Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs ranking member Susan Collins and Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., on Friday said a Government Accountability Office report showing that 16 critical federal information technology projects will cost $3 billion more than originally estimated is proof of lax oversight and underscores the need for immediate corrective action. Carper chairs the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security.
The GAO report also notes that the IT investments will likely need an additional $1 billion to be completed on time. Two investments in particular are especially egregious, Carper and Collins said. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the Veteran's Affairs Health Information System Modernization will collectively overrun their original budgets by more than $798 million.
Earlier this year, Carper asked the GAO to study whether the Office of Management and Budget was providing Congress with the true cost of IT investments based on several hearings that revealed agencies often under-report the price tag for federal projects. "At a time when our country faces record deficits and dramatic budget cuts, it is unacceptable that agencies are not telling Congress and the taxpayers the true costs for these large-scale technology investments," Carper said in a statement.
Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl and Financial Services Committee ranking member Spencer Bachus wrote to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke this week opposing calls to delay by a year the implementation of a 2006 law that banned Internet gambling in the United States. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act directed the Treasury and Federal Reserve to issue regulations by July 2007. After a lengthy process, the final rules are set to take effect on Dec. 1.
"There is no justification for delaying the compliance date for the long-overdue regulations implementing UIGEA," Bachus and Kyl wrote. If the final rule represented an "unreasonable burden on regulators and the financial services industry," as some lawmakers have claimed, the Treasury and Federal Reserve could have reconsidered the regulations early in the new administration and before the industry began taking steps to comply. This did not happen and the financial services sector did not petition to have the rule amended, they wrote.
Kyl and Bachus said the Treasury and Federal Reserve should carefully monitor the law's effectiveness after they go into effect and consider modifications if necessary. "Delaying the compliance date serves no interest except that of the Internet gambling enterprises that have long evaded American gambling laws and will continue to do so until effective enforcement is in place," they wrote. Read the letter here (PDF).
A high-tech trade group on Thursday is releasing a paper that explains the depth of IT problems that are preventing the Social Security Administration from making data more interoperable and easier to manage. The report from the Computer and Communications Industry Association comes as the SSA's tech advisory board begins a two day meeting to develop a roadmap for systems technology and electronic services to better carry out the agency's mission over the next five to 10 years.
More baby boomers are heading into a system, which is relying on technology that was cutting edge --- back when this generation was putting their children through college, CCIA said in a press release. The SSA has faced criticism from Congress and its inspector general about the accessibility and security of vital data and the agency was granted $500 million under the economic stimulus package to fix its aging IT infrastructure.
In the CCIA paper, "The Promise of Open IT at Social Security," industry analyst Jeffrey Gould recommends that SSA switch to open standards for citizens' data, and that critical citizens' data be stored in standardized data tables that can easily be read and used by any widely used relational database. He also writes that new versions of all critical applications should be translated to modern computer languages that are not tied to a particular hardware platform or operating system. Read more about the paper here.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Wednesday that they are launching a campaign to evaluate technologies that may help curb the dangerous epidemic of distracted driving. Their news came at a joint hearing of two House Energy and Commerce Committee panels where both Obama administration officials testified.
The DOT-FCC partnership will also include outreach efforts to educate the public about the dangers of texting and taking on cell phones while driving and other behavior that can lead to accidents, according to a press release. LaHood told lawmakers distracted driving "is costing lives and inflicting injuries across the nation's roads and railways. Genachowski said combining the resources of both agencies "can have a major impact on this problem."
Other witnesses included CTIA - The Wireless Association President Steve Largent; David Teater of Transportation Strategic Initiatives; Center for Auto Safety Executive Director Clarence Ditlow; Robert Strassburger of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; Tom Dingus of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute; and Anne McCartt of the Insurance Institute for Highway and Auto Safety.
Craiglist.org founder Craig Newmark has agreed to serve on a Veterans Affairs Department panel that will review ideas to improve disability claims processing times and provide greater transparency to vets, the agency announced Wednesday. Newmark told a high-tech conference in June that he was contemplating whether to "dedicate a big chunk of my life" to those who are driving change in Washington. He also said he wanted to spend more time practicing his own brand of public service.
"Transforming VA into an organization that is veteran-centric, results-oriented and forward-looking is my top priority," Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said in a press release. "Leveraging the talent, innovation and creativity of stakeholders, like Craig Newmark, is just one of the many ways VA can think outside of the box to help deliver tangible results to our nation's veterans."
VA officials from each of the agency's 57 regional offices across the country have submitted more than 3,000 ideas, which will be reviewed by Newmark and other panel members. Newmark said he looked forward to working with VA's leadership team to "bring tangible results" to veterans. He added that he is encouraged by the fact that VA is "embracing new ways to look at old problems."
The FTC on Dec. 10 will unveil the results of its congressionally mandated examination of online virtual worlds like the popular platform Second Life, an agency official told a Commerce Department Internet safety working group Tuesday. Commission attorney Phyllis Hurwitz Marcus said the report will include recommendations for best practices for industry, parents and youth. The examination was required under the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill but Congress didn't give the FTC much guidance other than asking them to zero in on "explicit content," Marcus said.
The agency first had to decide what constituted "explicit content" and investigators decided to fold sexually explicit and violent material into the 90-day probe. The study targeted virtual worlds populated by those under age 13; those popular among older youth; and sites that are populated mainly by adults, she said. FTC employees traversed a sampling of virtual worlds in search of explicit content, which Marcus said was "really outside of our comfort zone."
Defense Department Deputy Chief Information Officer David Wennergren on Tuesday issued the Pentagon's much-anticipated memorandum clarifying the use and development of open source software. The memo dated Oct. 16 notes that there are many open source programs in operational use by the department today, in both classified and unclassified environments, but there have been misconceptions and misinterpretations of the existing laws, policies and regulations that deal with the technology. Read the memo here (PDF).
There has been significant recent momentum for the increased adoption of open source solutions in the federal government, and the memo from DoD represents "a major tipping point," said David Thomas, principal at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti and spokesman for Open Source for America. He said his group hopes Wennergren's action will help break down roadblocks for open source adoption in defense agencies and increase the DoD's contribution back to the open source community.
OSA's members include a range of interests including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google, Mozilla Foundation, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and others. The group is dedicated to highlighting the many advantages open source -- particularly for government -- including security, lower total cost of ownership, rapid innovation, faster deployment and lack of vendor lock-in. In related news, the White House Web site recently switched to an open source code.
A group of privacy watchdogs are pressing for a congressional investigation into the Department of Homeland Security's Chief Privacy Office. According to a letter to the House Homeland Security Committee from the Electronic Privacy Information Clearinghouse, American Civil Liberties Union and many others, DHS is unrivaled in its budget authority to develop and deploy new systems of surveillance. The document cites the agency's use of so-called state-based "fusion centers," whole body imaging, funding of CCTV surveillance, and suspicionless electronic border searches as examples of where DHS is allegedly eroding privacy protections.
The letter to Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson and ranking member Peter King argues that the primary statutory duty of Mary Ellen Callahan, DHS's top privacy official is to assure "that the use of technologies sustain, and do not erode, privacy protections" but the office has not done so, focusing instead almost exclusively on the fourth statutory duty, conducting a "privacy impact assessment" on each department action. "[Callahan] has shown an extraordinary disregard for the statutory obligations of her office and the privacy interests of Americans," the letter states.
It was announced last week that Motion Picture Association of America
Chairman Dan Glickman would be stepping down from his influential post as Hollywood's top lobbyist in Washington -- and now his spokeswoman says she's departing as well. Angela Martinez will be joining the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration where she will work for senior adviser to John Fernandez, assistant secretary of commerce for economic development. In her new role, Martinez will be overseeing legislative and public affairs.
Before joining MPAA in 2007 as vice president of communications, Martinez worked with several PR firms, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Midwest Regional Political Director and in various roles in government and politics in her home state of Indiana. This is her encore performance working for Fernandez. She worked on the former Bloomington, Ind. mayor when he campaigned for Indiana secretary of state in 2002. Martinez's last day at MPAA is next Friday and she'll start her job at Commerce in mid-November.
The federal agency charged with developing and promoting standards for government computer networks has halted the reorganization of its information technology laboratory amid mixed reviews from high-tech stakeholders, the House Science Committee learned Thursday. Cita Furlani, who runs the lab within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said she received "expressions of concern and support" and plans to reevaluate how to ensure ITL's structure is as flexible and efficient as possible.
A key goal of the proposed reorganization was to strengthen NIST's cybersecurity efforts by relocating the NIST chief cybersecurity advisor to the central laboratory office as an associate director. Officials believed that would provide the authority and wide purview needed to ensure that cybersecurity projects throughout the lab are well coordinated and strengthened through new multidisciplinary collaborations.
Experts who joined Furlani at the Technology and Innovation Subcommittee witness table cheered the news. Sun Microsystems engineer Susan Landau, who served on the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, said she was "delighted" to hear the reorganization is off the table. Cornell University computer security scholar Fred Schneider echoed her remarks, saying the shake up offered few benefits -- but said discussions about a more sensible restructuring should continue.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk will travel to Guangzhou and Hangzhou, China, next week to co-chair the 20th session of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, according to a Commerce Department press release. While there, Locke will stress the importance of strong intellectual property rights protection and enforcement around the world. The JCCT, established in 1983, is the main forum for addressing bilateral trade matters and promoting commercial opportunities between the United States and China.
On Tuesday, Locke will deliver a keynote address at an IP forum and meet with university students to discuss the criticality of IP rights for the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. On Wednesday, he will host roundtable meeting with energy companies to discuss opportunities and barriers to entry for U.S. firms in China's clean energy market. Thursday brings the JCCT ministerial meeting with Kirk and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan. For more information click here.
Duke Law School professor Arti Rai quietly reported for work at the Patent and Trademark Office on Monday as administrator for external affairs, according to sources within the agency. Rai, an expert in patent law and legal issues facing the biopharmaceutical sector, will make her maiden speech at an award ceremony for collegiate inventors in Chicago on Tuesday. She will talk about the importance of a strong intellectual property regime, economic recovery and job growth. At PTO, Rai will oversee domestic and international policy and intergovernmental relations and will be a strong voice for the agency as Congress advances legislation to overhaul the U.S. patent system.
Rai has close ties to the administration. She was a classmate of President Obama's at Harvard Law School and served on his transition team as a member of the agency review team on science, technology, space, arts and humanities. Computing Technology Industry Association Director for Global IP Chris Katopis, who previously served as PTO deputy administrator for external affairs, said Rai is a "provocative choice" for the administrator job since she hails from academia, which is seen as "notoriously anti-patent."
The Interactive Advertising Bureau on Thursday called on the FTC withdraw recently issued enforcement guidance regarding the opinions and commentary of bloggers online marketers and others, saying the rules unfairly and unconstitutionally impose penalties on online media for practices in which offline media have engaged for decades. In an open letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, IAB President Randall Rothenberg called the agency's distinction between offline media and online media, "constitutionally dubious."
The FTC this week has been trying to quiet a growing chorus of concern over the guidelines that require bloggers and others to inform consumers when they are paid or given free products to write positive reviews. The rules, which take effect Dec. 1 and were the focus of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in July, were made public last week. FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Associate Director Mary Engle has been doing the rounds with reporters to stress there are ample misconceptions about the guidance. See CongressDaily's coverage here (subscription required).
"What concerns us the most in these revisions is that the Internet, the cheapest, most widely accessible communications medium ever invented, would have less freedom than other media," Rothenberg said. "These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinguish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered." He said the practices have long been afforded First Amendment protections in traditional media but the FTC is saying the same speech deserves less protection online.
The Government Accountability Office on Thursday warned that although NASA has made progress in information technology security controls, "it has not always implemented appropriate controls to sufficiently protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information and systems supporting its mission directorates." The report, which was directed by a 2008 NASA reauthorization bill, said the space agency has not yet fully implemented key activities of its security program to ensure that controls are appropriately designed and operating effectively.
During fiscal years 2007 and 2008, NASA reported 1,120 security incidents that have resulted in the installation of malicious software on its systems and unauthorized access to sensitive information. To address these incidents, GAO reported that NASA established a Security Operations Center in 2008 to enhance prevention and provide early detection of security incidents and coordinate agency-level information related to its security posture.
"GAO's findings remind us that much remains to be done to ensure the security of all of our federal agencies' IT networks," House Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon said in a press release. "Regulation and legislation alone will not suffice. Agencies and departments must follow through with corrective actions to mitigate identified vulnerabilities." NASA generally concurred with GAO's recommendations that the NASA administrator take steps to mitigate control vulnerabilities.
Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos on Thursday urged industry stakeholders and lawmakers to "move together in the spirit of compromise and get patent reform done now." Speaking at the American Intellectual Property Law Association, he pressed the group's members to "show leadership" because "50 years is long enough to wait" for meaningful overhauls to the U.S. patent system. He stressed that "not everyone is getting everything they want" from the bill that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee in April but the measure is a "major positive step" for the life sciences sector, small innovators and the IT industry.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy earlier this month said he wants to work with Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule, before the end of the year, Senate debate his bill. His announcement came as Commerce Secretary Gary Locke indicated the Obama administration's support of the controversial measure. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers introduced a companion bill but it remains to be seen how the bill will evolve and whether it will look similar to the compromise that Leahy brokered with Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Duke Law School professor Arti Rai should be landing at the Patent and Trademark Office any day now to take the reins as administrator for external affairs (see original Tech Daily Dose post here) -- but in the meantime another familiar name has surfaced at PTO. Peter Pappas, who previously served in several capacities in the Clinton administration, has been brought on to head up the agency's communications and public outreach operation.
During the Clinton years, Pappas was associate chief of the FCC's international bureau, developing international telecommunications policy on a broad range of issues, including satellite regulation and licensing, international spectrum management, and third generation wireless standards and licensing, according to a bio. He also served as the State Department's director of communications for economic affairs and at one point was assistant White House counsel.
In September 2000, the Georgetown Law School graduate joined Pappas Telecasting -- which at the time was the largest privately-held, commercial television broadcast group in the United States -- where he served as executive vice president for legal and governmental affairs. He was responsible for overseeing all federal government and federal agency regulatory affairs of the company, including the supervision of all filings before the FCC and other agencies.
In related PTO personnel news, Jefferson Taylor, director of congressional relations, has moved on and a permanent replacement has not been named.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz on Friday urged the public to take steps to protect themselves, their privacy, and their personal information online as part of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. "The Internet has connected Americans to each other and the rest of the world like never before. But those connections can also be exploited by scammers, so consumers need to be alert for online fraud and safeguard their personal information," Genachowski said in a press release. "Consumers should stay alert, recognize the potential risks associated with cyber crimes and take some simple precautions to help reduce their chances of falling victim to scams."
Leibowitz noted his Commission is committed to protecting consumers by stopping con artists from committing fraud online, working to preserve the privacy of consumers' sensitive personal information, and educating people on how to use technology safely and securely through sites like OnguardOnline.gov. The FTC is also committed to working with the FCC to promote consumer protection in the online marketplace, he said. Some tips from the chairmen include: Use security software that updates automatically; keep operating systems and Web browsers up-to-date; keep passwords private and secure; always back-up important files.
Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos reiterated on a call with reporters Tuesday the Obama administration's support of a Senate bill that would make big changes to the U.S. patent system. Kappos said that while no industry stakeholders have gotten exactly what they want out of the measure, "it moves us forward [and] that is better than the status quo." Major high-tech and pharmaceutical companies spent months divided over the bill's handling of how damages are assessed in infringement lawsuits and recent debate has focused on administrative procedures for challenging granted patents.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke wrote to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy on Monday saying the bill "incorporates the essential elements of patent reform," but lawmakers should go further to address related issues as it heads toward the floor. Leahy, whose panel approved the measure in April, said he wants to work with Majority Leader Harry Reid to tee the bill up for a vote before the end of the year. Read more in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
On the same teleconference, Commerce Department General Counsel Cameron Kerry, who is the younger brother of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told reporters that provisions of the Leahy bill are "important to jump-starting the economy again and getting innovation going again." He said the bill is "long overdue" and, if passed, would help the PTO "make the American patent system function the way that it ought to."
The top Republican on a House Science Committee panel thinks the Obama administration is dragging its feet when it comes to pursing its scientific integrity and transparency agendas. Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight ranking member Paul Broun, R-Ga., wrote to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren in July and again Friday requesting details about recent events at several agencies that could reveal "a troubling pattern" of political motives clashing with scientific debate.
Broun requested a plan from the administration to reconcile the discrepancies associated with the events with the administration's principles of scientific integrity and transparency as outlined in President Obama's Jan. 21 and March 9 memos to agency heads. To ensure whistleblower protections, Broun asked for a plan to guarantee that negative employment actions will not be taken against individuals who present information contrary to the administration's policy goals.
"As additional issues regarding scientific integrity continue to mount, I sincerely hope your office's recommendations will ensure this administration's actions will match its rhetoric," Broun added.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pledged an administration-wide effort to combat the growing problem of texting-while-driving on Thursday, noting that President Obama had signed a same-day executive order directing federal employees not to engage in the practice while driving government vehicles or private vehicles on government business. He also outlined a department-wide effort to restrict the use of cell phones and electronic devices by rail, truck, interstate and school bus drivers, according to Fox News Channel.
Speaking at a national distracted driving summit, LaHood said "every time you take your eyes off the road or talk on the phone while you're driving -- even just for a few seconds -- you put your life in danger." LaHood citied National Transportation Safety Board research showing nearly 6,000 people died in crashes in 2008 that involved distracted or inattentive drivers. On any given day last year 800,000 vehicles had someone using a hand-held device at the wheel, the study showed.
Other speakers at the two-day conference included Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who urged the administration and auto and phone industry associations to endorse a bill he introduced in July that asks states to ban texting while driving or risk losing a quarter of their annual federal highway funding. He said texting is more dangerous than drunk driving. Read more about the conference here.
The Justice Department has overhauled Justice.gov and signed on to four of the major social networks -- Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube, the Sunlight Foundation's Jake Brewer pointed out Thursday. The effort shows the agency "is making an effort to connect more strongly with the outside world" and as a result is becoming more transparent, he wrote on an open government listerv. The initiative "can only be helpful when it comes time for the department to determine where its future time and energy will go," he added.
Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos shared with employees on Wednesday a package of proposed initiatives that he hopes will move the agency down the path toward a more efficient examination environment. The pending plan would give examiners more time for a first action on the merits; time for examiner-initiated interviews with lessened credits for requests for continued examination; and providing consistent credits for transferred or inherited amendments.
Process changes would increase work credit certainty for examiners, increase fairness to applicants, and balance the load on IT systems, he said in a PTO newsletter. The proposal, drafted by PTO managers and union representatives, includes measures that will help examiners to do a high-quality first action, and shift resources from a focus on examiner recertification to front-end quality improvements, he wrote. Examiner briefings on the proposal will begin on Monday, Oct. 5.
The Obama administration and the California entity that administers the world's Web addresses inked a deal late Tuesday to extend the formal relationship between the U.S. government and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers hours before an existing contract was set to expire. Under the so-called "affirmation of commitments," ICANN promises to remain a U.S.-based nonprofit and continue its focus on transparency and accountability.
The four page document, which was released Wednesday morning, creates expert panels that will conduct regular reviews of ICANN's work in several areas: network security and stability; the evolution of generic domains such as .com and .net as well as domains not based on the English alphabet; and the continuance of a public database of Web site owners. An accountability panel -- the only one required to have a U.S. government representative -- is also set up under the plan.
In the months leading up to the pact, lawmakers offered a range of recommendations for preserving the link between the ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Among the most prescient was an August letter from Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va.
Tuesday is mid-term review time for the FCC's broadband team and Blair Levin and his colleagues will provide the Commission with a major status report on their plan. They have 141 days left before their deadline to send a national broadband report to Congress and there's still a lot of work to do, Levin said in a blog post. Among his deliverables are specifics on broadband speeds; spectrum and fiber resources; the increasing cost of digital exclusion; and the adequacy of tools available to promote universal broadband.
Meanwhile, National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief Larry Strickling offered an update Monday on the work his agency is doing to facilitate broadband deployment through the disbursement of billions of economic stimulus dollars. He told a crowd in Charleston, W.Va., that NTIA last month received 2,200 applications requesting $28 billion in funding (seven times the amount that officials allocated for the first round of solicitations).
The first NTIA broadband grants will be announced in November and he hopes to complete the first round of awards by the end of the year. Strickling also said his team is contemplating whether to combine the projected second and third rounds of funding into one mega-round. If the rounds are combined, NTIA will release a second notice of funds available by December, with an application deadline of early 2010. The timetable should give all interested parties ample time to file, he said.
Major software and hardware executives will be in Washington on Tuesday to meet with senior Obama administration officials, members of Congress and other policymakers. They are slated to visit Commerce Secretary Gary Locke; Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra; Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra; and high-level officials at the General Services Administration and Department of Homeland Security, according to the Business Software Alliance, the trade group that organized the trip.
On Capitol Hill, the group of CTOs will spend time with House Republican Leader John Boehner; Minority Whip Eric Cantor; House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Darrell Issa; and Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., according to a BSA press release. During their meetings, executives from Adobe, Microsoft, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and others will present a set of principles for government acquisition of technology to maximize choice, competition, and innovation.
"Good technology-neutral policies drive the economy, make businesses more competitive, and help address social concerns such as health care, the environment, education, and security by ensuring an environment in which IT can continue to develop innovative solutions to these issues," BSA President Robert Holleyman said.
Four consumer and privacy groups will ask the Justice Department's top antitrust official on Monday to conduct "a thorough and rigorous examination" of the proposed 10-year advertising agreement Microsoft and Yahoo announced in July. In a letter to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Watchdog and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, argue that the firms have historically operated competing ad-targeting businesses in search, display and mobile advertising, as well as competitive ad exchanges.
"In order to ensure that American consumers and competitors are given the 21st century safeguards they require, both the DOJ and FTC must carefully examine how the proposed
Microsoft/Yahoo agreement will impact the digital marketplace," they write in the letter, which will also be sent to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis. Kohl previously said his panel would closely review the deal. An ad arrangement between Google and Yahoo fell apart in 2008 after regulators warned they would file a lawsuit to block it.
The letter argues that the proposed combination of Microsoft's and Yahoo's search platforms effectively undermines the latter as a meaningful competitor as it gives up its ability to offer marketers a robust search and display combination. DOJ must ask whether the plan is "simply a precursor to the eventual absorption by Microsoft of Yahoo's various advertising holdings" and whether the combination of their data collection, profiling, and targeting technologies could place competitors at a disadvantage, they state.
A member of the Health and Human Services Department's health IT policy committee is urging the agency to revise what she argues is an overly broad and unreliable provision of an otherwise solid interim final rule on data breach notification. The Center for Democracy and Technology's Deven McGraw voiced her concern with reporters earlier this week ahead of a Friday meeting of the health IT policy panel. The HHS rule, which is set to take effect Sept. 24, sets data security standards that the agency believes are strong enough to eliminate the need to notify consumers of a data breach -- but its so-called "harm standard" is sub-par, she said.
The interim final rule, which was issued last month, states that a breach does not occur unless the access, use or disclosure poses "a significant risk of financial, reputational, or other harm to individual." In the event of a breach, the rule requires covered entities to perform a risk assessment to determine if the harm standard is met. If they decide that the risk of harm to the individual is not significant, the covered entities never have to tell their patients that their sensitive health information was breached.
The language was not handed down as part of the $19 billion health IT section of the economic stimulus package and was expressly rejected by House staffers who helped craft the measure, McGraw said. She noted its inclusion by HHS is likely the result of lobbying on the part of the healthcare industry. CDT and its allies favor the approach taken by the Federal Trade Commission in its own data breach mandate, which takes effect the same day as the HHS rule. The FTC version stipulates that if an individual authorized the discharge of data, its release is not considered a breach.
A computer hacker who infiltrated the networks of numerous major U.S. retailers including TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, and Barnes & Noble, pleaded guilty Friday to multiple charges relating to hacking activity and credit card fraud. Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 25 years in prison, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, the Justice Department said. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 8. More than 40 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen from stores as a result of the hacking.
"Consumers must be able to trust that the credit and debit cards they use everyday in thousands of stores around the world are safe from unlawful access," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a statement. Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Michael Loucks added that in the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic growth in the transfer and storage of credit and debit card data on computer networks and it is critical that law enforcement works hard to investigate and prosecute the theft of personal identity data.
In addition to his plea agreement, Gonzalez also consented to an order of restitution for the loss suffered by his victims, and forfeiture of more than $2.7 million as well as multiple items of real estate and personal property, including a condo in Miami, a 2006 BMW 330i, a Tiffany diamond ring and Rolex watches. Included in the forfeited currency is more than $1 million in cash, which Gonzalez had buried in a container in his backyard.
President Obama on Thursday nominated National Institute of Standards and Technology Deputy Director Patrick Gallagher to serve as the agency's top dog. In his current position, Gallagher provides high-level oversight and direction for NIST, which is a branch of the Commerce Department that develops and promotes measurement, standards, and technology. He received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1991 and joined NIST in 1993 as an instrument scientist at the agency's Center for Neutron Research. He later became director of the center where he served until assuming the role of NIST deputy director in 2008.
From 1999 to 2001, Gallagher was a NIST agency representative at the National Science and Technology Council and he remains active in the area of U.S. policy for scientific user facilities and has chaired the Interagency Working Groups on neutron and light source facilities under the Office of Science and Technology Policy, according to a White House personnel announcement. NIST's FY 2009 resources total $1.6 billion, including $819 million in appropriations from the omnibus bill; $610 million from the stimulus package; $48 million in service fees; and $125 million from other agencies.
Balancing national security with military personnel's use of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace is one of the Pentagon's biggest technology challenges, Army Chief Information Officer Jeffrey Sorenson told reporters at a high-tech conference Thursday. Appearing at the Gov 2.0 summit, he characterized the issue as "a point of friction" within the Defense Department -- and a problem that Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Deputy CIO Dave Wennergren is trying to fix.
Wennergren is working on a policy paper to inform agency leadership on how and whether those Web sites, which let those deployed overseas stay in touch with family and friends, should be accessed on the Pentagon's unclassified computer network. His review comes on the heels of an August ban on Facebook and MySpace by the Marines. "It gets down to management of polarities," Sorensen said, noting the open question is how the military can balance operational capabilities and security.
Social networking sites aside, troops on the ground are leading the Pentagon's efforts to embrace super-secure collaborative technologies that give them a tactical edge while enterprise-level offices are trailing behind, Sorenson said. For its part, the Army has "grown up with a very specific ways of conducting operations" but is increasingly aware that publishing pamphlets makes no sense in the digital age where guidance and training documents can be updated and disseminated in real-time, he said.
Privacy watchdogs on Wednesday gave the Obama administration an "incomplete" for consumer privacy; an "A" for medical privacy; a "C+" for civil liberties; and a "B" for cybersecurity. The scores from the Electronic Privacy Information Center and a coalition of consumer, educational, library, labor and technology stakeholders were unveiled at a National Press Club event that organizers hoped would act as an "early warning system" for the administration.
The rankings follow a December push by the Center and the Privacy Coalition for then-President-elect Obama to tackle identity theft, security breaches and the commercialization of personal data. The letter lauded Obama's early commitments to strengthen the FTC, to protect sensitive information and make sure homeland security databases are used in limited ways. A similar evaluation is expected soon from the American Civil Liberties Union.
"The administration has made progress in some areas, but it is clear that there is more to do to address the public concerns about privacy," EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg said in a press release. EPIC Associate Director Lillie Coney said the Obama team can improve its grades by appointing "pro-privacy" commissioners to the FTC; making the work of the Homeland Security Department more transparent; requiring federal agencies to comply with the Privacy Act; and extending the Privacy Act to social networking services.
Read Wednesday's CongressDaily AM Edition for more on the topic (subscription required) and click here for EPIC's full report card.
Duke Law School professor Arti Rai -- an expert in patent law, administrative law and legal issues facing the biopharmaceutical industry -- is expected to be named administrator for external affairs at the Patent and Trademark Office, sources close to the issue told Tech Daily Dose on Tuesday. The position, which has been vacant for some time, oversees domestic and international policy and intergovernmental relations for the agency. Officials at the PTO, Commerce Department and White House officials would not confirm or deny the report.
Rai was a classmate of President Obama's at Harvard Law School and she served as a member of the agency review team on science, technology, space, arts and humanities as part of administration's transition project. Her current research on innovation policy in areas such as green technology, drug development, and software is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Kauffman Foundation, and Chatham House, according to her Duke bio. Rai has testified in the Senate on innovation policy and, before entering academia, clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of California and was a litigation associate at Jenner & Block.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will get an update by Obama administration officials next Thursday on implementation of the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program, Tech Daily Dose has learned. While the panel has not noticed the hearing on finalized a witness list, one might expect officials from the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service to testify. One might also expect those representatives to declare the program's early days a success, given the preliminary figures that have been floated.
The NTIA and RUS said last week that they received almost 2,200 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding for proposed broadband projects across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The initial $4 billion round of grants and loans are aimed at expanding broadband access and adoption to help bridge the technological divide and create jobs building Internet infrastructure. NTIA will utilize $4.7 billion to deploy broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas and other projects while RUS will invest $2.5 billion to facilitate broadband deployment in primarily rural communities.
"Applicants requested nearly seven times the amount of funding available, which demonstrates the substantial interest in expanding broadband across the nation," NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling said in a press release. "We will move quickly but carefully to fund the best projects to bring broadband and jobs to more Americans." RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein added that the overwhelming response "underscores the extensive interest in expanding broadband across the country."
The National Archives is well on its way to loading the electronic records of President George W. Bush into its digitized collection, the agency charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records said Wednesday. To date, more than 85 percent of the total volume has been ingested. The incorporation of Bush administration records is the second stage of five increments planned for the electronic records archives. The Presidential Records Act gives the Archives legal custody of the records and the task of responding to special access requirements at the end of an administration.
On Jan. 20, 2009, when President Obama was sworn into office, the Archives received the Bush records -- and in an unprecedented move, the data was delivered directly to ERA's facilities on storage area network hardware. The transfer was made possible by a partnership between the Archives, ERA contractor Lockheed Martin, and White House IT personnel. In the following months, Archives IT specialists began loading about 77 terabytes of data into the ERA system (roughly 35 times the amount of data received from the Clinton administration).
The project should be complete by late September, officials said in a press release. Use of the system is limited to Presidential Libraries employees who are processing records and responding to special access requests as needed. Presidential records become subject to Freedom of Information Act requests five years after the end of an administration. "Given the volume of electronic records we received from the Bush administration, our ability to have most of our prioritized sets of records available for staff access is a significant achievement," Assistant Archivist Sharon Fawcett said.
The Patent and Trademark Office will undergo a significant change in senior management next month when Commissioner for Patents John Doll retires after 35 years at the agency. Doll, who is responsible for all aspects of the patent granting process, will depart Oct. 2, the agency said Thursday. He previously served as deputy commissioner for patent resources and planning and earlier led a group of examiners who studied organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology patent applications.
New PTO Director David Kappos has nominated longtime agency executive Bob Stoll to become commissioner for patents and has named Peggy Focarino as his deputy. Stoll has spent 27 years at the PTO and Focarino has been with the agency for more than 32 years. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who is responsible for appointing Doll's replacement for a five-year term, expressed support for Stoll's nomination. His deep knowledge of the PTO will make him an important addition to the senior management team, Locke said.
"Working hand-in-hand with Peggy, who has shown incredible skill in patents management and operations, I know they will meet the formidable challenges facing the patent organization, including the need to drastically reduce pendency, improve quality and boost efficiency, all while managing costs in a tough budgetary environment," Kappos said. Early in his tenure, Locke asked the PTO to be aggressive in reducing the time it takes to process patent applications and Kappos has made it a priority.
Almost $2 million in grants for criminal intellectual property enforcement will be sent to law enforcement agencies around the country to improve their ability to investigate, prosecute and prevent intellectual property infringement, the Justice Department announced Thursday. The $1.9 million in grants represent the first wave of funding resulting from the federal Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, which passed Congress and was enacted last year.
"This funding is important in identifying and stopping criminal activity associated with intellectual property piracy. These criminal activities are a threat to our national well being and insult to those who create and develop products, goods and services for the benefit of the general public," said Laurie Robinson, acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs.
The grantees include:
Attorney General's Office, Mississippi ($200,000)
Bronx County District Attorney, New York ($43,718)
Chesterfield County, Virginia ($199,919)
City of Los Angeles, California ($199,995)
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, California ($200,000)
New York City, New York ($200,000)
North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State ($44,485)
National Association of Attorneys General, D.C. ($450,000)
National White Collar Crime Center, Virginia ($450,000)
House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson on Thursday commended Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's announcement of new directives for border laptop searches. "With the change in administrations, there was an opportunity to bring greater accountability and transparency to the practices surrounding searches of electronic devices at the border," he said in a statement. He noted the DHS action, which was announced the same day, seems to reflect provisions in legislation he has been working on with Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif.
The new DHS directives, available at DHS.gov, address the circumstances under which U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can conduct border searches of electronic media -- consistent with the department's constitutional authority to search other sensitive non-electronic materials, such as briefcases and backpacks. The DHS Privacy Office also released a privacy impact assessment in connection with the directives to enhance public understanding of the authorities, policies, procedures and controls employed by DHS during border searches.
The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties will also conduct a civil liberties impact assessment within 120 days. The agency said it conducts border searches of computers and other electronic media on a small percentage of international travelers seeking to enter the United States. Between Oct. 1, 2008, and Aug. 11, 2009, CBP encountered more than 221 million travelers at U.S. ports of entry. Approximately 1,000 laptop searches were performed in these instances -- of those, just 46 were in-depth.
The Homeland Security Department's third large-scale cybersecurity drill in September 2010 will test the national cyber response plan currently being developed by the Obama administration, said industry and government participants in the simulation exercise during a conference on Tuesday. Cyber Storm III will build upon the lessons learned in the two previous exercises that took place in February 2006 and March 2008, and provide the first opportunity to assess the White House strategy for responding to a cyberattack with nationwide impact, according to NextGov.
"The national cyber response plan will be an offshoot of a lot of the findings that came out of Cyber Storm I and II that will formalize the roles and responsibilities," said Brett Lambo, director of the cyber exercises program in DHS' national cybersecurity division. He participated on an afternoon panel at the GFirst conference in Atlanta hosted by the department's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. "It's not a direct cause-and-effect relationship, but a lot of questions bubbled up [from the exercises]," followed by the announcement along with President Obama's 60-day cyber review that a response plan should be developed. Read the full story here.
The Justice Department has approved Oracle Corporation's acquisition of Sun Microsystems and terminated the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, the companies announced Thursday. Sun's stockholders approved the transaction on July 16 and the transaction's closing is subject to certain conditions, including clearance by the European Commission. In April, Oracle announced its intention to buy Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. IBM previously abandoned its bid for the iconic software company, in part, analysts believe because of perceived risk that antitrust authorities, either in the United States or the EU, would reject the deal.
Carole Jett, deputy chief of staff for the Department of Agriculture, on Wednesday became the first current Obama administration official to guest post on one of Google's corporate blogs. Jett's memo, which was featured on Google's enterprise blog and was cross-posted to its public policy blog, highlighted her department's use of an interactive Google map that provides detailed state-by-state information about economic stimulus package spending. The map makes it easy for people to find information about stimulus projects in their part of the country by department, program, or dollar amount.
A spokesman for Google, which has substantial ties to the Obama team, said there were no plans for a formal series of guest blog posts from administration officials but the company occasionally provides a platform for politicians and policy experts to speak their mind. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Robert Kennedy Jr., have recently written content for Google blogs. Similar to Wednesday's post by Jett, Bloomberg highlighted how a Google map can be used to explore the Big Apple. Kennedy, an environmental crusader, wrote about mountaintop removal in 2008.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration transmitted its second quarterly status report to Congress this week highlighting steps being taken to effectively advance the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program that was created as part of the economic stimulus package. The paper, which is dated Aug. 17 but was released publicly Wednesday, focuses on the release of the first notice of funds available; public outreach initiatives; preparations to accept and evaluate applications; and other steps to improve NTIA's organizational readiness.
Up to $1.6 billion in BTOP funds will be available in the first grant round and NTIA is authorized to spend up to $141 million for administrative expenses through Sept. 30, 2010. The agency has hired approximately 80 percent of the federal staff planned for the program, the report stated. To assist with acquisition support, NTIA also entered into an interagency agreement with a division of the Interior Department and on Aug. 3 issued a contract to Booz Allen Hamilton for program development and administrative services. NTIA will provide its next quarterly report to Congress no later than Nov. 16.
Read more about BTOP here.
John Miller, a broadcast journalist who parlayed his expertise on terrorism into a career with local law enforcement and later the FBI, plans to leave the bureau to help lead reform efforts for the intelligence community. According to sources familiar with Miller's plans, he would move to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he'd head up a team devoted to "analytic transformation." It was established in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to improve the ability of analysts to share information across bureaucratic boundaries and to encourage them to use new technologies, such as social networking. Since 2005, Miller has been the FBI's assistant director for public affairs, the bureau's top spokesman. Miller did not respond to e-mails or messages left with his office seeking comment. A spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence said the office had "no personnel announcements to make at this time."
Over the course of his career, Miller has alternated between covering terrorism as a reporter and joining ranks to fight it as a law enforcement official. In the early 1990s, he was one of a few reporters closely following the then nascent Al Qaeda network and its ties to the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. Miller became friends with agents in the FBI's New York field office, particularly John O'Neill, whose career in the bureau was the subject of a PBS Frontline documentary titled "The Man Who Knew," a reference to O'Neill's dogged pursuit of Al Qaeda and its shadowy leader, Osama bin Laden. In 1998, Miller became one of the few western journalists to interview bin Laden in person when he and a cameraman sat down with the terrorist leader in Afghanistan.
GovernmentExecutive.com reports that the Defense Department on Monday unveiled a fresh look for its Web site, focused on increasing two-way communication. The redesigned site is hosted on the new URL Defense.gov and highlights social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter. The primary goal of the makeover, Pentagon officials said, is to engage the public, particularly 18 to 24 year olds. "If we just stick to the traditional ways of communicating, we leave out a huge portion of society," Price Floyd, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs, told the American Forces Press Service, the Defense Department's news service. Read the full story here.
The FTC on Monday issued a final rule requiring certain Web-based businesses to notify consumers when the security of their electronic health information is breached. Congress directed the consumer protection agency to issue the rule as part of the economic stimulus package and it applies to both vendors of personal health records - which provide online repositories that people can use to keep track of their health information - and entities that offer third-party applications for personal health records. Such applications include devices such as blood pressure cuffs or pedometers whose readings consumers can upload into their personal health records, the FTC said.
Many existing health IT services are not subject to the privacy and security requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which applies to healthcare providers such as doctors' offices, hospitals, and insurance companies. The stimulus package required the Health and Human Services Department to conduct a study and report by February 2010, in consultation with the FTC, on potential privacy and security requirements for vendors. In the meantime, the law required the FTC to issue a breach notification rule. Read details about the rule at www.ftc.gov/healthbreach.
On a related note, security expert Christopher Soghoian is leaving Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society to work as a technical consultant to FTC's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection in the Bureau of Consumer Protection. On his personal blog, Soghoian noted "the FTC has a lot of really smart lawyers, but they (currently) lack geek skills." He's an interesting hire given his self-admitted penchant for "railing against the oppressive surveillance state and the numerous privacy invasions committed by the law enforcement and intelligence agencies."
Two Russians and a Florida man were charged Monday in what the Justice Department said was the largest alleged credit card and debit card breach ever. The indictment names 28-year-old Albert Gonzalez of Miami, Fla., and two unnamed co-conspirators based in Russia with hacking New Jersey-based Heartland Payment Systems, Texas-based 7-Eleven, and the Maine-based Hannaford Brothers supermarket chain. They allegedly stole data pertaining to more than 130 million credit and debit cards, officials said.
In the two-count indictment alleging conspiracy and conspiracy to engage in wire fraud, Gonzalez, AKA "segvec," "soupnazi" and "j4guar17" and the two others are charged with using a sophisticated hacking technique called an "SQL injection attack," which seeks to exploit computer networks by finding a way around the network's firewall to steal sensitive information. Gonzalez had previously been charged with swiping data related to 40 million credit cards from retailers including TJ Maxx.
The indictment alleges that beginning in October 2006, Gonzalez and his co-conspirators researched the credit and debit card systems used by their victims; devised a sophisticated attack to penetrate their networks and steal credit and debit card data; and sent that data to computer servers they operated in California, Illinois, Latvia, the Netherlands and Ukraine. If convicted, Gonzalez could face up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud conspiracy and an additional five years on the conspiracy charge, as well as a hefty fine. Gonzalez is currently in federal custody, DOJ said.
NextGov's Bob Brewin reports that:
The top federal panel that sets policies for electronic health records so that a national system can be adopted made recommendations on Friday that would allow multiple organizations to certify electronic record products instead of the one certifying body that exists today. Doctors and hospitals are slated to receive up to $17 billion in stimulus funds to help pay for health information technology systems. But the payments are dependent on doctors using systems that meet "meaningful use" criteria, standards the Health Information Technology Policy Committee is developing.The stimulus package, included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, required the committee to recommend a policy framework for the development and adoption of a nationwide health information infrastructure -- including standards for the exchange of patient medical information and certifications criteria -- to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Health and Human Services Department. Currently, only the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) certifies electronic health records systems.
Read his full post here.
The U.S. government's contracts with Internet companies for video, photo sharing and other Web 2.0 services may have ignored key privacy obligations of federal agencies, according the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the group show that the General Services Administration moved ahead with the agreements even as guidance for President Obama's January open government and transparency directive was delayed.
Google, even after addressing privacy problems associated with the White House's use of embedded YouTube videos, is "still calling the shots on federal privacy policy," EPIC argued in an email. GSA's Google contract asserts that the "provider acknowledges that except as expressly set forth in this agreement Google uses persistent cookies in connection with the YouTube video player." It goes on to state: "To the extent any rules or guidelines exist prohibiting the use of persistent cookies in connection with provider content applies to Google, provider expressly waives those rules or guidelines as they may apply to Google."
In the GSA's contract with Yahoo, which owns photo sharing site Flickr, Yahoo acknowledged that the agency was obligated to follow various "laws and regulations," but there is nothing to indicate that Yahoo would be bound by those same laws and regulations, EPIC said. A review of the documents by EPIC's Lillie Coney, who pursued the FOIA request, also revealed a statement on federal policy banning Internet tracking cookies that mentions a waiver and adds that "policy may change." Further, it is unclear whether contracts signed by the GSA complied with the guidance prepared by the agency's general counsel on "GSA's ventures with social media tools," EPIC said.
The Justice Department under the Obama administration believes that a digital download of a sound recording does not constitute a performance or a public performance, and thus does not justify the imposition of public performance royalties. The government asserted its position in a federal appeals court's review of a 2007 district court decision that rejected the royalty claim by performance rights organization ASCAP.
Digital Media Association Executive Director Jonathan Potter issued a statement Monday saying he was pleased that DOJ has sided with his group, which represents online entertianment services. He argued that PROs have long sought "to stretch current law by asserting that every transmission of a copyrighted musical work is a 'public performance' under the Copyright Act, regardless of whether that work is ever publicly, or even physically, performed."
The court activity comes as PROs along with composers and songwriters urge Congress to legislate the application of public performance rights to downloads of audiovisual works. The groups recently wrote to lawmakers asking for the change as they consider separate proposals to reauthorize expiring provisions of the Satellite Home Viewer Act and bring AM and FM radio in line with Internet, cable and satellite music platforms that pay performers. Read CongressDaily's recent coverage of this topic here (subscription required).
A bipartisan panel of scientific and regulatory experts called on the White House and federal agencies Wednesday to make specific changes to clearly distinguish scientific questions from policy disputes. The report from the Science for Policy Project, which is co-chaired former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and former Science editor Donald Kennedy, was released on the eve of the first meeting for the Obama administration of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The report recommends requiring new information when regulations are proposed by agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, and enhancing the credibility of federal advisory committees to ensure the integrity of science in regulatory policymaking. Many recommendations are relevant to ongoing efforts by agencies to implement President Obama's March memorandum on scientific integrity. The White House has reviewed an interim version of the report to inform forthcoming guidelines on scientific integrity and regulatory reform.
"The fundamental theme of the report is that the administration needs to put in place procedures to try to distinguish science questions from policy questions," Boehlert said in a press release. "Often, policy disputes are cast as fights over science. This damages the credibility of science and obscures the real issues that ought to be debated." The SPP paper coincided with the release of a memo from OMB Director Peter Orszag and Obama's science adviser John Holdren asking agencies to build on federal science and technology priorities reflected in the stimulus package and the FY10 budget in their planning for the next fiscal year.
Read more about the Orszag-Holdren memo in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
President Obama's pick to head the Patent and Trademark Office could be confirmed before the August recess, CongressDaily's AM Edition reported on Tuesday. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has scheduled a Thursday morning business meeting for his panel to vote on IBM Assistant General Counsel David Kappos, tapped by Obama in June to become PTO director and undersecretary for intellectual property at the Commerce Department. The committee, which held Kappos' confirmation hearing Wednesday, is also scheduled to consider three other nominees. If the nomination is approved by the Judiciary Committee, Leahy would have to work with Senate leaders to find time for a floor vote before they leave town Friday.
President Obama's pick to head the National Archives and Records Administration in the increasingly digitized era is David Ferriero, director of the New York Public Libraries -- one of the largest public library systems in the United States and one of the largest research library systems in the world. In his current post, Ferriero is responsible for collection strategy; conservation; digital experience; reference and research services; and education, programming, and exhibitions, according to the White House personnel announcement. The NYPL has 2,600 full-time employees and a budget of $273 million.
The National Archives, best known as the keeper of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, recently unveiled a draft update to its strategic plan through 2016 that includes new ideas for electronic records management and language pertaining to the creation of a new National Declassification Center. In late May, Obama instructed his national security adviser, James L. Jones, to consult with agency heads and submit recommendations to him on how and whether to revise a 1995 executive order that created new standards for classifying government documents. NARA also houses a new office intended to mediate disputes under the Freedom of Information Act.
A high-profile case involving a dispute over Patent and Trademark Office rules announced last fall aimed at increasing patent system efficiency could soon come to a close. The Justice Department on Friday filed a motion with the court handling the case to stay proceedings for the purpose of permitting the new Patent and Trademark Office director to reconsider implementation of the rules, which limit applicants to filing two new continuing applications and one request for continued examination. The change was challenged by drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline and an independent inventor, Triantafyllos Tafas.
Since all parties consented to the motion, it is expected to be granted, Foley & Lardner intellectual property attorney Hal Wegner said in a memo. Even if the case is not settled, oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit are scheduled for Oct. 7, prior to which the new PTO chief could take other actions. IBM executive David Kappos, President Obama's pick to head the PTO, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday then has to be confirmed by the panel and the full Senate. It is uncertain whether the confirmation process could be complete before Congress is scheduled to leave town for August recess next Friday.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, SANS Institute, the Defense Department, universities and private sector partners launched a series of competitions Monday intended to encourage young people to enter cybersecurity-related careers. The goal of the U.S. Cyber Challenge is to find 10,000 scholars to become "cyber security practitioners, researchers, and warriors," CSIS said. The effort was unveiled at a Capitol Hill briefing where National Security Agency Information Assurance Director Richard Schaeffer stressed the importance of recruiting new high-tech talent.
"The pipeline is reasonably robust but it needs to be more robust," he said. "We're talking about tens of thousands of technical professionals." Schaeffer said he wants outreach to occur as early as middle school. "I still want young folks to say I want to be a policeman [or] fireman... but I'd love to hear them saying I want to be a computer scientist... and know what it means," he said. Last week, a report by the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton cited a troubling shortage of skilled cyber professionals and a lack of leadership, planning and coordination within the federal workforce. "This is clearly a place where public-private partnership is essential," he said.
The three cyber challenge components are a "Cyber Patriot" defense competition from the Air Force Association; a DOD competition focusing on cyber investigation and forensics; and a SANS Institute challenge testing mastery of vulnerabilities. Click here (PDF) for the U.S. Cyber Challenge flyer and here to read more about the initiative.
Federal and technology transfer officials believe that using "march-in" authority, which allows agencies to take control of a patent under certain circumstances, could have a chilling effect on government-sponsored research, according to a Government Accountability Office report (PDF) released Monday. The officials told GAO that if a march-in occurred, investors would be less likely to provide the funds to commercialize federal inventions for fear of losing their investments. Also, because the process can be long, a march-in would have limited utility in an emergency situation, they said.
GAO reviewed the departments of Defense and Energy, NASA and the National Institutes of Health to review because they accounted for 89 percent of federal research funding for fiscal year 2006 and none had exercised its march-in authority. DOD, DOE, and NASA have never received information that would lead them to initiate such a proceeding in the last 20 years and NIH has been petitioned formally three times but never pursued a case. DOD, NASA, and NIH said they valued the authority but DOE officials disagreed, in part, because no agency has ever used it.
Until March 2009, the Bayh-Dole Act required GAO to report periodically to determine whether march-in authority should be exercised; how the authority has been used; and what barriers and disincentives have been encountered. The GAO made no recommendations as part of its analysis. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the topic in October 2007. For more details click here.
As Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., urged the Justice Department on Monday to take caution as it investigates a pending merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., sent a stronger message to regulators -- essentially asking that the $2.5 billion all-stock transaction be blocked. Kohl wrote to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney saying she should approve the pairing only if she finds the deal is unlikely to lead to higher prices for consumers or cause substantial harm to competition in the concert ticketing and promotions. Read more on that in CongressDaily's PM Edition (subscription required).
Pascrell, whose letter was signed by more than 40 colleagues, wrote that "consumers, business managers, artists, independent promoters, and music fans in every state are likely to suffer if the merger is allowed to occur." The lawmaker has also urged a federal probe of Ticketmaster since its February sale of tickets for Bruce Springsteen's latest concert tour. Online ticket buyers were redirected by Ticketmaster to its higher priced re-sale site, TicketsNow.com, when the tickets were first offered for sale. He has also introduced a bill intended to bring greater transparency to the ticketing marketplace. The companies have justified the deal on efficiency grounds and argued it will benefit consumers.
In February, the CEOs of Live Nation and Ticketmaster tried mightily to convince skeptical senators that their merger would ultimately benefit performing artists and consumers. The executives argued at a hearing that competitors abound in the concert and ticketing arenas, but the system is broken from an artist and fan perspective. Read coverage of that hearing here (subscription required).
President Obama on Wednesday nominated Dennis Hightower, an entertainment industry veteran, to become deputy secretary at the Commerce Department. Hightower has more than 30 years of experience in global marketing, strategic planning, operations and international general management, according to the White House personnel announcement. Most recently, he served as CEO of Europe Online Networks S.A., a privately held broadband interactive entertainment company based in Luxembourg.
From 1987 to 1996, Hightower led multi-billion dollar enterprises as president of the Walt Disney Company's television and communications operation and president of consumer products for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Hightower also recently served on the boards of directors for Accenture, Domino's Pizza, Lightfleet (a start-up high-tech firm), and Brown Capital Management. He formerly served on the boards of the Gillette Company, Northwest Airlines, PanAmSat Corp., Phillip-Van Heusen Corp., TJX, and as a member of the Price Waterhouse Chairman's Advisory Council.
Additionally, Hightower taught at Harvard Business School, where he focused on leadership, building emerging markets and global general management. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran and was a member of the Defense Business Board. Hightower was an Army officer for eight years, rising to the rank of Major by age 27, according to his bio.
The National Archives and Records Administration has unveiled a draft update to its strategic plan through 2016 and is asking for public input. The document, which lets the agency to take stock of accomplishments, make adjustments for new mission requirements, and propose improvements to performance measures, is open for comments through Wednesday, Aug. 5. As part of the update, NARA details strategies for expanding its leadership in federal records management, including electronic records management, and includes language pertaining to the creation of a new National Declassification Center.
In late May, President Obama instructed his national security adviser, James L. Jones, to consult with agency heads and submit recommendations to him within 90 days on how and whether to revise a 1995 executive order that created new standards for classifying government documents. He also asked Jones to weigh in on his campaign pledge to create a declassification center. NARA's draft plan states that by 2012, 90 percent of agency declassification programs should be earning high scores from the Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees government-wide classification programs.
Read NARA's draft strategic plan here (PDF) and submit comments via e-mail to vision@nara.gov or by fax (301) 837-0319.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and intellectual property rights leaders will release a new report Monday afternoon detailing the impact of copyright on the U.S. economy. The analysis covers the four years through 2007, and was prepared for the International Intellectual Property Alliance -- which represents U.S. music, movie, software and video game industries. Locke will be joined at the event -- which takes place at 12:15 p.m. at the Commerce Department -- by Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman, Entertainment Software Association President Michael Gallagher, and Recording Industry Association of America Chairman Mitch Bainwol, among others. Stephen Siwek of Economists Inc., who prepared the report, will also be present.
In other news, the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Tuesday will explore the feasibility of creating a system under which the legal status and identity of all U.S. workers would be verified using biometrics, such as fingerprints or iris scans. The session kicks off at 2 p.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., plans to introduce comprehensive immigration reform legislation by Labor Day, which would give an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country a path to obtain legal status. Schumer's legislation is expected to include a mandate under which workers would have to participate in a biometric verification system, which could include requiring them to obtain an identification card.
Read a comprehensive list of this week's tech events at CongressDaily's TechCentral page (subscription required).
The Veterans Affairs Department will temporarily halt 45 technology projects with a combined value of $200 million that are either behind schedule or over budget, the agency announced Friday. The worst offender was 110 percent more expensive than planned and 17 months behind schedule. During the coming weeks, the VA will audit all the projects to determine whether additional resources or new management teams can get them back on schedule. If they cannot be fixed, the projects will be canceled, officials said. The VA was able to catch the troubled contracts, in part, due to the Obama administration's new Web-based IT dashboard, which sheds light on the performance of projects across the federal government.
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki ordered a review of the department's 300 IT projects and implementation of an internal program designed to increase the accountability for technology initiatives agency-wide. "VA has a responsibility to the American people, who are investing millions of dollars in technology projects, to deliver quality results that adhere to a budget and are delivered on time." he said. "They need to have confidence that the dollars they are spending are being effectively used to improve the lives of our veterans." Read a blog post on the VA news by White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra here. The announcement is part of a broader administration effort to make the government more transparent, boost accountability and drive better performance, he wrote.
Telecom analyst Jessica Zufolo has left Medley Global Advisors to join the Obama administration as deputy administrator for the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service, which will be run by Jonathan Adelstein, a Democratic member of the FCC for seven years. Under Obama's economic recovery plan, the service will distribute $2.5 billion in loans and grants to spur the deployment of broadband to mostly rural areas. Adelstein, a South Dakota native and former senior aide to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., was warmly received by the Senate Agriculture Committee during his nomination hearing last Tuesday. Read more in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
Before Medley, Zufolo was legislative director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners where she was responsible for developing and executing national legislative strategy and policy on Capitol Hill. Earlier, she worked for the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.; then-Rep. Charles Schumer of New York and Rep. Peter Defazio, D-Ore. In a Sunday e-mail, Zufolo said her first day at USDA is Monday and noted that Medley would fill her position soon to maintain its presence in the telecom sector.
The chief watchdog overseeing stimulus funds on Friday dismissed criticism of the federal government's award of an $18 million contract to a Maryland-based company to overhaul tracking Web site Recovery.gov. Earl Devaney, the top cop at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said critics of the project's price tag have oversimplified the task of rebuilding "the government's largest Web site" in a matter of months, as well as the challenge of putting in place security controls and interconnectivity with a reporting system designed to handle an ocean of spending data.
The contract calls for the spending of $9.5 million by January 2010, with options that would boost the price tag to $18 million by 2014. Republicans circulated messages ridiculing that figure on Thursday, and good government groups bristled at a lack of details about the contents of the procurement deal. Smartronix, Inc. was picked by a GSA-led panel of experts, Devaney said, adding he did not personally participate in the selection process and had "never heard" of the firm before.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is giving "serious attention to the critical responsibilities" of his department's role with respect to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, he told Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in a June 29 letter circulated this week. Nelson and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, wrote to him in May urging Commerce and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to help find "a permanent accountability mechanism to replace the oversight that has historically been provided by the department." ICANN's formal relationship with the U.S. government is slated to expire in September, which has prompted calls for greater scrutiny of the California-based nonprofit on Capitol Hill.
"Given the Internet's importance as a global medium supporting economic growth and innovation, any decision that the department makes with respect to the future of the joint project agreement with ICANN will be guided by the need to continue preserving the security and stability of the Internet's domain name and addressing system," Locke wrote. While ICANN has made progress in the last 10 years, "accountability remains a threshold issue," as recognized by NTIA's call for public comment that ended last month, he said. NTIA also asked stakeholders whether sufficient safeguards are in place to ensure that ICANN's model of private, bottom-up' policymaking is working for everyone involved.
The Intellectual Property Owners Association on Wednesday urged Senate Judiciary Committee leaders to schedule a hearing soon on the confirmation of President Obama's pick for Patent and Trademark Office director, David Kappos. IPO said it is "critical for new management to be put in place as soon as possible" to address the many challenges currently "hindering effective processing of patent applications." The letter said Kappos meets all of the qualifications IPO has recommended for the PTO position in letters to the administration. The PTO, which is funded through user fees and is faced with a lengthy patent application backlog, recently suspended overtime pay for patent examiners and earlier instituted a hiring freeze.
The group told Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions that Kappos, an IBM executive, has an exceptional record in IP law and significant experience in industry as a manager. He has worked within IPO and other associations to improve IP practice and communications with the PTO. Kappos is in line behind Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor whose Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing begins next week. While the agency awaits its new leader, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has appointed Nicholas Godici, a high-ranking Clinton administration patent official, to serve as an expert appointee and liaison between the PTO and Commerce.
This week's crude and fairly ineffective attacks on U.S. and South Korean Web sites were a minor event, network experts said, but could represent a warning shot portending much more serious threats to worldwide communications and commerce on the Internet. James Lewis, a cybersecurity scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted the paradox in the attacks - that they were well-coordinated and broad in scope, but very limited in their aims. If they were the work of the North Korean government or affiliated forces, as South Korean officials suspect, said Lewis, it seems that the real purpose might have been to get the attention of foreign governments. Much like North Korea's missile and nuclear testing, this week's cyberattacks could be part of a diplomatic game aimed at extracting concessions from the United States and Western powers, he speculated.
On the other hand, any number of foreign governments, including North Korea, are capable of much more serious action that could do greater and long-term damage to Internet communications, Lewis said. Robert Beverly shrugged off the reported attacks this week as insignificant, but said that what keeps him up at night worrying is an attack on the domain name system - the computers that translate familiar words like Google into numerical Internet protocol addresses. Beverly, a network computing expert affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that a network of privately-owned computers around the world, known as root name servers, coordinate this activity.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, the only Cabinet secretary to join President Obama on his trip this week to Russia, stressed the need to combat intellectual property piracy and counterfeiting with Russian Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina, although the issue took a backseat to broader issues. "IP is on the agenda, but I wouldn't want to exaggerate its importance in these talks," a senior Commerce official traveling with Locke said Tuesday. Topics like Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, larger rule of law questions surrounding government transparency and import tariffs, and climate change were prioritized. But in same-day remarks at a business summit, Locke lauded Russia's recruitment of U.S. corporations like Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, and Procter & Gamble, all of whom have a huge stake in fighting foreign and domestic IP crime. Locke said the United States and Russia must "increase the openness of our markets to trade and to investment" and during tough economic times remember to "not repeat the historic mistakes of protectionism of previous eras." Locke and Nabiullina will lead a business and economic relations working group under a bilateral commission co-chaired by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition (subscription required).
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Financial Management Subcommittee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del., said sweeping computer attacks that impaired the Web sites of several agencies including the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and the Transportation Department around July 4 demonstrate that the U.S. government needs to be better armed to fight 21st century security threats. News reports late Tuesday and early Wednesday said the attacks were targeted at varying points over recent days, and sites of 11 South Korean organizations were targeted as well. The activity was a possible coordinated assault by North Korea, officials with knowledge of the incidents told various media outlets.
In April, Carper introduced legislation that would bring big changes to the way agencies protect sensitive information. His bill would modernize the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, and empower agency chief information security officers to focus their efforts on monitoring, detecting and preventing cyber intrusions. It would also augment the power of the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team to be proactive before a cyber attack penetrates government networks. "We need to pass this legislation so our federal agencies can stop spending billions of taxpayers' dollars on wasteful paper compliance and instead invest in real security - the kind of security that prevents these types of attacks," Carper said.
The White House still lacks a cyber czar but that's not stopping high-tech hackers. The Associated Press reported late Tuesday that a widespread computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime. Officials told the AP that the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and the Transportation Department's sites were all down at varying points over the weekend and into this week. Some were still experiencing problems or delays Tuesday evening.
The fact that the government sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack, officials told the AP on the condition of anonymity. The weapon of choice was a denial of service attack, which commonly involves saturating the victim machine with a flood of external communications requests that prevent it from responding to legitimate traffic. President Obama in May said he would handpick a cybersecurity enforcement coordinator who would report to the National Economic Council and National Security Council but that position remains vacant despite murmurs about potential candidates.
Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told Tech Daily Dose that her agency was aware of the attacks on federal and private sector public-facing Web sites and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team has issued a notice to agencies as well as other partner organizations, on this activity and advised them of steps to take to help mitigate against such attacks. "We see attacks on federal networks every day, and measures in place have minimized the impact to federal Web sites," she said. "US-CERT will continue to work with its federal partners and the private sector to address this activity."
The House late Tuesday passed legislation under suspension of the rules that would authorize the Patent and Trademark Office to use money statutorily cordoned off for its trademark portfolio to pay for patent-related work. The PTO, which is funded through user fees and is faced with a lengthy patent application backlog, recently suspended overtime pay for patent examiners and earlier instituted a hiring freeze. PTO officials have said the loan is justified because the trademark budget has a massive surplus. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers's bill and a companion measure sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy are intended to stave off potential furloughs and reductions-in-force. Under the Conyers bill the PTO could use trademark funds made available for fiscal year 2009 of up to $70 million to support the processing of patents and related activities. The measure would also establish a surcharge to repay those funds. The PTO would have until June 30, 2010 to use the authority and the surcharge would take effect no later than Sept. 30, 2011 with all funds being repaid by Sept. 30, 2014. Worth noting: The Leahy bill doesn't assign a specific dollar amount.
The Government Accountability Office is the latest federal agency to embrace video sharing community YouTube and micro-blogging platform Twitter with the goal of helping users of such Web sites stay informed about the work of the investigative arm of Congress. "GAO is always exploring ways to use innovative practices and emerging technologies to carry out its mission," Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said in a press release. "While we've made extensive use of the Internet for some time, posting material on YouTube and Twitter offers new possibilities to inform people about our efforts to promote accountability and transparency in federal programs and operations."
The GAO has posted many of its videos, including those from its economic stimulus and presidential transition Web pages on its YouTube channel. The main featured video is "More Than Numbers," a recruitment reel based on news coverage of GAO's work. The office is also providing links back to underlying reports or testimony to assist viewers interested in reading more about the agency's findings, conclusions, and recommendations. Through the Twitter account, individuals will be alerted when a GAO product is issued. The agency has created two Twitter feeds, one for reports and testimony and another for legal products. More than 50 federal agencies and a growing number of lawmakers now use Twitter to send and read each others' updates.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has named a high-ranking Clinton administration patent official to serve as an expert appointee whose job will be to assist the new Patent and Trademark Office director and act as a liaison between the office and the Commerce Department, which houses the PTO. Nicholas Godici served for five years as commissioner for patents, acting under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the PTO and got his start as at the agency as an examiner 30 years earlier. His term in the Obama administration is limited to 180 days. IBM executive David Kappos was tapped to become head of the PTO last month but must be confirmed by the Senate. He is in line behind Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor whose Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing begins Monday.
Godici, who has been a top advisor to Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch, LLP since 2005, could be a valuable asset at PTO as the agency struggles to avoid budget cuts and furloughs. The office, which is funded through fees collected from its users, recently suspended overtime pay for patent examiners and earlier this year instituted a hiring freeze. Lawmakers have introduced legislation that would let the PTO's patent division borrow money from its trademark portfolio, which has a multi-million dollar surplus. A House bill sponsored by Judiciary Chairman John Conyers is scheduled for a floor vote under suspension of the rules late Tuesday. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has introduced a companion measure in his chamber.
Godici was on Capitol Hill in December where he spoke at a Computing Technology Industry Association event that focused on the future of the PTO. Watch a video of that briefing here. Other panelists included Gerald Mossinghoff, Bruce Lehman, and Q. Todd Dickinson, all former leaders at the PTO.
A two-year-old effort by Internet and government transparency activist Carl Malamud and the National Technical Information Service to post oodles of videos online for use in the public domain has become the one of the most popular YouTube channels of the U.S. government. The FedFlix program ran for a year and it was so successful that the project agreement was amended so NTIS now sends Malamud and his team at Public.Resource.Org a minimum of 100 tapes a month. In addition to those, Malamud has systematically written every other agency he could find and paid for DVDs or asked for videotapes. For example, he has about 60 hours of valuable training material from the Federal Aviation Administration, reels from the Mine Health and Safety Administration, and a slew of Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety videos.
All told, Malamud says he has posted 1,000 videos online, including original Walt Disney, John Ford and James Cagney films as well as content from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Army and Air Force, the Smithsonian Institution and many others. The videos can be found on YouTube for casual viewing; on the Internet Archive Web site, where users can burn their own DVDs; and at Bulk.Resource.Org as raw data so individuals can create their own stock footage library of public domain material. Most of the content is from the federal government but Malamud has added videos from Washington, Illinois and a few other places. A California state agency wrote him this week offering 17 DVDs filled with material.
Watch several of Tech Daily Dose's favorite flicks after the jump...
The Library of Congress, which preserves and makes available to the public more than 138 million books, photographs, maps, sound recordings, films, and other material in 470 languages, is undergoing a massive transformation thanks to the digital revolution -- and that point is not lost on lawmakers. The Senate on Monday approved a FY 2010 spending bill that would provide the institution with $8.5 million to update its information technology infrastructure. The library's overall budget under the legislative branch appropriations package would be $638.5 million, which is $31.5 million higher than 2009 and $19.8 million below President Obama's request. The House passed its own version of the bill last month, which provided $7.3 million for "digital collections and educational curricula."
"While less than the full request, the amount recommended is sufficient for LOC to embark on upgrades to its content delivery, content management and core technology," a Senate Appropriations Committee report from last month stated. The panel said it expects the library to update its digital strategy to ensure IT investments are targeted appropriately. The report pointed out that while a preliminary digital strategy has been developed, it does not represent an integrated, library-wide plan for digitization. Appropriators called on the institution to "incorporate key stakeholder views on the extent to which the library should make its collections available digitally."
The Veterans Affairs Department would get $3.3 billion for IT projects to develop electronic health care records, paperless claims systems, and seamless integration of medical and service records with the Department of Defense under the agency's FY 2010 spending bill that passed a key Senate Appropriations subcommittee Monday. Subcommittee passage clears the way for the bill to be considered by the full panel later this week. The broader $133.9 billion bill, which also covers military construction, includes more than $76.7 billion in discretionary funding -- $439 million over President Obama's budget request in discretionary funding. Under the measure, military construction would get $23.2 billion and $53 billion in discretionary funding would go to the VA. A companion bill that passed the House Appropriations Committee last month asks for the same amount for high-tech investments, mirroring Obama's request. "We have done our best to address both the needs of the military and our veterans in this legislation. I remain committed to keeping our promises to our veterans and honoring them by ensuring they receive the care they deserve and require," said Sen. Tim Johnson, D, S.D., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs Subcommittee.
The Justice Department has formally acknowledged an investigation into Google's settlement with publishers over its effort to digitize mass quantities of books. The New York Times and others have reported that Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Cavanaugh wrote to the federal judge administering the settlement, stating: "The United States has reviewed public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement agreement may violate the Sherman Act... At this preliminary stage, the United States has reached no conclusions as to the merit of those concerns or more broadly what impact this settlement may have on competition. However, we have determined that the issues raised by the proposed settlement warrant further inquiry."
The $125 million agreement was signed in October to resolve a 2005 class action lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers against the Internet giant. In the complaint, the authors and publishers said Google's plan to digitize millions of books from libraries and make them available in its Book Search service amounted to a whopper of a copyright violation. The settlement would let Google display books online and profit from them by selling access to titles and by selling subscriptions to its collection. Authors and publishers would get a chunk of the revenue. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin set a Sept. 18 deadline for the government to offer its views in writing. He has scheduled an Oct. 7 hearing on the settlement.
Daniel Weitzner will be the next chief of the policy office at the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, according to government sources. Weitzner served as a technology advisor to President Obama's campaign for president. He has been involved in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-directs MIT's Decentralized Information Group with Internet expert Tim Berners-Lee. Weitzner was a founder and deputy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology and has also been a senior staff counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Weitzner was among the first to advocate user control technologies such as content filtering and rating to protect children and avoid government censorship of the Internet, according to his bio on W3.org, the World Wide Web Consortium. His arguments played a critical role in the 1997 Supreme Court case Reno v. ACLU, awarding strong free speech protections to the Internet. Weitzner successfully advocated for adoption of amendments to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act creating new privacy protections for online transactional information such as Web site access logs. -- Winter Casey
Regina Dugan will soon return to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon but this time she'll be in the driver's seat. Dugan, whose first tour at DARPA lasted from January 1996 until May 2000, will be the agency's 19th director and the first woman to hold the job. Her start date has not yet been announced. Prior to the appointment, she held several key positions in industry, most recently as president and CEO of RedXDefense -- a company she founded in 2005 that specializes in technologies to defend against explosive threats. She has also served in senior positions for several firms with roles ranging from global sales to research and product development.
At DARPA in the late 1990s, Dugan won an agency award for her leadership of the "Dog's Nose Program," which led to the development of a field-portable system for detecting the explosive content of land mines. She is also the recipient of the deFleury Medal, the office of the secretary of defense award for exceptional service, and the award for outstanding achievement. She has participated in wide-ranging studies for the Defense Science Board, the Army Science Board, the National Research Council and Science Foundation, and sits on the Naval Research Advisory Committee and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Science and Technology Panel, according to a press release.
"Regina Dugan is precisely the dynamic leader DARPA needs to open new technology frontiers and transition revolutionary technologies to serve our nation's interests," said Zachary Lemnios, director of Defense Research and Engineering. "I am delighted she will be leading this agency and look forward to working closely with her." Lemnios, who was sworn in Thursday, joined the Obama administration after serving as chief technology officer of the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He previously served as head of DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office, which is responsible for setting the agency's strategic vision and technical plans.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce Department are heartened by Tuesday reports that the Chinese government is indefinitely postponing a mandate requiring all personal computers sold and manufactured in the country include a controversial Internet filtering program. "We understand that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is delaying the implementation of the Green Dam software requirement. The United States welcomes the opportunity to engage with the relevant Chinese authorities on our concerns regarding the software," the agencies said in statement. The rule would have taken effect July 1.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke wrote to China last week arguing the government's plan could run afoul of World Trade Organization obligations. Their joint letter also laid out for Industry and Information Technology Minister Li Yizhong and Commerce Minister Chen Deming the fears raised by high-tech firms, Chinese citizens and media about the software's stability, the scope and extent of filtering, and potential security weaknesses. China is putting companies in "an untenable position" in its stated attempt to safeguard children from inappropriate content, they wrote. [Read more in CongressDaily here]
High-tech groups cheered the news. "This shows that when U.S. trade officials get involved, they get results," Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said. "For too long, companies have been left on their own to negotiate with other nations. Companies don't want to be caught in the middle. You need governments to fight governments." Black went on to say the Green Dam flap is part of a larger struggle between openness and repression -- not just in China but Iran and North Korea. He called for the U.S. government to negotiate Internet openness and freedom issues as part of future trade and other international agreements.
The Obama administration could ask Congress for regulatory changes to create "far-reaching incentives" for prioritizing cybersecurity in the private sector, which controls much of the nation's critical IT infrastructure, a high-ranking Department of Homeland Security official said Thursday. Acting Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications Michael Brown said a range of proposals are being considered by the White House and the department as their cybersecurity plan unfolds. The department is moving quickly to ramp up its cyber processes, Brown told an Armed Forces Communication & Electronics Association conference. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's selection of under secretary Philip Reitinger to head the National Cybersecurity Center this month, was another step forward, he said. Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
In related news, Reitinger spoke about cybersecurity to a standing-room-only crowd at Google's Washington office on Friday. He was joined by Senate Commerce Committee Chief of Staff Ellen Doneski; TechAmerica Vice President Liesyl Franz; Defense Information Systems Agency Chief Information Assurance Executive Richard Hale; and Christopher Painter, director of cybersecurity for the National Security Council.
The Senate on Thursday confirmed two FCC commissioners and a Commerce assistant secretary. Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, will be the chairman of the FCC, replacing Republican Kevin Martin, who resigned this year. Genachowski is a Harvard Law School classmate of President Obama's and was chief counsel to Clinton-era FCC chief Reed Hundt. Republican Robert McDowell was confirmed as an FCC commissioner. Lawrence Strickling was confirmed as assistant secretary of Commerce for Communications, and will head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps congratulated Genachowski, saying he "brings just the right blend of talent, experience and dedication to lead the FCC toward the more active role it must play if all our citizens are to enjoy the blessings and bounties of 21st century communications." He also lauded McDowell's confirmation, saying he values his
"friendship, his collegiality, and the dedicated way he goes about his work." Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison said she was pleased "we are two steps closer toward a complete FCC panel."
Obama also nominated Meredith Attwell Baker to fill a Republican slot on the FCC on Thursday. The daughter-in-law of former Secretary of State James Baker is the former acting assistant secretary of the NTIA in the Bush administration. Obama previously nominated Mignon Clyburn, the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, to fill a Democratic FCC commissioner slot. The younger Clyburn, a member of the South Carolina Public Utilities Commission, is an expert on energy issues.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions came to the rescue of the Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday night when they introduced a bill that will allow the agency to use funds designated for its trademark portfolio to be used to address its growing backlog of patent applications. The trademark budget, which is statutorily untouchable, has a $60 million-$70 million surplus. CongressDaily reported this week that Commerce Department and PTO officials had been making the rounds on Capitol Hill to let key lawmakers know how the office was struggling in the recession and offering up legislative ideas like the loan plan.
The PTO, which is funded through fees collected from its users, suspended overtime pay for patent examiners effective Sunday and earlier this year instituted a hiring freeze amid a slump in the number of patent applications filed. Under the bill, the PTO can make use of the money "to support the processing of patents and other activities, services, and materials relating to patents" if the office's director certifies to Congress the use of funds "is reasonably necessary to avoid furloughs or a reduction-in-force." The borrowed money would have to be put back in the trademark basket no later than Sept. 30, 2011.
If the agency and lawmakers deem the situation urgent enough, the bill could advance without a new PTO director in place. IBM executive David Kappos, President Obama's pick for the job, was only named last week and has to trudge through the confirmation process presumably after Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is considered. John Doll is acting director. Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee on Wednesday approved its FY10 spending bill, giving the PTO full funding at $1.9 billion. Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said the allotment could help attack the backlog in patent applications.
Update: A Leahy aide on Thursday said the bill did not get introduced Wednesday night but could move soon.
A high-tech watchdog group filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department on Wednesday demanding the public release of the surveillance guidelines that govern investigations of Americans by the FBI. The protocols took effect in December 2008 and detail the bureau's procedures and standards for implementing the attorney general's guidelines on approved surveillance strategies. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's complaint comes after DOJ failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for a complete copy of the document. FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni has acknowledged that "the expansion of techniques available [to the bureau] has raised privacy and civil liberties concerns."
Investigations can include the electronic collection of information from online sources and computer databases, as well as the use of grand jury subpoenas to obtain telephone and e-mail subscriber information, EFF said in a press release. Other recent policy changes allow the FBI to engage in free-ranging investigation of Internet sites, libraries, and religious institutions, the group said. "Americans have the right to know the basic surveillance policies used by federal investigators and how their privacy is -- or is not -- being protected," EFF senior counsel David Sobel said. Read EFF's full complaint to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia here.
Update: An FBI spokesman would not comment on the lawsuit but said: "It is the FBI's job to protect Americans, not only from crime and terrorism, but also from incursions into their constitutional rights. That effort starts with the FBI's commitment to scrupulously protect privacy rights of civil rights and civil liberties in the course of its investigations."
CongressDaily's AM Edition on Wednesday reports that the Patent and Trademark Office is asking Congress to help stabilize the agency, which is facing a substantial decrease in the number of patent applications filed. Acting Director John Doll broke the news to employees in a Tuesday memo. The agency, which is funded through fees collected from its users, this week suspended overtime pay for patent examiners and this year instituted a hiring freeze. All of this has been done with an eye toward avoiding furloughs. "We're now putting forward a number of different options to bridge any possible gaps, and we'll also be soliciting ideas from members of Congress," Doll wrote, acknowledging that in the recession, fee collection could continue to decline. With the support of Commerce Secretary Locke, the PTO is seeking additional cost reduction measures that would save an additional $20 million in FY09, he said. Click here to read the story (subscription required), which details some of the options floated to aides for key lawmakers. The Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to consider the FY10 appropriations bill, which funds the PTO, later today.
High-tech efforts to publicize President Obama's June 4 speech in Egypt aimed at forging a new relationship with the Muslim world exceeded organizers' expectations so the administration is planning a similar outreach attempt next month, a State Department official said Monday. Obama will give a speech while in Ghana July 10 and 11, which will be his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office. Victor Riche, who heads State's IT office, said the White House will again transmit the talk via text message in multiple languages. "I'm sure we'll double, triple, or quadruple the text messaging," he said of the Ghana event. The Cairo speech was translated into 14 languages on America.gov and spurred a flood of activity on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Riche told a Homeland Security Department privacy and technology workshop that the State Department has been a leader in embracing the Internet to broadcast the country's diplomatic message and engage in an international dialogue. Following on an array of webcasts, digital video presentations, social networking and forays into the virtual world Second Life, the agency is planning even more tech-savvy projects under the leadership of Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale. Some staffers were plucked from Riche's office last week and placed in a new unit where they will focus on social media, he said. "The department is moving forward in a big way in this area," he said, noting that technology is "the perfect complement to public diplomacy."
Riche, who spoke on a panel with representatives from DHS, the Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Academy of Public Administration, said he is working with McHale and others on formulating formal rules for social media use at the State Department. That guidance should be finalized next month, he said. Look for more coverage from the DHS summit in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
National Journal's latest issue is a bit bigger than normal. That's because it's devoted to profiles of 366 of the top officials in the Obama administration -- from high profile personalities like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Hillary Rodham Clinton to deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, and chiefs of staff at various Cabinet agencies. Here's a sampling of tech and telecommunications dossiers in Decision Makers 2009:
• John Holdren / White House
• Aneesh Chopra / White House
• Vivek Kundra / White House
• Macon Phillips / White House
• Jesse Lee / White House
• Gary Locke / Commerce
• Larry Strickling / Commerce
• Julius Genachowski / FCC
• Michael Copps / FCC
• Robert McDowell / FCC
• Mignon Clyburn / FCC
• Jon Leibowitz / FTC
• Roger Baker / VA
• Arden Bement / NSF
• Tara O'Toole / DHS
High-tech and healthcare stakeholders monitoring the implementation of economic stimulus package provisions intended to spur a nationwide network of electronic health records will have their first look Tuesday at what might constitute "meaningful use" of health IT products. A subgroup of the Health and Human Services Department's health IT policy committee will unveil a report on the topic and the full panel will deliberate. The paper will also be released for a formal public comment period and recommendations will ultimately be sent to David Blumenthal, the Obama administration's health IT coordinator. Final HHS guidance will let healthcare providers know how they can qualify for incentives included in the $19 billion section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
In related news, President Obama spoke on Monday about the importance of moving away from a paper-based healthcare system. He told the annual meeting of the American Medical Association it does not make sense that patients in the 21st century are "still filling out forms with pens on papers that have to be stored away somewhere." "As Newt Gingrich has rightly pointed out -- and I don't quote Newt Gingrich that often -- we do a better job tracking a FedEx package in this country than we do tracking patients' health records," Obama said. He went on to say that patients should not have to tell every new doctor about their medical history nor should they have to endure repeats of costly tests. "All that information should be stored securely in a private medical record," he said.
CongressDaily's Chris Strohm writes in TechCentral's latest Issue Of The Week that House appropriators have approved most of what the Obama administration requested for Homeland Security technology programs and even gave it credit for "some hard decisions" not to seek money for certain efforts. By the time they voted Friday to send to the House an FY10 Homeland Security spending bill with $42.6 billion in discretionary spending, it was clear the Democratic-led Appropriations Committee is far more closely aligned with the Obama administration than it was with the Bush administration in the previous Congress. Floor action on the bill is expected this week.
In a report accompanying the bill, the committee commended the department for such budget decisions as not seeking funding for advanced cargo scanning technology and an electronic system to verify when foreigners leave the country. But no budget request goes through Congress unscathed. When appropriators disagreed with administration decisions, they didn't hesitate to say so. "The committee understands the demanding nature of the department's mission, as well as resources and technology limitations that make it difficult to consistently satisfy the wide range of expectations from Congress, state and local governments, industries, citizens, other federal departments and foreign governments," appropriators wrote.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
NextGov.com's Jill Aitoro writes that the Homeland Security Department's science and technology office plans to triple spending on cybersecurity research and development. The acting undersecretary told Congress Tuesday that most of the additional funds in President Obama's fiscal 2010 budget request are focused on new ways to protect the nation's critical infrastructure, including transportation and the electric grid. The Directorate for Science and Technology, which is the primary research and development arm of DHS, requested $968 million for fiscal 2010, a 3.8 percent increase over the previous year's enacted budget. Of the $35 million in additional funds requested, DHS would earmark $5.4 million for cybersecurity, Brad Buswell, the directorate's acting undersecretary, told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism.
Buswell said cybersecurity would gain a 300 percent funding increase, compared with fiscal 2009, for the development of "leap-ahead technologies" that secure the nation's computer networks and information infrastructure -- including energy, transportation, telecommunications, and banking and finance. Pointing to the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate as the office's primary customer for cybersecurity technologies, Buswell emphasized the need for coordination with the private sector to ensure the department's research and development doesn't overlap with work in industry. "The work we're doing [in cybersecurity] is work that the private sector is not doing for a number of reasons," he said. "But we're very mindful of the fact that we don't deploy the technology -- we develop the technology. Much of this is deployed by private sector, so we need to keep them closely involved in all development to make sure we're not duplicating efforts."
Read the full story here.
Former American Library Association legislative counsel Miriam Nisbet has been tapped to become director of a new office within the National Archives and Records Administration that will mediate disputes under the Freedom of Information Act. Congress created the Office of Government Information Services in 2007. Nisbet most recently served as the director of the information society division at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), where she worked on issues of global access to information and digital libraries. She also served as secretary of the Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Programme. Nisbet previously worked at NARA from 1993 to 1999 where she first occupied the post of special assistant to the Archivist of the United States and then special counsel for information policy.
She was staff attorney at the National Association of Attorneys General in the late 1970s before joining the Department of Justice from 1978 to 1994 where her past position was deputy director of the Office of Information and Privacy. "While the federal FOIA mediator's office is still a long way from mediating its first FOIA dispute, it took a strong step forward today with the naming of its new director," said Sunshine in Government Initiative coordinator Rick Blum whose group represents nine associations that work for openness and transparency in government. "She's a long-time advocate for open government, and this is a promising start for those who want the FOIA to work better."
Privacy watchdogs have long questioned whether U.S. Customs and Border Protection policies permit agents to search laptops and other electronic devices of travelers without suspicion of wrongdoing and now the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to find solid answers. On Wednesday, the group filed a Freedom of Information Act with CBP, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, to learn how the agency's search policy, first made public in July 2008, is impacting international travelers' constitutional rights. According to the ACLU's request, giving the government unchecked authority to search travelers' personal documents and devices is a violation of Fourth Amendment privacy rights and the First Amendment freedoms of speech, inquiry and association.
The ACLU FOIA request seeks records related to: CBP's authority to search, review, retain and disseminate information possessed by individuals who are encountered by CBP at the border; the number of documents or electronic devices retained by CBP; the length of retention, reasons for retention and the ultimate disposition of retained material; and the dissemination of documents or electronic devices throughout DHS, other agencies, or to entities outside government. The FOIA also asks for complaints filed by individuals or organizations affected by CBP's search policies; statistics reflecting the number of travelers subject to suspicionless searches; and statistics reflecting the race, ethnicity, country of origin, citizenship and gender of individuals subjected to suspicionless searches.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced in January that she was reviewing a range of immigration and border security policies and in May said clarification is needed with respect to the laptop issue. She said a team at DHS will "issue pretty firm guidance and protocol for how you conduct a laptop search," but noted that in the course of the few laptop searches that actually have been done, agents have found significant criminal activity. "We are a global society, people going from country to country all the time, they're crossing the border, they need to take their laptops to do business, we need to have a better policy that takes into account some of those IP concerns, some of the privacy concerns. That's what we're drafting now," Napolitano said.
Susan Crawford, special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation policy, warned a federal advisory committee on Internet child safety on Thursday to be wary of several pitfalls as they begin their work. "Be reluctant to engage in overstated or overheated rhetoric. This issue makes tempers run high," Crawford told the inaugural meeting of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Online Safety and Technology Working Group. In offering what she called an "administrative benediction," Crawford urged them to beware of three pitfalls:
• Avoid exaggerated statements about the risks to kids online. "There are risks but these risks may not be more significant from risks they face offline. The risks are far more subtle than popular media would have us believe," she said. Crawford also urged the panel to steer clear of anecdote and focus on concrete evidence "and what we know is happening to kids." Additionally she warned them not to demonize the Internet, which is the locus of enormous economic growth.
• Pay attention to legal precedent. "There's been lot of litigation in this area," Crawford said. "You should avoid insensitivity to constitutional concerns that have given rise to those cases." The past 13 years have seen a multitude of challenges to the Communications Decency Act and the Children's Online Protection Act, which led to the striking down of portions of those laws.
The State Department on Wednesday afternoon will host the first ever U.S. government-sponsored Technology, Entertainment, Design, or TED, event. Speakers include social-media analyst Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody; philanthropist Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of the Acumen Fund; futurist Stewart Brand, author of the Whole Earth Catalog; economist Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion; and data visionary Hans Rosling, Karolinska Institutet Professor of International Health. Ambassador Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, State's Special Representative for Global Partnerships, will introduce the speakers, and Chris Anderson, curator of TED, will moderate a question-and-answer session. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton launched the Global Partnership Initiative on April 22, which seeks to establish public-private partnerships with foundations, businesses, non-governmental organizations, universities, and faith communities. TED is an annual invitation-only event in Long Beach, Calif., that began in 1984 where the world's leading thinkers and doers are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). First Lady Michelle Obama and former Vice President Al Gore have both given recent TED talks. Video from the State Department event will be posted on the TED Web site, www.TED.com.
The Justice Department said this week it will give a one-year extension to states and other jurisdictions struggling to comply with technology-related provisions of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, which was included in a larger 2006 child protection bill that set a July deadline for adherence. States have complained about signification costs and unforeseen difficulties in implementing the law and without the extension, some jurisdictions would have faced financial penalties. To date, no state has met the requirements mandated in the law and are experiencing mounting funding concerns amid the economic downturn, according to a press release by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy. The law permits up to two one-year extensions by DOJ.
Leahy joined with Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder in March urging him to extend the deadline -- a move that was supported by champions of the statute including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Part of the problem was that the DOJ office charged with writing the final rules did not make them available until June 2008. "Everyone wants to strengthen the tools and resources available to law enforcement to protect our children," Leahy said in a Tuesday statement. "Vermont and other states across the country are working to comply... This much-needed extension will provide needed time to meet those requirements."
The FCC has cleared the decks for a Wednesday public meeting slated to focus solely on the final phase of the nationwide shift to digital television signals on Friday, June 12 -- nine days after the FCC session -- when more than 900 stations will cut their analog transmissions. In a replay of previous agency meetings addressing the same topic, federal officials, broadcasters, advocacy groups and other stakeholders will provide status reports about the switchover. The meeting kicks off at 9:30 a.m. at FCC headquarters.
Meanwhile, the buzz over the Obama administration's Friday release of its comprehensive cybersecurity review continues this week -- initially with a noon briefing today sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. Panelists will discuss the report, the role of the forthcoming White House "cyber czar" and the potential challenges in implementing the recommendations coming out of the White House review. Included on the panel are former Homeland Security Department Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker; James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman; Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology; and Marcus Sachs of Verizon.
The White House cybersecurity report will also be the subject of discussion and debate at the 19th annual Computers Freedom and Privacy conference this week. Attendees will hear from Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy and a member of the National Economic Council -- who appears Tuesday. Other panels at the conference -- which runs through Thursday at George Washington University's Marvin Center -- will address issues including privacy, health IT, cloud computing, and Web safety. The conference also features a keynote by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark as well as officials from the FTC and FBI.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has spruced up its Internet presence with the launch of a Web site that has a fresh look and a focus on providing more information to the public about the Obama administration's trade policy initiatives. The site features a blog and an interactive map that will track USTR Ron Kirk's global travel as well as pages on geographical areas, trade agreements, and key trade issues with interactive tools to allow for easier public participation. Americans will also have the opportunity to submit their trade questions and trade stories to Kirk through an "Ask the Ambassador" initiative. A social networking component is forthcoming, officials said in a press release. Kirk issued a statement saying one of his goals as USTR is to use technology to connect directly with citizens and the agency's site will help accomplish that while fulfilling the president's commitment to create a transparent, participatory and collaborative government.
The globalization of criminal networks and advances in technology have made international criminal organizations a significant threat to the safety and security of the nation, Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday upon announcing the creation of a new International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center. The IOC-2 will marshal the resources and information of nine U.S. law enforcement agencies, as well as federal prosecutors, to collectively combat the threats posed by global gangs to domestic safety and security. Holder made the announcement in Rome at the G8 Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial. "We are answering that threat by developing a 21st century organized crime program that will be nimble and sophisticated enough to combat the danger posed by these criminals for years to come," he said.
Understanding that international criminal rings are profit-driven, IOC-2 will establish a team of financial experts to serve as consultants and identify opportunities and strategies to employ forfeiture as a means of disrupting targeted criminal organizations. The team will coordinate multi-jurisdictional forfeiture strategies and assist agents in the field in obtaining the necessary resources, such as financial auditors, investigators and forfeiture attorneys, to employ the strategy, according to a DOJ press release. Holder also emphasized the importance of continued cooperation with foreign law enforcement through existing police-to-police and mutual legal assistance mechanisms. The creation of IOC-2 will make the United States a more effective partner for joint investigations and prosecutions, he said.
The intellectual property policy parlor game of guessing who the next Patent and Trademark Office director will be has zeroed in on several names in recent months -- Q. Todd Dickinson, who already ran the agency under former President Bill Clinton; David Kappos, who is vice president and assistant general counsel for IP at IBM; and Jim Pooley, a Silicon Valley lawyer who was recently nominated to become deputy director of the World Intellectual Property Organization. But with Pooley effectively out of the mix, another name has bubbled to the surface: Doug Luftman, associate general counsel for Sunnyvale, Calif. smartphone manufacturer Palm.
Luftman has at least one cheerleader in Congress, Rep. Michael Honda, D-Calif, vice-chair of the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee, who wrote to the White House director of presidential personnel recommending him for the job. Although the letter was not made public, a spokesman for Honda said his boss believes Luftman's key asset "is his knowledge of the patent process from idea to product." Luftman has followed the product development process from the industry viewpoint at Palm and before that as general counsel of Caspian Networks; at CIENA Corp., and at Intel. He also worked for Fenwick & West's Silicon Valley office. Honda's aide said Luftman "recognizes the disarray" of the PTO and has management experience that could help.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday the results of the Obama administration's 60-day review of the federal government's cybersecurity posture will be released Friday. The probe, begun shortly after Obama took office, is expected to make broad recommendations for protecting public and private sector networks from high-tech attackers. The report's release has been delayed due to internal disagreements about where a cyber czar would be housed and what kind of power that official would wield, non-administration officials familiar with the report said.
Melissa Hathaway, a top adviser to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair who managed the audit, told the RSA security conference last month that it is "the fundamental responsibility of our government to address strategic vulnerabilities in cyberspace and to ensure that the United States and the world can realize the full potential of the information technology revolution." That responsibility transcends the jurisdictional purview of individual departments and agencies because no single agency has a broad enough perspective to match the sweep of the challenges, she said at the San Francisco gathering. Hathaway also said dealing with tech threats requires "leading from the top" -- from the White House, to departments and agencies, state, local, tribal governments, the "C-suite," and to the local classroom and library.
Larry Strickling, President Obama's pick to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said his agency should develop metrics "to accurately and demonstrably" show whether the $7.2 billion in broadband funds contained in the economic stimulus package are being used appropriately and whether the program is achieving the goals established under the statute. His comments on the program were part of written responses to questions asked by Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison after his confirmation hearing Tuesday. The committee approved his nomination and that of Aneesh Chopra, Obama's choice to become the government's first chief technology officer, on Wednesday afternoon.
"There are a number of outcomes that could be used to show that unserved communities benefit from this program, including households passed with broadband service, speed of Internet service, jobs created, affordability of broadband offerings, and adoption of broadband service," Strickling wrote, noting NTIA will require grant recipients to regularly report their progress. In addition to transferring $10 million to the inspector general for oversight, NTIA has pursued transparency through public meetings and by soliciting public comment, he said. If confirmed, Strickling said he would ensure a "robust program of inspection and audits" is implemented and as the program expands, will provide information about applicants and recipients as well as quarterly reports.
Strickling also pledged to work with the committee to "find the most appropriate way to prevent copyright piracy and other illegal activities" in connection with the stimulus mandate that funded networks adhere to yet-to-be-determined "openness" requirements. "Although the Internet has, of course, fundamentally altered our lives for the better, as you know, every year billions of dollars in stolen copyrighted works are exchanged over the Internet," Hutchison warned.
As Tech Daily Dose reported last month, Jenner & Block attorney Philip Verveer has now officially been tapped for the impossibly titled position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Communications and Information Policy in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy. Verveer has practiced communications and antitrust law in the government and in private law practice for more than 35 years, according to a White House personnel announcement. From 1969 to 1981, Verveer was a trial attorney in the Justice Department's Antitrust Division; as a supervisory attorney in the Bureau of Competition at the FTC; and as the chief of the FCC's Cable Television Bureau, the Broadcast Bureau, and the Common Carrier Bureau.
Between 1973 and 1977, he served as the DOJ Antitrust Division's first lead counsel in the investigation and prosecution of United States v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., the case that eventuated in the divestiture of the Bell System. As a Bureau Chief at the FCC, Verveer participated in a series of decisions that enabled increased competition in video and telephone services and limited regulation of information services, the bio stated. Since 1981, Verveer has practiced law in the private sector and in 1995 and 1996 he chaired the federal advisory committee that identified spectrum requirements necessary to afford public safety organizations efficient and interoperable wireless communications. He has also served on the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School and the Executive Committee of the Alumni Board of Governors of Georgetown University.
A pair of high-tech watchdog groups on Wednesday offered a series of privacy safeguards and conditions they believe should be met in order to allow federal agencies to implement the use of analytics tools on their Web sites. The paper co-authored by experts at the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation also calls on providers of analytics technology to build their products to higher privacy standards than are currently found in commercial products. Because agency Web sites will play a role in President Obama's plan for participatory government, special attention must be paid to protecting citizen privacy, they wrote.
Recommendations for agencies include crafting robust policies to ensure that data collected for measurement purposes is adequately protected and updating current federal policy on persistent tracking technologies, such as cookies. Current federal policy requires, among other things, that the agency head authorize each use of these technologies, CDT and EFF said. The result has been a near prohibition of persistent tracking technologies. While the policy should remain extremely protective of privacy, it should also allow federal agencies to take advantage of advances in Web technology, the groups said. Read the report here.
A handful of education and business groups Thursday criticized the Obama administration's proposed drastic downsizing of the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program as part of the FY10 budget proposal. Under the plan, the Education Department program would shrink from $269 million to $100 million, according to the Consortium for School Networking, International Society for Technology Education, Software & Information Industry Association and State Educational Technology Directors Association. The organizations urged Congress to invest in EETT at levels higher than last year's appropriation because the program importantly spurs innovation and provides teacher training in the use of technology to improve student achievement.
The cut came as a major shock since the economic stimulus package signaled that the White House was prepared to invest significantly in educational technology, they said. The Obama administration has outlined a vision of educational innovation and improvement to enable American children to compete in the global economy but the FY10 budget request "falls far short of the targeted investments needed to ensure all students have the modernized classrooms and technology-rich instruction needed to achieve this vision," they wrote. "We have seen what works to boost student achievement, and technology is a key component in the equation to accelerate change, but we must have a sustained commitment of leadership and resources." Read more about EETT here.
A pair of technology programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology that were routinely zeroed out by the Bush administration but rescued annually by appropriators would get a new lease on life under President Obama's budget request. It included $124.7 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a public-private initiative that provides technical assistance to small manufacturers, and $69.9 million for the Technology Innovation Program, which provides financing to small high-tech entrepreneurs to support cutting-edge technologies. Former President George W. Bush cut both programs in his FY09 budget, but Congress provided MEP with $110 million and TIP $65 million in its FY09 omnibus.
A White House summary lauded MEP's network of 59 centers for their "proven record of accomplishment for delivering cost-effective services that improve competitiveness and help companies retain or expand jobs." The summary also points out that in TIP's first competition in January nine cost-shared grants were awarded for research on advanced sensing technologies for monitoring and inspection of the structural health of the nation's bridges, roadways and water systems. That research is expected to generate $90 million worth of research over five years, officials said. Read more FY10 budget briefs from CongressDaily here (subscription required).
FY10 Budget Briefing: Telecommunications
The Obama administration proposes that the FCC receive $335.8 million in FY10 funding, a decrease from the $341.9 million Congress allotted for FY09 -- a figure that included $20 million to assist with this year's digital television changeover. In its FY10 budget released Thursday, the administration said it supports overhauling the $7.1 billion universal service program, a federal effort subsidizing telecom and Internet services in rural and underprivileged areas. "The administration supports universal service fund reforms that will help ensure subsidies are well-targeted, demonstrate results and minimize the burden to ratepayers," the White House said in its budget request, adding that it will seek to reduce waste, fraud and abuse.
Read the full story in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
FY10 Budget Briefing: Science
President Obama's emphasis on climate change and clean energy investment was reflected Thursday in the administration's $147.6 billion FY10 budget for research and development, but his overall R&D portfolio proposal is about the same as his predecessor's. Former President George W. Bush asked for an R&D budget of $147 billion last year, and Congress appropriated $151 billion in the FY09 omnibus bill. The economic stimulus package provided an additional $21.5 billion for federal R&D programs, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Obama's budget lays out about $3.1 billion for clean energy technology initiatives and $2 billion for climate change research across more than a dozen departments.
Read the full story in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
From the May 2 issue of National Journal magazine...
In response to an unprecedented wave of attacks on the Defense Department's computer networks, and possible theft of information about U.S. weapons systems by foreign governments, the Pentagon has quietly begun sharing classified intelligence about hackers and online threats with the country's biggest defense contractors. The intelligence-sharing program began almost two years ago, after top Pentagon leaders realized that hackers were trying to steal information not just by breaking into government computers but also by going after corporations that contract with the government. These private computers and networks often contain the same sensitive and classified information found in the government's systems.
The new intelligence partnership, which has not been previously reported, is known as the Defense Industrial Base initiative, or "the DIB." The department formally launched the program in September 2007, but it took a year to work out a legal arrangement by which the contractors and the government could confidentially share information. In mid-2008, the effort ramped up after what was described as a hair-raising meeting in a secured facility at the Pentagon in which officials gave temporary security clearances to chief executives from the biggest defense firms and delivered a no-holds-barred briefing on the range of successful cyberattacks launched against the government and their companies.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
The Library of Congress has made "tremendous progress" with its information technology infrastructure but in order to remain current and competitive, the facility needs to take several significant steps to evolve, Library Inspector General Karl Schornagel told the House Administration Committee on Wednesday. He recently published a 60-page report that concluded strategic IT planning is not a "unifying force" at the Library nor is it linked to the investment process. The disconnect results in duplicated efforts and acquisitions. In addition to costs incurred for unfunded mandates, he found numerous areas where there were overlaps in support services and systems.
Schornagel also found that the Library's organizational structure of the Library's IT office does not foster strategic planning and good governance; the Library is missing an enterprise architecture program; and its customer service needs improvement. At the hearing, he suggested that the Library migrate to a more cohesive IT strategy, like comparable federal agencies, and recommended that the facility's IT security group be given the ability to implement higher security standards. Chairman Robert Brady cited the increasingly vital role technology plays in Library operations and ranking member Dan Lungren emphasized the criticality of cybersecurity.
From CongressDaily's PM Edition...
Government-wide guidance for how agencies can more fully utilize social media applications like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are forthcoming, President Obama's federal chief information officer said today. Vivek Kundra, who also serves as OMB's e-government and information technology administrator, told a conference for agency Web managers that the Federal CIO Council and the General Services Administration are working on the rules but did not give a timeframe for their release.
The GSA took an initial step last month by signing agreements with four video-sharing and social networks to provide services that comply with federal terms and conditions. Kundra said the guidance could "take some time" to align with statutes like the Presidential Records Act and the Privacy Act, which were enacted in the 1970s, and seven-year-old Federal Information Security Management Act. In the meantime, he urged attendees to work within their agencies to adopt pre-approved technologies.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration unveiled its Online Safety and Technology Working Group on Tuesday -- a panel of experts dedicated to keeping children safe on the Internet. More than two dozen private sector and child and family advocacy leaders will help evaluate industry efforts and make recommendations to promote education, labeling and parental control technology. Members will work with the Justice Department, FTC, FCC and others. "President Obama recognizes the importance of protecting the safety and privacy of our children as they use the Internet," Acting NTIA Administrator Anna Gomez said in a press release. "We are committed to helping foster a safe online environment for America's youth." Within a year of its first meeting on May 22, the group will submit a report to the administration on how to increase Web safety.
Members of the working group include:
Parry Aftab, WiredSafety
Elizabeth Banker, Yahoo
Christopher Bubb, AOL
Anne Collier, ConnectSafely.org
Bradon Cox, NetChoice Coalition
Caroline Curtin, Microsoft
Brian Cute, Afilias U.S.A.
Jeremy Geigle, Arizona Family Council
Marsali Hancock, Internet Keep Safe Coalition
Michael Kaiser, National Cyber Security Alliance
Christopher Kelly, Facebook
Brian Knapp, Loopt
The House Committee on Oversight and Government has sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates requesting a briefing as soon as possible on a recent news report that computer spies may have infiltrated the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, which is reportedly the most expensive weapons program that has been managed by the Department of Defense. "If true, these allegations are serious and potentially far-reaching. Given the potential national security implications of this matter, we hereby request that the department provide committee staff with a briefing regarding the events alleged," wrote Chairman Edolphus Towns and ranking member Darrell Issa.
Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported that foreign cyber spies may have penetrated the country's electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt infrastructure. It has also been reported that the Obama administration may have plans to create a new military command that would focus on defensive and offensive cyber security efforts within the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the administration is still trying to work out what its overall approach to cyber security will be and lawmakers are paying increasing attention to the issue. -- Winter Casey
In the next few months it is expected that Philip Verveer will become the State Department's next U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, according to sources familiar with the matter. Verveer will be filling the shoes of David Gross, who held the title of coordinator since 2001. The position also comes with the title of "ambassador." Sources say the White House is currently doing a background check of Verveer and his nomination will also be subject to approval by the Senate in addition to the administration. Verveer is currently counsel at the firm Jenner & Block's litigation department [bio]. He is also a member of the firm's communications practice with a focus on regulatory and antitrust issues.
Verveer has nearly three decades advising clients on communication regulatory issues before Congress, the FCC, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Office of U.S. Trade Representative, Federal Trade Commission, the State Department, and the Committee on Foreign Investment. Verveer, who served in the military, also worked as a partner in the Washington office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher where he founded the firm's communications practice. He has also served as a trial attorney in the Justice Department's antitrust division, a supervisory attorney in the FTC's Bureau of Competition, and as the chief of the cable bureau at the FCC. He earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1969 and is married to Melanne Verveer, who was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff when she was first lady. President Obama has tapped her to be his ambassador at large for global women's issues. -- Winter Casey
A State Department-led delegation of U.S. high-tech executives visiting Baghdad this week met with President Jalal Talibani and Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih as well as the Iraqi minister for science and technology, technology executives, and university students. The trip by officials from Google, YouTube, AT&T, Twitter and others, was a fact-finding mission with the goal of listening and lending expertise -- not securing lucrative contracts, officials said Wednesday. The delegation reported during a conference call that the Iraqi government seemed open to new technology. For example, Salih has an iPhone, Gmail and promised to start a Twitter page. He said his daughter, who attends Princeton University, wants him to sign up for a profile on social networking site Facebook.
While the issue of government censorship of the Internet is a hot-button issue in many countries, YouTube's Hunter Walk said he and his colleagues heard just the opposite. "There was a lot of hope for a more transparent government process," he said on the conference call. Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman added that there is "a real commitment to building a real society." "I think the world looks to President Obama on how to self organize," he said. When asked whether the pace of technology was moving faster than the basic infrastructure in Iraq, State Department official Jared Cohen commented: "It's a good thing that they become more aware of what they don't have." Google's Ahmad Hamzawi pointed out that fiber is being laid throughout the country.
On the call, executives emphasized that the culture is changing steadily but challenges remain. "Too many people are dependent on the government. These are people who lived under dictatorship for years," Blue State Digital's David Nassar said. Google's Kannan Pashupathy added: "The young people have the spirit but not yet the decentralized psyche." Heiferman commented: "It's a fascinating moment in history where they are realizing their own power." For more about the trip, read this post on Tech Daily Dose.
High-tech giant Oracle agreed to buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion after IBM abandoned its bid for the iconic software company, in part, analysts believe because of perceived risk that antitrust authorities, either in the United States or the European Union, would reject the deal. While the Oracle-Sun deal will likely receive serious scrutiny, a Monday afternoon memo from investment firm Stifel Nicolaus says its experts think it is likely to be approved. "We believe an Oracle-Sun deal faces significantly fewer obstacles in the antitrust review than an IBM-Sun deal would have, particularly as it does not raise the issues regarding consolidation in the server and storage markets that would have been problematic for a deal with IBM," they wrote.
There is less overlap between the product offerings of Oracle and Sun, which reduces horizontal concentration issues, the analysts said. Plus the deal does not pose the same vertical integration issues that IBM-Sun would or add fuel to existing antitrust investigations. There may be some concern among customers and suppliers about increasing Oracle's market position but the analysts think most will regard the arrangement as a welcome alternative to a Sun combination with IBM. While some may welcome a counterweight to IBM, others such as Microsoft may see the process as an opportunity to raise concerns about Oracle's growing market strength and potentially to even condition the deal, the memo said.
Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft, which was initially blocked by the Bush administration Justice Department in 2004, was subsequently allowed by a federal court after Oracle fought for the deal rather than folding, Stifel Nicolaus said. Oracle's deal with BEA was approved by both U.S. and EU regulators last year. "We don't think the approval of either of those deals carried any kind of 'okay, but no further' signal that would cause us to think the deal with Sun will have significant problems," the memo said. There are substantial long-term strategic customer advantages to Oracle owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris, the firms said in a press release. "The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said.
* * * Updated 5 p.m. ET * * *
A handful of U.S. high-tech executives left for Baghdad Sunday on a trip arranged by the State Department, an agency spokesman said at a Monday briefing. The junket is the first of its kind for the CEOs, vice presidents and senior representatives from AT&T, Google, YouTube, Twitter, WordPress, Howcast, Meetup, Blue State Digital and others. Blue State Digital has strong ties to President Obama, having provided his campaign and the transition team with a number of services ranging from online fundraising and voter outreach to social networking and Web hosting. Google CEO Eric Schmidt and other company executives have also served as advisers to Obama.
"While in Iraq, the group will explore new opportunities to support Iraqi government and non-government stakeholders in Iraq's emerging new media industry," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. During their visit, they will provide conceptual input as well as ideas on how new technologies can be used to build local capacity, foster greater transparency and accountability, build upon anti-corruption efforts, promote critical thinking in the classroom, scale up civil society, and further empower local entities and individuals by providing the tools for network building. "As Iraqis think about how to integrate new technology as a tool for smart power, we view this as an opportunity to invite American technology industry to be part of this creative genesis," Wood said.
Wood was unable to identify the names of the executives on the trip but said he would try to furnish a list later in the day. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "has been a strong proponent of using a full range of tools, including emerging new media and communication technologies, to leverage capabilities that will allow for diplomacy not just with governments but also with people and between different associates," he said. Earlier this month, Clinton hired on as her senior innovation adviser Alec Ross, who served on Obama's transition team and co-founded the nonprofit One Economy, which uses technology to assist low income communities.
From CongressDaily's Tuesday PM Edition...
The Obama administration's selection of a Patent and Trademark Office director cannot come soon enough, according to officials inside the agency. They cite serious cash-flow problems, internal cutbacks and a downturn in the number of applications filed and patents granted amid continued U.S. economic gloom. "We need a new director just as soon as we can get one," Patent Office Professional Association President Robert Budens said Monday. While the administration and Commerce Department, which houses PTO, have been tight-lipped about the appointment, sources say Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is involved and an announcement could come in the next week or two. Oft-mentioned prospects for the job include Q. Todd Dickinson, who ran the office under former President Bill Clinton, Silicon Valley attorney Jim Pooley and IBM Vice President David Kappos. During his March confirmation hearing, Locke vowed not to let urgent issues like the 2010 census crowd out topics like improving the patent office's productivity. The agency faces a backlog of more than 750,000 applications. Read the full story here.
New interim federal rules aimed at helping prevent Internet distribution of certain government-controlled prescription drugs took effect Monday, less than six months after former President George W. Bush signed into law the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act. The legislation, championed in the House by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and in the Senate by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was named for an 18-year-old who died after overdosing on a prescription painkiller he obtained on the Internet from a doctor he never saw. The statute amends existing laws governing controlled substances by adding new definitions for "online pharmacy" and "deliver, distribute, or dispense by means of the Internet." It also requires at least one face-to-face patient medical evaluation prior to issuance of a prescription drug and imposes registration, information disclosure and reporting requirements for online pharmacies.
"Now that this law has been put into force it will be harder for cyber-criminals to supply controlled substances over the Internet and easier for us to prosecute them," DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart said in a press release. Controlled substances such as narcotics, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, and anabolic steroids and covered by the statute. Implementing the rule "will increase Internet safety and help prevent tragedies like Ryan Haight's death from happening again," Leonhart said. Nearly one in five teenagers has used a prescription medication to get high, according to a 2008 survey by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The same survey found that two in five teens believe the fallacy that prescription medicines obtained without a prescription are "much safer" to use than illegal drugs. For more information on DEA implementation, click here.
Creativity and innovation can be the cornerstone of U.S. economic development and the Obama administration is going to work to make sure the country continues to protect that critical resource, newly confirmed U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told an audience at Howard University on Wednesday. "We know the world is hungry for American ideas," he said, adding that 95 percent of the world's consumers live outside the United States. "This [economic] crisis wasn't made in a day and it's not going to be solved in a day," Kirk said at a forum on intellectual property hosted by the National Foreign Trade Council's Global Innovation Forum and Howard's Institute for Entrepreneurship, Leadership & Innovation.
Having a "thoughtful, progressive rules-based trade program" for the United States can help restore the economy, Kirk said. "America's ideas can help turn our economy around and we can do it sooner rather than later," he said. Trading partners must commit to actions that will allow for a level playing field while protecting and enforcing IP rights and making sure there are market protections in place for U.S. investors. Meanwhile, they must respect international labor and environmental standards, Kirk said. Obama wants an enhanced focus on enforcement of existing rules through all the trade tools officials currently have in their arsenal, Kirk said, but the administration is also not afraid to file complaints with the WTO as a last resort.
Updated guidance on implementation of economic stimulus funds released by the Office of Management and Budget last week is a technological step backward, some Web experts are warning. Unlike the 62-page initial guidance document, OMB Director Peter Orszag's more detailed 175-page April 3 memo does not characterize e-mail-based reporting as an intermediary step nor does it require that Web feeds become the only way for information to flow from agencies, argues Erik Wilde, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley. Such a system would have helped advance the federal information architecture and assure that the same information sent to OMB from departments could also be consumed by the public, he said in a recent blog post.
The new guidelines make it clear that feeds are optional, and even if they are provided, they can be RSS or Atom format, he said. There is no specification of how data should be included in the feed nor is there a requirement for paged or archived feeds. "Feeds may not be prohibited by the new guidelines, but they certainly do not help at all to make feeds a reliable or robust source of information," Wilde wrote. The apparent about-face is understandable, he said, since implementing a federated feed-based regime would have been a challenge. "It really was not the smartest move to ask for a convenient short-term one-stop-shop, instead of recognizing that this could be a landmark shift in how information architecture is designed and exposed in the federal government," he said. Click here to read the updated OMB guidelines.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Department want to modernize the nation's aging satellite-imagery architecture by evolving government-owned satellite designs and enhancing use of U.S. commercial providers, officials said Tuesday. Multiple government studies and an independent panel of former defense and intelligence experts demonstrated the need for a new path forward after examining current imagery, alternative architectures, cost and affordability, technological risk and industry readiness. A new plan by ODNI requires congressional approval but officials hope once that happens, implementation can begin in the coming months. Commercial imagery elements of the initiative would likely be operational in several years and the overall system would be fully deployed before the end of the next decade.
Under the proposal, government satellites would be developed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office and the defense and intelligence communities would increase the use of imagery available through U.S. commercial providers. The additional capability would provide the government with more flexibility to respond to unforeseen challenges, officials said. The less complex satellites based on technologies already in production by U.S. vendors would be available sooner than the much more capable NRO-developed systems. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency would continue to integrate capabilities as well as imagery products.
After several months of work, the Library of Congress on Tuesday launched its own YouTube channel. The institution, which houses the world's largest collection of audiovisual materials (some 6 million films, broadcasts and sound recordings), unveiled its page on the popular video-sharing Web site with more than 70 videos, arranged in the following playlists: 2008 National Book Festival author presentations; the Books and Beyond author series; Journeys and Crossings (a series of curator discussions); "Westinghouse" industrial films from 1904; scholar discussions from the John W. Kluge Center; and the earliest movies made by Thomas Edison, including the first moving image ever made (a sneeze by a man named Fred Ott, pictured above).
Library blogger Matt Raymond promises that is just the beginning. "We have made a conscious decision that we're not just going to upload a bunch of videos and then walk away," he wrote. "As with our popular Flickr pilot project, we intend to keep uploading additional content." The Web team is modifying some its work-flows in modest ways to make digitized content more useful. Plus, all of the videos posted on YouTube will also be available at LOC.gov, on the library's American Memory collection Web page. Read Raymond's blog post here and visit the library's YouTube channel here.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is pulling together the membership of its Online Safety and Technology Working Group, which was created under the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act. The 30-member working group will report on industry initiatives to promote online safety and is charged with issuing a report to the Commerce Department within a year of its first meeting. While NTIA has not published a full list of participants, the Center for Democracy and Technology's John Morris and the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Adam Thierer have both been recruited, according to separate announcements from the organizations on Monday.
The group will consist of representatives of relevant sectors of the business community, public interest groups, and other appropriate groups and federal agencies, according to a November Federal Register notice. Appointments will be for a single 15 month term. Specifically, the OSTWG will review and evaluate:
• The status of industry efforts to promote online safety through educational efforts, parental control technology, blocking and filtering software, age-appropriate labels for
content or other technologies or initiatives designed to promote a safe online environment.
• The status of industry efforts to promote online safety among providers of electronic communications services and remote computing services by reporting apparent child pornography, including any obstacles to such reporting.
Alec Ross, co-founder of the nonprofit One Economy, which uses technology to assist low income communities, has joined the State Department as a senior innovation adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The job was created for the 37-year-old who left the organization he helped build to work on President Obama's transition team. Just last week, a group of public interest organizations asked the administration to raise the profile of technological innovation within the government and sources told Tech Daily Dose on Monday the position may be a model for other agencies. In his new capacity, Ross is charged with using technology to enhance the department's diplomatic missions in areas such as healthcare, poverty, and human rights, according to a Washington Post profile.
Prior founding of One Economy in 2000, Ross served as special assistant to the president of the Enterprise Foundation. In that capacity, he led special projects and the development of strategies related to new business development, fundraising, technology, and program development, according to his One Economy bio. Ross is a 1994 graduate of Northwestern University and he taught two years in inner city Baltimore through Teach For America. "Alec's career has been one of fostering the development and use of technology to help people better their lives," said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. "At the State Department, he will be able to showcase those talents, and the value of innovation, on a global scale."
"Secretary Clinton believes technology is a powerful tool to address the priorities of the State Department, including promoting human rights and vibrant democracies, fostering development and enhancing the impact of smart power," said State Department spokesman Fred Lash. "Alec's track record of successfully using technology for development initiatives around the world made him an ideal candidate for this job." Read more about Clinton's high-tech agenda here.
As the Obama administration crafts a game plan for keeping the nation's computer networks and critical infrastructure secure, the White House is going to anchor the interagency coordination and set a vision for the way forward, administration officials told reporters Friday evening on a conference call about the 60-day cybersecurity review the president ordered earlier this year. The White House does not plan to strong-arm the Homeland Security Department, National Security Agency and other entities that currently control operational aspects of government and private sector IT security, they said. Cybersecurity leadership has been a hot topic among lawmakers, think tanks and tech industry officials recently with at least one prominent report calling for the White House to take charge of that mission.
With 46 days under their belt, officials working on Obama's review have set a goal for releasing an overarching study to guide the formation of a trusted, resilient communications infrastructure through a national public-private partnership. Over the course of that examination, officials have identified and inventoried more than 250 cybersecurity requirements across federal agencies and asked those in charge of each initiative to connect the dots between their overall mission and the various requirements and programs they have in place. At the same time, the team reached out to stakeholders through a series of 40 meetings that yielded more than 100 white papers. Those who spoke to reporters refused to give details about their forthcoming recommendations since the review is ongoing.
Administration officials met with sector-specific coordination councils, the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, industry associations and privacy and civil liberties groups. They consulted the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and range of others. The National Science Foundation with the cooperation of more than 50 universities also played a role by suggesting quick wins and longer term R&D projects to help safeguard the nation's networks. Additional briefings involved federal regulatory agencies; state and local homeland security officials and CIOs; members of Congress and their staffs; and foreign partners.
Acting GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro on Friday named 13 members to a health information technology policy committee established by the economic stimulus package. The panel will make recommendations on creating a policy framework to develop and adopt a nationwide health IT infrastructure, including standards for the exchange of patient medical information. The GAO received almost 300 applications for the panel, a spokesman said. An additional seven members will be appointed by the HHS secretary and congressional leaders. President Obama can appoint other members to represent relevant federal agencies.
The stimulus bill also created a standards committee whose members will be appointed by the HHS secretary. The statute does not set a deadline for appointments to that panel, but it specifies the committee must consist of healthcare providers, ancillary healthcare workers, consumers, purchasers, health plans, technology vendors, researchers, agency officials, and experts in healthcare quality and security. The Senate has yet to confirm Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's pick to lead HHS. David Blumenthal, a former Harvard Medical School professor who has advised Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Edward Kennedy has been named HHS health IT coordinator.
See a list of the GAO's appointments after the jump and read TechCentral's Issue Of The Week on health IT here.
NationalJournal.com's Kevin Friedl writes...
It's never entirely graceful when the behemoths of the federal bureaucracy tiptoe into the online waters. The Department of Education, though, faces a number of challenges that other offices don't, not the least of which is attracting young people to a site ending in ".gov." "The satisfaction someone has with a Web site is based on two things: what they're actually getting from that site, but also their expectations for it," said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results, which polls visitors to government sites. "When you think about their audience profile" at the Education Department, "their audience will have much higher expectations than someone going to a Medicare site or even an IRS site."
Use of government Web sites is most common among those in their mid-30s to mid-60s, according to a report issued in January by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The same report found teens are less likely than adult users to send e-mail, but more likely to instant message; less likely to look for news on the Web, but more likely to get it on social networking sites and blogs. As these young citizens age, some of their habits will change, but their expectations will remain high. That makes today's teens an early indicator for what government agencies will be expected to provide in years to come, and the need to reach them in their preferred medium has made Education something of a pioneer among government agencies, even as it continues to learn how to appeal to young people in a medium full of other options.
Read the full story here.
From Government Executive magazine's April issue:
When President Obama issued his Day One memos instructing members of his administration to operate under principles of openness to spur citizen engagement, government watchdogs cheered. They hailed the call - a nod to his campaign promise to make government more transparent - as unprecedented and said it was a welcome change from the past eight years. But in the weeks since Obama's pledge that transparency would be a touchstone of his presidency, policy watchers have turned their attention to the details. What exactly is government transparency? How is it interpreted by those inside government who need to execute it? How will it be measured?
What will it look like to the public?
Those questions are hard to answer, and the responses depend largely on who you are. Academics and good government advocates believe agencies should provide their raw data and internal evaluations of policies so the public can dig into the information to find answers to their own questions. Others believe agencies must impose order to the data so the public can easily draw conclusions. Still others believe the Obama administration should choose to show the results of programs and initiatives, and not provide the supporting data, documents or internal discussions on the thinking behind their decisions or what led to a particular outcome.
Read the full story here.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday nominated Roger Baker -- former CEO of Dataline Inc., a mid-sized technology company headquartered in Norfolk, Va. -- to become assistant secretary for information and technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs. This is familiar territory for Baker, who served as chief information officer for the Commerce Department from 1998 to 2001. Prior to joining the federal government in 1998, Baker had an extensive career with software and Internet technology firms, including leading the development of Internet and online banking systems at Visa International, according to a bio provided by the White House.
Baker left the private sector in May 2008 to volunteer on Obama's campaign, serving on the technology, media, and telecommunications policy group. After the president's election, Baker served on the technology, innovation, and government reform and the VA review teams for the transition team. Baker is active in the federal technology community, and has written extensively on improving the management and results of the government's IT investments. He was vice chair of the Industry Advisory Council's Transition Study Group, and a co-author of the group's capstone paper entitled "Returning Innovation to the Federal Government with Information Technology."
The VA's IT infrastructure has been in the spotlight since May 2006 when a laptop computer containing the social security numbers of 26.5 million U.S. veterans was stolen from an analyst's home. Several months later, a computer containing the personal information of up to 38,000 veterans went missing. The computers have since been recovered but the agency has been under a microscope by members of Congress. In the final years of the Bush administration, VA IT chief Robert Howard appeared on Capitol Hill routinely to discuss the agency's efforts to streamline and secure its technology.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk's 2009 report to Congress, which describes significant barriers to U.S. trade and investment and actions being taken by officials to address them, flags a number of topics of interest to the tech sector. They include:
• Onerous testing and certification requirements on more than 1,200 consumer goods
• New requirements to register and inspect a broad range of imports
• Ineffective enforcement against trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy
• Cumbersome and non-transparent approval processes for biotech products
• Discriminatory excise taxes requiring imported products to pay rates 10 to 43 times higher than before
• Prohibited export subsidies (e.g., for "national" brands) that are highly trade distorting
• Limitations to foreign participation in telecom markets, both basic and value added, through a multiplicity of barriers, including high basic capital requirements, and non-transparent and lengthy investment approvals.
The USTR is beginning a review of the implementation of our existing trade agreements, including the enforcement of the labor and environment provisions, the office said in a press release. It is also initiating a process to prioritize trade barriers enumerated in the National Trade Estimate Report and to address the most significant. Additionally, USTR is identifying new cases where market access for U.S. goods and services is in jeopardy because of disregard for the rule of law and is planning to prosecute those cases through multilateral and bilateral dispute resolution.
The Obama administration's choice for Patent and Trademark Office director is expected to be announced in April now that the Senate has confirmed Gary Locke, the president's pick for Commerce secretary. If the right person is named to head the PTO, the appointment "may tip the scales to move patent reform legislation from a pending bill to enacted legislation, perhaps as early as this year," Foley & Lardner attorney Hal Wegner said in a Monday e-mail. So who is in the running for the top job at PTO? Sources say the following names are prominently in play:
• Q. Todd Dickinson: Dickinson ran the PTO under former President Bill Clinton and currently heads the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Before joining AIPLA in 2008, he was chief IP counsel for General Electric.
• Jim Pooley: Pooley is a partner in the litigation department of the Palo Alto office of Morrison & Forrester and has practiced in Silicon Valley since 1973. He is immediate past president of the AIPLA and president of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• David Kappos: Kappos is vice president and assistant general counsel for IP at IBM. He joined IBM in 1983 as a development engineer. He serves on the board of directors for the Intellectual Property Owners Association and is active in AIPLA.
Shortly after Election Day, CongressDaily pondered Dickinson, Pooley and some other possibilities. They included Eli Lilly general counsel Robert Armitage; 3M IP counsel Gary Griswold; patent attorney Ray Millien; and law professors Mark Lemley of Stanford and Arti Rai of Duke, a classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School.
A total of 275,284 complaints were received by the Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2008 -- up from 206,884 or 33 percent over 2007, the FBI said Monday. Total dollar loss reported in 2008 was $265 million, an increase from $239 million the year before. The average individual loss was $931, according to a new report. The yearly study from IC3, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, details information related to the volume and scope of complaints, complainant and perpetrator characteristics, geographical data, most frequently reported scams, and IC3 referrals.
Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment was by far the most reported offense, comprising 32.9 percent of referred complaints. Internet auction fraud accounted
for 25.5 percent of referred complaints while credit/debit card fraud made up 9 percent of referred complaints. Confidence fraud, computer fraud, check fraud, and Nigerian letter fraud round out the top seven categories of complaints referred to law enforcement. Of those complaints reporting a dollar loss, the highest median losses were found among check fraud ($3,000), confidence fraud ($2,000), and Nigerian letter fraud ($1,650).
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
The Department of Health and Human Services is getting ready to meet its first major deadline for setting up one of two key federal advisory committees established within the $19 billion health information technology section of the economic stimulus package. Members of a policy panel charged with making recommendations to the department's health IT coordinator on the implementation of a nationwide system of electronic medical records are due Friday. Thirteen of the committee's 20-plus members are appointed by GAO with additional members selected by HHS and House and Senate leadership.
The stimulus bill allows more time for the formation of the health IT standards committee, whose members are appointed by the HHS secretary with the national health IT coordinator taking a leading role. The time ahead of that deadline, which has not been announced, may help given that the Senate has yet to confirm Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's pick for HHS secretary. The Senate Finance Committee will hold its confirmation hearing for her Thursday. Under the statute, the standards committee must consist of healthcare providers, ancillary healthcare workers, consumers, purchasers, health plans, technology vendors, researchers, relevant agency representatives, and experts in healthcare quality, privacy and security. Recommendations from the policy panel dictate the work of the standards panel, which has to develop a roadmap by May.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
New channels on video-sharing Web site YouTube and the Apple iTunes service will allow the Library of Congress to begin sharing content from its vast video and audio collections. The channels, which will be rolled out in the coming weeks, will include 100-year-old films from the Thomas Edison studio; book talks with contemporary authors; early industrial films from Westinghouse factories; first-person audio accounts of life in slavery; and inside looks into the library's fascinating holdings. Among them, the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and the contents of President Abraham Lincoln's pockets on the night of his assassination.
The move to YouTube and iTunes comes on the heels of the library's launch two years ago of the first U.S. agency-wide blog and its ongoing image-posting pilot project with Flickr. "We have long seen the value of such interaction with the public to help achieve our missions, and these agreements remove many of the impediments to making our unparalleled content more useful to many more people," Librarian of Congress James Billington said in a press release. The GSA last week also announced agreements with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv that will allow other agencies to participate in new media while meeting legal requirements and the unique needs of government.
President Barack Obama's choice to shepherd the National Telecommunications and Information Administration through the ongoing national digital television transition is Lawrence Strickling, a technology policy expert who served as policy coordinator for his presidential campaign. In that role Strickling oversaw two dozen domestic policy committees and was responsible for technology and telecommunications issues. Prior to joining the campaign, Strickling was chief regulatory and compliance officer at Broadwing Communications, which was acquired by Level 3 Communications in 2007.
From 1998-2000, Strickling served as chief of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau and prior to that was associate general counsel and chief of the FCC's Competition Division. During his tenure at the FCC, Strickling developed and enforced rules to foster competition and protect consumers in the telecommunications marketplace, the White House said in an e-mail. He also served senior roles at Allegiance Telecom and CoreExpress and was a partner at the Chicago law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. If confirmed by the Senate, Strickling will join former Sprint-Nextel executive Anna Gomez at NTIA. She was named deputy assistant secretary earlier this year.
A $986,796 grant from the Department of Labor will assist approximately 249 workers affected by layoffs at Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis, Ore., the agency said Friday. HP announced on Aug. 20, 2008, that layoffs were pending at the facility and the first dislocation event followed less than a month later. Another round of layoffs is scheduled for May 30. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the downsizing represents "a significant loss of production workers in this region of Oregon" and the federal infusion will let affected employees access the necessary training and services to find work soon.
The grant money will be awarded to the Oregon Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development. All of the targeted workers also have been certified as eligible for trade adjustment assistance. Under the grant, workers will have access to services that are not available through the TAA program, including skills assessment, counseling, case management, job-search assistance, job-placement assistance and follow-up services, the agency said. The nonprofit Community Services Consortium will oversee the grant.
Corvallis Mayor Charles Tomlinson thinks the next chapter for HP's campus could be in biotechnology, according to the Albany Democrat Herald. Tomlinson had no comment about whether he'd been in contact with HP about future plans, but said it's no secret that 235,413 square feet of industrial space is available for lease.
The word on K Street is that former Department of Commerce Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Christopher Padilla will soon be heading up IBM's government affairs office in Washington. Padilla spent three years at the U.S. Trade Representative under President George W. Bush. Padilla has previously lobbied for AT&T. He has also served as vice president for international affairs at Lucent Technologies and director of international trade at Eastman Kodak.
Padilla is expected to replace Christopher Caine, who we previously reported would be stepping down to start his own company, Mercator XXI. Caine spent 25 years working for IBM. IBM spokesman Chris Andrews said the company does not comment on rumor or speculation about executive hiring decisions. In other news Tracy Schmaler, Yahoo's senior director for public affairs will leave the Internet firm later this week for a job at the Justice Department. The former spokeswoman for Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy will be deputy director of the agency's press shop.
Meanwhile, Carly Fiorina is now chair of the board at the Technology Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. TPI was founded in 2007 and has a number of former employees of Progress & Freedom Foundation on staff. After being ousted from Hewlett Packard, Fiorina became heavily involved in the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- Winter Casey & Andrew Noyes
Robert Tapella, the head of the Government Printing Office, recently sent to President Barack Obama five goals and accompanying actions the GPO can take to help implement the White House's transparency and open government agenda. Tapella, whose office oversees production and distribution of information products and services for all three branches of the federal government, sent the memo to Obama on March 9 but it was released publicly last week.
1. Goal: Position GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys, at www.fdsys.gov) as the official repository for Federal Government publications.
Action: Develop pilot concepts with the Administration's Open Government office.
2. Goal: Enable and support Web 2.0 functionality through FDsys to support public comments on pending legislation.
Action: Develop a pilot with the Open Government office to evaluate the process
to collect comments on selected bills.
Officials inside the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have promised to thoroughly review their transparency policies on the heels of complaints by several civil society groups who argued that deliberations over the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act have been too secretive, Knowledge Ecology International Director James Love said Friday. The review is expected to be completed within a few months and will include a meeting in the coming weeks to discuss initial specific proposals for openness, he wrote on his blog. Citizens and non-governmental organizations are encouraged to think about the specific areas where openness and transparency can be enhanced and how, Love said.
Among the proposals that will be evaluated are the following at the request of KEI:
1. Disclosure of all negotiating texts and policy papers
2. Disclosure of all meeting agenda (as soon as they are available), and participant lists, extending to plurilateral, regional and bilateral negotiations policies that are common at multilateral institutions.
3. Accreditation of civil society NGOs to attend meetings, including in plurilateral, regional and bilateral negotiations, as is common at multilateral institutions.
4. Public consultations and comment periods, including those that accept comments to web based forums.
In addition, the USTR is welcoming groups to make other proposals, he said. Read more about last week's meeting on KEI's blog here and a recent CongressDaily story on the topic here (subscription required).
The Senate on Thursday confirmed John Holdren, a Harvard physicist, as President Barack Obama's science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Holdren was a professor of environmental policy at the university and served as director of the Kennedy School's program on science, technology, and public policy. His research has focused on causes and consequences of global environmental change; energy technologies; and ways to reduce the dangers from nuclear weapons and materials, according to his official bio.
Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco was also confirmed as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller said he was pleased to see both nominees win confirmation. "It is time to take science out of the laboratory and into our communities in order to help people understand how science impacts their everyday lives - from clean air and water to fixing our rapidly declining economy," Rockefeller said. "Both individuals will serve this country and the taxpayers honorably; there is much work to be done and no time to waste."
Commerce Secretary-designate Gary Locke on Wednesday assured the Senate Commerce Committee there will be timely implementation of the transition to digital television and told Republicans that statistical sampling will not be used for apportionment purposes in the 2010 census. His confirmation hearing brought up a range of issues from the monitoring of commercial fishing to cybersecurity. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition (subscription required).
Other interesting tidbits:
If confirmed, Locke should pay close attention to challenges currently faced by the Patent and Trademark Office as well as to related bills moving through the House and Senate that could drastically change the patent system, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said. "This is such a key issue for further growth of our intellectual property," Brownback said, noting that it is crucial that legislation does not favor one industry over another. "I don't think that's a wise way for us to grow," he said.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., raised the impending expiration of the Commerce Department's formal oversight role with respect to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the group that Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration has been reviewing ICANN's progress as part of a three-year agreement to extend a contract between them, which expired in September 2006. Nelson said Locke will have to help decide how the U.S. government's relationship with ICANN will evolve.
On the anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting front, Locke said he has long been focused on intellectual property protections. In response to a statement by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., he said bootlegging takes money away from U.S. companies and the nation has to work aggressively to stop the flow of illicit products -- from automobile parts to consumer goods to software.
Former Washington Democratic Gov. Gary Locke told the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday that he plans to shepherd the Commerce Department through turbulent economic times in the same way that he led Washington state when the high-tech bubble hit. "We pressed forward with a series of smart policy initiatives that set us up for future growth and created incentives to drive economic expansion. And we set a laser focus on attracting and developing the next generation of innovative and emerging industries," he said in prepared remarks. "We came out of that period stronger, healthier, and better prepared to embrace economic change."
Locke said setting a foundation for long-term economic growth and job creation is important and reducing the backlog of patent applications at the Patent and Trademark Office is also a key goal. "We must look over the horizon and prepare for the new economy that will emerge when this recession passes," he told senators. "Simply put, we must re-build, re-tool and re-invent our national strategies for sustained economic success." The Commerce Department, as President Barack Obama has noted, must be able to do multiple things at once, Locke said. "I believe we can."
The U.S. Sentencing Commission Tuesday heard perspectives from the Justice Department, high-tech experts and others on how to implement cybercrime legislation that passed Congress last year. The ID theft bill, authored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and signed by former President George W. Bush in September, allows the prosecution of those who steal personal data from a computer even when the victim's computer is located in the same state as the thief's. Under prior law, federal courts only had jurisdiction if the crime was committed across state lines. The measure made it a felony to employ malicious software to damage 10 or more computers and criminalized threats to steal or release information from a computer.
In his testimony, the head of DOJ's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section, urged the Commission to ensure that its execution reflects key differences between economic crimes such as fraud and those involving information theft. Some of the information theft incidents include high-tech hacking cases that involve large-scale data breaches like a 2003 incident involving information broker Acxiom, where more than 1.6 billion customer records were stolen, Michael DuBose said. He testified that guidelines being contemplated restrict consideration of fair market value for calculating loss in situations where "property [is] taken or destroyed."
Read CongressDaily's story here (subscription only) and the testimony here.
After several ill fated attempts at selecting the next Commerce secretary, President Barack Obama has found a candidate who understands what is happening on Main Street and has his "finger on the pulse of what direction America must head toward in generations to come," according to Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller. In prepared remarks for Wednesday's confirmation hearing for former Washington Democratic Gov. Gary Locke, Rockefeller said the administration has made "the perfect choice" for the job after previous selections -- Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. -- withdrew their names from consideration.
"The people deserve to know that the person working with Congress and this committee every day, to determine the best way to reboot this economy, is a person who -- simply put -- gets it," Rockefeller said, noting that Commerce secretary is "one very big job." If confirmed by the Senate, Locke will immediately begin to tackle the national transition to digital television; management of the 2010 Census, the allocation of $4.7 billion in broadband funds; engagement on climate change; and amplification of science and technology to increase U.S. competitiveness and innovation, Rockefeller said.
The expansive influence the Commerce Department -- much like the vast jurisdiction of the Senate Commerce Committee -- is surprising, he noted. "The department is charged with promoting job creation, improving living standards by promoting economic growth, increasing competitiveness, issuing patents and trademarks, and helping to set industrial standards," Rockefeller said. "This is no small job. And there will be challenges." But the chairman feels confident that Locke will ensure U.S. workers can prosper, businesses can thrive, and the economy can grow. "We need to move quickly on this nomination because there is important work to be done and not a moment to waste," he said.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, reintroduced a bill Tuesday requiring Congress to explicitly state its intention when writing statutory Freedom of Information Act exemptions into new legislation. FOIA "is the power cord that connects the American people to their government," Leahy told a Washington College of Law "Sunshine Week" conference a day earlier. "The growing use of legislation to carve out new exemptions to FOIA poses a danger to the ideals of open government." See CongressDaily's coverage here. The Senate first passed similar legislation unanimously in 2006 but a bill they introduced last Congress did not clear Leahy's committee.
"Too often, legislative exemptions to FOIA are buried within a few lines of very complex and lengthy bills, and these new exemptions are never debated openly before becoming law," Leahy said in a statement. Cornyn added the measure "will ensure that Congress can't slip anti-transparency measures into legislation without someone noticing." The two partnered to author a 2007 bill -- which was signed by former President George W. Bush -- to make the first major reforms to FOIA in more than a decade. The bill restored deadlines for agency action under FOIA and created a FOIA ombudsman at the National Archives and Records Administration, which the fiscal year 2009 omnibus spending bill funded at $1 million.
The National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum, which honors the creators of the telephone, wrinkle-free cotton, the television remote control and hundreds of other innovations, has moved to the Patent and Trademark Office's Alexandria, Va., campus. The hall of fame was founded in 1973 by the PTO and the National Council of Intellectual Property Law Associations and was originally housed at the PTO's old headquarters building. The museum outgrew its location and moved to Akron, Ohio where it opened to the public in 1995 and where it developed additional programs. The Akron building closed last year for construction of the National Inventors Hall of Fame School, Center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Learning, which will open this fall. The organization's headquarters will remain in Ohio.
"We are delighted that the National Inventors Hall of Fame has returned to its roots at the United States Patent and Trademark Office," Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the PTO John Doll said. "The journey to induction begins here with a patent, so it is only appropriate that those innovators who have truly transformed our lives should be honored at our headquarters." The musem's opening is being celebrated with a new exhibit, "Inventive Links" -- a show that illustrates the unexpected way in which modern technology is interlinked. The museum also features an interactive kiosk with biographical profiles and information on all 390 inductees.
In observance of Sunshine Week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Monday launched a sophisticated search tool that lets the public to examine thousands of pages of documents the watchdog group has retrieved from government agencies through Freedom of Information requests and litigation. The documents relate to a range of technology issues and government policies that affect civil liberties and personal privacy. EFF's collection sheds light on controversial government initiatives, including the FBI's Investigative Data Warehouse and the Homeland Security Department's Automated Targeting System.
"Until recently, documents obtained under FOIA often gathered dust in filing cabinets," EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel said in a press release. "We believe that government information should be widely available and easy to research, and our new search engine makes that a reality." "We welcomed President Obama's declaration -- on his first full day in office -- that he will work to make the federal government more open and participatory," EFF attorney Marcia Hofmann said. "There's certainly a lot of work to do -- so much government activity has been hidden from public view in the name of 'national security' and the 'war on terror.'"
From CongressDaily's AM Edition:
The much-touted online transparency promised by the Obama administration to allow public tracking of federal stimulus funds might still be months away, as agencies puzzle over the depth of detail required in their weekly reports and Web site architects scramble to design a user-friendly database to handle an ocean of information. Good-government groups and administration officials envision the Recovery.gov Web site as a clearinghouse that lets citizens monitor the dollar-by-dollar effects of economic recovery funds in their hometowns. But with a variety of details in weekly reports from federal agencies, duplicative or hard-to-decipher data sources and reporting requirements that critics say are too shallow to offer meaningful oversight at the local level, the site so far offers little help to watchdogs hoping to map the flow of $787 billion in funds.
"We are waiting for Recovery.gov to post useful data, and that has just not happened yet," said Jerry Brito of the George Mason University Mercatus Center. Brito is a co-founder of independent site StimulusWatch.org, which allows citizens to rate the merit of potential stimulus projects in their communities. White House accountability czars at OMB and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board share Brito's goal, but they say that supplying the public with the tools to become stimulus watchdogs will take months. Building a database on Recovery.gov with that level of transparency, stimulus overseer Earl Devaney told a group of state recovery representatives Thursday, could take over a year.
Read the full story here.
As more details unfold about last week's FBI sting at federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra's former District of Columbia government office, those who know him say the open government policies he enacted when he took the job in 2007 might have helped investigators nab those engaged in an alleged bribery and fraud scheme. The operation already led to the arrests of a D.C. government employee and a consultant. Even though Kundra has not been implicated in the probe, the Obama administration put him on administrative leave. "This was a real punch in the gut," said one source who wished to remain anonymous.
When Kundra came to the D.C. government after having worked for Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, one of the first items on his agenda was conducting an audit of his department's widespread use of contractors. In what was described by the source as a "war room style" meeting with staffers, he went line by line through the office's budget and had employees explain each outsourced activity to justify why the work could not be done in-house. That immediately cut contractor expenses, the official said. Kundra also used a Google Maps application to list all publicly available information about every IT contract the city awarded, including the hourly rate, start date and project manager.
"The whole purpose for doing that was to make sure that if there was any nefarious behavior, the public could see it and respond -- or more likely, a vendor who had a more competitive offer could see it and compete for the contract," the source said in a weekend interview. "[Kundra] was leading policy initiatives that would help reign in bad management decisions or inappropriate behavior," the individual said. "His policies were frankly the right tonic for how you want to create a less risky atmosphere and curb public corruption." Read more about the FBI raid and last week's arrests at NextGov here.
From CongressDaily's AM Edition:
An aide to President Barack Obama is on leave from his White House job after the FBI raided his old District of Columbia government office Thursday, arresting a city employee and a technology consultant on corruption charges, a White House official said. The charges were lodged against the two men at a federal court hearing as the FBI finished searching the city's technology office, which was led until recently by Obama's new computer chief, Vivek Kundra. Kundra is on leave from his White House job until further details of the case become known, according to a White House official speaking on condition of anonymity. A spokeswoman for Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, said she was very confident Kundra is not a target of the investigation.
At the court hearing, Yusuf Acar, the acting chief security officer in the city's technology office, was ordered held without bond pending a hearing Tuesday. Prosecutors said $70,000 in cash was found during a search of Acar's Washington home and that he posed a flight risk. Technology consultant Sushil Bansal of Dunn Loring, Va., was released but was ordered not to conduct overseas financial transactions or leave the area. Bansal is due back in court on April 21, and prosecutors said they hoped a plea agreement could be reached in his case. Acar worked under Kundra, Obama's choice to coordinate federal computer systems. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs would not say whether the White House knew the investigation was under way when it named Kundra last week.
President Barack Obama has appointed economist Carl Shapiro to become chief economist for the Justice Department's antitrust division, according to news reports. Shapiro, who served at the agency as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration, is the author of "Information Rules" (with Hal Varian) and was an expert witness in the 1999 Microsoft antitrust case while a professor at the University of California in Berkeley. Shapiro has published extensively in the areas of industrial organization, competition policy, patents, the economics of innovation, and competitive strategy with his recent academic research focusing on antitrust economics, intellectual property, patent policy, product standards and compatibility, and the economics of networks and interconnection, according to his Berkeley bio.
"Shapiro is a leading authority on the economics of competition in the information economy. This is a top-flight appointment by the Obama administration and this expertise is just what the country needs now as it looks for ways to turn the economy around," Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said. He noted that Shapiro understands the impact of different types of corporate behavior on competition and what that means for creating a business climate where innovative start-up businesses can thrive. "Innovation can boost the economy, but a lack of antitrust oversight and badly needed intellectual property reforms can hold the information technology sector back," Black said in a statement.
The U.S. government has a range of praiseworthy cybersecurity efforts but many of them continue to suffer from a lack of coordination and funding, Former FBI Director Louis Freeh told the FOSE information technology summit on Thursday. He said turf wars over safeguarding government networks are the 21st century manifestation of a centuries-old dilemma. "It is still same debate that we were having 200 years ago: Is the military going to be responsible for this war or do we need to stand up an independent civilian facility?" That debate is not easily resolved and the problem is "too large and too complicated to relegate into the typical bureaucratic pigeonhole," he said.
His comments echoed those made by witnesses at a House Homeland Security Emerging Threats Subcommittee hearing earlier this week that was intended to inform the Obama administration's 60-day examination of federal cyber efforts. Part of the answer is breaking down silos at the National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies that have a cybersecurity role, Freeh said. "There have got to be centers of expertise that can interface in efficient and practical ways," he said. "There has to be strong, essential executive leadership that lends its genius and persuasion to building types of structures and inter-relationships where information can be shared, expertise can be borrowed and common objectives... can be achieved."
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Wednesday that Microsoft's Philip Reitinger has been tapped to be deputy undersecretary of department's National Protections Program Directorate. In that role, Reitinger will be charged with protecting the U.S. government's computing systems from domestic and foreign threats. "Phil's background in cybersecurity and computer crime coupled with his experience working across the federal government and the private sector to develop innovative security strategies makes him an asset to our department," Napolitano said.
Reitinger currently serves as Microsoft's chief trustworthy infrastructure strategist, where he is responsible for helping improve protection and security of critical IT infrastructure by coordinating closely with government agencies and private partners. He is also a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Advisory Council. In that role, he advises FEMA on cyber aspects of emergency management. The DHS appointment marks Reitinger's return to government. He previously served as executive director of the Defense Department's Cyber Crime Center and before that worked as deputy chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property division at the Justice Department.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Richard Verma for the post of assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the State Department. Verma has a lengthy lobbying pedigree at the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, which he rejoined in 2007 after serving for more than five years as a senior policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., according to the firm. He originally joined Steptoe in 1998 as a member of the firm's international and technology practices. While there, registered to lobby on behalf of a variety of clients including: the U.S.-India Business Council, EchoStar Corporation, Dish Network, and Liberty Media Corporation.
The Steptoe profile on Verma, an Indian-American, holds that: "He advises on legislative and political strategy and helps companies successfully navigate crisis situations including handling Congressional investigations to designing effective public affairs and messaging campaigns." According to the White House, last year Verma was appointed to serve on the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Verma, a former Air Force officer, once also served as country director for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. -- Winter Casey
Former Office of the U.S. Trade Representative spokesman Sean Spicer has launched a boutique public affairs firm with his former deputy, Gretchen Hamel, and digital media strategist Nathan Imperiale. The trio's new venture -- Endeavour Global Strategies -- will combine their Capitol Hill, administration and media experience with the latest new media and social networking tactics to offer a full service public relations operation, according to Monday e-mails from Spicer and Hamel. The business also capitalizes on the 440,000-plus miles of international travel that Spicer logged during his USTR days. The firm's tagline is: "Global Focus. Global Reach. Global Solutions."
Spicer left USTR at the end of the Bush administration after serving as the office's point person for creating and implementing the domestic and international media strategy on trade issues. Earlier, he did communications work for the House Republican Conference, the House Budget Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Before joining USTR, Hamel spent four years on Capitol Hill working for the House Republican Conference as well as former Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and Rep. John Carter, R-Texas. Imperiale previously did Internet strategy at the White House and launched the House Republican Conference's new media department.
A handful of watchdog groups asked FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz on Monday to appoint a new director of consumer protection for the agency who has "a track record as a genuine champion of consumer rights." The candidate should be someone whose experience reflects not simply a broad familiarity with industry procedures, but a deep commitment to proactively protecting the public from all manner of unfair, deceptive, and fraudulent practices, they wrote in a letter. Lydia Parnes, who had the job for four years, left the agency recently to join law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Her deputy, Eileen Harrington, took over as acting director.
The letter was signed by the Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester; Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest; the Consumers Union's Ellen Bloom; the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Lillie Coney; Evan Hendricks of Privacy Times; Melissa Ngo of Privacy Lives; and Ed Mierzwinski of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. They said the bureau's broad mandate -- covering everything from advertising and marketing practices to financial services to privacy and identity protection -- holds great weight in the expanding digital world. The American people "can ill afford any unnecessary delays in appointing a suitable candidate," they wrote.
"The FTC requires someone new," Chester said when asked whether he thought Harrington should remain in the job. "It's time to shake up the bureau." The agency failed to warn consumers that their savings and investments were at risk from financial marketing scams for mortgages and other loans, he argued. "If the FTC had a consumer champion leading the bureau, perhaps someone would have blown the whistle sooner," Chester said.
High-tech leaders are praising President Barack Obama's Thursday appointment of Vivek Kundra as federal CIO and administrator for e-government and information technology at OMB. Virginia Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra told Tech Daily Dose that Kundra "will be a terrific asset" and has "the right combination of operational excellence and a spirit of innovation" to deliver. Chopra worked with Kundra when Kundra served as Virginia's assistant secretary of commerce and technology. "[It] will be a pleasure to collaborate with him at the White House," said Chopra, who is a rumored contender for Obama's federal chief technology officer job.
"The new federal CIO position provides a foundation that will allow the federal government to finally reap all the rewards of IT from cost savings to security to inter-agency information sharing," said Bill Vass, president of Sun Microsystems. "For too long, a CIO position that has jurisdiction across all government agencies has been as elusive as that oasis in the desert." Kundra's appointment is the first step in maximizing services offered to and the IT investments made by the American taxpayer, he said. Karen Evans, Kundra's predecessor at OMB under former President George W. Bush, called him "an innovative and talented person with a great career staff to support him."
Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield offered Kundra praise. "He will help the federal government's performance by encouraging innovation and preventing waste and duplicity," Garfield said, noting that Kundra's work in D.C and Virginia "shows that he values transparency and accountability." Software and Information Industry Association President Ken Wasch added Kundra "is a great choice who will carry out the incoming administration's plan to use cutting-edge technologies in our public sector to bring government into the 21st century."
Read more:
Federal CIO Lays Out Ambitious Agenda / Obama Names Vivek Kundra Federal CIO
President Barack Obama's new administrator for e-government and information technology at OMB told reporters Thursday he will launch data.gov, a Web site intended to "democratize data" by giving the public raw feeds of information from a range of agencies. Vivek Kundra, who previously served as the District of Columbia's chief technology officer, said the site would build on successes like the National Institutes of Health's publication of Human Genome Project data that he said "revolutionized personalized medicine" and the Defense Department's release of satellite data, which led to the mass commercialization of GPS devices.
"We need to make sure that all that data that's not private, that's not restricted for national security can be made public," said Kundra, who will also have the title of federal CIO and will work with the yet-to-be-named federal CTO. That official will be "named in due time," he said on a conference call. When Kundra worked for the city, he won widespread praise for embracing consumer technologies. "That lowered our operating costs... and the velocity at which we were deploying technology multiplied," he said, noting that he would like to bring that thinking to the federal sector. As more government information makes its way into cyberspace and the focus on civic participation increases, back-end IT systems must brace for the change, he said.
One of the administration's first attempts at making government more accountable online is Recovery.gov, Kundra said. Once the $787 billion economic stimulus funding makes its way to the state and local level, citizens will be able to track who receives contracts, when and for how much. The guidance recently set forth by OMB "is the floor, not the ceiling" for what can be done on the site, he said. Additionally, Kundra said his team is working with OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Policy and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to retool regulations.gov, the government's e-rulemaking hub, after a high-level American Bar Association task force slammed the site.
To get a better grasp of history, check out some of the newspaper pages published from 1880 to 1910 that are being made available for free online through the National Digital Newspaper Program. The program announced last week that it has added more than 112,000 additional historic newspaper pages to the Chronicling America Web site.
The National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, seeks to provide enhanced access to U.S. newspapers by creating over the next 20 years a national digital resource of historically significant newspapers from all states and U.S. territories published between 1836 and 1922. This publicly available free searchable database will be permanently maintained at the Library of Congress.
In all, there are 977,440 pages from 112 titles published in nine states (California, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Texas Utah and Virginia as well as the District of Columbia). Six additional states -- Arizona, Hawaii, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington -- will be contributing content later in 2009, according to an update from the Library of Congress. -- Winter Casey
As anticipated, President Barack Obama has named Vivek Kundra as the federal government's chief information officer. The announcement came Thursday, weeks after it was widely reported that he was the top contender. Kundra formerly served in Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's cabinet as chief technology officer. In that role he was responsible for technology operations and strategy for 86 agencies. Earlier, Kundra worked for Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia where he served as assistant secretary of commerce and technology.
Kundra has been recognized among the top 25 CTO's in the country and as the 2008 IT Executive of the Year for his work to drive transparency, engage citizens and lower the cost of government operations. He is also recognized for his leadership in public safety communications, cyber security and IT portfolio management. The federal CIO will direct the policy and strategic planning of federal IT investments and is responsible for oversight of federal technology spending. The CIO will also work closely with the yet-to-be-named federal CTO to advance the president's technology agenda.
"Vivek Kundra will bring a depth of experience in the technology arena and a commitment to lowering the cost of government operations to this position. I have directed him to work to ensure that we are using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations," Obama said.
President Barack Obama went public with one of Washington's worst-kept secrets on Tuesday -- that Julius Genachowski, his former Harvard Law School classmate, was his pick to be the next FCC chairman. The announcement that Genachowski (who once worked as legal counsel for ex-FCC Chairman Reed Hundt) was the nominee garnered widespread praise from the high-tech and telecom community.
"He will bring a combination of private and public sector experience to the agency. His tech experience and knowledge will be invaluable in facilitating the continued rollout and enhancement of broadband in America." -- Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
"With his background and interest in expanding broadband to all Americans and ensuring that our nation's telecommunications policies serve the needs of both consumers and industry, it is clear that Mr. Genachowski shares many of the same goals as state regulators." -- National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
"[It is] natural that our nation's first digital president would choose as FCC chairman someone who has worked in the technology industry and understands how innovation grows from an idea into the next generation companies that drive our economy and create jobs." -- Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro
The FTC on Wednesday will expose bogus Web sites and other scams claiming they can help individual consumers qualify for a share of the $800 billion economic stimulus package that President Barack Obama signed into law last month. Many sites use photos of Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to give the appearance of authenticity, the consumer protection agency said in a Monday e-mail. Sites also use logos from ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, FOX, NBC, MSNBC, and other major media outlets to make them appear legitimate. Bureau of Consumer Protection Acting Director Eileen Harrington will speak at the event.
In related news, the Small Business Administration recently issued a warning about fraudulent letters printed on what appears to be an SBA letterhead that were sent to small businesses around the country. The letters tell recipients they may be eligible for a tax rebate under the economic stimulus plan and that the SBA is assessing their eligibility for such a rebate. It then asks them to provide bank account information. The scheme is similar in many ways to e-mail scams often referred to as "phishing" that seek personal data and financial account information that enables another party to access and individual's bank accounts or to engage in identity theft.
For the ninth year in a row, identity theft was the top consumer complaint reported to the FTC in 2008. Of more than 1.2 complaints received throughout the year, 313,982 or 26 percent were related to ID theft, the agency announced last week. Third-party and creditor debt collection as well as shop-at-home and catalog sales came in second and third place respectively while complaints about Internet services; television and electronic media; and computer equipment were also high on the list.
The FTC report breaks out complaint data on a state-by-state basis and contains data about the 50 metropolitan areas reporting the highest per capita incidence of fraud and other complaints. In addition, the document lists the 50 metropolitan areas reporting the highest incidence of ID theft. Credit card fraud was the most common form of reported ID theft at 20 percent, followed by government documents/benefits fraud at 15 percent, employment fraud at 15 percent and phone or utilities fraud at 13 percent.
President Barack Obama on Friday formally tapped FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz to become the agency's chairman, CongressDaily reported. The Democratic member of the panel since 2004 will succeed Republican William Kovacic, who led the agency charged with consumer protection and preventing unfair business practices for less than a year. Since he is on the commission, Leibowitz does not require Senate confirmation. He serves alongside Kovacic, Republican J. Thomas Rosch and Pamela Jones Harbour, an independent. He worked for the Motion Picture Association of America and was once Democratic counsel for the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. Obama needs to fill another vacancy on the five-member panel.
Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y, reintroduced legislation Thursday to require the electronic disclosure of Senate campaign finance reports. The bill is identical to legislation that Feingold sponsored in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses, and that was approved by the Senate Rules Committee in 2007. The measure would bring Senate rules in line with those already in place for presidential candidates, House candidates and political action committees, officials said. The Campaign Finance Institute estimates the bill could save taxpayers $250,000 per year. "This commonsense bill to make our electoral system more transparent is long overdue," Feingold said in a press release.
Under the legislation, the reports would have to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 hours. The FEC is required to make available on the Internet within 24 hours any filing it receives electronically. Because of the FEC's detailed coding, which allows for more sophisticated searches and analysis, paper filing is currently completed over a week later for Senate reports than for House reports. "The Senate should catch up with the House, the president, and the many senators who already voluntarily file electronically by passing this reform which has broad bipartisan support." Schumer, who chairs the Rules Committee, called the proposal a "no-brainer" and said it should be approved expeditiously.
Legislation that would make sweeping changes to the U.S. patent system could be unveiled as soon as Tuesday, industry sources told CongressDaily. Congressional aides would not confirm the timing, but the bills are expected to be introduced jointly by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy. The measures would modify how courts handle patent disputes and would help streamline operations at the Patent and Trademark Office.
Ahead of the bill drop, groups formed by industry stakeholders to try to influence the patent debate said they have high hopes that President Barack Obama's new pick for Commerce secretary -- former Washington Gov. Gary Locke -- will be involved in the issue. On Thursday, the Innovation Alliance, which represents high-tech firms that do not want sweeping changes to the patent regime, lauded Locke's record of "working to help create an environment in the state of Washington that has nurtured the development of many small innovative companies."
The Coalition for Patent Fairness, which has championed Leahy's legislation, said Wednesday that Locke "understands the need to encourage innovation in order to create jobs and grow the U.S. economy" and his work as governor "shows that he understands the need for a strong patent system." The Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, which has called for more limited modifications to the system said Locke's leadership "will enhance the ability of the PTO to stimulate the innovation and manufacturing that will be instrumental to our nation¹s economic recovery."
In her first hearing before Congress since being confirmed, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was grilled about U.S. government policies for screening laptops and other high-tech gadgets at airports and whether she would address concerns from people who have had their laptops taken away at airports and examined. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., plans to reintroduce legislation on the issue. When asked by Sanchez to describe border control agents' abilities in this arena, Napolitano said the "law here is very straightforward." The federal government has broad authority to search at the border. However, existing statutes do not specifically answer whether agents should search laptops and what elements should be included in a search, she said. Napolitano said she is still looking into the issue and noted there are "a number of issues we handle that have really key privacy concerns inherent in them." She also answered questions about a 2012 deadline for scanning all U.S.-bound cargo containers in foreign seaports and whether she believes the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be moved out of the department. -- Juliana Gruenwald
More vendors are touting a software model for government use that involves applications being delivered to a user through an Internet connection. Industry is calling this model SaaS, or software as a service. According to an industry source, the service is paid for based on a subscription sales model while the software applications reside in the SaaS provider's data centers and can be delivered to end users over a variety of devices, from cell phones to PCs to thin clients. The application's data could be maintained in the provider's data centers, or on premises within the government organization itself.
"The attractiveness of the SaaS model for the customer is that it can significantly reduce the user's up-front investment in software, computer processing, and storage. It also allows the supplier to offer competitive pricing by leveraging its economies of scale," according to an International Trade Administration report. SaaS has been driven in recent years by significant technological advances, notably faster broadband networks, so-called Web 2.0 innovations, improved security technologies and data centers that have virtualized computing and storage resources, the report said.
The document states that concerns about data security and privacy overseas have emerged as potential trade barriers for U.S. SaaS firms. "Vendors have come up against restrictions on trans border data flows in Asia that ban off-shoring of any banking and telecommunications data processing and, as a result, adversely affect their SaaS sales," the paper stated. They have faced resistance in Canada and Europe as well as from some agencies, governments and businesses that are concerned about data confidentiality and the risk that U.S. intelligence organizations could access sensitive information at will.
Internet and government transparency activist Carl Malamud has launched a gutsy campaign to get himself named to run the Office of the Public Printer of the United States in the Obama administration. The position heads the Government Printing Office, which is responsible for providing public access to a variety of federal work products. His Web site, YesWeScan.org (a play on Obama's "Yes We Can" campaign motto), lays out a seven-point platform for shaking things up.
Malamud says the GPO should:
1) Lead the effort to make all primary legal materials produced by the United States readily available.
2) Work more closely with the nation's libraries and reform the Federal Depository Library Program.
3) Retrain and refocus its workforce by creating a U.S. Publishing Academy
4) Enhance security for passports and other secure documents
5) Create more materials for the public domain (books and master files for remixing)
6) Should work with the rest of the government to change how information is put online
7) Become fully transparent in its own financial affairs and serve on the front lines of customer service
His effort has support from a host of high-tech and transparency thought leaders including: Tim O'Reilly, Tim Wu, Lawrence Lessig, Ellen Miller, and Cory Doctorow.
High-tech stakeholders on Wednesday lauded President Barack Obama's third pick for Commerce secretary -- former Washington Gov. Gary Locke -- after his two other choices for the post, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., both withdrew. "I'm sure it's not lost on anyone that we've tried this a couple of times, but I'm a big believer in keeping at something until you get it right," Obama joked upon announcing Locke's nomination. He went on to praise his work wooing high-tech and other businesses to Washington state.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller said the Commerce Department "has a major role to play in rebuilding our economy" and Locke is an excellent choice to run the show. "He is a seasoned executive, he understands the importance of economic development at the state level, and he is a life-long advocate and champion for American productivity," Rockefeller said. Ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison said she hoped Locke "will be proactive in helping U.S. businesses' marketing efforts abroad and be an advocate from within the administration for responsible tax and regulatory policies."
Software and Information Industry Association President Ken Wasch touted Locke's executive experience and noted that Washington state "has the most manufacturing export-related jobs of any in the country." "Gov. Locke understands the need for America to compete in the global economic marketplace," Wasch said. SIIA General Counsel Mark Bohannon added the department's agenda - ensuring quality patents, opening markets and removing barriers to trade, advancing the U.S. technology base, and implementing export controls - factors importantly into economic recovery.
Information technology security is unsurprisingly the top challenge reported by federal government CIOs in an annual survey conducted by the Technology Association of America -- a group formed earlier this year by the merger of the Information Technology Association of America and the American Electronics Association. Since 2009 marks a period of greater change than normal, with the transition to a new administration, authors revised the study's format to examine impacts of the transition and offer advice for the future. The paper also looks back at the eight years of President George W. Bush's administration and provides commentary on challenges, outcomes and lessons learned.
The study's findings, released Tuesday, classify participating CIOs into three categories in terms of their thinking on the current IT security challenge. One subset tended to define their IT security progress and challenges in terms of compliance with OMB directives and initiatives. Another subset was more focused on protecting current IT assets -- infrastructure, networks, software and data -- from unauthorized intrusion and harm. A third subset believed a strategic response is required to address cybersecurity. Other challenges described in the report include IT infrastructure, management, resources, workforce, applications systems and transitioning to the future.
Key observations from CIOs for the Obama administration fit into the following themes:
• Strong leadership drives change
• Employ laser-sharp focus
• Demand results and verify
• Achieve good IT governance
• Fix IT infrastructure
• Fund priority initiatives
• Continue to standardize and consolidate
• Strengthen the blended workforce
The full report and CIO survey will be available on the ITAA and AeA Web sites.
An Obama administration official confirmed for CongressDaily Monday that the president's likely third pick for Commerce secretary is former Washington Gov. Gary Locke. The Democrat was the nation's first Chinese-American governor when he served two terms from 1997 to 2005. Since leaving office, he has worked for Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle on issues involving China, human rights and intellectual property rights. He was an IP crusader on the domestic front as well. Under Locke's leadership, Washington became the fourth state in 2000 to issue an executive order requiring state agencies and recipients of state funds to acquire and use legally licensed software. Obama's second choice for the job, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., backed out a week after he was named citing "irresolvable conflicts" with the president's policies. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, was his first choice but he withdrew in January amid allegations of wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts in his state. Also on the tech front, Locke was named to the board of Key Technology in May 2008. The Walla Walla, Wash.-based company designs and manufactures automation systems for the food processing and industrial markets.
The Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester believes FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz is poised to "help transform what has been a largely anemic regulatory watchdog during the Bush years into an agency that sees its first priority as consumer protection." According to CongressDaily's PM Edition on Monday, an administration official confirmed the former Motion Picture Association of America executive will be tapped as FTC chairman by President Barack Obama early this week. Leibowitz, a Democratic member of the panel since 2004, will succeed Republican William Kovacic at the agency charged with consumer protection and preventing unfair business practices.
"We expect significant FTC action on financial and health-related consumer issues. There will also be a more critical eye cast with mergers," Chester said in an e-mail. "Public interest groups such as mine appreciate that Leibowitz has called for tougher online privacy safeguards, and that his door has always been open." Leibowitz, who was once Democratic counsel for the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, serves alongside Kovacic; Republican J. Thomas Rosch, and Pamela Jones Harbour, an independent. Obama will also need to fill an existing vacancy on the five-member body. In unrelated FTC news, the Supreme Court has rejected a request by the agency to resurrect an antitrust case against computer memory manufacturer Rambus. Read more here.
An about-face by social networking site Facebook last week regarding its terms of service headed off a complaint to federal regulators prepared by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The Wednesday decision to restore Facebook's original policy and its commitment to a more transparent, participatory process regarding future changes to its operating procedure came hours before the watchdog group planned to file a complaint with the FTC. The EPIC filing was supported by more than a dozen consumer and privacy organizations, officials said.
The modified terms of service announced Feb. 4 were widely criticized, EPIC said in a Monday e-e-mail blast. The group argued the company's revised policy "adversely impacted Facebook customers, eviscerated wide-recognized privacy rights, and unilaterally and retroactively transferred control of user generated content to Facebook." The modifications were made without any meaningful notice to Facebook users, EPIC said, noting the transfer of rights was an unfair and deceptive business practice. Under the revised policies, the Web site "asserted broad, permanent, and retroactive rights to users' personal information - even after they deleted their accounts," EPIC said.
Previous EPIC complaints at the FTC have related to Microsoft Passport, Choicepoint, and the Google-Doubleclick merger. In response to user concerns, Facebook established a new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and is seeking comments from users. The page includes these statements from the company:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is embracing technology early in her tenure. She recently posted her first entry on Dipnote, the State Department's official blog and is participating in a new online forum, "Ask the Secretary." She also launched an internal agency Web site, "The Sounding Board," to solicit feedback from department staff. "There is no doubt in my mind that we have barely scratched the surface as to what we can use to communicate with people around the world, and in fact, to use them [new technologies] as tools...to further our own work and be smart about it," Clinton said at a town hall meeting earlier this month.
"There are legitimate concerns about security, but I believe we cannot just take that at face value and stop thinking about it. We've got to figure out how we're going to be smarter about using technology," she said. Clinton also cited social networking site Facebook as an example. "For everybody who is applying for a visa, you just should know that the State Department is on the watch here for Facebook," she said. In her Dipnote post, she said she intends to take advantage of new social media tools during her travels around the world "so the State Department can share its diplomatic work with a broader audience." "I invite you to use these tools and become a part of this conversation," she told blog readers.
The Homeland Security Department's first chief privacy officer thinks the agency's pick for that post in the new administration is good one. Nuala O'Connor Kelly, who left DHS in 2005 to become General Electric's senior counsel for information governance and privacy, said Mary Ellen Callahan is a "respected privacy official and attorney" who will continue to grow what she believes is an "already excellent privacy organization" within the federal government. Callahan, a partner at Hogan & Hartson, was appointed by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday.
"Mary Ellen is a friend as well as a colleague, and I wish her tremendous success," O'Connor Kelly told Tech Daily Dose on Friday. "I am sure she will have the full support of the outstanding privacy office team." Callahan, an active member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, has what it takes to do the job right and will likely find support in her new post from DHS General Counsel Ivan Fong, sources said. Fong, who was tapped by President Barack Obama last month, has a privacy background and most recently served as chief legal officer for Cardinal Health. He was O'Connor's predecessor at GE and previously served as deputy associate attorney general.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday appointed Hogan & Hartson partner Mary Ellen Callahan as the agency's chief privacy officer. Callahan has counseled clients on online and offline marketing issues as well as Web site privacy policies and terms of use and helped create and implement privacy and security-related compliance strategies and programs. She has written numerous comments on behalf of clients such as the Motion Picture Association of America and the Online Publishers Association on rulemaking related to the FTC, federal anti-spam laws, and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, according to her firm bio.
Callahan, who previously worked for the Congressional Research Service, is also co-chair of the Online Privacy Alliance -- a self-regulatory group of corporations and associations to create an environment of trust and foster the protection of individuals' privacy online. "Homeland security and privacy are not mutually exclusive, and having a seasoned professional like Mary Ellen on the team further ensures that privacy is built in to everything we do," Napolitano said in a statement.
The Future of Privacy Forum's Jules Polonetsky lauded the appointment, saying Callahan has "the critical combination of privacy savvy, common sense and backbone needed to help craft the balance between the war on terror and respect for the privacy and personal dignity of individuals." "For an administration that has promised to be both tough on terror and committed to civil liberties, this will be an incredibly critical role," he said. Callahan is a great listener who will be able to ensure that voices of both law enforcement and civil libertarians are heard and respected, Polonetsky added.
The Justice Department will get $4 billion from the $787 billion economic stimulus plan signed by President Barack Obama on Tuesday to enhance state, local, and tribal law enforcement efforts. Included in that pool is $50 million for the agency's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., a staunch supporter of the program, made sure the money was part of the package. The funding will help those who track down child pornographers and will preserve law enforcement jobs, the National Association to Protect Children (PROTECT) said. The $50 million was halved during Senate negotiations but was restored after child protection advocates spoke out.
Law enforcement grant funds for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) programs will also be available as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and much of it could go toward child exploitation work, PROTECT said. Grants will fund an estimated 5,500 local police officers through COPS as well as the JAG program's formula grants to state and local law enforcement. PROTECT worked in 2008 with the Surviving Parents Coalition to boost ICAC budgets in the pending FY 2009 omnibus. Senate appropriators increased the budget from $15.9 million to $30 million while the House allotted $25 million.
"This funding is vital to keeping our communities strong," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. "As governors, mayors, and local law enforcement professionals struggle with the current economic crisis, we can't afford to decrease our commitment to fighting crime and keeping our communities safe. These grants will help ensure states and localities can make the concerted efforts necessary to protect our most vulnerable communities and populations."
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and four of its senior executives on Tuesday were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock option backdating. The SEC's complaint alleges that the Ontario, Canada-based company, its former CFO Dennis Kavelman, former Vice President of Finance Angelo Loberto, and Co-CEOs James Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis illegally granted undisclosed, in-the-money options to RIM executives and employees by backdating millions of stock options over an eight-year period from 1998 through 2006. The news comes ahead of President Barack Obama's one-day visit to Ottawa on Thursday.
SEC Enforcement Division Director Linda Chatman Thomsen said the action underscores the commission's resolve "to assure full and accurate disclosure to U.S. investors by foreign issuers." "Companies and executives who attempt to conceal their fraudulent conduct from investors and regulators will be held accountable," added SEC Enforcement Division Associate Director Antonia Chion in a press release. The SEC's complaint alleges false and misleading disclosures were made about how RIM priced and accounted for options. The backdating violated terms of RIM's stock option plan and a listing requirement of the Toronto Stock Exchange, the SEC said. RIM's stock is also listed on NASDAQ where it was down more than 8 percent in midday trading.
According to the SEC, all defendants have agreed to settle the matter, without admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint. RIM consented to an order permanently enjoining it from violating the anti-fraud, reporting, books and records and internal controls provisions of federal securities laws. The settlement with RIM also takes into account the company's cooperation during the SEC's investigation. Kavelman and the others named in the complaint agreed to pay penalties ranging from $334,250 to $500,000 and to disgorge the in-the-money value of backdated options they had exercised. Earlier this month, the Ontario Securities Commission settled a related case against RIM and executives.
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
For the first time in years, government officials and the U.S. biotechnology industry are weighing an overhaul of the regulatory framework for federal and private laboratories that work with the world's deadliest biological agents and toxins. At the heart of the matter is concern over securing biological pathogens with dual-use applications, the kind of infectious organisms that have scientific and medical value when used properly but that also can be turned into a weapon to kill or sicken people.
Spurring calls for action, the congressionally chartered Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism predicted in its final report in December that a bioterrorism attack is likely to occur somewhere in the world within the next five years. The panel also reported significant security gaps at U.S. laboratories. Meanwhile, President George W. Bush, in one of his last acts before leaving office last month, established a high-level federal working group that would make recommendations to President Barack Obama within six months on whether laws and regulations governing security at labs should be changed.
And now, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins say they are in the early stages of writ-ing legislation to tighten oversight of so-called high containment laboratories that handle deadly biological pathogens, especially facilities run by private companies. "One of the findings of the WMD Commission is that a lot of the privately operated labs operate for good purposes to develop biotechnology products ... but what they're doing could easy be converted to a biological weapon," Lieberman told CongressDaily.
The Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee has offered DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano 16 recommendations on how to best address privacy issues currently facing the department. The panel stressed that "the need to update the government's legal authority to protect and defend cyberspace in the U.S. classified intelligence systems raise specific and sometimes significant privacy issues, including the conflict between transparency and redress."
The committee has asked that each DHS component - such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Office of Intelligence and Analysis - have a designated privacy officer that would report to the head of the section. The committee also "encourages DHS to continue to work toward policy and functional interoperability in the development of new systems and when making major modifications to existing systems," according to a letter from the committee hand delivered to Napolitano.
Additionally, the panel said the 1974 Privacy Act has "not kept pace with the evolution of technology and developments in how data is collected, used, shared and stored. To the extent the Secretary is asked to submit recommendations to Congress for making the act more relevant and effective, the committee recommends that the secretary seek guidance from the Privacy Office staff, who are experts in applying the Act's provisions throughout the department." For more on the recommendations, read the committee's letter here.
-- Winter Casey
The FTC unveiled an updated set of recommendations Thursday on how Internet firms can better protect consumer privacy in an age of sophisticated advertising models. The guidance came on the heels of a December report by agency staff that offered proposed principles to steer the development of self-regulation for behavioral advertising, which involves tracking of a consumer's activities online including searches, Web pages visited, and content viewed.
The new staff report summarizes and responds to key issues raised by more than 60 comments received and sets forth revised principles. The document points out that most comments concerned the scope of the proposed principles like it was necessary to provide privacy protections for data that is not personally identifiable. In response, the report states that Web sites should cover any data that reasonably can be associated with a particular consumer or computer or other device.
Commenters also questioned the need to apply privacy principles to "first party" advertising, in which a site collects consumer data to deliver targeted advertising but does not share any information with third parties. The FTC also fielded questions about contextual ads, which involve little or no data storage. The agency concluded those methods pose fewer privacy concerns and do not need to be included within the scope of self-regulatory principles.
Entertainment industry attorney Tom Perrelli, who is President Barack Obama's pick for associate attorney general, told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing Tuesday that existing U.S. intellectual property laws "don't seem to be addressing the problem" of global counterfeiting and piracy and said he hopes the department will bring a renewed focus to the issue. Perrelli was most recently managing partner of Jenner & Block's Washington, D.C., office and co-chaired the firm's entertainment and new media practice. In that capacity, he represented record labels and movie studios in a variety of copyright court battles.
"This committee was the source of a bill that created a broader IP position through the administration," Perrelli pointed out. That legislation sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Arlen Specter became law in October. The measure toughened civil and criminal IP laws and provided new prosecutorial resources. It also created an IP enforcement coordinator within the White House -- a vacant position that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., urged the administration to fill.
During the hearing, Perrelli was also grilled by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., about legislation that he sponsored in the 110th Congress to expand the requirements for electronic service providers to report online child pornography and help to root out people selling, trading, or displaying illegal pornographic images of children. "We have to do everything we can to protect children from depictions that are going to be harmful to them," Perrelli said, pledging to work with the committee on child protection issues and help ensure that those who distribute unlawful Internet content are prosecuted.
After serving eight years as U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, David Gross left the State Department on Jan. 20. Richard Beaird is currently serving in his place in an acting capacity. Gross held the title since 2001 when he was nominated by former President George W. Bush. According to the State Department's Web site, Gross led "more U.S. delegations to major international telecommunication conferences than anyone in modern history."
As coordinator, Gross was responsible for the formulation and advocacy of international communications policy for the United States. He had previously been a partner at the Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan law firm, where he specialized in telecommunication issues. He has also served as Washington Counsel for AirTouch Communications, a wireless telecommunications company. In 2000, Gross joined the Bush presidential campaign. Before serving as Gross's deputy, Beaird was an associate administrator at National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Prior to that, he worked for AT&T.
State's International Communication and Information Policy group advocates international policies for expanded access to information and communication technologies and improved efficiency in the international telecommunications market "through increased reliance on free-market forces, and fair opportunities for U.S. companies to participate in this important sector around the globe." A rumor has recently circulated that FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein could be a candidate for Gross's former position.
-- Winter Casey
From Wednesday's CongressDaily AM Edition:
Big brand owners like Marriott, Nike and Verizon are gearing up for a battle in Congress and the Commerce Department over sweeping changes to the way top-level domains, such as .biz, .info, and .us, are assigned. A range of intellectual property stakeholders fear that a planned expansion of such domains by the Internet's key oversight agency will force them to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to protect their identities from fraud and infringement.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers released a draft proposal in October suggesting that any entity could apply for a domain as long as they could pay a fee of about $190,000. The application process is expected to start this year, with the first of hundreds of new domains potentially coming online late this year. ICANN Vice President Paul Levins said everyone's concerns will be considered and as a starting point, an analysis of 300 comments received by ICANN will be released in the next two weeks.
On Tuesday, the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse hosted a briefing for executives and Capitol Hill staffers to discuss how Congress can get involved, but ICANN officials were told they were not welcome, Levins said. Another forum, which will be closed to the press and public, is set for Friday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Among those taking part are the Financial Services Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers, Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America and other industry groups. ICANN officials will be on hand at that event, Levins said.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Senate Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg, who was officially tapped Tuesday to run the Commerce Department, has a reputation for being a fiscal conservative and some technology policy watchers wonder if that mindset will clash with some of President Barack Obama's spending priorities. While Gregg largely cast favorable votes on key technology issues during his tenure on Capitol Hill, he did not support U.S. competitiveness legislation that passed in the 110th Congress, which authorized major funding increases in federal R&D programs.
Throwing billions of dollars at "feel-good initiatives" would not help the country stay competitive, he argued in April 2007. The Senate passed the bill 88-8; the House voted for it 367-57; and former President George W. Bush signed the bill later that summer. Since the measure's enactment, appropriators have not kept pace with its doubling of the National Science Foundation budget and other funding boosts. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, issued a statement saying Gregg's fiscal restraint "will certainly be missed in the halls of Congress." For his part, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller called Gregg "a compassionate leader who understands that commerce is the keystone of any of our economic recovery plans."
If confirmed, it is unclear what ideas the New Hampshire senator will bring to the table with respect to the country's upcoming transition to digital television or efforts to increase broadband Internet availability in underserved areas. "He has been supportive of these issues but has never taken a leadership role," said Ralph Hellman, a lobbyist for the Information Technology Industry Council. The Commerce Department oversees the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is coordinating the digital TV shift, as well as the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, and the Patent and Trademark Office.
Continue reading Gregg's Tech Track Record Has Highs & Lows.
From National Journal's David Herbert...
When President Barack Obama signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to disseminate more information online and open more channels for feedback, the media duly applauded while good-government groups breathed a sigh of relief. But agencies are already using social media; most just haven't been successful. Bureaucratic inefficiency is partly to blame, as are a handful of outdated and inflexible laws. One of the most onerous and anachronistic, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, requires the Office of Management and Budget to approve any government survey of 10 or more people, meaning a simple online customer satisfaction poll must submit to a months-long review process.
Still, the biggest problem facing most agencies isn't the trap of outdated regulations but the failure to attract an audience. Take the Commerce Department, which spent months negotiating a special end-user license agreement with YouTube and became one of the first federal agencies on the site last year. It was an achievement for the department to make it to YouTube, but its videos haven't taken off: Its channel has 14 videos and three subscribers. Its most popular? A seven-minute clip of then-Secretary Carlos Gutierrez speaking to the Manufacturing Council in July, with just over 100 hits. Read the full story here.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration employees have been told that Anna Gomez, who is currently vice president for government affairs at Sprint Nextel, has been tapped for the role of deputy assistant secretary. Sources said her paperwork is still being completed but the White House wants her to start as soon as possible -- potentially early next week. Gomez worked on President Barack Obama's transition team as the U.S. Trade Representative Lead and was deputy chief of the FCC's international bureau. She also previously served as deputy chief of staff for the National Economic Council and was an associate at the law firm Arnold & Porter, according to OpenSecrets.org.
In her role at NTIA, Gomez will answer to the yet-to-be-named Commerce secretary and will be a key administration voice on the nationwide switch to digital television. The transition is currently scheduled to conclude on Feb. 17 but it could be pushed back to June 12. The Senate voted twice to delay the switch last week. The first bill did not get a two-thirds majority in the House, which will take up the second bill next week. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama will sign legislation to delay the switch because he wants to make sure nobody loses their TV signals. -- Winter Casey
Update: At Sprint, Gomez served as one of the company's lead regulatory attorneys before the FCC and state public utility commissions. She was not a registered lobbyist on Capitol Hill and she officially left Sprint on Friday.
FBI Director Robert Mueller emphasized the importance of information sharing among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies Friday during a speech to the National Sheriffs' Association. He told the group that the modern day FBI is an intelligence-driven organization and as such has improved the quantity and quality of its intelligence reporting and enhanced its technology so that data can get into their hands faster. "The FBI relies on your eyes and ears and expertise as we work together to prevent both crime and terrorism," he told the crowd.
One example he gave was the launch of e-Guardian earlier this month -- a program that allows the FBI to quickly share information about suspicious activities. Mueller said the agency is in the midst of developing the Next Generation Identification system, which expands on the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System and will include advanced biometrics. Additionally, Mueller pointed out that sheriffs can access FBI intelligence reports through a database that supports over 120,000 partners and can search and compare cases nationwide through the National Data Exchange.
The Justice Department on Friday will launch an Internet-based system to help protect states and consumers from automobile fraud and to provide law enforcement with new tools to investigate fraud, theft, and other crimes involving vehicles. The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, or NMVTIS, will be available for consumers and will be accessible through third party, fee-for-service Web sites. Watchdog group Public Citizen has complained the system is many years overdue since Congress first ordered the federal government to create it in 1992.
Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, and Consumer Action, sued the Justice Department over the delayed implementation and a court ordered that the government issue regulations and make the data available by Jan. 31, with data from private sources by March 31. Under the new system, car buyers will be able to instantly check the validity of a vehicle's title, verify its mileage and learn whether it had been stolen or deemed junked or salvaged. Public Citizen, however, pointed out that some states - including New York, California and Pennsylvania -are refusing to allow their vehicle data to be made public and other states are not reporting data at all.
Since 1997, Justice has committed over $15 million to assist states and other stakeholders in NMVTIS implementation. Currently, NMVTIS has the participation, or partial participation, of 36 states, according to a department press release. Along with implementing the system, the agency has outlined various responsibilities and reporting requirements for states, auto recyclers, junk yards and salvage yards, and insurance carriers. The agency has designed the system consistent with federal law that requires that the system be paid for through user fees and not dependent on federal funding.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley has asked the National Science Foundation's inspector general to send him details relating to an internal investigation that found "numerous reports" of agency officials spending large amounts of time accessing online pornography and engaging in sexually explicit Web chat. The claims were part of the foundation's 68-page semiannual report to Congress that was dated September 2008 but posted was publicly in December.
The inspector general "recommended that NSF take immediate action to address numerous reports of employees viewing pornography on their government computers. The multiple investigations opened in the past few months, highlighted the need for systemic corrective actions in order to reduce abuse of agency IT resources.," according to the report. There were six cases of "viewing, downloading, saving, and/or sharing pornographic images and videos and one case of extensive participation in pornographic chat Web sites and the concomitant significant waste of official time."
One NSF official spent up to 20 percent of his official work time viewing sexually explicit images and chatting online, the probe showed. Based on the employee's salary the report identified a potential loss of more than $58,000 in compensation for that personal time. The investigation also determined that the employee charged more than $40,300 to his personal credit card over 24 months to participate in the online chats. To limit future abuse, the report recommended changes in NSF's IT training; limitations on employee server storage; routine screening for and deletion of personal music and image files from network drives; and procurement of necessary filtering software.
A trade group that represents Google, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and other high-tech firms in Washington urged President Barack Obama on Monday to appoint leaders at the Commerce Department and Patent and Trademark Office to who can bring reform and encourage innovation. "We have to recognize that the entire intellectual property system - patents, copyrights and trademarks - is in crisis and loosing credibility," Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said. "IP policy has been administered with a sort of 'you're with us or against us approach' and you couldn't propose reforms without being pigeonholed as anti-IP," he said, noting that he believes too much IP protection can be as harmful as too little.
CCIA also asked the new administration to designate an undersecretary for intellectual property who can address the broad challenges in innovation policy facing the nation. "We need someone who is a visionary, as well as a manager and a diplomat," Black said. The PTO can be important to making innovation work, but it needs to be connected to broader thinking about innovation and concerned with results, not just churning out patents, he said in a press release. In addition, CCIA has advocated for an independent Institute for Innovation Economics and Patent Policy to provide evidence-based analysis -- a key element to making the system work for all. Obama's picks for Commerce secretary and PTO director have not been unveiled but buzz is building about Symantec CEO John Thompson for a Cabinet post.
President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated former FTC Commissioner Christine Varney for assistant attorney general for antitrust -- a position that has become increasingly important as more high-tech, telecommunications and media mergers and acquisitions face regulatory scrutiny. Varney, who has been partner at Hogan & Hartson since 1997 most recently served as personnel counsel to the Obama transition team and has extensive experience in Internet and technology law.
While at the FTC, Varney pioneered the application of innovation market theory analysis to transactions in both high-tech and biotechnology fields, according to a White House personnel press release. She also focused her efforts on healthcare issues, enforcing the antitrust laws in that industry, while also encouraging the government agencies to be more receptive to innovative delivery modes and models. At Hogan & Hartson, her clients have included the American Hospital Association, Internet auction site eBay, Sun Microsystems, and Dow Jones before its acquisition by News Corp.
In related news, David Kris was appointed assistant attorney general for national security. He is currently deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer media conglomerate Time Warner. Kris previously served as associate deputy attorney general where his unclassified responsibilities included supervising the government's use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, representing department at the National Security Council, briefing and testifying before Congress.
The Technology Association of America, the trade group formed from the recent merger of the Information Technology Association of America and the American Electronics Association, urged the Federal Acquisition Regulations Council to return to the drawing board on a proposed rulemaking on IT products. The panel has proposed strict, unlimited liability on government contractors who introduce faulty or counterfeit IT products, the group said in a Thursday press release. FAR's proposed approach is not well suited to enforce contractor performance specifications and is unlikely to prevent "Trojan horses," "back doors" or other security concerns, TAA said.
In a Jan. 20 letter the association noted that "laws and regulations are in place to combat faulty products and fraudulent contractors. If enforced, the existing laws are sufficient to address a situation in which a contractor delivers a defective or faulty product." TAA recommended that "the contractor community and the government act as partners to identify and eliminate counterfeit IT products and demonstrate the security of the supply chain, rather than placing the burden on contractors and systems integrators with strict, unlimited liability."
As a possible alternative solution, TAA suggested that FAR to consider a "safe harbor" approach in which contractors must demonstrate reasonable steps to prevent the delivery of unauthorized products. This would include robust compliance processes throughout each level of the supply chain or production -- and a contractor would not be liable when fraud perpetrated by a supplier cannot be prevented.
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Wednesday night that the agency spied on U.S. news organizations "24/7, 365 days a year." Former President Bush and senior officials insisted repeatedly that the warrantless wiretapping program that came to light in 2005 was legal and only targeted those with suspected ties to terrorist organizations. Tice said he did not know what became of the journalists' collected communications nor did he mention news outlets by name.
He told Olbermann he volunteered his expertise to President Barack Obama's campaign and transition team but they did not take him up on the offer. "They knew my background but they never utilized me," said Tice, who has leaked information about the NSA before and has pushed for whistleblower protection legislation. Before appearing on the show, he sent a handwritten note to Obama's camp saying he planned to speak about the NSA activity in more detail.
Business Software Alliance General Counsel Neil MacBride will be moving into one of the top positions at the Justice Department in the Obama Administration. MacBride has been named associate deputy attorney general, according to the trade group. In his new position, MacBride -- who has been BSA's vice president of anti-piracy and general counsel -- will serve on the senior leadership team of Attorney General-designee Eric Holder and will help manage the agency's 115,000 employees and $22 billion budget.
MacBride will also manage the criminal components of the Justice Department, including the 93 United States Attorneys Offices, the Criminal Division, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and other entities. MacBride will advise the attorney general on criminal justice, law enforcement, and intellectual property issues and oversee the policy and legislative offices in DOJ. Members of BSA include Adobe, Apple, Cisco Systems, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Quest. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, he has lobbied for BSA in the past.
Prior to joining BSA, MacBride served for four years as counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and four years of service as an assistant attorney in the Criminal Division of DOJ. He has also been the chief counsel and staff director to Vice President Joseph Biden when he was in the Senate. MacBride once worked as an attorney at a law firm where he focused on white collar defense and legislative/regulatory issues. He also served as a judicial law clerk for District Judge Henry Coke Morgan, Jr. in the Eastern District of Virginia. MacBride is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. -- Winter Casey
On Saturday, the FBI's Washington Field Office provided a demonstration of its tactical response vehicles that will be on standby during Tuesday's inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. The emergency rigs include a state-of-the-art mobile command post, an armored assault vehicle, WMD response vehicles, evidence recovery team vehicles, and bomb trucks. The photo above is a shot inside the high-tech mobile command center. Upon closer inspection the monitors appear to be tuned to: Martha Stewart's show, a soap opera and a Care Bears cartoon (click here for a larger photo). Read more here.
President-elect Barack Obama should appoint a Patent and Trademark Office director who is a lawyer with patent and trademark experience; is knowledgeable of both domestic and international intellectual property laws; and has management skills sufficient to oversee the operations of the ever-growing agency, the American Bar Association's IP law section said in recommendations sent this week to the transition team. U.S. law contains a similar but less demanding statement of qualifications for the director, the ABA pointed out.
The group said the PTO should be statutorily allowed to keep the fees it collects from applicants and not have that money diverted to other federal projects. While congressional appropriators and the Bush administration have let the office do this in recent years, the change should be codified in law, the ABA said. Another recommendation was to expand the right of the public to submit "prior art" in pending patent applications -- a modification that would ensure an examiner has all the relevant information. The ABA also suggested the PTO take a number of steps to ensure that it retains and recruits a high- quality workforce. Read ABA's full submission here.
A Cabinet-level office that has been a leader in embracing new communications technologies has not put up a Facebook or MySpace profile in part because of the difficulty it would have in attempting to keep internal records of everything that might take place on such pages. "The federal government requires everything we post online to be archived as a record internally," said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
While the agency has been able to set up an archiving system for its official blog posts and messages on Twitter, a microblogging site, it has found it much more difficult to meet the records requirement for other online technologies. "How do you keep records of status updates, photos and correspondence on Facebook internally?" Lemaitre asked. "Maybe in the next administration we can figure out a way to do that."
President-elect Barack Obama has made online transparency and citizen participation priorities for his administration. But balancing the quest to use new technologies with the need to preserve information will pose a challenge to the new administration, as evidenced by the continuing struggle to preserve the electronic records of the Bush White House.
Two prominent business executives' names are being circulated among Washington insiders as potential nominees for Commerce secretary just a week after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson -- President-elect Barack Obama's first choice -- withdrew his name, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state government. Several high-tech industry officials and congressional aides say John Thompson, chairman and CEO of computer security and systems management firm Symantec, and former Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons, are two of the top contenders for the job. A spokesman for Obama's transition team declined to comment.
Thompson announced in November he would retire this spring, and a source confirmed that Thompson has been talking with Obama's transition team. Thompson was spotted on Capitol Hill last week, presumably for meetings with key lawmakers about the Commerce job and Symantec's legislative agenda under its incoming CEO, Enrique Salem, officials said. He is no stranger to Washington, having served on President Bush's National Infrastructure Advisory Committee -- a panel that focused on protecting U.S. national security and economic critical infrastructures. His name had been floated as a contender for the federal government's first-ever chief technology officer.
Parsons, who some sources said is already being vetted by the transition team, became Time Warner chairman in 2003, served as its CEO from May 2002 to December 2007 and stepped down from the board last month. Parsons serves on Obama's economic advisory panel but is also on Citigroup's board. He is said to be a leading candidate to become chairman of the embattled financial giant -- a factor that could impact his Commerce candidacy. Earlier in his career, Parsons worked as counsel for New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and followed him to Washington when he became vice president. He also worked as a senior White House aide under former President Gerald Ford.
About one in four stalking victims in the United States reported some form of cyber-stalking such as e-mail (83 percent) or instant messaging (35 percent), according to a Justice Department report released Monday. The Bureau of Justice Statistics findings, based on the largest data collection of such behavior to date, also showed that electronic monitoring was used to stalk one in 13 victims and video or digital cameras were equally likely as listening devices or bugs to be used to electronically monitor victims (46 percent and 42 percent). Global positioning system technology comprised about a tenth of the electronic monitoring of stalking victims, officials said.
Overall, an estimated 3.4 million people identified themselves as victims of stalking during a 12-month period in 2005 and 2006. About half of them experienced at least one unwanted contact per week from the offender and 11 percent had been stalked for five or more years. The most common types of stalking behaviors were receiving unwanted phone calls from the offender (66 percent), receiving unsolicited letters or e-mail (31 percent), or having rumors spread about them (36 percent). Nearly 75 percent of victims knew their offender in some capacity, and about one-tenth were stalked by a stranger. Read the DOJ report here.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy is embracing technology one step at a time. It announced on its blog last week that it has begun using Twitter, a near real-time short messaging service. "ONDCP will use the service to post frequent updates on upcoming drug policy-related announcements, interesting policy-related news links, and other information reflecting Federal anti-drug priorities and initiatives," the blog entry said. "This effort will enable ONDCP to reach more Americans online and illustrates how public institutions can adapt to meet the rapidly changing nature of today's communications environment."
The use of Twitter microblogging technology will "allow ONDCP to expand its ability to share accurate drug information and help more Americans understand how their government is working with communities to reduce drug use," the post continued. In 2005, ONDCP launched the first blog for a cabinet-level agency. In July 2008, the blog received over 90,000 page views and over 300,000 hits. ONDCP also claims to be the first federal agency to have used video-sharing Web site YouTube.com. -- Winter Casey
Despite rumors swirling in the blogosphere about Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas leaving the agency before the end of the Bush administration, a spokeswoman for his office says he is staying put until Jan. 20, the day that President-elect Barack Obama takes the reigns. The PTO is, however, having a reception next week where employees will have an opportunity to say goodbye to Dudas.
A notice that went out in the PTO's employee newsletter read:
"Director Dudas will be leaving the USPTO in mid-January. The Office of the Under Secretary and Director is hosting a farewell event from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday, January 12, 2009, in the South Madison Auditorium, on the concourse level of the Madison building. It is an opportunity for Director Dudas to thank you for making his time at the USPTO so rewarding. If you would like to say farewell to Director Dudas in person, please feel free to stop by the auditorium on Monday afternoon."
Amid a growing sea of phishers, spammers and other Internet-based crooks, the most daunting cyber challenge faced by law enforcement agencies is identifying how best to secure the U.S. national high-tech infrastructure writ large, Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip told the International Conference on Cyber Security this week in New York City, which was organized by the FBI and Fordham University. "We must secure our cyber infrastructure in a manner that addresses threats from foreign armies, adversary intelligence services, criminals, and terrorists. It's hard to exaggerate how important this is or how hard it is to accomplish fully," he said in remarks released Wednesday. "We've made real progress in this area, but we all know there's a lot to do."
Filip outlined some successes like an FBI center in Pennsylvania that brings together private parties and government investigators together to work on cyber breaches and threats, but said that effort and others are in their early stages. The Justice Department and FBI are also ramping up collaborations with other agencies to address cyber espionage and cyber terrorism threats. That work is done at places like the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the National Counterterrorism Center.
In the coming years, those who safeguard the IT space will encounter the same kinds of spies, criminals, terrorists, and armies -- "but we're now living in a world where technology moves much faster than the government typically moves, and where our adversaries are anxious to exploit every vulnerability that technological change can offer," Filip warned. For that reason, the government's response must be nimble and effective at working with the private sector, he said. He also mentioned President-elect Barack Obama's interest in creating a White House position to coordinate cyber policy across agencies but would not offer an opinion on the wisdom of that model.
Just weeks after being tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be Commerce Secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending probe into a company that has done business with his state government. Richardson issued a statement saying the federal grand jury investigation into a firm, which contributed to his political career and won a sizable state contract, "promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps, even months."
Richardson, who would have led an agency that oversees the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Patent and Trademark Office, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he and his administration have "acted properly in all matters" and the investigation will bear out that fact. However, he concluded the probe would have forced "an untenable delay in the confirmation process." Obama issued a statement calling Richardson "an outstanding public servant" and said it is was a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he removed himself from the running. Read more in CongressDaily (subscription required).
FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Shawn Henry and Deputy Director Christopher M.E. Painter are among several key law enforcement officials slated to speak at the International Conference on Cyber Security next week in New York City. Henry, Painter and Louis Grever, executive assistant director for the FBI Science and Technology Branch, will speak on Tuesday while Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip will deliver remarks on Thursday. The event is being held at Fordham University at Lincoln Center.
The FBI has teamed with Fordham's Department of Computer and Information Sciences to bring together global leaders in emerging cyber threat analysis and enforcement for the first of its kind conference. This gathering of international cyber security experts will host more than 300 delegates from around the world, officials said in a press release. ICCS -- which is sponsored by Google, Booz Allen Hamilton, BAE Systems and others -- will consist of three full days, 50 unique lectures, cutting edge demonstrations and networking opportunities. Read more about the Jan. 6-8 conference here.
A federal panel charged with determining music royalty rates proposed changes Tuesday that would alter reporting requirements for services that pay fees for the use of sound recordings to SoundExchange, an entity that collects and distributes money owed to the music industry. The proposed new rules by the Copyright Royalty Board would require that "reports of use" submitted by certain services contain "full census reporting" of all songs played. Among those affected include Internet radio, satellite radio, digital cable radio and others, according to telecom attorney David Oxenford. The current system only requires reporting for two weeks each quarter.
"Where this change is likely to have the most impact is in connection with the operations of broadcasters who also stream their programs on the Internet," Oxenford said on his Broadcast Law Blog. "Noncommercial broadcasters, such as college radio stations, have repeatedly complained that their small staffs do not have the ability to maintain these electronic records, especially where the stations are volunteer-programmed by DJs who select their own music on the spot," he said. Oxenford represented small webcasters in a controversial recent proceeding on Internet royalties, which got the attention of consumer groups and members of Congress.
Comments on the proposal (which can be viewed here) are due by Jan. 29, 2009.
The U.S. Copyright Office has received 19 proposals for classes of works to be subject to anti-circumvention exemptions within the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is seeking public comment on them, officials said this week. The purpose of the proceeding is to determine whether there are particular technologies or applications as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing uses due to anti-piracy (digital rights management) mechanisms.
Some of the proposed classes include:
▪ Subscription based services that offer DRM-protected streaming video where the provider has only made available players for a limited number of platforms, effectively creating an access control that requires a specific operating system version and/or set of hardware to view purchased material.
▪ Motion pictures protected by anti-access measures, such that access to the motion picture content requires use of a certain platform.
▪ Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the handset.
▪ Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network, regardless of commercial motive.
Continue reading Exemptions To Anti-Piracy Statute Proposed.
House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., on Friday said that at minimum Congress may need to pass additional funding in early January for the digital television transition converter box program to prevent any delay in availability or issuance of coupons to consumers. He voiced his concern upon the release of responses from the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration about the status of their preparations for the Feb. 17, 2009 switch-over.
The expected surge in consumer demand for converter box coupons is occurring and NTIA projects it will have to postpone or possibly deny the issuance of coupons to consumers without additional funding, Markey said in a statement. Moreover, lingering confusion over aspects of the transition and an apparent lack of converter box availability and call center capability pose additional threats to transition's success, he said. Markey noted "the challenges posed by the DTV switch cannot be underestimated."
Read the FCC and NTIA letters and Q&A here. Read more from CongressDaily here.
Privacy concerns continue to plague state-run intelligence "fusion centers" that the Homeland Security Department has set up around the country despite security provisions contained in a law enacted last year to implement recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, according to an agency analysis released this week. The DHS privacy impact assessment says worries persist in the following areas: 1. Justification for fusion centers 2. Ambiguous lines of authority, rules, and oversight 3. Participation of the military and the private sector. 4. Data mining. 5. Excessive secrecy 6. Inaccurate or incomplete information. 7. Mission creep.
The report goes on to state that "no information sharing regime is free from privacy risks" and says its authors examined a number of those risks and the positive steps both DHS participants in the initiative as well as representatives of fusion centers have taken or should take in the future to mitigate them. As the program matures, the DHS Privacy Office anticipates discovering new privacy challenges that need to be addressed and the PIA will be updated whenever necessary, the document said. Additionally, the Privacy Office called for "a regular and ongoing examination of privacy issues within the fusion centers."
The ACLU has been a leading critic of the centers, which have also been the topic of at least one hearing of the House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee in the 110th Congress. The ACLU's top lobbyist Caroline Fredrickson has complained that the centers differ in significant ways and there is no single model or standards by which their data gathering and sharing activities are governed. Lawmakers must have a discussion about guidelines and the private sector's role in the data swapping, she said. "In a multiagency environment when it's unclear which agencies' rules apply, very quickly, no rules apply," added ACLU policy counsel Mike German.
From NextGov.com's Bob Brewin:
A joint report released on Monday strongly urged the Defense Department to fully fund and deploy as soon as possible a $16 billion advanced satellite system that would give the military the ability to transmit larger amounts of surveillance and intelligence information at a much faster rate. The Transformational Communication Satellite system, which the Air Force is building, will transmit images, video and signals intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles and spy satellites to Army and Marine units on the battlefield and Navy ships.
The Air Force had planned to award the contract for the satellites this month, with Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. competing for the pact. But the award has been delayed because of both Air Force funding issues and the Joint Staff is reexamining the contract's requirements, Chris Isleib, a Pentagon spokesman, said in October. A report released by the Defense Science Board and the Intelligence Science Board warned against further delays, saying the TSAT system is "essential to enhancing military and intelligence operations."
Read the full story here.
Less than a year into the Library of Congress' pilot project to place its photographs on the popular image-sharing Web site Flickr, the photos have drawn more than 10 million views, 7,166 comments and more than 67,000 tags, according to a report from the team overseeing the initiative. Last January, the library uploaded a few thousand images (including "Letter for Santa Claus," shown at right) from its vast collections to see how "crowd-sourcing" might enhance the quality of the information the institution could provide about its historic holdings.
"The popularity and impact of the pilot have been remarkable," said Michelle Springer, project manager for digital initiatives in the Office of Strategic Initiatives. The site is averaging 500,000 views a month, she said, adding that Flickr members have marked 79 percent of the photos as "favorites." The report recommends that the library continue to participate in an area within Flickr called The Commons and explore other Web 2.0 communities.
"Increasing the ability to engage and connect with photos increases the sense of ownership and respect that people feel for these photos," the report states. "Lessons learned from this project provide guideposts to the type of experience that people would like to have with our collections." Since the project began, 16 additional institutions from the United States and other countries have begun sharing their photo archives and inviting the public to contribute information, the library said in a blog post.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday challenged the legality of requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to use the Homeland Security Department's E-Verify system, a free Web-based tool that uses Social Security Administration files to ensure that employees are legal immigrants or citizens eligible to work in the United States. Joining the Chamber as co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Associated Builders and Contractors, the Society for Human Resources Management, the American Council on International Personnel, and the HR Policy Association.
The complaint, which was filed in a Maryland federal court, challenges the government's use of an executive order coupled with federal procurement law to make E-Verify mandatory for federal contractors with projects exceeding $100,000 and for sub-contractors with projects exceeding $3,000. The Chamber also challenged expanding E-Verify to require the reauthorization of existing workers. "This massive expansion of E-Verify is not only bad policy, it's unlawful," the National Chamber Litigation Center's Robin Conrad said in a press release. Read more here.
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt believes interoperability has to be a component of any health information technology language that is considered for inclusion in a forthcoming economic stimulus package. "Before lawmakers act, they need to think: If stimulus money supports a proliferation of systems that can't exchange information, we will only be replacing paper-based silos of medical information with more expensive, computer-based silos that are barely more useful," he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday.
"Health IT systems produce value when they are interoperable. When they're not, doctors who invest in electronic health records cannot share information with each other or add lab results to your file or send electronic prescriptions to your pharmacist. They would have to use handwritten prescriptions and paper files in addition to their electronic files," Leavitt wrote. "That's not the way 21st-century health care should work." He added that system standards are needed and that those standards should be vendor-neutral.
The FBI has made great strides in 6-year, $451 million project to replace the agency's paper-based legacy systems for supporting mission-critical intelligence analysis and case management activities but more work needs to be done, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a Friday report. The analysis, which is the fourth in a series of audits examining the program known as Sentinel, raised concerns about the FBI's minimal planning for streamlining its business processes to coincide with implementation of the new system. The project has been the focus of repeated questioning by House and Senate appropriators and members of the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.
The FBI also needs to make several decisions about the scope and functionality of Sentinel, such as its role in automating the FBI's records management process, Fine's report said. Furthermore, the agency should improve the risk management process it uses to identify, monitor, control, and mitigate risks before they negatively affect Sentinel's cost, schedule, and performance. The current threshold for determining when a risk requires a contingency plan is set so high that very few, if any, risks will require a contingency plan, he wrote. Overall, the audit made 10 recommendations to help the FBI ensure Sentinel's success. The FBI agreed with all of Fine's recommendations.
National Telecommunications and Information Administration Acting Director Meredith Baker called on the Internet's key administrative agency this week to resolve a list of potential problems before making sweeping changes to the way top-level domains, such as .biz, .info, and .us, are assigned. In a Thursday letter to leaders of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Baker said the organization must carefully consider public comments received on their plan and initiate further consultations, including the creation of a revised guidebook for those wishing to apply for a flurry of new domains -- a process projected to start in 2009.
Baker said ICANN must ensure the introduction of a potentially large number of new domains, including internationalized domains, will not jeopardize the stability and security of the Internet and said the group must prove it has the sufficient capacity to enforce contract compliance with an as-yet-unknown number of new contracting parties. ICANN should also state how it will conduct legal reviews of applications, consider objections from third parties, and ensure that the introduction of new domains complies with domestic and international law, including intellectual property rights statutes.
She also argued that the ICANN board's October 2006 request for an economic study to address a variety of domain name market related questions needs to be completed and the results be considered by the Internet community before new domains are introduced. ICANN's vice president for corporate affairs told CongressDaily recently that the expansion of the domain name universe will be executed with "a large dose of common sense." "There are lots of questions about how this is going to be implemented and we're not pretending that we've got everything locked down and agreed upon," Paul Levins said in an interview. "We want to have a really robust debate about it."
The Justice Department on Thursday filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Microsemi Corp. alleging that through its acquisition of Semicoa assets, the firm eliminated or reduced competition in the development, manufacture and sale of certain semiconductor devices used in military and space programs essential to U.S. security. The department alleges that as a result of the transaction, prices for these products have increased and there is likely to be lower quality service. The complaint asks that a court require the Irvine, Calif.-based company to undo the transaction by selling off the assets it acquired in July.
Government lawyers argued that the acquisition created a monopoly for small signal transistors used by the Defense Department and reduced from three to two the number of likely competitors for ultrafast recovery rectifier diodes also used by the military. Transistors and diodes are semiconductor devices used to control the flow of electric current. While consolidation in the defense industry in certain circumstances may be beneficial, this transaction was not, Acting Assistant Attorney General Deborah Garza said in a statement.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Thursday that a "live exercise" of the next-generation of the department's automated process for collecting and sharing security information -- referred to internally and by many in the data security community as "Einstein" -- should be ready within six months. The cyber threat detection and mitigation program is currently operating in its second generation as part of a larger, largely classified Bush administration plan to heighten security of federal computer networks, which was brought to light in January and has been the subject of several congressional hearings. He said Einstein has been deployed within DHS and will be rolled out in other agencies "in short order."
Chertoff, who was speaking to participants of a cyber threat simulation staged by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, also reflected on the government's systematic strategy for "reducing, if not eliminating" the cyber security problem. He said the danger falls into three categories: (1) Information being stolen, be it sensitive military data, financial material, or diplomatic or business plans. (2) Attacks that flood or topple a network -- like denial-of-service attacks on the domain name system. (3) Corruption or changes to a system that make it unusable and undermine public confidence and trust. Read more about Chertoff's talk in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Friday will host a conversation with Patent and Trademark Office attaches from around the world who will share their experiences from their respective regions and provide information about best practices in obtaining, protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights outside the United States. Attachés from Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Switzerland, Thailand, and Russia are among those who will offer insight.
At the event, the Chamber's Global Intellectual Property Center will also release its long-awaited report to President-elect Barack Obama's administration on high-priority changes to the PTO. According to a draft report obtained by CongressDaily recently, the Chamber will urge the agency to overhaul the patent examiner production system; make administrative actions timelier; strengthen the PTO's relationship with the user community; enhance organizational management; and permit applicants to defer examination.
A handful of former PTO chiefs offered their own recommendations for PTO changes last week. Read that story here.
From David Herbert at NationalJournal.com's Lost In Transition blog:
If Barack Obama wants to prioritize e-government, he might look to the Commerce Department, which has quietly gained a reputation for being one of the most Web-savvy departments in the federal government. Commerce has long been viewed as a sprawling, almost ungovernable bureaucracy, but over the last few years it has seen significant advances in areas both small (online video) and large (the 2010 census).
"I think the Commerce Department has been aggressive and progressive," said Arnold Jackson, associate director for the 2010 census. Recently, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez pushed the Census Bureau to overcome technological barriers and offer an online form for the 2010 census, Jackson said. While the security software wasn't quite there to make the jump online in time for 2010, offering an Internet-based questionnaire is at "the very top of our agenda" for 2020, he added.
Commerce Secretary-designate Bill Richardson will oversee the 2010 census, and, depending on how long he serves, could be around when planning begins for the 2020 survey. Read the full post here.
German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG and three of its subsidiaries, which did businesses across the globe, pled guilty Monday to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- a law that makes it illegal to bribe a foreign official to get business. More than $800 million in bribes were paid by Siemens and its various entities from 2001 to 2007, the Justice Department said. The firm will pay a $450 million criminal fine to the U.S. government and will retain an independent monitor for four years, officials said.
"These penalties are strong medicine, but they are commensurate with the conduct at issue here, which can only be described as egregious," Acting Assistant Attorney General Matt Friedrich said at a briefing, noting they are necessary to ensure that all companies, domestic and foreign, large and small, have equal access to the globalized markets. According to court documents, Siemens executives used off-the-books slush fund accounts and shell companies to facilitate bribes and made false entries on the company's books.
"Siemens is closing a painful chapter in its history," Siemens' Supervisory Board Chairman Gerhard Cromme said in a release. "Today marks the end of an unprecedented two-year effort to resolve extremely serious matters for the company. Based on robust leadership processes, Siemens has established a sustainable culture of compliance."
Read more details of the DOJ/SEC press conference here.
From Friday's CongressDaily AM Edition:
Reducing the Patent and Trademark Office's growing backlog of applications should be one of the highest priorities for the agency in the Obama administration, several former high-level PTO officials agreed Thursday. An array of proposals for streamlining the office have been floated in legislation introduced in recent sessions of Congress and by intellectual property stakeholders, but Gerald Mossinghoff -- who ran the office under the late President Ronald Reagan -- believes none of them will be successful until the estimated 1.2 million applications are reduced.
The PTO has maintained there is a 700,000-application backlog, which does not include applications that are currently being examined. Mossinghoff, who serves as special counsel at Oblon Spivak, called the problem "horrendous" and criticized PTO Director Jon Dudas of setting annual "soft, stair-step goals" rather than projecting where the agency will stand in four and eight years. "They achieve their goals but don't cut into backlog," he said. Read the full story here (subscription required).
A subsidiary of L-3 Communications Corp. has paid the U.S. government $4 million to settle allegations that the company submitted false and inflated claims to the Army for hours worked by the firm’s employees on a contract supporting military operations in Iraq, the Justice Department announced Monday. Madison, Miss.-based L-3 Vertex Aerospace has an ongoing contract with the Pentagon to provide helicopter maintenance services at Camp Taji, Iraq.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed on behalf of the U.S. government by former L-3 employee Henry Roderigas, who received $720,000 as his share of the recovery in the case. Under the False Claims Act, private citizens can bring suit on behalf of the United States and share in any recovery obtained by the government. U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said the resolution "demonstrates our commitment to protect public funds that support the operations of our armed forces from fraud and abuse." The case was prosecuted as part of a larger National Procurement Fraud Initiative, which began in October 2006.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency will unveil its long-awaited report on Monday on what the incoming administration should do to protect U.S. information networks from cyber attacks. Notably, the commission recommends that a new office in the White House should be responsible for the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, as opposed to the Homeland Security Department. Key members of the panel briefed the House Homeland Security Emerging Threats Subcommittee at a September hearing. Read more in CongressDaily here.
James Lewis, who led the CSIS cybersecurity panel, told lawmakers the agency has lacked focus despite recent efforts to right the ship with its coordination of the multibillion-dollar cybersecurity directive signed by President Bush in January. "Only the White House has the authority" to effectively monitor and manage cyberstrategies across federal agencies, he said. Still, Lewis said after the hearing, "We're better off now than we were a year ago," regarding Homeland Security's handling of cybersecurity. Lewis said he initially wanted to preserve DHS control but commission colleagues, some of whom are former department officials, opposed the status quo.
Greg Garcia, the Homeland Security Department's first assistant secretary for cyber security and communications, will leave his post Friday after more than two years. Garcia, who previously worked for the Information Technology Association of America and replaced acting cyber security chief Donald (Andy) Purdy Jr., who was on loan from Carnegie Mellon University, sent an email to colleagues Thursday expressing his gratitude for having served at the agency. "We have affirmed the urgency of cyber security across the nation and embarked on a comprehensive cyber initiative that will measurably strengthen the security of our nation’s networks against domestic and international threats," Garcia wrote. "I thank and applaud every one of you for your contribution to our ongoing success. It has been my honor and privilege to work with you in service to the nation. Please stay focused on this shared mission, as will I. Your expertise and dedication are making a difference."
On his watch, DHS established the Office of Emergency Communications, which collaborated with stakeholders across the country to develop a national emergency communications plan and 56 state and territory plans for federal, state and local first responders. His team also "enhanced the availability, resiliency and priority service of communications for national security and emergency preparedness needs, and in disaster-stricken areas such as the aftermath of Hurricane Ike this year," Garcia said. Meanwhile, the agency continues to integrate its overall cyber security strategy "to align with the evolving architecture and risk profile of our national information infrastructure."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is unlawfully withholding records that detail the relationship between driver cell phone use and traffic fatalities, Public Citizen claimed late Monday in a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The nonprofit Center for Auto Safety first requested the documents in March but NHTSA attorneys rejected the request, saying the records were exempt from disclosure.
After a follow-up demand, NHTSA turned over some files but did not release what are believed to be the most important of those requested, claiming the records are “internal briefing documents” not subject to release. Public Citizen's complaint asks the court to order NHTSA to release the records. The analysis stems from a 2003 letter from then-Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta urging governors to take action against hand-held and hands-free cell phones.
The Center for Auto Safety claims the letter was never sent and the study on which it was based was buried. “Driving and talking is as deadly as drinking and driving,” Center executive director Clarence Ditlow said in a statement. “Release of this study will destroy the myth that hands-free cell phones are safe.” To read the complaint, click here. An agency spokeswoman would not comment on the lawsuit.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has published "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," which projects the potential impacts of climate change, population growth, political reshuffling and a host of other dynamic trends on the world of the near-future. Think of it as the National Intelligence Council's own little Magic 8-Ball.
A couple of tech-related excerpts:
"Companies in China, India, and other major developing countries have unique opportunities to be the first to develop a host of emerging technologies. This is especially the case in those instances where companies are building new infrastructure and not burdened by historical patterns of development. Such opportunities include distributed electrical power generation, development of clean water sources, and the next generation of Internet and new information technologies."
"The adoption of irregular warfare tactics by both state and nonstate actors as a primary warfighting approach in countering advanced militaries will be a key characteristic of conflicts in 2025… Modern communication technologies such as satellite and cellular phones, the Internet, and commercial encryption, combined with hand-held navigation devices and high-capacity information systems that can contain large amounts of text, maps, and digital images and videos will greatly enable future irregular forces to organize, coordinate, and execute dispersed operations."
The Federal Trade Commission on Monday asked the Supreme Court to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s April decision in the agency's case against Rambus. The FTC had determined that computer memory manufacturer engaged in unlawful market monopolization. Judge Stephen Williams wrote that the FTC “failed to sustain its allegation” that Rambus, while participating in a standards-setting process for dynamic random access memory deceptively hid the fact that four of its technologies were incorporated into the standard.
Commissioners voted unanimously in August 2006 that Rambus distorted the standards process and engaged in an anticompetitive “hold up” of the computer memory industry. The agency charged Rambus with the antitrust violation in June 2002. In its request to the Supremes, the FTC argued that the appeals court erred in its conclusions respecting causation; the court of appeals took an improperly narrow view of competitive effects; and review is needed to clarify and ensure uniformity on fundamental issues of antitrust jurisprudence.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy wrote to Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich on Monday requesting statistics on the number of prosecutions and/or investigations the Justice Department has undertaken to date pursuant to the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act -- a 2007 statute that Leahy co-sponsored to address the growing number of data breaches involving sensitive phone records. He also asked Friedrich to state whether the agency has found the law effective in protecting Americans' privacy.
Leahy's letter came on the heels of recent news report that employees of Verizon Wireless improperly "accessed and viewed" the personal cell phone records of President-elect Barack Obama. Even though the individuals involved in the incident have been fired, the larger problem remains, the senator stated. "Cell phone records provide a wealth of sensitive personal data that can be of great use to criminals, and the unauthorized disclosure of these records can further acts of domestic violence and compromise the safety of law enforcement officers and their families," he wrote.
The Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act amended the federal criminal code to expressly prohibit a telecommunications carrier from obtaining confidential phone records by accessing customer accounts through the Internet, or by fraudulent computer-related activities, without prior authorization. Read more on that topic here.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez recently named three new members to the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC). They will serve three-year terms on the panel, which advises the Patent and Trademark Office director on the agency's goals, performance, budget, and user fees.
The new PPAC members are:
▪ Marc Adler, founder of a private intellectual property strategy consulting practice and immediate past president of the Intellectual Property Owners Association and the Association of Corporate Patent Counsel.
▪ Stephen Pinkos, a senior advisor with PCT Government Relations who previously served as deputy director of the PTO and was instrumental in the development of the Bush administration's STOP! (Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy) program.
▪ Maureen Toohey, founding member of Toohey Law Group and former law clerk to U.S. Federal Circuit Judge Randall Rader.
Rumors are swirling in the intellectual property policy community about who might be in the running for Patent and Trademark Office director under President Barack Obama. CongressDaily took the pulse of some IP watchers and included a list of potential contenders in Monday's PM edition.
Some of the names circulating include: Q. Todd Dickinson, who ran the PTO under former President Bill Clinton and is now head of the American IP Law Association; Eli Lilly general counsel Robert Armitage; 3M IP counsel Gary Griswold; patent attorneys Ray Millien and James Pooley; and law professors Mark Lemley of Stanford and Arti Rai of Duke, a classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School. Some possible picks were on the front lines of the congressional patent reform battle this year, which could be a disadvantage, sources said.
One name that was not included in the story but has been mentioned by some stakeholders is Shanna Winters. Winters, whose name was also reportedly in the mix for White House IP enforcement coordinator, is chief counsel to Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who chairs the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and IP Subcommittee. Berman plans to leave that post in the 111th Congress to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee and reliable sources report that she plans to follow her boss to the new panel.
Meanwhile, an industry insider said that despite the names being whispered in Washington, the PTO director job is a "wild card." "Half the names you're hearing are because of self-promotion and the other half are logical," the source said, adding that the person who assumes the role must be a "well rounded candidate who has leadership and management experience" to lead an agency of 9,500 employees.
