental consent before collecting information from children under 13. The FTC is required to review the rule every five years. It declined to make changes when it first examined the rule in 2005, but the agency said it now believes changes may be needed to address "rapidly changing technology such as the increased use of smart phones and other devices to access the Internet."

Among the issues the roundtable will examine include whether the COPPA rule should apply to new technologies such as mobile devices, interactive television and interactive gaming. In addition, it will examine whether the FTC should expand the rule to cover more types of information collected from children and review "parental verification methods used by Web site operators," the FTC said in a news release.

Two congressional panels this week will take action to address concerns over proposals to create movie futures exchanges, which several movie industry groups oppose.

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday is set to mark up a financial regulatory reform measure introduced by Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., that includes a provision that would ban the creation of exchanges that would allow investors to buy and sell futures contracts linked to movie box office receipts.

And in the House, the Agriculture General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee will hold a hearing on Thursday on the two proposals pending at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to create movie future exchanges. Among those expected to testify are Motion Picture Association of America President Bob Pisano.

The CFTC on Friday approved Media Derivatives application as a "contract market," the first step in a two-step process before it can begin offering a box-office trading service on its online marketplace. The firm must now gain approval to actually trade contracts based on box office receipts, a CFTC spokesman said. The commission also may decide as soon as Tuesday whether to approve the application from Cantor Future Exchange to become a designated contract market. In a news release, the CFTC said it is required to approve such applications if the applicant meets criteria outlined in law.

"The commission has not approved the trading of any futures or options related to box office receipts at this time," the CFTC said in a news release Friday.

Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra says the Obama administration officials have cut funding for the modernization of some information technology programs as a result of a government-wide accountability system launched earlier this year, Nextgov.com reported.

"We've made some tough decisions across the board," Kundra said during an interview with Nextgov. In February, the Veterans Affairs Department announced it had terminated 12 IT projects using its own performance assessment tool -- the Program Management Accountability System -- and by preparing data for the IT Dashboard, an Office of Management and Budget Web site that tracks federal IT investments. VA initially suspended the projects and 33 other troubled systems in July, pending further review.

Now, the White House is following VA's lead with the TechStat evaluation program, which began in January. The initiative brings OMB officials and agency leaders together for in-person meetings to review IT Dashboard results and feedback from citizens. After a TechStat session, OMB takes action on underperforming projects by canceling, halting or overhauling them.

OMB officials have suspended system enhancements and turned around initiatives, Kundra said. By summertime, the White House also will unveil a refurbished IT Dashboard that delves deeper into the 7,000 federal IT investments listed on the current site. Kundra said the next iteration will offer better analytics and information feeds from agencies. Both features will reflect suggestions from citizens, lawmakers, federal auditors and chief information officers.

TechStat and the IT Dashboard already have helped redirect a major initiative at the Small Business Administration, Kundra said. SBA was "going down a course that was costly" in administering identification cards for its employees as part of a homeland security policy dubbed HSPD-12, Kundra said. To read more, click here.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The Federal Communications Commission on Friday extended the public comment period for the joint venture between Comcast Corp and NBC Universal because it has not received additional economic data requested from the companies supporting their deal," Reuters reports.

• "The FCC steps up action on its national broadband plan Wednesday with a public meeting featuring votes on six regulatory items stemming from its massive report to Congress, including proposals to reorient a multibillion-dollar federal telecom subsidy fund to support adoption and deployment of high-speed Internet connectivity," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

Monday:
The International Association of Privacy Professionals holds its 2010 Global Privacy Summit. Events begin at 8 a.m.

The Politics Online Conference begins at 9 a.m. with a discussion with Internet officials from the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Brookings Institution holds a discussion at 10 a.m. on "Telehealth and Mobile Communications: The New Frontier in Modern Emergency Preparedness."

Tuesday:
The International Association of Privacy Professionals holds its 2010 Global Privacy Summit. Events begin at 8 a.m.

The Politics Online Conference continues with a keynote speech from Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif. Events begin at 9 a.m.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee holds a hearing at 11 a.m. on "Border Security: Moving Beyond the Virtual Fence."

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada holds a news conference at 2:15 p.m. on privacy and business.

Wednesday:
The International Association of Privacy Professionals holds its 2010 Global Privacy Summit. Events begin at 8 a.m.

The House Energy and Commerce Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee holds a 10 a.m. hearing on "The National Broadband Plan: Deploying Quality Broadband Services to the Last Mile."

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a 10 a.m. hearing on "Combating Cyber Crime and Identity Theft in the Digital Age."

The Consumer Electronics Association holds its sixth annual "Digital Patriots" dinner at 6:30 p.m. where it will honor Reps. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Google Vice President Vinton Cerf.

Thursday:
The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a markup session at 10 a.m. Among the items on its agenda include a bill (S.446) that would permit the televising of Supreme Court proceedings.

The House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee holds a 1 p.m. hearing on "Achieving the Promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the Digital Age - Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities."

The Senate Special Committee on Aging holds a hearing at 2 p.m. on the National Broadband Plan and health care technology.

Friday:
The Cato Institute holds a noon briefing examining whether immigration reform should require a national I.D. card.

Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Penn., Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Ted Kaufman, D-Del., introduced legislation to amend federal wiretapping law to cover video surveillance, they announced Friday. Currently, the law protects against secretly recording conversations by phone and in person, and against the interception of electronic communication, but does not extend to accessing video feeds.

Concern over the possible loophole arose this year after a Pennsylvania family alleged that school administrators monitored their son using a secret webcam embedded in a school-issued laptop. The family filed suit against the Lower Merion School District in February, contending that the school's secret monitoring came to light when the student was reprimanded for actions caught on camera in his own home. The case has become a national controversy and a rallying point for privacy advocates.

The senators said their legislation would aim to close a gap in the law that could lead to significant privacy breaches. "Cameras in computers and cell phones are ubiquitous, making it urgent that the federal Wiretap Act protect our citizens from unwarranted intrusions in their homes where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy," Specter said in a statement.

Countries negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will release a draft of the copyright treaty on April 21, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced Friday. It does not include a rumored three-strikes approach to copyright violations, USTR said, noting that "no participant is proposing" such a provision.

The decision to release a draft comes on the heels of talks in New Zealand this week over a document that has raised concern that stringent policing standards on Internet piracy could be enacted, including a graduated response regime that would have Internet service providers block users from the Web if they repeatedly violate copyright law. Suspicion of this possibility grew this year as negotiators released few details about ACTA's contents, but USTR was firm on Friday that such a provision is not included.

Still, disagreements over enforcement measures appear to be a holdup, according to USTR's statement. The office hailed the progress on the treaty, but said more is needed, "particularly in confirming the focus of key provisions of the agreement on enforcement measures against trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy."

ACTA efforts got some support from the Hill on Thursday when House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman and ranking member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., wrote a letter commending U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk for his efforts to reach international agreement on copyright. "It is our hope that ACTA will help establish improved international standards for protecting intellectual property rights, which will prevent illegal activity from undermining legitimate trade and business," they wrote.

The negotiators hope to conclude their talks in 2010, with the next round of talks to be held in Switzerland this June. The partners include Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has privately pledged not to force television broadcasters to relinquish spectrum to Internet service providers, even though the agency's national broadband plan leaves the commission that option. The plan also outlines a voluntary scheme under which stations can return frequencies in exchange for auction proceeds.

Genachowski made the promise to National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Gordon Smith during a private conservation in Las Vegas this week at the group's annual convention. The backroom handshake appears to explain this line in Genachowski's Tuesday keynote: "These auctions are voluntary. Period. Participation is up to the licensee and no one else." It also may explain why Smith abruptly changed his tone toward Genachowski from harshly critical to conciliatory.

Smith subsequently revealed the commitment during an exclusive, impromptu interview with Tech Daily Dose. "What [Genachowski] said is that we won't get to that part of the plan that turns voluntary into compulsory," disclosed the former Republican Oregon senator, quickly adding, "We'll see." Since the pledge is non-binding, there's no way to guarantee that the chairman or his predecessors would abide by it.

Participating in a Tuesday panel discussion, Smith questioned whether TV stations would ever receive the auction revenue the FCC has dangled as an incentive for voluntarily giving back airwaves. "It just seems to me that it's an improbability," Smith said, explaining that Congress might be reluctant to compensate broadcasters for frequencies they didn't pay for, and that lawmakers would seize the opportunity to cut spending by blocking such remuneration.

During his speech, Genachowski reiterated that the FCC needs to take drastic steps to avert a looming spectrum shortage that could undermine the explosive growth of wireless broadband service. "If we wait for the crisis to hit, it will be too late to act without significant cost to our economy and global competitiveness," he warned.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and panel member Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to raise concern over the proposed establishment of an exchange for financial instruments tied to box-office outcomes. In a letter Thursday, the two said the "unprecedented" prospect of trades based on successes and failures in the movie business could create perverse incentives that might "undermine the integrity of the industry."

Their entreaty follows separate applications by Cantor Futures Exchange and Media Derivatives to be designated as contract markets by the CFTC. The Motion Picture Association of American and a handful of other industry groups have spoken out forcefully against the requests. "Rather than providing a real and useful means for hedging risk or price discovery, these instruments will be harmful and burdensome to the motion picture," the groups said in a separate letter to the agency.

Leahy and Hatch referenced the recent financial crisis as a reason why the CFTC should proceed with caution, noting efforts to "manipulate our financial markets" contributed to the downturn. They also said employees with insider information might be tempted to use it to their benefit. "Movie futures contracts appear to constitute a platform for betting that is even more risky and manipulative than the typical financial product," the senators wrote.

The issue heated up earlier this year when Cantor Future Exchange's outreach efforts around the possible exchange caught the attention of industry stakeholders, who argue that no trading regime like this one has ever existed before. The CFTC is expected to announce today whether Media Derivatives will be designated as a contract market, while the decision on Cantor is expected later this month.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The technology industry, an engine of innovation and U.S. prosperity for more than half a century, is accelerating its recovery from the recession with surging earnings that have spurred companies to sharply ramp up their hiring," the Wall Street Journal reports.

• "The House Energy and Commerce Committee cleared a measure Thursday that would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authority to take action to shield nation's electricity grid from major threats including natural disasters and terrorist attacks," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "Blair Levin, the FCC official who led the 50-person team that crafted the agency's national broadband plan, announced Thursday he is leaving the commission May 7 to join the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit think tank," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• President Obama, speaking in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Thursday, "sought to ease the minds of workers soon to be displaced when the Space Shuttle program ends," The Hill reports.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday voiced support for trying to make progress on the music industry's call for musicians to be paid when their music is played on AM and FM radio stations.

"In coming to Congress today, you are sending a message too often lost outside the recording studio, in the political debate, or on the airwaves - that ideas, music, and imagination are as valuable as any material invention. And artists deserve to be compensated for their work and rewarded for their contributions to our economy and our culture," Pelosi said during the music industry's GRAMMY on the Hill advocacy day event on Capitol Hill. She added that she looks forward to working with key lawmakers to "find a way forward on the issue of performers' rights."

The music industry is pushing lawmakers to pass performance rights legislation, which would require AM and FM radio stations to pay musicians a fee when their music is played on the air. Both the House and Senate Judiciary committees have passed the legislation but the leaders of those panels have urged the two sides to try to reach a compromise.

The industry, however, has attracted a powerful supporter for their cause: Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill., signed on this week as a co-sponsor to the Senate version of the performance rights bill.

Broadcasters oppose the legislation, saying it would place a financial burden on struggling local radio stations. They also argue that musicians already benefit from the exposure they receive from radio airplay. They have attracted significant congressional support for resolutions introduced in both chambers opposing the performance rights legislation. More than 250 House members and more than two dozen senators have signed on to the resolutions.

The head of the wireless industry association CTIA Thursday defended a FCC proposal aimed at encouraging broadcasters to voluntary give up spectrum to accomodate the growing demand for mobile Internet services.

In a letter to the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and the four other commissioners, Steve Largent responded to comments made earlier this week by National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Gordon Smith at his group's annual convention in which he accused the FCC of orchestrating a "spectrum grab" that could threaten the viability of free over-the-air television. Genachowski pushed back against such arguments on Tuesday during his speech at the convention and sought to reframe the debate by insisting that TV outlets actually would benefit from the approach.

In its national broadband plan, the FCC has called for freeing up 500 megahertz of additional spectrum for mobile Internet services. It has called on broadcasters to voluntarily relinquish 120 megahertz, though the FCC has held open the possibility of taking mandatory steps to free up the spectrum.

"CTIA recognizes the benefits of television broadcasting, but believes Mr. Smith's statements negatively focus on a misinterpretation of 'threats' to free over-the-air television while disregarding the reality of a looming spectrum crisis and vast consumer appetite for mobile broadband," Largent wrote. "The commission has charted a rational and wise course that facilitates the dual goals of identifying additional spectrum to be auctioned for mobile broadband without impairing broadcast television."

Both Largent and Smith are former GOP members of Congress. Largent represented Oklahoma in the House for five terms, while Smith was defeated in 2008 in his bid for a third Senate term from Oregon.

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced bipartisan legislation Thursday to set up a commission to uncover why tens of thousands of requests for government information get sidetracked.

Sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., the bill (S. 3111) was approved and sent to the full Senate on a voice vote. The legislation is in response to delays lasting sometimes years for requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

Leahy cited some progress in cleaning up the backlog of applications for information, noting the Obama administration reported the number of pending cases dropped from 124,019 in fiscal year 2008 to 67,764 in fiscal year 2009, a government-wide decrease of 50 percent. "But large FOIA backlogs remain a major roadblock to public access to in formation," Leahy said.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said exemptions cited by agencies under the FOIA for preventing release of information have risen significantly in the last year. The law lists exceptions for complying with requests, such as to protect national security or personal privacy.

The bill would set up a 16-person commission to study the reason for the delays and issue a report with recommendations within a year. An amendment by Leahy approved by voice vote would require the commission to examine and determine why the number of exemptions numbered some 467,000 in 2009.

Google's acquisition of mobile advertiser AdMob was put under a microscope Thursday when industry experts debated whether the FTC should block the deal to preserve competition in the growing mobile advertising market.

The FTC is currently examining Google's proposed $750 million purchase of AdMob, which is currently the leading provider of mobile ads followed by Google. Together, they control at least 70 percent of the nascent mobile ad market, according to Jonathan Kanter, a former FTC attorney who now represents players in the Internet advertising market including Microsoft.

Kanter argued, during a Capitol Hill forum on the issue sponsored by arts+labs, that the case includes many of the elements FTC officials look to when considering whether to block a merger such as the No. 2 player buying the No. 1 player in a market and a desire to remove the top player as a competitor instead of a need on the part of Google to obtain some technology it currently lacks.

He added that the FTC has a "long history of challenging" mergers in emerging markets because if one party "gets so far ahead, it's too hard for other people to catch up."

But Glenn Manishin, a lawyer with Duane and Morris, argued that given how small the mobile advertising market is at this point, it's "way too soon to make a judgment." He also disputed Kanter's claim that there are barriers to market entry in the mobile ad market, saying "if you know anything about Web code," it would be simple to enter the mobile ad market.

Berin Szoka, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Internet Freedom at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, argued that he is concerned the FTC might try to block the merger for the wrong reasons such as to make up for its failure to block Google's acquisition of DoubleClick and to address privacy concerns. "My concern here is not so much about Google," but about the precedent the case may set, Szoka said.

A former senior executive with the National Security Agency has been indicted for leaking classified information to a newspaper reporter, the Justice Department said Thursday in a statement.

A federal grand jury in Maryland returned a 10-count indictment against Thomas A. Drake alleging he engaged in willful retention of classified information, obstruction of justice and making false statements. Drake worked for the NSA as a high-ranking official from 2001 through 2008, where he had access to highly classified documents and information, according to the statement.

He is accused of having leaked classified information via e-mail and in printed copies to the reporter, whose identity and newspaper were not revealed by the department. Drake allegedly exchanged hundreds of e-mails with the reporter and met the reporter in person. In addition, the department alleges Drake sought additional classified and unclassified information from other "unwitting" NSA employees to provide to the reporter. Drake also allegedly shredded documents and lied to federal officials when confronted about his conduct.

"As alleged, this defendant used a secret, non-government e-mail account to transmit classified and unclassified information that he was not authorized to possess or disclose," Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said in a statement. "Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here - violating the government's trust by illegally retaining and disclosing classified information - be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously."

Cloud computing is a double-edged sword in the fight for Internet freedom, a top State Department official said on Wednesday. Networks that host software and hardware for multiple companies, people and agencies -- collectively referred to as the cloud -- promote the free exchange of ideas when operated by democracies, Nextgov.com reported.

But when the servers hosting such applications are located in repressive regimes, government officials might lay claim to the information processed through that equipment, including dissidents' personally identifiable information, said Alec Ross, senior adviser for innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"If that e-mail lives in the cloud, who owns that information?" he said. Ross discussed the cloud's potential threat to civil liberties during a conversation with Nextgov, which will air Saturday night on C-SPAN's The Communicators. Ross heads up State's efforts to improve the living standards in foreign countries through new networking applications.

During a major policy speech in January, Clinton announced that Internet freedom would become a strategic priority for the United States in 2010. In March, State revived the Global Internet Freedom Task Force, a Bush administration initiative that worked to harmonize policies departmentwide on protecting free speech. The renamed NetFreedom Task Force met on March 4, when 19 telecommunications and information technology companies discussed the corporate sector's role in facilitating Internet freedom.

"They want a set of standards," Ross said. "What they want is clarity." He noted that Clinton, in her speech, did not call for laws to force companies into changing their business practices, but rather called for shared responsibility.

Ross acknowledged that intervention in global Internet freedom could have negative consequences. Foreign governments could punish U.S. companies or foreign citizens working at a company's overseas offices for not abiding by censorship agreements. For State, the goal is to protect human rights and foster political relationships simultaneously. To read more, click here.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Democratic senators urged" Federal Communications Commission "Chairman Julius Genachowski Wednesday to muscle forward with his broadband agenda despite a recent federal appeals court decision raising questions about the agency's authority to act on its goals," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to have the votes he needs to reclassify broadband as a heavily regulated telecommunications service -- if he chooses to proceed down that path, CongressDaily reported Wednesday.

During interviews Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn expressed support for such a regulatory change if the agency decides it's the best course of action. "I support that idea," Copps told CongressDaily.

Clyburn added that reclassifying broadband -- now treated as a lightly regulated data service -- "is something that I think we should consider." The commission is weighing its options after a federal appeals court last week issued a decision undermining the FCC's regulatory authority over broadband service.

The FCC already has acknowledged that the ruling could block its ability to implement some key provisions in its ambitious 10-year national broadband plan. Genachowski testified Wednesday afternoon before the Senate Commerce Committee about the broadband plan and told the panel he hasn't decided how to proceed in response to the decision.

Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in his prepared remarks that the FCC in the near term should "use all of its existing authority to protect consumers and pursue the broad objectives of the broadband plan. Second, in the long-term, if there is a need to rewrite the law to provide consumers, the FCC, and industry with a new framework, I will take that task on."

As the FCC works to free up more spectrum to meet the growing demand for wireless Internet services, the House passed legislation Wednesday requiring an inventory, mapping and accounting of the spectrum being used by federal and nonfederal entities.

The bill (H.R. 3125), passed by a 394-18 vote, would require the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the FCC to undertake a comprehensive survey of the nation's spectrum and report to Congress on how it is being used. They also would be required to provide recommendations on which, if any, of the underused blocks spectrum should be reallocated for commercial use or be subjected to spectrum sharing with commercial users.

"The measure is a thoughtful approach to meeting the extraordinary spectrum demands the nation will soon face," House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., said in a statement Wednesday. "It will produce a timely blueprint for our future decisions about which spectrum should be reallocated for auctions to commercial service providers."

The FCC's national broadband plan has called for freeing up an additional 500 megahertz of wireless broadband spectrum over 10 years. The agency anticipates that 120 MHz would be relinquished by TV broadcasters, who would receive some of the proceeds from auctioning their airwaves. While the agency is encouraging stations to give up frequencies voluntarily, the FCC holds open the possibility of mandatory steps -- such as spectrum fees and sharing transmission towers -- that are strongly opposed by the National Association of Broadcasters.

"Enactment of a comprehensive inventory bill will be an important step towards ensuring our industry has sufficient spectrum to meet consumers' increasing demands for mobile Internet access," Steve Largent, CEO of the wireless industry group CTIA, said in a statement Wednesday, praising the bill's passage.

The National Governors Association and other state and local officials urged key members of Congress Wednesday to oppose the FCC's efforts to auction off the D-block of spectrum in the 700 megahertz band to commercial bidders and instead pass legislation that would reallocate it for public safety uses.

In its national broadband plan, the FCC has called for a nationwide wireless broadband network for public safety officials to be built using 10 megahertz of spectrum already under the control of emergency responders and adjacent to the D-block of spectrum. The proposal follows a failed effort in 2008 by the commission to auction the D-block of spectrum to a commercial bidder willing to enter into a public-private partnership with first responders.

The FCC has proposed in the broadband plan auctioning off the D-block of spectrum to a commercial bidder with no strings attached. The FCC has suggested that the commercial bidder could, but isn't required to, enter into an agreement with public safety officials.

In a letter to the leaders of the Senate Commerce and House Energy and Commerce committees, the local officials, however, say that the FCC's proposal to provide "public safety roaming and priority access on other commercial 700 megahertz networks for a fee" would not ensure that emergency first responders have the "reliable and resilient communications capabilities" they need to meet public safety needs.

The House Wednesday passed legislation that would bar the falsifying of caller identification information with the aim of defrauding or deceiving someone.

By voice vote, the House backed the measure that would crack down on caller i.d. "spoofing," which involves changing the number or name that appears on caller i.d during a phone call. Supporters of the legislation say while the technology has been around for years, its use has grown in recent years as it has become more widely available on the Internet. They also argue that it is being used with increasing frequency by identity thieves who use it to try to obtain personal information from someone they call.

Spoofing also "threatens a number of business applications, including credit card verification and automatic call routing, because these systems rely on the telephone number as identified by the caller ID system as one piece of their verification and authentication process," House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., said in a statement Wednesday. He added that there are legitimate uses of the technology, noting that some domestic abuse shelters use it to protect their residents.

Meanwhile, the Senate passed legislation by voice vote Tuesday that would prohibit federal prisoners from possessing mobile phones or other mobile devices. Steve Largent, CEO of the wireless industry group CTIA, praised the measure Wednesday, saying "we believe prisoners should not have access to contraband phones and those who supply them should be punished severely."

The back and forth continued Wednesday between AT&T and public interest groups over whether the FCC has ever regulated broadband as a telecommunications service, a move some net neutrality supporters are urging the commission to take in the wake of last week's federal appeals court ruling against the FCC.

The latest volley came from the public interest group Public Knowledge, which along with other net neutrality supporters have called on the FCC to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service subject to the more stringent rules of Title II of the telecommunications act. Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld wrote a blog post Tuesday attempting to counter claims by AT&T officials that the FCC has never regulated broadband as a telecommunications service and that doing so now in the wake of last week's appeals court ruling would be a radical move.

The court found the FCC overstepped its authority when it cracked down on Comcast for violating the commission's open Internet principles. The FCC and public interest groups said the decision would likely affect the FCC's efforts to implement key parts of its national broadband plan.

"Hank [Hultquist] over at AT&T writes that the FCC never regulated internet access. It's a funny thing, because I distinctly remember going through a process where the FCC reclassified DSL from a Title II telecom service to an information service," Feld wrote. He then goes on to recount the history of the debate. "But if I'm wrong about that and you're right, we should just put everything back the way it was and stop arguing," Feld said, which he noted would require telecommunications firms like AT&T to lease their "last-mile DSL lines" to their rivals under Title II.

Hultquist, AT&T's vice president for federal regulatory policy, shot back Wednesday with a comment on Feld's blog post, saying that Feld is confusing the FCC's past actions. "My point was that if 'reclassification' meant going back to the Computer Inquiry rules, it would not result in the classification of broadband Internet access services under Title 2," Hultquist wrote. "On the other hand, the FCC could, for the first time, classify Internet access service under Title 2. Which version of 'reclassification' do you support?"

The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to hold a hearing on Thursday to consider the long-delayed nomination of Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, as commander of the new U.S. Cyber Command, Nextgov.com reported.

The command was scheduled to start operations on Oct. 1, 2009. But the Senate held up Alexander's nomination, which includes a promotion to a four-star general, and the command's formal establishment because of concerns about its relationship with the NSA and the militarization of cyberspace. No senator on the Armed Services Committee strongly opposes Alexander serving as both head of NSA and the Cyber Command, but they plan to ask tough questions during the hearing, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center charged last week that the Cyber Command will "give the Defense Department broad new authority over the Internet." EPIC also urged NSA's legal authority to make public information it has on surveillance the agency conducted on U.S. citizens in advance of Alexander's conformation hearing.

In November 2009, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III, told the Information Technology Acquisition Summit that Defense does not intend to militarize cyberspace using the Cyber Command. "It will be responsible for DoD's networks, the dot-mil world," he said. "Responsibility for federal civilian networks -- dot-gov -- stays with the Homeland Security Department, and that's exactly how it should be." In May 2009, Alexander told the House Armed Services Committee that Defense needs a Cyber Command to respond to threats at network speed.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Broadcasters hope to build a U.S. viewership in the hundreds of millions for their newest technology -- mobile digital television -- but for now they're focused on a much smaller audience: the 535 members of Congress," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports. The Open Mobile Video Coalition, made up of several TV networks and 860 television outlets, is planning a technology demonstration next month to introduce mobile DTV's capabilities to lawmakers and staffers.

• The Federal Communications Commission "has the authority to accomplish the central goals in its sweeping broadband plan unveiled last month despite a recent federal appeals court decision that has raised questions about its legal role on Internet issues, the AT&T's head of regulatory affairs Bob Quinn said Tuesday," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "Twitter Inc. launched its long-awaited advertising system, marking the four-year-old company's first significant attempt to turn its so-called microblogging service into a profitable business," the Wall Street Journal reports.

A coalition of more than 40 privacy and civil liberties groups late Tuesday asked President Obama and key lawmakers to reject a proposal to require U.S. and foreign workers to have a card continuing biometric information, such as fingerprints, in order to work in the United States.

The groups, which include the American Library Association and Americans for Tax Reform, oppose a provision that Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., plan to put in a bill to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. Schumer, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, has said that a biometric identification card is a necessary part of doing comprehensive immigration reform.

"No one disputes that our broken immigration system harms both immigrants and non-immigrants, but a full scale National ID system is not the solution," the groups wrote in a letter to Obama, the House and Senate Judiciary committees, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. "A National ID would not only violate privacy by helping to consolidate data and facilitate tracking of individuals, it would bring government into the very center of our lives by serving as a government permission slip needed by everyone in order to work," they added.

They also noted that the proposal would require the development of a national database and could cost $285 million.

Separately, immigration reform advocates on Tuesday called on Schumer and Graham to introduce their bill by May 1. The bill could then be marked up by the Senate Judiciary Committee in May and brought to the Senate floor in June or July, said the advocates, who represent groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the Reform Immigration FOR America campaign. When asked if a bill would be introduced by the end of April, Schumer would only say he wants to pass immigration reform this year and is waiting for a second Republican to help him and Graham introduce the bill.

A key House Republican is questioning the legality of a White House official's reported use of Web-based e-mail to communicate with lobbyists at Google and high-ranking White House officials, Nextgov.com reported.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter on April 8 to Andrew McLaughlin, the White House deputy chief technology officer for Internet policy, asking McLaughlin to explain the allegations.

According to images posted on the Internet by some media outlets, a list of McLaughlin's contacts indicated he used his Gmail account to communicate with executives at Google, where McLaughlin served as head of global public policy and government affairs before joining the Obama administration. The list also showed he corresponded with Aneesh Chopra, the White House chief technology officer, and Katie Stanton, another Google veteran who now works at the State Department.

Electronic correspondence written or received by White House officials can be subject to retention under the 1978 Presidential Records Act. Issa said he is concerned that the use of personal Web mail increases the chances that presidential documents will be discarded, if the official using the private account relies on his own judgment to determine whether the e-mail messages fit the definition of a record.

"Gmail users on the president's staff run the risk of incorrectly classifying their e-mails as nonrecords under the act," Issa stated. "The fact that you sought to communicate privately with a select group of individuals, many of whom possess significant influence in industry and government, with your Gmail account raises the specter that you were attempting to circumvent the laws associated with openness and transparency."

Earlier this month, the public interest group Consumer Watchdog filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking to see emails between McLaughlin and Google. To read more, click here.

LAS VEGAS -- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski held firm Tuesday to his position that a large swath of television spectrum should be reassigned to mobile carriers to head off a broadband spectrum shortage, dismissing broadcast industry concerns as "hyperbole," CongressDaily reported.

Addressing the National Association of Broadcasters convention, Genachowski launched into a long, vigorous defense of his agency's recommendation that stations relinquish some of their frequencies in exchange for a cut of the proceeds from a spectrum auction. The agency is seeking to reallocate more than a third of TV airwaves to wireless Internet service providers, a key element of its 10-year plan to expand broadband service across the country.

The FCC chairman, who has kept a low profile at the event, met behind the scenes with TV executives and participated Monday in an unannounced tour of the showroom floor. He also reiterated concerns that demand for mobile Internet bandwidth is on track to exceed supply. "This is not a theory or idle speculation; it's math and physics," Genachowski said of the looming spectrum shortage. "If we wait for the crisis to hit, it will be too late to act without significant cost to our economy and global competitiveness," he added.

While the NAB has cried foul and warned that the future of over-the-air reception would be threatened, Genachowski sought to reframe the debate by insisting that TV outlets actually would benefit from the approach. "The intention of the proposal is to provide broadcasters with more choice and flexibility, not less. More business model options, not fewer," he said.

During his Monday keynote address, NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith excoriated the FCC, which he accused of orchestrating a "spectrum grab" that would deny the most vulnerable Americans -- including the elderly and poor -- the ability to receive free TV programming. On Tuesday, Smith struck a more conciliatory tone, telling the crowd after Genachowski spoke: "His thoughts were reassuring, and we will reach back constructively." To read more, click here. (Subscription required)

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, has called on the FCC to extend the comment period on whether the commission should approve Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal.

In a letter Monday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Waters voiced concern with the FCC's refusal to agree to public interest groups' request for a 45-day extension in the comment period. Stakeholders currently have until May 3 to file initial comments and June 17 to file final reply comments.

Waters noted that given the vast number of proceedings taking place at the FCC to implement aspects of the national broadband plan and address other issues, stakeholders should have adequate time to comment on the merger. Public interest groups have voiced concern with the merger saying it will lead to higher prices, fewer choices and less competition. Waters also said she is "very concerned about the implications this merger has on diversity, localism, and competition in today's media market."

The merger would combine the nation's largest cable provider Comcast with NBC Universal, which owns a major broadcast network and several of its local affiliates, a dozen cable stations and a major movie studio.

Waters argued that "such an unprecedented transfer of media ownership and licenses warrants the commission taking the necessary steps to ensure a complete and detailed record. Thus, an extension would allow public interest groups and other organizations sufficient time to better supply the commission with the invaluable data and analysis it needs to conduct a comprehensive review of our nation's most consequential merger transaction to date."

National Association of Broadcasters CEO Gordon Smith says meetings between broadcasters and a coalition of music industry groups are starting to focus on possible areas of compromise over the music industry's call for AM and FM radio stations to pay musicians a fee for playing their music on the air.

In an interview with the trade publication Inside Radio, Smith said broadcasters continue to lobby members of Congress to sign on to a resolution opposing the performance rights legislation that would require radio stations to pay musicians and record labels fees for playing their music on air. But broadcasters also have been meeting with the musicFIRST coalition, made up of a dozen music industry groups including the Recording Industry Association of America. The leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, which have both approved the performance rights legislation, have urged the two sides to try to reach a compromise on the issue.

Inside Radio reported Monday that Smith said while the two sides are still far apart, discussions have focused on a proposal to lower the royalties broadcasters already pay for streaming music on the Internet and diverting some of those funds to musicians and record companies for the music played over the air on AM and FM radio stations. In addition, by establishing a performance right, musicians and copyright owners could also soon start receiving about $100 million in foreign royalties they do not receive now, an official with the music industry's royalty collector Sound Exchange told Inside Radio.

MusicFIRST coalition spokesman Martin Machowsky would not comment on the details of the publication's story but said discussions between the two sides are continuing. "MusicFIRST supports a performance right that is fair to artists and musicians, fair to other platforms that pay a performance royalty and fair to radio," he said.

Companies in the Open Internet Coalition diverge on whether the FCC must strengthen its regulatory authority by reclassifying broadband as a heavily-regulated telecommunications service rather than a more lightly-regulated information one, with members such as Google remaining impartial while Skype and others push the move as the agency's only viable option.

The coalition has "overwhelming consensus" among its members in support of the controversial action, according to Skype Executive Director of Government Affairs Christopher Libertelli and Markham Erickson, the coalition's executive director. But some members of the group - which includes eBay and Facebook - have not explicitly pushed reclassification as the FCC's best-available option, as Libertelli and Erickson did during a conference call Tuesday.

Google, for instance, has not endorsed reclassification as the best option. "What's important to us is an open Internet and the best broadband service possible," said Google Spokeswoman Mistique Cano. "We believe the FCC plays an important role and we support them being able to do that job. We're impartial about where they find authority, and like many we are evaluating the several options available."

During their discussion, Erickson and Libertelli refuted an idea advanced by Internet service providers that reclassification would be a "radical" move. They argued that such a proceeding largely comes down to the "simple" act of reversing a 2002 order that made cable modem service as a information service. Libertelli said various currents provided that order with momentum at the time, including a desire by the FCC to clarify the boundaries between federal and state authority on some communications issues.

But he said the agency should revisit that order in light of an urgent need to implement the FCC's broadband goals and protect Internet traffic from discrimination by phone and cable companies. The FCC's authority to take these actions came into question earlier this month after the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the FCC in a dispute with Comcast.

Libertelli and Erickson were open to the possibility of congressional action to shore up FCC authority but warned that it would take far too long to have an impact on current broadband and net neutrality efforts, making reclassification necessary. The FCC's goals "are just too important for us to say we're going to wait out a four-, five-, six-year cycle," he said, referring to how long it could take Congress to give the FCC more authority.

Facebook unveiled a new version of its security site Tuesday aimed at providing parents, educators, teens and law enforcement officials with Internet safety tips on how to deal with some of the hazards they may encounter while on the social networking site or other Web locations.

For teens, the redesigned security site includes information on how to deal with cyber bullying, unwanted messages from strangers, how to report abusive messages and other problems. The section aimed at parents offers advice on helping their children deal with similar topics, while law enforcement can find information on reporting sex offenders or terrorist activities to Facebook so the information can be removed. Educators can find links to sites that offer more details on online safety topics such as cyber bullying and how to avoid sexual predators, as well as tips on how to interact with their students on Facebook.

The redesigned safety site was launched with the help of Facebook's global Safety Advisory Board, which was established in December, and other Web safety groups. It also incorporates the European Union's Safer Social Networking Principles.

"This launch only begins to accelerate our efforts to make Facebook a better and safer place to engage," Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan wrote in a blog post Tuesday.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will soon have to make a wonky but controversial decision that could have a profound impact on how much consumers pay for broadband, how fast their services will be -- and possibly whether millions of people will be able to get it at all," USA Today reports.

• "The National Association of Broadcasters gambled big in the fall when it hired a former Republican senator, Gordon Smith, to head the group with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports. "And now, with the FCC signaling that television stations are sitting on more spectrum than they need -- especially with demand for wireless broadband set to skyrocket -- broadcasters are watching closely to gauge whether that high-stakes bet is paying off."

• "Difficult questions about how and when the U.S. military conducts electronic warfare have stalled the creation of the Pentagon's Cyber Command for months as senators dig into such scenarios involving the rules of the digital battlefield, according to congressional officials," AP reports.

• The Wall Street Journal reports on the prospect of digitizing medical records.

People who have access online to their own health information know more about their health and take better care of themeselves, a new survey released Tuesday found.

The survey, which polled 1,849 adults 18 and older Dec. 18-Jan. 15, was conducted for the California HealthCare Foundation and surveyed people's use and attitudes toward personal health records (PHRs). Personal health records differ from electronic health records (EHRs) in that patients control PHRs, while health care providers control EHRs. About $19 billion was included in last year's economic stimulus package for health information technology including the adoption of EHRs.

"Users say that secure, password-protected PHRs give them the confidence they need to access their personal information online, and when they do, they pay more attention to their health," according to the foundation.

The survey found that most Americans still don't use PHRs, with only 7 percent of those surveyed saying they have used them, but the rate has more than doubled since a 2008 poll from the Markle Foundation was released. And 40 percent of those who do not have access to a PHR "expressed interest" in using one.

Among the small population who have used PHRs, one in three said they had taken specific steps to help improve their health and 56 percent said they know more about their health because they have access to these records. Some of those who appear to have benefited the most from having access to their PHRs "have been difficult for health care providers to engage: those with multiple chronic conditions, less education and lower incomes," the foundation said in its report on the survey results.

The survey found there are still concerns about the privacy and security safeguards surrounding the use of PHRs. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they were concerned about the privacy and security of their health information. A majority, 58 percent, said they are more comfortable using PHRs if they are provided by their own physicians.

"This survey shows that when individuals have easy access to their health information, they pay greater attention to their health," foundation President and CEO Mark D. Smith said in a statement. "And for the first time, the survey documents that PHRs empower some people - including some of the heaviest users of the health system - to take better care of themselves."

A new Rasmussen survey found a majority of people polled said they oppose the FCC regulating the Internet.

The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted by telephone last Wednesday and Thursday. It was done following Tuesday's U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that found the FCC overstepped its authority when it cracked down on Comcast for violating the agency's open Internet principles when the broadband provider interrupted service to users of a file-sharing service.

In response, some groups that favor network neutrality rules, which would bar broadband providers from discriminting against content, have urged the FCC to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service.

When asked if the FCC should "regulate the Internet like it does radio and television," 53 percent said no, 27 percent said yes and 19 percent were not sure. The survey got more mixed results when it asked if Internet providers should be able to slow down "large downloads so other customers are not [affected]," with 34 percent responding yes, 38 percent saying no and 28 percent unsure of how to answer.

Of those surveyed, 51 percent said they use the Internet daily or nearly every day, while an additional 11 percent reported using the Internet several times a week. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Monday released a letter asking Attorney General Eric Holder to voluntarily implement key oversight and civil liberties protections on the use of powers under the anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act, including a higher standard for getting access to business and personal records.

The letter, which was sent last month, is being made public in advance of a highly anticipated hearing Wednesday with Holder and asks the Obama administration to put in place oversight controls that were included in a bill to reauthorize three expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act.

That bill was approved by the Judiciary Committee but never made it to the Senate floor, as Congress instead approved a straight, one-year reauthorization of the expiring provisions. "The one-year extension should not become an excuse to defer implementation of the important civil liberties and enhanced accountability provisions of [the bill] and subsequent negotiations that received the support of the administration," Leahy wrote in the letter.

"A number of the improvements that were included in the bill should not require statutory changes," he added. "Even without congressional action the administration can issue the reports that were included in the Senate bill as well as those negotiated between the Senate and House leadership."

LAS VEGAS--National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Gordon Smith ratcheted up criticism of the FCC today over its efforts to reallocate more than a third of television airwaves to broadband carriers, using strong words in accusing federal regulators of orchestrating a "spectrum grab," CongressDaily reported.

The former Republican senator from Oregon went on the attack in his first keynote address as head of the influential trade group, which is holding its annual convention here. "Let's be clear: Broadcasting is not an ATM that can keep spitting out spectrum," he said. "There is a minimum we need in order to be viable for the future, and to sustain the enduring value of free and local television."

The NAB president sharply mocked what the FCC insists is a voluntary initiative, outlined in its national broadband plan, for broadcasters to relinquish spectrum that would be auctioned for wireless high-speed Internet use.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has maintained that dramatic steps need to be taken to avert a looming spectrum crisis that threatens to undermine the explosive growth of broadband. He also has insisted the agency's proposals would have a minimal impact on stations. To read more, click here. (Subscription required)

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., introduced legislation Monday aimed at enhancing U.S. efforts to develop a coordinated international strategy for improving cybersecurity and curtailing cyber attacks.

The bill would require the appointment of a senior coordinator at the State Department who would hold the rank of "ambassador at large" and would be responsible for advising the secretary of State about international cybersecurity and Internet issues. The official would help coordinate diplomatic efforts to help improve international cooperation in tackling cyber attacks and require the federal government to develop a clear strategy for international engagement on cybersecurity by considering negotiating a "multilateral framework that would provide internationally acceptable principles to mitigate cyber warfare," according to a statement from Kerry.

"This bill is the first step to better organize U.S. efforts to develop a coordinated strategic approach to international cyberspace and cybersecurity issues by designating a single diplomat responsible for U.S. cyber policy overseas," said Kerry, who also serves as chairman of the Commerce Communications Subcommittee.

Gillibrand introduced legislation in March with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that would require the president to submit to Congress an annual report on U.S. efforts to combat cyber crime and assessing the cooperation of other countries in cracking down on cyber attacks. In Kerry's statement, Gillibrand noted, "If we're going to protect our networks, our infrastructure, our economy and our families, we have to go after cyber criminals wherever they may be - and it must be an international effort."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top adviser on innovation said Monday that 2009 was the worst year ever for Internet freedom but predicted 2010 will be better because of the growing attention to the issue of ensuring citizens around the world have access to new technologies and the Internet.

Alec Ross made the comments during a speech before the progressive think tank NDN in which he discussed the growing trend of governments around the world taking steps to limit their citizens' access to information on the Internet. He noted that "2009 was the worst year in the history of the Internet as it relates to Internet freedom ... where we saw the behavior of a handful of states grow to several dozen nations."

He noted that as he travels to some countries, he said it is remarkable "the degree to which the Internet increasingly looks like an Intranet. The upward march of technology offers both progress and peril." He added that while technology can be liberating, "it's also the case that government's can become increasingly sophisticated about their own use of technology to suppress freedoms."

Ross underscored many of the issues raised by Clinton during her January speech when she pledged to make Internet freedom a diplomatic priority and urged countries like China and Iran to embrace Internet freedom as a means of promoting economic prosperity.

He was asked after his speech about democratic nations that have begun imposing policies that place restrictions on the Internet such as Australia, where the government has proposed an Internet filtering system aimed at blocking children's access to pornographic Web sites.

An AT&T executive argued Monday that the FCC would be taking an "unprecedented" step if it moves to reclassify broadband as a "telecommunications service," an action some net neutrality advocates have called on the FCC to take in the wake of a court decision last week.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last week that the FCC overstepped its authority by cracking down on Comcast for interrupting service to users of the BitTorrent file-sharing service. Many observers said the ruling will likely affect the FCC's network neutrality proceeding aimed at preserving an open Internet.

In a blog post Monday, Hank Hultquist, AT&T's vice president for federal regulatory policy, argued that those who argue for the FCC to make such a move are rewriting history by claiming broadband policy was once regulated under Title II of the telecommunications act.

"Some believe, incorrectly, that broadband Internet access used to live under the watchful eye of a wise and beneficent FCC. In this latter-day Eden, the FCC regulated broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service under Title II," Hultquist wrote. "But then the FCC was tempted into taking a bite out of the Title I apple, and pretty soon they had eaten the whole thing." He goes on to note that both Democratic and Republican FCC chairmen have chosen to define broadband as an "information service," not subject to stricter telecommunications rules under Title II.

"The reality is that if the commission decides to classify any Internet access service as a telecommunications service under Title II, it would be doing so for the first time," Hultquist argued. "And that would be unprecedented."

However, former Obama administration official Susan Crawford, now a University of Michigan law professor, argued in an op-ed in Sunday's New York Times that the FCC under the Bush administration in 2005 "declared that high-speed Internet access would no longer be considered a 'telecommunications service' but rather an "information service.' This removed all high-speed Internet access services -- phone as well as cable -- from regulation under the common-carrier section [Title II] of the Communications Act."

Facebook officials are trying to address concerns raised by a German official and some users about recent privacy changes proposed by the popular social networking site.

Facebook's director of European public policy recently met with German officials to address concerns raised by German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner about the proposed changes to Facebook's privacy policies in an attempt to "clear up any confusion that may have existed," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said. (Noyes is the former editor of Tech Daily Dose.)

In a blog post last month, Facebook Deputy General Counsel Michael Richter noted that among the proposed changes to its policies is the "possibility of working with some partner Web sites that we pre-approve to offer a more personalized experience at the moment you visit the site. In such instances, we would only introduce this feature with a small, select group of partners and we would also offer new controls." Last week, Barry Schnitt, director of Facebook's communications and public policy team, attempted to further explain the proposed changes in response to user feedback.

Aigner and others voiced concern over what they claim are Facebook's plans to share Facebook user data with third parties. In an open letter to Facebook, translated by Spiegel Online, Aigner complained that Facebook "user data is to be automatically passed on to third parties" unless users opt-out of such an arrangement. Noyes countered, however, that Facebook doesn't "share users' information with third parties unless users tell us to (e.g. to get a sample, hear more, or enter a contest). Any assertion to the contrary is false."

Still, Aigner called on Facebook to ensure all personal information about its members are protected at a "high level," that amendments to its terms of use are communicated to users in a "clear and straightforward manner" before changes are made, and personal data is not shared automatically with third parties for commercial use without user consent. She said she would terminate her own Facebook account unless such changes are made.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center Monday warned Americans to be careful about potential Web and other scams related to the 2010 census.

The center, a joint venture between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, warned that census takers will not contact U.S. residents seeking census information via e-mail or seek donations. It also notes that census takers will not ask for personally identifiable information such as your Social Security or bank number and so users should not respond to e-mail or other solicitations for such information.

"Criminals often capitalize on legitimate campaigns to spread computer viruses through
e-mails, text messages, 'pop-ups,' fraudulent Web sites, or infected legitimate Web sites," according to an alert from the center. It added that viruses can be embedded in e-mail attachments, links, or even pictures and that anti-virus software may not detect all viruses especially those that are newly created. The center said U.S. residents should be wary of similar tactics being used on social networking sites as well.

The alert also warned users to watch out for e-mail and other scams offering potential jobs with the Census Bureau. "The Census Bureau has a hiring process, which includes taking a test in person, not online," the center added.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Tucked into the" Federal Communications Commission's "360-page national broadband plan are several select policy proposals that key members of Congress are likely to find appealing -- mainly because the ideas originated with them or were crafted with them in mind," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "Following an appeals court decision last week undermining the FCC's regulatory authority, a Wednesday hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on the agency's national broadband plan takes on added significance," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

The National Governors Association urged the FCC Friday to amend its national broadband plan and reallocate the D-block swath of spectrum to public safety use instead of auctioning it off to a commercial bidder.

In its national broadband plan, the FCC has called for a nationwide wireless broadband network for public safety officials to be built using 10 megahertz of spectrum already under the control of emergency responders. The proposal follows a failed effort in 2008 by the commission to auction the D-block of spectrum, which is adjacent to the 10 megahertz, to a commercial bidder willing to enter into a public-private partnership with first responders.

In the broadband plan, the FCC has called for auctioning off the D-block of spectrum to a commercial bidder, who could enter into an agreement with public safety officials if it chooses.

In a letter Friday to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Govs. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., and Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., the co-chairmen of NGA's Special Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety, said allowing public safety officials to roam on commercial networks in the 700 megahertz band during emergencies, as the broadband plan suggests, "is not sufficient because it adds cost and complexity to their communications."

"Our first responders deserve the most modern and reliable communications capabilities available," the governors added. "The reallocation of the D-block to public safety offers the best opportunity to provide these capabilities while still balancing commercial interests."

There are several technology and telecom-related events this week. Here are some of the highlights:

Monday:
NDN holds a noon discussion on "Freedom in the 21st Century: Connection Technologies In Open and Closed Societies" featuring Alec Ross, the State Department's senior adviser on innovation.

Wednesday:
The House Science and Technology Committee holds a 10 a.m. markup of a bill authorizing National Science Foundation programs.

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a 2:30 p.m. hearing that was postponed from last month on the national broadband plan featuring FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

The House may take up H.R. 1258, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, and H.R. 3125, the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act, under the suspension calendar.

Thursday:
The House Energy and Commerce Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. on the national broadband plan and the "competitive availability of navigation devices."

The House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee holds a hearing at 11 a.m. on whether progress has been made in improving the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity programs.

As public interest groups, Internet firms and broadband providers anxiously await the FCC's next move on its open Internet proceeding, two technology associations that have an interest in the debate, but are not as deeply involved, say they would like to bring the warring factions together to find a voluntary solution to the problem.

Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield and TechNet President Rey Ramsey said they have been reaching out to some of the key stakeholders in the debate such as public interest groups and broadband providers to try to develop voluntary standards on ensuring an open Internet.

The issue has taken on heightened attention in the wake of a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling last week that found the FCC overstepped its authority by cracking down on Comcast for interrupting service to users of the BitTorrent file-sharing service. Many observers said the ruling will likely affect the FCC's network neutrality proceeding aimed at preserving an open Internet.

Garfield said in an interview Thursday that he has been meeting with some of the broadband providers such as Verizon and nonprofit groups in an attempt to serve as an honest broker. Garfield's group includes many of the firms that make the equipment that helps enable broadband services such as Apple, Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Qualcomm.

New regulations issued this week aimed at removing obstacles to using Internet-based tools for transparency are long overdue, said accountability groups and privacy advocates, but they pointed out a promised revision to an outdated ban on cookies was conspicuously absent, Nextgov.com reported.

In accordance with a December presidential directive, agencies Wednesday released their plans to weave transparency, public participation and collaboration with the private sector into daily operations. The Office of Management and Budget simultaneously released new policies for agencies on using the Internet to meet those goals. The guidelines included a way to allow citizens to more easily follow the rule-making process as well as a clarification of statutory restrictions on interacting with the public that were established before the rise of the Internet. In addition, new reporting rules require agencies by Oct. 1, to start submitting information on subcontract spending, which later will be posted online.

Missing from yesterday's guidance was an expected relaxation of the federal ban on cookies, which track how a visitor navigates through a Web site and use the information to create a more individualized experience for the visitor. OMB presently prohibits cookies on federal sites. The government barred the use of cookies in 2000 because of privacy concerns. But today many people inside and outside the Obama administration view the policy as an anachronism in a Web-centric society.

Government Web managers, transparency groups, privacy advocates and industry observers questioned why the White House was silent on the issue. The December presidential directive ordered OMB to issue clarifying guidance on policies that, for example, pertained to the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act and privacy, by April 7. Rules implementing the Paperwork Reduction Act were explained in one of the policies that exempts many social media exchanges from lengthy reviews.

Vivek Kundra, federal chief information officer, told Nextgov in March that the policy reforms released on April 7 would include cookies. When asked about the discrepancy, an OMB spokesman told Nextgov that Kundra misspoke at the time.

But privacy groups still expected a new policy on cookies. "I'm a little bit disappointed," said Heather West, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It does mean that they missed the deadline to put out privacy guidelines." She added if the delay indicates the White House is still resolving all privacy concerns, then she would be satisfied. CDT supports the idea of a new framework that permits the use of cookies under specific circumstances. To read more, click here.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "NASA plans to open an office at Kennedy Space Center that would oversee development of commercial space taxis to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station -- a $5.8 billion enterprise over the next five years," USA Today reports.

• "A service that will provide online, real-time video of House sessions is set to be launched in a few weeks by the Office of the Clerk," CongressDailyPM (subscription) reports.

• "Apple Inc. is stepping up its rivalry with Google Inc. by adding its own advertising system to the next version of software that will power its iPhone, iPad and other mobile gadgets," the Wall Street Journal reports.

The British Parliament Thursday approved a measure that aims to strike down on serial copyright infringers by offering a graduated response that could lead to the temporary suspension of a user's Internet service.

The measure is similar to the so-called "three-strikes" law passed in France, though does not appear to go as far as the French bill. The British measure also includes language that some groups contend could allow the government to block Web sites over copyright issues.

"This is not about flagrant copyright infringement, which we oppose. This is about using an Uzi to combat mosquitoes," Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said in a statement. "Once we turn our ISPs into law enforcement agents, governments with much worse human rights records are going to demand the ISPs use this same technology that catches copyright infringers to catch political dissidents."

Still, copyright groups applauded the measure, saying it provides the necessary legal framework to help deter Internet users from infringing movies, music and other copyrighted materials and urged other countries to follow.

"We welcome the recognition by the U.K. government - as with increasing numbers of countries around the world - that ISPs have an important role to play in protecting creators and preserving the Internet as an engine of economic growth and a platform for innovative business models," Recording Industry Association of America Chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol said in a statement.

John Kennedy, chairman of the record industry's international industry association IFPI, said Britain's move "creates momentum for the graduated response approach to tackling piracy internationally," a potential trend that worries civil liberties and industry groups like CCIA.

The FCC has extended the deadline for comments on its open Internet proceeding until April 26. Comments were originally due Thursday.

The FCC's authority to implement tougher network neutrality rules aimed at ensuring that broadband providers treat all content equally has been cast into doubt in the wake of a court ruling Tuesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found the FCC overstepped its authority in its 2008 enforcement action against Comcast for certain network management practices.

The wireless group CTIA, the U.S. Telecommunications Association and the Open Internet Coalition asked the FCC to extend the deadline to enable all parties to "evaluate and consider the legal implications" of Tuesday's appeals court decision, the FCC said in its order Wednesday extending the comment period.

The FCC Thursday issued its agenda for implementing key aspects of its national broadband plan despite a court ruling earlier this week undermining the agency's regulatory authority that will likely affect some aspects of the broadband proposal.

The FCC's agenda for beginning to implement the broadband plan this year includes 60 rulemakings and other notice-and-comment proceedings. Among the items on the agenda include an overhaul of the FCC's universal service fund to expand it to provide broadband support in addition to the current subsidies for telephone service in low-income and rural areas and begin work on helping to create a nationwide interoperable public safety wireless broadband network.

In addition, the agenda also calls for beginning action on trying to free up a total of 500 megahertz of spectrum in the next 10 years for mobile broadband use, which would include persuading -- or possibly forcing -- broadcasters to hand over 120 megahertz of spectrum. The timetable outlined as part of the agenda calls for an auction of the controversial D-block of spectrum in 2011 and of spectrum freed up by broadcasters possibly by 2012.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined an ambitious agenda even though the FCC's general counsel acknowledged Wednesday that Tuesday's U.S. Court of Appeals ruling could adversely affect "a significant number of important" recommendations in the broadband plan including the commission's universal service proposal. The court ruled that the FCC overstepped its authority in its 2008 enforcement action against Comcast for interrupting service to customers who used the high-bandwidth, file-sharing service BitTorrent.

In a statement, Genachowski said the court decision "does not change our broadband policy goals, or the ultimate authority of the FCC to act to achieve those goals. The court did not question the FCC's goals; it merely invalidated one technical, legal mechanism for broadband policy chosen by prior commissions."

Some lawmakers, however, say Congress may need to step in to provide the FCC with legal clarity. House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., said in an interview earlier this week that the FCC's ability to fully revamp the universal service fund has been made more difficult by the Comcast decision. He said he is moving forward on drafting a universal service fund overhaul bill that has many of the same goals outlined by the FCC.

A former GOP chairman of the FCC warns that if the commission attempts to "stretch" its current authority to more aggressively oversee broadband services as some groups are urging it to do in the wake of a Tuesday court ruling the FCC will continue to face legal challenges.

In a blog post Wednesday on the Broadband for America Web site, former FCC Chairman Michael Powell argued that Tuesday's U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, which found that the FCC overstepped its authority in its 2008 enforcement action against Comcast for violating the commission's network neutrality policy, "is really about the FCC's power to regulate the Internet." Powell is honorary co-chairman of Broadband for America, members of which include major broadband providers such as Comcast and Verizon.

Many observers say the ruling will complicate the FCC's efforts to impose stronger network neutrality rules aimed at ensuring that broadband providers treat all content that travels on their network equally. It may also make it more difficult for the FCC to implement some aspects of its national broadband plan aimed at improving broadband access and adoption, a concern the FCC acknowledged Wednesday.

Some network neutrality advocates and Democratic FCC member Michael Copps have called on the FCC to use its existing authority to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, which would give it authority to regulate such services.

Powell, however, warned against overreacting to the ruling, arguing that broadband providers are voluntarily taking steps to ensure the openness of the Internet. "The FCC now is being urged to play a more muscular role overseeing the Internet than it ever has before," Powell said. "Whatever the merits of changing course might be, if the FCC wants to establish itself as the Internet overseer it will continue to have serious 'jurisdictional' problems."

He noted that Congress never gave the FCC the role as the Internet's regulator and lawmakers' last attempt in 1996 to update communications law is "ill-suited" for regulating the Internet. "The courts will forever question FCC efforts to stretch its authority beyond the areas it is expressly authorized to regulate," Powell added.
Some Democratic lawmakers say Congress must act to clarify the FCC's authority to oversee broadband providers in the wake of the Tuesday's decision.

Agencies capped a 14-month endeavor on Wednesday when they released plans outlining how they will use Internet-based technologies in retooling operations to open the federal government to the public, Nextgov.com reported.

The documents varied in complexity, with some running more than 60 pages, but initial reactions are largely positive. The Obama administration and outside independent government transparency advocates are in the process of auditing the plans.

The documents are the result of an open government initiative that President Obama launched with a memo his first day in office, calling for increased transparency, civic engagement and collaboration with outside groups. It was followed in December by a presidential directive ordering agencies to detail how they would comply with the initiative.

"For too long, Washington has closed itself off from the oversight of the American public, resulting in information that's difficult to find, taxpayer dollars that disappear without a trace and lobbyists that wield undue influence," Obama said in a statement on Wednesday. "Now that these plans are published online, we hope the American people will play their part and collaborate with us to provide oversight and improve upon this information."

Watchdog groups generally were pleased with the open government plans. "The amount of effort that has been put in is pretty amazing," said Amy Fuller Bennett, program associate at openthegovernment.org, a coalition of transparency activists. "We think in general, this is a massive step forward and will be a key requirement to changing way the government does its business. We're really excited about the plans, [but] we're more excited in seeing how plans are being implemented." To read more, click here.

A group of public interest groups Thursday urged the FTC to investigate two emerging trends in online advertising that the groups say pose growing threats to consumer privacy involving the auction of individual Internet users for targeted advertising opportunities and the combining of online and other sources of data about Internet users.

"This massive and stealth data collection apparatus threatens user privacy. It also robs individual users of the ability to reap the financial benefits of their own data," according to the complaint expected to be filed Thursday with the FTC by Center for Digital Democracy, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the World Privacy Forum.

In the complaint, they describe a growing trend in online behavioral advertising that involves the real-time sale and trade of the right to target individual users with online ads through the use of data compiled about such users via their Web surfing habits. The complaint also alleges that firms are also engaging in an expanding trade of selling outside sources of data about users combined with the information gathered about users online.

The groups have asked the FTC to investigate the data and advertising exchanges operated by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, as well as several firms that support the auctioning and data collection/targeting system including AppNexus, BlueKai and Rubicon Project. Other firms mentioned in the complaint as being involved in such practices include eXelate, MediaMath, PubMatic, TARGUSInfo and Rocket Fuel. For example, AppNexus offers a real-time online ad platform and touts that it is founded and managed by the "pioneers" of Yahoo's and Google's Double Click ad exchanges. The complaint quotes media reports that outline how firms like AppNexus use information from data providers like BlueKai or eXelate.

"Consumers will be most shocked to learn that companies are instantaneously combining the details of their online lives with information from previously unconnected offline databases without their knowledge let alone consent," said U.S. PIRG Consumer Program Director Ed Mierzwinski. "In just the last few years a growing and barely regulated network of sellers and marketers has gained massive information advantages over consumers."

From this morning's Earlybird:

• The Federal Communications Commission "on Wednesday admitted a recent court decision that curtails its Internet regulatory powers 'may affect a significant number' of the agency's broadband expansion proposals," The Hill reports

• "A partisan divide is emerging among key lawmakers over whether legislation is needed to address Tuesday's federal appeals court ruling that the FCC had overstepped its authority when it cracked down on Comcast Corp. for its network management practices," CongressDailyPM (subscription) reports.

• "Signs of life are returning to the Internet-ad business after the harshest year since 2002, with a new report on Wednesday showing that U.S. online-ad spending started to pick up again during the second half of 2009," the Wall Street Journal (subscription) reports.

FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick acknowledged Wednesday that "a significant number of important" recommendations in the commission's just-released national broadband plan could be adversely impacted by a court ruling Tuesday undermining the agency's regulatory authority.

These include proposed changes to the $8 billion federal universal service fund aimed at accelerating broadband usage in rural areas, connecting Native Americans and the disabled to the Internet and expanding the use of the technology by small businesses. Schlick also warned that recommendations related to improving communications for first responders, protecting consumer privacy and combating cybersecurity would be affected.

"We are assessing the implications of yesterday's decision for each one, to ensure that the commission has adequate authority to execute the mission laid out in the plan," he wrote in a blog posting on the agency's Web site.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that the FCC overstepped its authority in its 2008 enforcement action against Comcast for interrupting service to customers who used the high-bandwidth, file-sharing service BitTorrent, which Comcast said was slowing down its network. Despite these setbacks, Shlick insisted that most of the more than 200 policy recommendations contained in the 360-page broadband plan could move forward as planned.

Federal agencies Wednesday released their open government plans, detailing how they will carry out President Obama's initiative to make the government more transparent, engaging with the public and collaborative.

"These are concrete steps to make agency operations and data more transparent while building new ways for citizens to actively influence the priorities and policies of their government," Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag said in a blog post.

Orzag outlined three major stepsOMB is taking to implement the open government directive. They include a clarification on the use of social media in how it relates to the Paperwork Reduction Act. Orzag said agencies will be allowed to hold public meetings over the Internet without violating the act. He also noted that using technology tools such as "wikis, ratings, rankings, and online requests" to obtain public feedback does not violate the PRA.

In addition, he said the OMB has taken steps to improve the transparency of the rulemaking process and has established timelines for complying with a law, authored by Obama when he served in the Senate, that requires government to provide user-friendly information about government spending.

Among the steps the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is taking to be more open, transparent and responsive is the implementation of a dashboard to track the government's basic research and development investments across the Executive Branch. In addition, it also has begun posting on its Web site profiles of its employees, written in their own words and in some cases presented as online videos. It also is publishing a template that will allow the public to submit policy proposals in the same format that OSTP staff uses to brief senior officials.

The Health and Human Services Department's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also has developed a dashboard, which is in beta form, allowing the public to examine Medicare spending.

All agency open government plans can be found here.

Several lawmakers are voicing concern about proposals to establish online wagering services based on speculation over movie box office receipts, CongressDaily reported.

In letters sent last week to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., urged delay of approval of the two applications to create movie futures exchanges so that both industry and Congress can weigh in on the potential effects of such proposals.

After several movie industry groups wrote the CFTC last week asking for more time to comment on the applications, the agency extended the review period for Media Derivatives Inc.'s application until Friday. It also extended the review period for the creation of a similar exchange by Cantor Futures Exchange until April 24.

In his letter to Gensler, Smith said he is concerned that a movie futures exchange "might constitute a platform for the betting and wagering on the occurrence of future events in violation of federal criminal law rather than a legitimate market for the fair trading of commodity futures positions." While the applicants describe their ventures as a stock exchange, the "contract positions" that exchange participants would buy and sell do not appear to be linked to an actual commodity, he added.

Feinstein and Boxer raised a similar concern in their letter, which also stressed the need for the CFTC to consider the movie industry's serious reservations with the proposals. To read more, click here. (Subscription required).

A new paper released Wednesday touts the benefits of the use of cloud computing by federal agencies, saying such services can produce significant information technology savings. Cloud computing refers to the online use of networks, servers, storage, or software applications.

In the paper, Darrell West, vice president and director of government studies at the nonpartisan think tank the Brookings Institution, said he found that agencies that have "moved to the cloud" generally enjoyed 25 percent to 50 percent savings on their IT costs. "For the federal government as a whole, this translates into billions in cost savings, depending on the scope of the transition," the paper said. The federal government spends $76 billion a year on IT products -- $20 billion for computer hardware.

Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra also discussed the benefits to the government of cloud computing during a speech at the Brookings Institution Wednesday.

"In the government, it can take years to procure, configure and deploy technology solutions," Kundra said in his prepared remarks. "By using cloud services, the federal government will gain access to powerful technology resources faster and at lower costs. This frees us to focus on mission-critical tasks instead of purchasing, configuring and maintaining redundant infrastructure."

Among the agencies currently utilizing cloud computing is the Department of Health and Human Services, which is using it to help support implementation of the electronic health records systems, Kundra said. He also noted that the Interior Department is "migrating 80,000 email boxes to the cloud."

In a policy blog post Wednesday, Google Policy Counsel Harry Wingo said his firm favors greater use of cloud computing by the federal government. "We're big believers that governments ought to make sure cloud computing is treated on a level playing field in procurement decisions, along with desktop and server-based computing," he said.

A partisan divide is emerging among key lawmakers over whether legislation is needed to address Tuesday's federal appeals court ruling that the FCC had overstepped its authority when it cracked down on Comcast Corp. for certain network management practices.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dealt with the FCC's 2008 enforcement action against Comcast for interrupting service to customers who used the high-bandwidth, file-sharing service BitTorrent, which Comcast said was slowing down its network.

Most observers agree the ruling will likely affect the FCC's current proceedings aimed at imposing tougher network neutrality rules to prevent broadband providers from serving as content gatekeepers on the Internet. In response, some groups that favor net neutrality rules called on the FCC to use its existing authority to reclassify broadband service as a "telecommunications service" under Title II of the communications act. Democratic FCC member Michael Copps endorsed such a proposal Tuesday in a statement. The agency's two GOP members, Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, both voiced opposition to the idea of reclassifying broadband as a telecommunications service.

In an interview Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., said he believes the commission has the authority to take such an action, a view echoed by Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass.

But Boucher said he believes Congress will have to enact net neutrality legislation in response to the court ruling. "I don't think the commission on its own can assure we have an open Internet," Boucher said. In statements, Kerry also said Congress may be forced to craft a new regulatory framework, while Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said he intends to draft legislation in response to the decision.

Boucher said he believes "Title II is not the best way to handle it." But in the short term, the FCC may decide it needs to take that route "just to have the authority to do the things it needs to do," Boucher said. The decision "makes clear there will be very close scrutiny paid to the statutory foundations for all of the actions the commission takes," he added.

He favors legislation based on four "not controversial" policy principles adopted by the FCC in 2005 under then-Chairman Michael Powell. They state that consumers should be able to access any lawful content they choose, run any lawful applications and services they choose, connect devices of their choosing as long as they do not harm the network, and are entitled to competition among network, application, service and content providers. Boucher said he expects there would have to be work in developing consensus among the major stakeholders involved in the net neutrality debate on two additional principles he says should be included in the legislation: the principles of transparency and nondiscrimination, and the FCC's authority to enforce all six of these principles.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Wednesday the appointment of Carol Mattey to be the agency's new deputy chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau. She will primarily focus on universal service issues, a key concern for the agency as it aims to transition the universal service fund to include support for broadband services.

"Carol's expertise on universal service will be a vital resource as the FCC works to ensure that all Americans have access to the benefits of broadband," Genachowski said in a statement.

Mattey most recently served as the senior policy adviser on the FCC's broadband initiative. She helped develop the universal service recommendations included in the national broadband plan, which the FCC sent to Congress last month. She previously worked as the Wireline Competition Bureau's deputy chief from 2000-2005 during her earlier decade-long stint at the FCC. Before rejoining the FCC last year, Mattey worked as a telecom and media consultant at Deloitte & Touche.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Space shuttle Discovery successfully docked at the International Space Station" early today, "its astronauts overcoming a rare antenna breakdown that knocked out radar tracking," the Wall Street Journal (subscription) reports.

A recently released government report found foreign nations are increasingly exploiting the Internet, including social network sites, to conduct industrial espionage against Defense Department contractors, Nextgov.com reported.

"United States defense-related technologies and information are under attack each day, every hour and from multiple sources," the Defense Security Service, which oversees security at 13,000 contractor facilities, said in the report. "The attack is pervasive, relentless and unfortunately, at times, successful."

Contractors are required to detail suspicious contacts with foreign nations or commercial organizations to the Defense Security Service, according to the report, which is the second document on industrial espionage that top Pentagon officials called for in July 2008. The report covers 2008, was written in 2009. It was released on March 30.

Direct requests for information sent via e-mail were the most prevalent type of attempt to obtain information on U.S. defense systems, followed closely by what the Defense Security Service called "suspicious Internet activity," which included intrusions into unclassified contractor networks.

The attacks came from nations considered unfriendly and friendly. Countries in East Asia and the Pacific -- including China, North and South Koreas and Vietnam -- dominated Internet attempts to collect U.S. defense information, the report noted. E-mail messages requesting price quotes and system information were the preferred method to attempt to steal information on U.S. technologies. Users also sent multiple e-mail requests for the same information to different individuals working for the same contractor. To read more, click here.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Tuesday announced her agency has awarded another round of health information technology grants worth $267 million to provide assistance to health providers as they move to adopt health IT.

The latest round of grants will go to 28 nonprofit organizations to help establish health IT regional extension centers, according to a Health and Human Services Department statement. The centers are aimed at providing health professionals with a local resource to obtain technical assistance, guidance and information on best practices and to help assist in the adoption of electronic health records. The awards are part of the $19 billion for health IT included in last year's economic stimulus package.

The department awarded grants in February to 32 other nonprofits to set up health IT regional centers. Tuesday's announcement brings the total number of centers to 60. The department said these new centers will provide assistance to 100,000 primary care providers and hospitals within two years. The department also announced that all 60 groups may also apply for supplemental awards, worth a total of $25 million, to assist smaller hospitals, those with 50 beds or less.

The latest grant awards "represent our ongoing commitment to make sure that health providers have the necessary support within their communities to maximize the use of health IT to improve the care they provide to their patients," Sebelius said.

The FCC's top broadband official helped launch a new initiative Tuesday aimed at encouraging more older adults to utilize the Internet. The initiative, known as the Project to Get Older Adults Online, will work to help promote the adoption of broadband services by senior citizens.

Among those on hand for the group's launch was Blair Levin, executive director of the FCC's broadband initiative. Supporters of the group's cause point to the growing importance of broadband Internet access to all populations including senior citizens. They note that the Internet can be a key tool to assist seniors in obtaining telehealth services as well as health, entertainment and education information, while also providing another way to connect with family and friends. Despite these benefits, only 35 percent of adults 65 and older have broadband at home, the group said.

Among the reasons the group cites for why seniors are reluctant to use the Internet include a belief that there is no benefit in going online, a lack of comfort with computers, and a concern that bad things can happen to them online, Debra Berlyn, executive director of Project GOAL, said in a post on the group's Web site. "Offering tools and information regarding online safety, security and privacy for older adults is an important part of an effort to promote broadband adoption for the aging community," she added.

The FCC signaled Tuesday that it will continue to pursue efforts to ensure network neutrality despite an appeals court ruling that said the agency overstepped its authority when it cracked down on Comcast for certain network management practices.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dealt with the FCC's 2008 enforcement action under then-Chairman Kevin Martin against Comcast for interrupting service to customers who used the high-bandwidth, file sharing service BitTorrent, which Comcast said was slowing down the network. Most observers agree Tuesday's ruling is likely to impact the FCC's current proceedings aimed at imposing tougher network neutrality rules to prevent broadband providers from serving as content gatekeepers on the Internet.

FCC spokeswoman Jen Howard indicated in a statement that the agency may likely take a different route to address network neutrality. "Today's court decision invalidated the prior commission's approach to preserving an open Internet. But the court in no way disagreed with the importance of preserving a free and open Internet; nor did it close the door to other methods for achieving this important end."

Comcast Vice President of Government communications Sena Fitzmaurice said in a statement that the company was "gratified" by the ruling and that Comcast's primary goal was to "clear our name and reputation." She added that the broadband provider "remains committed to the FCC's existing open Internet principles, and we will continue to work constructively with this FCC as it determines how best to increase broadband adoption and preserve an open and vibrant Internet."

Still even advocates of stronger network neutrality rules voiced concern about the ruling's effect on current FCC proceedings. Public interest groups said the decision leaves the FCC with little authority to regulate broadband providers and hampers its ability to implement its ambitious national broadband plan. "Past FCC actions created a huge loophole in the law that leaves the agency unable to protect consumer privacy or promote universal broadband access," Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner said in a news release.

Two key members of Congress are voicing support for an international agreement aimed at curbing anti-counterfeiting despite lingering concerns from public interest groups and other lawmakers in the United States and Europe about the secrecy surrounding the negotiations.

In a letter last week to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the co-chairmen of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, commended Kirk's agency for its "continued commitment in negotiating an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement with our trading partners."

Hatch and Schiff, members of the Judiciary Committee in their respective chambers, added that "protecting intellectual property rights is vital to our country's continued success as a world leader in innovation. ... We believe that a more robust framework is needed to thwart the criminal enterprises engaged in IP theft."

A group of about 100 small and medium-sized businesses and organizations echoed this view in their own letter to Kirk Tuesday. "If the administration is to achieve its goal of spurring economic recovery through doubling exports over the next five years, it is imperative to more effectively combat counterfeiting and piracy," the letter said. They and others such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are urging the administration to work to finish the agreement by the end of the year.

Comcast scored a major legal victory Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled that the FCC exceeded its authority in 2008 when it cracked down on Comcast's network management practices.

While the ruling pertains to an enforcement action issued under former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, it could affect current FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's efforts to impose tougher network neutrality rules aimed at preventing broadband providers like Comcast from serving as content gatekeepers on the Internet.

The case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dealt with the FCC's 2008 enforcement action against Comcast for interrupting service to customers who used the high-bandwidth file-sharing service BitTorrent, which Comcast said was slowing down the network.

Comcast argued that the FCC did not have authority to punish the cable and broadband provider because the FCC order was based on a policy statement and not on a rule.

The FCC countered that its authority comes from the "ancillary" authority Congress has provided the agency through the communications act, which states that the FCC "may perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions."

In its ruling Tuesday, the appeals court, however, rejected the FCC's argument in this case because it "failed to tie its assertion of ancillary authority over Comcast's Internet service to any 'statutorily mandated responsibility.'"

Plagued by privacy concerns over its social networking service Buzz, Google late Monday attempted to push the reset button by urging users to confirm their privacy settings.

In a post on Google's blog, Product Manager Todd Jackson acknowledged that, "Shortly after launching Google Buzz, we quickly realized we didn't get everything right and moved as fast as possible to improve the Buzz experience."

Among the criticisms of the service was that Google used Gmail users' e-mail contacts to create a set of friends. Google eventually moved to change this by offering these contacts as suggested people to follow on Buzz. Jackson noted in Monday's post, however, that these changes were made after some users began using Buzz, adding that "we want to help you ensure that Buzz is set up the way you want."

In response, users who began using Buzz before some of these changes were made will be asked to reconfirm their friends when they next log on to Buzz, he added. Their contact list will appear, allowing these early Buzz users to click on an "unfollow" icon to remove unwanted contacts.

Google may be aiming to head off attention from the FTC. The privacy group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, filed a complaint in February with the FTC, saying Google's Buzz violates consumer privacy. This was followed last month by a letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz from a group of House Energy and Commerce Committee members, who urged the agency to investigate complaints that Buzz and some of Google's other services may harm consumer privacy.

Google has defended its actions by noting that it has moved quickly to address concerns about Buzz and is open to further changes in response to user feedback.

In the latest in a string of programming squabbles, AT&T has recruited the help of two San Diego-area U.S. House members in its spat with Cox Communications over sports programming.

The issue relates to AT&T's request to air San Diego Padres Major League Baseball games on its U-Verse television service in the San Diego area. Using a loophole in FCC program access rules, Cox and other cable providers have been able to withhold some programming such as sporting events from their rivals. The FCC, however, voted to close this loophole in January.

In a letter last week to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Reps. Bob Filner, D-Calif., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., have asked the agency to act on AT&T's complaint against Cox, saying "Cox Communications, our incumbent cable provider in San Diego, continues to refuse the licensing of Padres' games to competitive video providers in the San Diego market."

Even though the FCC's order closing the loophole didn't take effect until Friday, the lawmakers argued "there is no justification for further delay" on the issue. A Cox spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.

The Office of U.S. Trade Representative released a report Monday highlighting barriers facing U.S. telecommunications equipment and service providers singled out several countries for charging high rates or imposing surcharges that make long distance calls to those countries more expensive.

The annual review pointed in particular to the surcharges, taxes or high termination rates, the amount a foreign telecom provider charges a U.S. telecom operator to deliver a U.S. call to a consumer on the foreign carrier's network, imposed by El Salvador, Jamaica, Japan, Peru, and Tonga

The report also highlighted concerns raised by U.S. firms about challenges they face when they must use the networks of foreign telecommunications firms to provide their services. The report singled out barriers in gaining access to Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG and Australia's Telstra networks. For example, the report noted that U.S. firms reported having trouble gaining "reasonable and timely access to certain wholesale services and related facilities" from Telstra, particularly when it comes to gaining access to Telstra's broadband network.

Other issues that USTR said it would continue to focus on include China's efforts to impose its WAPI standard on Web-enabled mobile phones made by foreign providers and a lack of transparency in the development of Chinese telecom regulations; restrictions on the use of encryption proposed by India and South Korea; and content restrictions imposed by Indonesia on those seeking to provide wireless broadband services.

"Telecommunications technology, services, and equipment are a major driver of trade, growth, and innovation," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement. "U.S. service and equipment suppliers excel in the sector, and they need global access in order to ensure their competitiveness, both domestically and abroad."

As she battles for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in California, Carly Fiorina also has been fighting to defend her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard from critics who have sought to tarnish her business experience. A few weeks after the granddaughter of HP co-founder David Packard sharply criticized Fiorina's tenure at HP and her conservative credentials, Fiorina's campaign Monday promoted a different view on the issue from former Intel Chairman and CEO Craig Barrett.

In an op-ed Sunday in the San Jose Mercury News, Barrett defended one of Fiorina's most controversial moves as HP's chief: the company's merger with rival computer maker Compaq. While noting that "there were plenty of skeptics to the bold actions taken by HP," including members of the Hewlett family, Barrett argued that the merger has turned out to be an "unqualified success. It helped transform HP into the largest computer manufacturer in the world and provided a strong foundation for HP's current success under its very capable management team."

He added that Fiorina "deserves great credit for her actions while CEO of HP. She understood the challenges of the marketplace, the dangers of the status quo, and the need for companies to move forward with bold actions to ensure their success."

Fiorina faces former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the June Republican primary. The winner will take on Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in November.

The FTC is seeking comment on whether changes should be made to rules imposing certain requirements on Web sites directed at children, including a mandate that they obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under the age of 13.

In a Federal Register notice Monday, the FTC said the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which went into effect in 2000, requires the agency to review the rules required by the law every five years. While the agency declined to make changes in 2005 when it first reviewed the rules for Web sites aimed at children under 13, the FTC said it now "believes that changes to the online environment over the past five years, including but not limited to children's increasing use of mobile technology to access the Internet, warrant reexamining the rule at this time."

In addition to parental consent, the current FTC rules imposed under COPPA also require Web sites aimed at children under 13 to secure the information they collect from children and bars them from requiring children to provide more information than is "reasonably necessary to participate" in activities provided on the site.

In its request for comments, which are due by June 30, the FTC is asking for input on such issues as whether the definition of "Internet" should be expanded to include mobile communications, interactive television and gaming and other activities and whether the defition of "personal information" also should be expanded to include persistent IP addresses, mobile geolocation data or information used to help target ads at specific Internet users. Other issues, the FTC is seeking comment on include whether changes should be made to the requirements that information be kept secure and private; the requirement that allows parents to review or delete personal information about their children; and on the provision barring the linking of participation in activities on a children's Web site to the collection of personal information.

A group of companies and organizations led by Google urged President Obama Monday to help promote actions that would make it easier for consumers and business to see how much energy they use and to take steps to curb their energy use.

In a letter to the president, the groups urged action to help energy consumers see the sources and causes of their energy consumption, data on the cost of their energy use, and information on how electricity is used. "By giving people the ability to monitor and manage their energy consumption, for instance, via their computers, phones or other devices, we can unleash the forces of innovation in homes and businesses," according to the letter signed by Google and 46 other companies and groups including the Consumer Electronics Association, the Environmental Defense Fund, Intel, Johnson Controls, and Verizon. "At the same time, we can harness the power of millions of people to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- and save consumers billions of dollars."

The letter said government can help by providing "clear" rules outlining consumer access to such information; incentives to promote the deployment of technologies; and programs that educate and engage both providers and energy users.

Some of the specific steps they want the president to take include directing the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency to "add the availability of timely, useful and actionable energy information to consumers" as one of the criteria in proposed rules, grants or other programs aimed at promoting energy efficiency or are related to energy use or distribution. In addition, they asked the president to lead an effort to encourage federal agencies, states, industry and other stakeholders to work together to develop strategies, policies and programs aimed at helping provide consumers with access to energy information. They suggested the president convene a White House summit to "empower consumers with better information and tools for managing their energy use."

Google is hosting an event Tuesday at its Washington, D.C., offices to discuss the issues outlined in the letter. Carol Browner, the White House adviser on energy and climate change, will be among the featured speakers at the event.

David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology, has strongly denied any plans to develop a national network that would transmit patients' medical information to the Justice and Homeland Security departments, Nextgov.com reported.

At a March 24 Health Information Technology Standards Committee meeting, Blumenthal said concerns about adopting the National Information Exchange Model intelligence agencies use had bubbled up in blogs to such an extent that he needed to address them. The Health and Human Services Department and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology plan to use NIEM, developed by Justice and Homeland Security, as a framework for standards harmonization and data exchange in a national health network.

Blumenthal noted "There is some speculation on whether NIEM is some kind of Trojan horse for governmental control over health information." He attributed the speculation to NIEM being a government-developed mechanism for standards and specifications, raising the question of whether that might "make it easier for health information to be transmitted, or might it make it inevitable that it is transmitted, to the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA [and the National Security Agency]."

Blumenthal, said with great emphasis, "and the answer to that question is absolutely no. I just want to say for the record, absolutely no." The national coordinator for health IT would not participate in a standards development process that would lead to the transfer of private medical information to law enforcement or intelligence agencies, he added.

Rather than defusing concerns, privacy advocates said Blumenthal's remarks only heightened questions about what role NIEM standards, and the law enforcement agencies that developed them, will play in a national health information network. Deborah Peel, founder of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, said she believes Blumenthal is well-intentioned in his aim to ensure patient information is not transmitted to law enforcement or intelligence agencies. But promises do not have the force of law, she noted. The only way to absolutely guarantee medical record privacy is through an ironclad law or regulation that requires patient consent before information is shared, Peel said. HHS has yet to enshrine patient consent in its health IT policies. To read more, click here.

Government watchdogs say the release next week of new agency rules and plans for using technology to create a more honest, accountable government could be the pinnacle of President Obama's commitment to transparency, Nextgov.com reported.

On April 7, agencies will issue plans to integrate technology into the work of collaborating with other organizations, engaging the public and publishing government information. The Office of Management and Budget will announce clarifications and changes to rules critics say have impeded such efforts. They include online rule-making guidelines, a ban on tracking Web site user behavior and time-intensive procedures for obtaining permission to collect citizen information. In addition, OMB will order agencies to report spending details on subcontracts, after receiving flak from Congress and federal auditors for not tracking all federal awards on a mandated Web site called USAspending.gov.

All these transformations are part of the administration's effort to enshrine President Obama's avowed principles of open government -- transparency, civic participation in government and collaboration with the public and private sectors. Obama committed himself to this agenda the day after taking office and required agencies to abide by it in a December open government directive. April 7 is one of many due dates for action under the directive.

"It's creating a culture change whereby at meetings that have nothing to do with the open government directive, they are talking about transparency. That's a success," said Gary Bass, executive director of accountability group OMB Watch. "They have seen the light."

Some agencies, including the Interior Department, are setting up practices that go beyond what the directive requires. For example, Interior has dedicated a section of its open government plan to leadership and culture change. The move is significant, given concern among public interest groups that agencies will not sustain Obama's initiatives after all deadlines are met. To read more, click here.

The cable industry's top official in Washington leads National Journal's annual list of the highest paid technology and telecommunications industry association executives.

Kyle McSlarrow, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, was paid $2,451,440 in salary, bonuses, deferred compensation and benefits. He was followed by Consumer Electronics Association President and CEO Gary Shapiro, who received a total package worth $1,767,205. National Journal's 10th biennial salary survey is based on the most recent IRS information available as of Tuesday and covers calendar years that fell between 2007 and 2009.

Rounding out the top five highest paid tech and telecom association executive was William Archey, the former president and CEO of the now defunct tech group AeA. He received a total compensation package of $1,648,324. AeA merged with the Information Technology Association of America last year to form TechAmerica, which is now headed by Phil Bond, whose compensation package did not make the top 10. Archey was followed by the wireless industry group CTIA's president and CEO, Steve Largent, whose total compensation package came in at $1,553,233, and U.S. Telecom Association President and CEO Walter McCormick, who received a total package of $1,302,296.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "When Congress reconvenes April 12, lawmakers will grapple with the latest snag delaying their efforts to renew the nation's premier satellite television law: a disagreement over how long to extend it and whether it can be done without worsening the budget deficit," CongressDailyPM (subscription) reports.

• The Federal Communications Commission's "April 21 public meeting is expected to feature a slew of votes on recommendations detailed in its national broadband plan, including two designed to migrate the federal Universal Service Fund from primarily subsidizing phone service in poor and rural areas to supporting broadband connectivity," CongressDailyPM (subscription) reports.

CompTIA, a trade association for information technology companies, has tapped Elizabeth Hyman as its new vice president for public advocacy.

She will serve as the association's federal, state, and local lobbyist. She previously oversaw government affairs for computer maker Lenovo. Before that, she was a vice president at the Consumer Electronics Association.

Her own government work has included stints at the Justice Department, the office of the vice president, and in the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

The public interest group Consumer Watchdog filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Thursday asking to see emails between President Obama's Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin and his former employer, Google.

The critique that Google is closely tied to the administration picked up some steam earlier this week thanks to an Internet privacy incident by Google itself. The company's social messaging tool Buzz allowed users to view users most frequent contacts before Google made that information private, and screen shots of McLaughlin's contact list showed he has almost three dozen Google employees listed as his contacts.

McLaughlin was Google's top policy executive before he joined the Obama administration, a hire Consumer Watchdog opposed because of concerns over the revolving door between industry and government. The screen shots that surfaced this week confirm that McLaughlin remains close with his former employer, according to Consumer Watchdog, but it could also just reflect that he was in contact with those e-mail addresses while he was on staff at Google.

"The appointment was troubling when it was announced, but signs that McLaughlin is continuing a cozy relationship with his former employer while serving in the top White House Internet policy job are even more disconcerting," said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate for Consumer Watchdog. "The public has a right to see exactly what sort of messages have been exchanged with his former employer and colleagues."

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy did not have an immediate response to the FOIA request.

The Commerce Department voiced support Thursday for legislation that would require AM and FM radio stations to pay performers a fee when they air their songs.

"In today's digital music marketplace, where U.S. performers and record labels are facing both unprecedented challenges and opportunities, the department believes that providing [incentives for artists and recording companies] is more important than ever," Commerce Department General Counsel Cameron Kerry wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Performance rights legislation was approved by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees but remains fiercely opposed by broadcasters. Music industry groups argue that musicians are paid by satellite and Webcasters for playing their songs and AM and FM radio stations should have to pay as well.

"The Obama administration is the latest, but not the first to support congressional efforts to close the loophole in copyright law that allows radio stations to earn billions without compensating the artists, musicians and rights holders who bring music to life and listeners' ears to the radio dial," said Martin Machowsky, a spokesman for the MusicFIRST Coalition, which represents a dozen music industry groups. "This is a great momentum builder for our fight to win fair pay for airplay for American artists and musicians in the U.S. and around the world."

Broadcasters say performers benefit from the exposure they receive from free radio airplay and argue the fees would place a big financial burden on local stations that are still struggling from the weak economy.

"We're disappointed the Commerce Department would embrace legislation that would kill jobs in the U.S. and send hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign record labels that have historically exploited artists whose careers were nurtured by American radio stations," National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton said in a statement. He noted, however, the support broadcasters have from 260 House members and 27 U.S. senators who have signed on to a resolution opposing the performance rights legislation.

What's the best way to rake in donations? Public Knowledge thinks portraying itself as a radical group fighting big media conglomerates helps -- even as it quietly accepts corporate sponsorships. In its latest fundraising solicitation, the consumer advocacy group claims that communications giants are "on the war path" against it, branding the nonprofit as "pirates," "radicals" and "socialists." As evidence, it links to critical FCC filings and an essay penned by a detractor. Problem is, a close inspection of those documents doesn't substantiate the name calling. In fact, the nearest anyone comes to using the S-word is to reference an interview the founder of a related watchdog, Free Press, gave to a socialist organization. "We have been under constant attack by industry and their funded bloggers and think tanks," responded Gigi Sohn, the president of Public Knowledge, whose corporate benefactors include Comcast, Microsoft and Time Warner Cable. "If anything, our message understates the ferocity of these attacks." Send a donation and receive a free t-shirt featuring Legal Director Harold Feld, who circulated the solicitation, posing as Che Guevara.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Despite over three years of work and more than $300 million in taxpayer dollars, it is no longer clear when the FBI will develop a computer-based system for managing investigations or how much it will cost, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded in a report released" Wednesday, CongressDailyPM (subscription) reports.

• "AT&T Inc., facing criticism for jams in its network in cities like New York, may find the Apple Inc. iPad adds more strain than officials anticipated," Bloomberg News reports.