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.
National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith wrote to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and others on Thursday in response to an Oct. 30 letter that sought a meeting to discuss legislation that would force AM and FM stations to pay a new fee to performers and record labels. In the letter, the former Republican senator for Oregon writes that he appreciates their interest "in gaining a greater understanding of the impact that this legislation will have on your local radio stations and the local communities they serve."
Due to laws prohibiting him from lobbying Congress for two years after leaving office, Smith said he requires an ethics waiver that indicates his participation in their planned Nov. 17 meeting is legally and ethically permissible. Smith was defeated by Democrat Jeff Merkley in 2008 after two terms in office and was named head of NAB in September. He said there may be an exception for communications made in congressional testimony and needs confirmation from the Senate that his involvement falls within that, or another exception.
Read more in Tech Daily Dose here and in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said members of his committee have their work cut out for them as winter recess nears. His panel made a big stride Thursday when it passed a pair of data security bills (see CongressDaily's PM Edition for details) and several measures that have cleared the committee and await floor action. Leahy said the Senate needs to take up a bill that would modify and reauthorize expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and the Satellite Home Viewer Act before they expire Dec. 31.
He noted he has been working with Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl and other leaders from both parties to help make that happen. Leahy said last month that he wants to work with Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule, before the end of the year, floor debate on legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system. The Obama administration has thrown its support behind the bill. Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos recently told a group of IP attorneys that a legislative fix is needed immediately.
A dozen senators, including Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley, sent a letter to Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stating the bill needs more work before it is brought to the floor. Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions and Kyl have questioned the bill's approach to challenging a patent after it is granted.
House Administration Elections Subcommittee ranking member Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., unveiled draft legislation Thursday [see PDF here] designed to increase online voter registration services while preserving safeguards to protect against fraudulent registration tactics witnessed in past elections.
"Americans are increasingly enjoying the convenience of online services provided by both private and government entities and voter registration shouldn't be an exception," they said in a statement, acknowledging the bill is still a work in progress. "Providing states with incentives to implement online programs would not only assist registrants, but would also help state election administrators reduce costs, save time and increase accuracy," they said.
The draft bill would direct the Election Assistance Commission to reimburse states for the cost of creating Web-based voter registration programs. In order to qualify, a program would have to be operated through the Web site of the chief state election official. The state agency would also have to ensure the accuracy, integrity, and security of the information provided by an applicant. That includes flagging registration attempts originating from an automated source or multiple attempts by the same individual.
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).
Texas Reps. Gene Green, a Democrat, and Mike Conaway, a Republican, wrote to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers on Wednesday asking to be included in any discussions regarding legislation that would force AM and FM radio stations to pay a new fee to performers and record labels. Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy have requested that music and broadcasting executives come together on Capitol Hill Nov. 17 to begin two weeks of negotiations.
Green and Conaway sponsored a resolution opposing the bill and it has garnered more than 250 backers. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., introduced an identical proposal. "We have serious concerns that legislation imposing a new royalty on local radio stations, particularly in this economic climate, will be tremendously harmful to radio stations and their employees, local communities that rely on radio, and recipients, such as charities and non-profits, that receive free airtime for their causes," Green and Conaway wrote.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina made her candidacy for one of California's Senate seats official on Wednesday at an event in Orange County. Fiorina, who was an advisor to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., during his run for the White House last year, was also the first woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. Prior to joining HP, she served as an executive vice president at AT&T and helped coordinate Lucent's spin-off. She was ousted by HP's board in 2005.
Fiorina made her announcement at Earth Friendly Products in Garden Grove, Calif., where she discussed her top priorities including job creation, economic recovery and restoring fiscal accountability in Washington. "Throughout my career I've brought people together and solved problems and that is what I plan to do in government - set aside ego and partisanship and work to develop solutions to our problems," she said in a statement.
"I believe big change is not impossible, but it does require leadership, innovative thinking, teamwork and tackling the most obvious and pressing problems first," Fiorina said. "My campaign is going to be about solutions that work for the people of California and about holding Barbara Boxer accountable for her failed record over her last 18 years in the Senate, her utter failure to lead and her track record of bitter and ineffective partisanship."
She will face off in the GOP primary against California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. For more information visit CarlyforCalifornia.com.
The stage is set for a potentially raucous day in the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday as Democrats try to push legislation to modify and reauthorize expiring portions of the USA PATRIOT Act, CongressDaily's AM Edition reported. They are also scheduled to mark up a separate bill to provide courts with specific standards for handling state-secrets claims by the government in civil lawsuits.
House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith and other Republicans have unsuccessfully argued that the PATRIOT Act bill introduced two weeks ago by Chairman John Conyers with House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott, D-Va., deserves a hearing before it is teed up for a vote.
Smith called the lack of a hearing an "unwarranted departure" from the regular committee process. He chaired a GOP briefing on the bill Tuesday. Smith said Democrats insist on making unnecessary changes to the law that could undermine law enforcement. The Obama administration backed a full reauthorization of the expiring provisions but said it remained open to suggestions for modifications.
Read the full CongressDaily story here (subscription required) and read more coverage in Thursday's AM Edition.
[Updated 4:10 p.m.] New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against microchip giant Intel Corp. making his the first formal antitrust action against Intel by any U.S. agency in more than a decade. The FTC launched an examination into Intel in 2008 but has not made its probe official. Cuomo's complaint charges that Intel violated state and federal laws by engaging in "a worldwide, systematic campaign of illegal conduct" to maintain its dominance in the microprocessor sector.
"Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market," said Cuomo, who served Intel with a wide-ranging subpoena in January 2008. "Intel's actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices," he added. Intel has repeatedly denied antitrust allegations and filed an appeal against a recent European Commission ruling.
More than 20 lawmakers recently urged Justice Department antitrust chief Christine Varney and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz to view the European antitrust ruling with a critical eye and weigh its impact on U.S. high-tech firms. The Sept. 18 letters to Varney and Leibowitz, spearheaded by Oregon Reps. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat, and Greg Walden, a Republican, argued the Intel ruling "is the latest evidence of a troublesome trend in Europe toward regulatory protectionism."
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.
Former U.S. Assistant Trade Representative Victoria Espinel who was tapped in September by President Obama to serve as the first White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Espinel, who taught at George Mason University after leaving USTR in the Bush administration, is expected to easily win approval of the panel, which is considering an appeals court judge and several district judges the same day.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy received letters in support of Espinel's nomination from a range of stakeholders including the Copyright Alliance, National Music Publishers' Association, American Intellectual Property Law Association, International Trademark Association, Motion Picture Association of America, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others.
The Chamber called Espinel's confirmation "an important step towards fulfilling the promise of the PRO-IP Act," an IP enforcement bill that Congress passed and Bush signed into law last year. MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman called her an "excellent choice" for the office and said his experience with her at USTR was top notch. AIPLA hailed her "impressive and substantive background."
House Republicans have launched an online offensive geared to take down the Democratic healthcare reform package. Minority Leader John Boehner announced the Web crusade Tuesday morning, which employs Amplify.com to start a section-by-section dialogue with the American public. As members review the 1,990 page bill and uncover what they believe are harmful provisions, Amplify allows them to clip specific portions and explain what they mean in plain English, according to Nick Schaper, Boehner's new media director.
Additionally, when visitors arrive at healthcaretruth.amplify.com they will be able to easily leave their own comments on any portion, or share the content using Twitter, Facebook, Digg and other popular social tools.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will take its turn Wednesday at hearing perspectives on the dangers of using handheld devices while driving. The joint session of the Subcommittees on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection and Communications, Technology and the Internet comes a week after the Senate Commerce Committee staged a similar event. At the Senate hearing, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said his agency wants to play an active role in encouraging technologies that can reduce injuries and loss of life due to distracted driving.
Genachowski has been invited to the witness table once again. He is expected to be joined by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood; 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.
Read coverage of last week's Senate Commerce hearing here.
Internet industry stakeholders are keeping an eye on legislation intended to provide the Securities and Exchange Commission with additional authorities to protect investors. The bill, introduced by Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., earlier this month, could come before the House Financial Services Committee as soon as next week, sources tell Tech Daily Dose.
According to the bill text, "any Internet service provider that, on or through a system or network controlled or operated by the Internet service provider, transmits, routes, provides connections for, or stores any material containing any misrepresentation... shall be liable for any damages caused thereby, including damages suffered" by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, an entity that protects investors from financial harm if a broker-dealer company fails.
Under the measure, the ISP would be liable if it has "actual knowledge that the material contains a misrepresentation [or] in the absence of actual knowledge, is aware of facts or circumstances from which it is apparent that the material contains a misrepresentation [and] upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, fails to act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material."
Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, introduced legislation Friday to reauthorize three expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act two weeks after his panel approved 11-8 a related reauthorization bill offered by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., joined Sessions in offering the new bill.
Sessions said his measure "provides a common-sense and uncontroversial path to timely reauthorization." Bond said the bill "makes clear to our intelligence professionals that keeping our nation safe is their highest responsibility and ensures they have the tools needed to get the job done." Lieberman cited FBI Director Robert Mueller's recent urging that Congress reenact the provisions as essential tools in the FBI's counterterrorism efforts. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., has also introduced a PATRIOT Act bill.
Feingold and civil liberties groups criticized Leahy's measure for not going further in reworking the anti-terrorism statute. The expiring sections include authority to go after the individual terrorist suspects -- the "lone wolf" -- who may not readily be associated with a foreign power, power to institute roving wiretaps on multiple phones or computers, and authority to require third parties such as telecommunications or computer companies to secretly turn over records.
Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, introduced legislation Friday to reauthorize three expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act two weeks after his panel approved 11-8 a related reauthorization bill offered by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., joined Sessions in offering the new bill.
Sessions said his measure "provides a common-sense and uncontroversial path to timely reauthorization." Bond said the bill "makes clear to our intelligence professionals that keeping our nation safe is their highest responsibility and ensures they have the tools needed to get the job done." Lieberman cited FBI Director Robert Mueller's recent urging that Congress reenact the provisions as essential tools in the FBI's counterterrorism efforts. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., has also introduced a PATRIOT Act bill.
Feingold and civil liberties groups criticized Leahy's measure for not going further in reworking the anti-terrorism statute. The expiring sections include authority to go after the individual terrorist suspects -- the "lone wolf" -- who may not readily be associated with a foreign power, power to institute roving wiretaps on multiple phones or computers, and authority to require third parties such as telecommunications or computer companies to secretly turn over records.
Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., on Thursday released an analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation on the opportunity to generate up to $41 billion in new government revenue over the next decade through the regulation and taxation of Internet gambling. McDermott and Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank introduced companion bills earlier this year to regulate Web gaming rather than banning it entirely. The activity is currently prohibited in the United States under a 2006 law.
"I suspect that many of my colleagues, especially those on the fence, will take more interest in this issue once they see $41 billion available that they can match up with any number of worthy programs," McDermott said in a press release. "I would suspect it's only a matter of time before Congress appropriately moves to regulate the industry in order to protect consumers and reverse the flow of billions of dollars currently lost offshore as Americans gamble billions online despite attempts to prohibit the activity."
"Given the many critical government programs currently going under-funded or not funded at all, Internet gambling regulation should be given fair and immediate consideration, " McDermott said. "Prohibition in various guises has failed before and is failing once again. There is a better way." Read the Joint Committee on Taxation document here (PDF).
The Republican transparency train rolls on with Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., introducing legislation Wednesday that would require each of the 21 standing committees in the House to record votes on their Web sites within 48 hours. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., sponsored a resolution last week calling for cameras to be installed in the House Rules Committee hearing room and freshman Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., recently sponsored a measure to require committees to post the text of adopted bills and amendments online within 24 hours.
"The American people deserve to know how their representatives vote in all cases, and frankly, in the current information age it makes no sense that we're not already providing this service," Reichert said in a press release. "When we're debating a trillion-dollar health overhaul, constituents deserve to know how legislation takes shape - throughout the entire process." House Minority Leader John Boehner said Reichert's resolution "is a common-sense reform that should have been adopted a long time ago in Congress."
High-tech, consumer, health and child advocacy groups wrote to House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and ranking member Joe Barton on Wednesday backing legislation that would ramp up the FTC's authority. The letter from the Center for Democracy and Technology, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, Media Access Project and others was sent on the eve of the committee's scheduled vote on the bill.
The measure, which would also create a separate Consumer Financial Protection Agency, would allow the FTC to conduct consumer protection rulemakings under expedited processes; provide it with aiding and abetting liability for violations of the Section 5 of the FTC Act involving unfair or deceptive practices; and enable it to seek civil penalty liability for unfair and deceptive practices found to violate Section 5. The watchdog groups also support giving the FTC independent litigating authority in civil penalty cases.
Advertising and marketing interests are worried about several provisions of the bill. Association of National Advertisers lobbyist Dan Jaffe wrote to Waxman Tuesday arguing that "critical aspects of this proposal have received inadequate focus and analysis." The bill, which was approved by the House Financial Services Committee last week, could confusion among regulators and harm business interests groups like the ANA, Interactive Advertising Bureau and Direct Marketing Association have warned.
Read a Wednesday CongressDaily PM Edition story here about adjustments that Waxman may make to the bill; FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz's thoughts on the measure here; and an earlier story here that details advertisers' complaints (subscription required).
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday that his agency wants to play an active role in encouraging technologies that can reduce injuries and loss of life due to distracted driving. The Commission is examining whether there are ways in which it can act to create a climate that will allow consumers and industry to have more options in addressing the problem, he said.
Genachowski said he wants the FCC to set a good example and recently reinforced to agency employees the importance of complying with President Obama's recent executive order that banned the use of federal devices to text while driving. The order also prohibited the use of personal devices while driving government vehicles.
During his testimony, the FCC chief emphasized personal responsibility as well as input from companies in the wireless space and government. "Everyone involved can and should take appropriate action, with the goal of dramatically reducing and ultimately eliminating the risk of distracted driving due to the use of communications devices," he said. "We should develop a cultural norm that driving while texting is totally unacceptable."
On the eve of a Capitol Hill high-tech showcase, Intel Executive Vice President Sean Maloney and Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs Peter Cleveland sat down for an Oktoberfest themed dinner at Chinatown's PS7 with a handful of Washington tech reporters. The conversation, fueled by creative beer-inspired dishes, covered a range of topics from broadband deployment and network neutrality to patent reform and competition. Here are some highlights (from Maloney unless otherwise noted)
• Economic stimulus money for health IT, broadband and other tech related priorities is going out as quickly as one should expect. Intel is not applying for any stimulus funds directly but is working with groups that are trying to get money for rural broadband.
• Intel has taken a "nuanced stance" on net neutrality and supports pipeline providers "intelligently managing traffic." Grossly exaggerated worst case scenarios on either side of the debate have not helped. "This isn't impossible as long as we listen to each other."
• The two most insular places in America are Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., which makes bridging the gap between the two locales difficult. Silicon Valley ought to be more involved in policy and politics.
House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee Chairwoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ranking member Susan Collins wrote to President Obama Monday urging him to appoint members to the White House Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, CongressDaily reported Tuesday. The letter urged Obama to "fulfill the pledge you made earlier this year to reconstitute the board and accelerate the selection process of its members."
A fully engaged and independent privacy panel in the Executive Branch is particularly important as Congress works on reauthorizing expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and other issues, they wrote. Their message followed a similar effort in April by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who called the board "a critical government component" vital to "ushering in a new era of responsibility." Read the Harman-Collins letter here (PDF), the CongressDaily story here and an earlier report on the privacy panel here (subscription required).
Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., continued the GOP's transparency crusade by introducing a resolution Friday calling for cameras to be installed in the House Rules Committee hearing room, which is among the smallest on Capitol Hill and one of the last without cameras. Under his proposal, the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, which provides operations support services to the chamber, would install the equipment and coordinate with the committee to record and broadcast its proceedings. Dent said he is concerned the American public lacks access to the actions that control and determine the legislative process in the House.
"As Congress considers some of the most pivotal policy of our time, the American people deserve full transparency in all legislative proceedings, particularly those of the powerful Rules Committee," Dent said in a press release. "There has been unprecedented civic engagement since the 2008 election. Americans understand the importance of the policy that Congress is considering and they are watching the process closely." The lawmaker said hefty amendments have stealthily come before the committee and key policy proposals have been rejected on a straight party-line vote without proper consideration -- and absent videotaped evidence.
[Update: 2:05 p.m.] A spokesman for Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter said: "We invite TV cameras to every single meeting we have. We can't dictate what the press decides to cover but cameras are always welcome at our meetings. Like all Americans, we love C-SPAN. And it's worth noting that Rules is far more open under us than it ever was under Republicans. We meet earlier, post more information online and we do it faster than ever before so the public knows exactly what happens at each of our meetings. "
A snippet from CongressDaily's TechCentral Issue Of The Week on Monday:
A broadening feud between video providers in key communities throughout the country is driving the adage home that all politics is local. Verizon Communications brought its battle over regional sports networks to Capitol Hill last week, urging lawmakers to close a 17-year-old "terrestrial loophole" through which cable operators with programming assets can avoid FCC program access requirements.
The exemption to the 1992 Cable Act rules, which apply to satellite-delivered content, has allowed cable companies to maintain exclusivity on certain content in certain cities, said Verizon Vice President Terrence Denson, whose company offers the fiber-optic FiOS video service. AT&T, which has a similar product, has joined with Verizon to wage war against Cablevision at the FCC, and the two have a case pending.
In New York City, Cablevision owns Madison Square Garden and offers coverage of professional sports teams, concerts and more. Verizon was denied standard definition format of MSG networks' sports programming until it filed its initial FCC complaint. It is currently unable to tap MSG's high-definition broadcasts, and Cablevision has asserted the HD feed is excused from program access rules.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Lawmakers' Internet-based town hall meetings increase constituents' approval ratings for the politician, enhance citizen engagement in politics and ultimately impact the probability of participants voting for that member of Congress, according to a new Congressional Management Foundation report. CMF Executive Director Beverley Bell said online meetings offer lawmakers a flexible tool for communication in addition to traditional in-person meetings, tele-town halls and newsletters. "People like hearing from - and feeling heard by - their representatives in all formats, including online," she said Monday.
Researchers from CMF, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Northeastern University, Ohio State University, and the University of California-Riverside found that members who engaged in online town halls experienced an average net approval rating jump of 18 points with similar increases in trust and perceptions of personal qualities. Town hall meetings also attract people from demographics not traditionally engaged in politics as well as those frustrated with the political system. About 96 percent of those polled said they would like to be included in similar events in the future.
Among those taking part in the study were Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Michael Capuano, James Clyburn, Mike Conaway, Anna Eshoo, Jack Kingston, Zoe Lofgren, Don Manzullo, Jim Matheson, David Price, George Radanovich, and Dave Weldon. The town halls with the House members were conducted in the summer and fall of 2006, prior to the 2006 election, and the session with Levin was conducted in the summer of 2008.
Click here (PDF) to read the full CMF report.
Computer giant Hewlett-Packard has pulled out of the Coalition for Patent Fairness over concerns that legislation currently moving through Congress does not go far enough to curb what some high-tech firms believe are excessive damages in patent infringement lawsuits. HP, which was a prominent member of the ad hoc group, is still very supportive of patent reform and will continue to lobby for strong damages language, sources familiar with the issue told Tech Daily Dose.
The so-called "gatekeeper" compromise struck by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Arlen Specter, D-Pa., helped ensure the bill's passage out of committee in April but if it were to become law, HP believes it would be "a huge missed opportunity," the source said. Leahy and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are working to bring the bill to the floor before the end of the year. The House Judiciary Committee has not yet moved forward on its bill and, as introduced, retains the more controversial damages language.
Industry groups like CPF, which span multiple years and sessions of Congress, gain and lose members due to variations in strategy, individual companies' budget priorities and other reasons. Amazon.com, Time Warner, Visa and Verizon were members of CPF at one point but are no longer listed on the group's Web site. Google was not an original member of the coalition but has since signed up.
For its part CPF wants "the strongest possible provisions on all elements," including damages, a spokesman told CongressDaily last week.
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.
With nine days left to go in October, the House on Thursday unanimously passed Rep.Yvette Clarke's, resolution honoring National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The Senate approved a similar measure several weeks ago."This Congress understands that our citizens rely on information technology in every aspect of our lives - from managing businesses to social networking," the New York Democrat said in a statement. "As innovation spurs increased access and demand for the internet and information technologies, cyber warfare and cyber crime are increasing in sophistication and frequency."
Clarke, who chairs the House Homeland Security Emerging Threats Subcommittee, added that in the digital age, "we are all interconnected and our national cyber infrastructure is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain." "The passing of this resolution is a clear message to the American people that our government will continue to protect and strengthen our critical cyber infrastructure," she added. Clarke is hosting a pair of related events next week geared toward members and staff to promote good cyber hygiene on congressional networks.
NamesOfTheDead.com, a Web site intended to honor the 44,000 people who die annually because they do not have health insurance, is the latest attempt by Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., to draw attention to the healthcare reform effort on Capitol Hill. "I hope that honoring them will help us end this senseless loss of American lives. If you have lost a loved one, please share the story of that loved one with us," the freshman lawmaker wrote on the site. "Help us ensure that their legacy is a more just America, where every life that can be saved will be saved."
Grayson announced the site on the floor of the House on Wednesday and the National Republican Congressional Committee was quick to post a clip on YouTube (see above), calling it the Democrat's "most shameless stunt yet."
Thursday's witness list for the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee hearing on video competition is pretty standard fare -- Benjamin Pyne of Disney Media Networks (big content); Verizon Vice President Terrence Denson (big telecom); Sunflower Broadband Chief Operating Officer Patrick Knorr (little cable/Internet); Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Thomas Rutledege (big cable/Internet); and Progress & Freedom Foundation President Adam Thierer (think tanker). The wild card, however, is "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer and Peabody Award winner Ronald Moore.
Moore, who is also known for his work on several iterations of "Star Trek," will most likely be at the table because of his prominent role during the massive Writers Guild of America strike, which began in November 2007 and lasted 14 weeks. His show and other popular series made available for download on iTunes were flashpoints during the feud between writers and Hollywood studios over compensation for online content.
Moore might be on hand to advocate for the revival of so-called "Fin-Syn" regulation. The FCC put the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules on the books in the 1970s to restrict formal relationships between TV networks and those who produced programming for the networks. The purpose was to encourage a vibrant market for independently produced programming. The regulations were repealed in the early 1990s after court challenges but some want them back, arguing that a structural separation between content production and distribution would be good for business. "This is a huge fracture line in the Hollywood community," one observer said.
The House late Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution introduced by House Science Committee member Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., designating the week of Dec. 7 as National Computer Science Education Week. The resolution also honors the birthday of Grace Murray Hopper, one of the first female computer scientists. Ehlers has spent much of his career on Capitol Hill fighting for improved research and education, particularly education in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
"I believe these subjects hold special promise for the future of our nation and its workforce, and it is very critical that all of our nation's students receive a foundation in STEM," Ehlers said in a statement. "This prepares students to become the innovators of tomorrow. Without innovation, our nation and its economy will be on a declining path." Introducing students to computer science at an early age and providing them with learning experiences at all educational levels can help stem the tide of declining enrollments in computer science training, he said.
The Association for Computing Machinery and others from the computing community cheered the resolution's passage. National Computer Science Education Week will help draw attention to the need for an educational system that values computer science as a discipline and provides students with critical thinking skills and career opportunities, said Bobby Schnabel, chair of ACM's Education Policy Committee and dean of Indiana University's School of Informatics.
More than 20 open government and high-tech watchdogs on Tuesday wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader John Boehner, House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter and Rules ranking member David Dreier calling for a Rules Committee hearing to explore the benefits of requiring that legislation be posted online for 72 hours prior to consideration. Along with the letter, the groups delivered a petition with 21,000 signatures of individuals who joined the Sunlight Foundation's Read the Bill campaign. They, too, want Congress post legislation and conference reports on the Web for 72 hours before debate begins.
"House and Senate leaders understand the importance of providing online access to legislation and have indicated some willingness to make health care legislation available prior to a vote. Those promises are appreciated, but an ad hoc approach to allowing the public to read the bill is not sufficient," Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg wrote in a Wednesday blog post. "Members of Congress should be governed by a rule that ensures that all legislation is available to the public at specific online locations for a minimum number of hours." Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and John Culberson, R-Texas, have introduced a 72-hour rule resolution.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers joined Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Bobby Scott, D-Va., on Tuesday to introduce legislation that would revise and extend expiring sections of the USA PATRIOT Act and related provisions. They also introduced a measure intended to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to safeguard the constitutional rights of Americans while ensuring that the government has the tools it needs to collect foreign intelligence.
Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith, Minority Whip Eric Cantor and GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana introduced their own version of a PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill in March, which would simply extend the provisions, which sunset Dec. 31, for 10 years. "Over the past eight years, Americans grew tired of the same old scare tactics, designed to fool the public into believing that we needed to give up freedom to be safe from terrorism," Conyers said. "It is a new day and an opportunity for reform."
The Conyers-Nadler-Scott measures include language that would bring sweeping changes to the way controversial administrative subpoenas known as "national security letters" are handled. Americans would be able to use libraries and bookstores "without fear that their choice of books will be monitored by overzealous federal agents," noted Nadler, who chairs the Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee.
NBC-Universal general counsel Rick Cotton, who chairs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, on Tuesday lauded legislation that would bolster intellectual property enforcement resources and tools for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He testified at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the bill that Chairman Max Baucus and ranking member Charles Grassley introduced in August. CongressDaily's AM Edition reported the bill could move through the committee before Thanksgiving.
Overall, CBP must ensure that U.S. innovation and creativity "is used to produce jobs here and is not stolen abroad -- endangering our economy, killing our jobs, threatening our citizens' health and safety, and nourishing organized crime," Cotton said in his written testimony. He went on to call IP theft "a stealth job killer" and warned that if the U.S. fails to take bold steps now, the country will be committing "slow-motion economic suicide."
The IP provisions of the broader CBP reauthorization bill would, among other things, establish an IP coordination center within ICE to prevent importation or exportation of pirated and counterfeit goods. The measure also strengthens CBP's targeting efforts to detect goods that violate IP rights and requires CBP to dedicate port personnel with primary responsibility for enforcing those rights. The bill requires strategic plan to decide where best to position those agents but in the meantime would assign at least one full time IP specialist at each of the top 10 ports.
Read the full CongressDaily story here (subscription required).
House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee member Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on Tuesday took a swipe at an ongoing push by the Obama administration and high-tech companies to beef up so-called network neutrality rules at the FCC, describing effort as "the fairness doctrine for the Internet." The Commission rescinded that doctrine, which required TV and radio broadcasters to air opposing political viewpoints, in 1987.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in September that he does not intend to revive the fairness doctrine amid concerns raised by Republicans and conservative talk radio hosts. He is, however, championing a controversial plan to consider new rules aimed at preserving and promoting consumers' unfettered access to Web content. The FCC will begin its work on that topic Thursday.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini said Monday that he dislikes cap-and-trade provisions to address global warming, which are being considered as part of broad energy legislation on Capitol Hill. In an interview on Fox Business Network, the tech executive said the measure "doesn't take into account the fact that people build things for a global basis and you have global competition." "This either has to be done on a global basis; otherwise all you're doing is moving the pollution and making the U.S. less competitive," he said.
Otellini commented the controversial public option proposal that some want to ensure is part of healthcare reform legislation. "At face value, I don't think it would help our employees," he said. "They get a fairly good health package today... I would be afraid of any option that took away that choice." He also said government should take the uncertainty out of doing business in the United States. "Give businesses a clear view of taxation, healthcare costs, can you get H1B visas for employees you want to hire, those kinds of things."
Ending the recession is directly tied to the nation's confidence, Otellini added. "Rebuilding confidence, it's not about a different structure of the banks or anything. Do people have confidence that the economy is going to be better tomorrow than today. That will happen as the GDP improves and I think people will expand if you take the variability out," he said.
The House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee on Thursday will explore video competition in the digital age, including access by multichannel programming providers and consumers to content via TV and the Internet. A prime focus of the hearing will be a provision of the 1992 Cable Act that forces vertically integrated cable operators -- those that own both cable systems and content -- to make their owned cable networks available to satellite firms like Dish Network and DirecTV and to telecom companies like Verizon, which offers the FIOS video service, a source familiar with the issue said.
The hearing may also address the so-called "terrestrial loophole" through which a cable operator with programming assets can avoid program access requirements that apply to satellite delivered content. Witnesses scheduled to appear include Verizon Vice President Terrence Denson; Sunflower Broadband CEO Patrick Knorr; "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ronald Moore; Disney Media Networks President of Global Distribution Benjamin Pyne; Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Thomas Rutledge; and Progress and Freedom Foundation President Adam Thierer.
More than 20 CEOs and founders of major Internet and technology companies wrote to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday in support of his controversial plan to begin considering new rules aimed at preserving and promoting consumers' unfettered access to Web content. The letter from executives for Google, Facebook, Sony, Amazon, eBay, Twitter and other tech titans comes as the FCC prepares to vote Thursday on a proposal to expand and fortify its so-called neutrality regulations.
"An open Internet fuels a competitive and efficient marketplace, where consumers make the ultimate choices about which products succeed and which fail. This allows businesses of all sizes, from the smallest startup to larger corporations, to compete, yielding maximum economic growth and opportunity," they wrote. Lobbying on the topic reached a fevered pitch last week with Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison signaling she might pursue legislation to block new rules if Genachowski doesn't modify his proposal to reflect her concerns.
Also last week, 18 GOP senators -- including John McCain of Arizona, a former chairman of the Commerce Committee -- insisted in a separate document that the FCC's proposed revisions "will be counterproductive and risk harming the great advancements in broadband speed and deployment that we have witnessed." Yet another letter from 70 House Democrats urged Genachowski to "carefully consider the full range of potential consequences that government action may have on network investment."
Lawmakers backing a stalled patent overhaul bill are looking at fresh ways to move the measure by the end of the year, despite GOP opposition, CongressDaily reported Friday. The bill, which cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in April, seeks to address the Patent and Trademark Office's chronic application backlog and improve internal efficiencies. It would also change the protocol for challenging patents - a move that has divided small innovators, the life-sciences sector and the IT industry.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said Thursday he wants to work with Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule debate before the end of the year. Leahy made his comments the same day that PTO Director David Kappos told the American Intellectual Property Law Association's annual meeting that a legislative fix is needed immediately. "Not everyone is getting everything they want" in the bill, Kappos said, but it is a "major positive step" for the stakeholders involved.
But on the same day, 12 senators, including Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley, sent a letter to Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stating the bill needs more work before it is brought to the floor. Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions and Minority Whip Jon Kyl have questioned the bill's approach to challenging a patent after it is granted and want to modify the language.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., introduced a resolution to change House rules and require committees to post the actual text of adopted bills and amendments online within 24 hours. She argued in a press release that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pledge for an open and transparent Congress has fallen short and lawmakers have failed to require transparency for one of the most powerful components of Congress -- congressional committees. "The federal government functions best when it governs in the light of day," she said.
Over the past nine months, major bills have repeatedly been drafted, filed and then changed in the dark of night or behind closed-doors, Jenkins added. The freshman lawmaker argued that it happened with the economic stimulus package, the House Energy and Commerce energy bill, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's healthcare overhaul legislation. "This is only my first year in Washington, but if this is 'business as usual,' then it's time for business to change," she said.
House Minority Leader John Boehner praised Jenkins saying that "the practice of secretly adding 'phantom amendments' to major bills after they pass committee is outrageous, and it should be banned." He argued that Senate HELP Democrats quietly made more than 70 changes to the healthcare bill after it was voted on in committee. Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and John Culberson, R-Texas, have petitioned to change House rules to require all bills be posted online for at least 72 hours before being brought to a vote.
House Homeland Security Emerging Threats Subcommittee Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., will host a cybersecurity roundtable Friday that will bring together industry representatives and policymakers. The event, which is closed to press and the public, is expected to cover the White House 60-day cyberspace policy review; legal technical and operational obstacles; discussions of current legislative proposals; and recommendations for moving forward, according to the invitation sent to participants.
Clarke spoke at a Tuesday event where she called for the swift appointment of a White House cyber czar and highlighted the urgent need for collaboration and information-sharing among federal agencies, academia, and industry. She will host two additional events this month sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance. They will take place Tuesday, Oct. 27 and Friday, Oct. 30. The events are primarily geared toward members and staff to promote good cyber hygiene on congressional networks.
Clarke said earlier this week that ignorance about safe computing "creates vulnerabilities right here on Capitol Hill." October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
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.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is slated to mark up legislation Thursday that would reauthorize sections of the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act set to expire Dec. 31. A key Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved a narrowly tailored version of the bill in June. The House Judiciary Committee, which shares jurisdiction, overwhelmingly approved its version of the bill in September.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's amendment in the nature of a substitute would make several changes. The proposal would:
• Insert new grandfathering language to ensure that consumers who are lawfully receiving distant network programming do not lose access to that programming due to Judiciary Committee changes.
• Insert a new section to account for the Judiciary Committee's decision to establish a process by which a federal court could lift an injunction that prevents one satellite carrier, Dish Network, from using the distant compulsory copyright license once it provides local into local service in every U.S. market.
• Insert a new section to ensure that nothing in this legislation, the Communications Act, or any FCC regulation stands in the way of private negotiations over the retransmission of programming.
• Require the Commission to issue a report to Congress concerning the ability of consumers to access in-state programming and the use of the designated market area system to define local markets for the purposes of receiving in-state programming.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on Wednesday called for Congress to "act in the best interest of the economy" and Patent Trademark Office users by permanently ending fee diversion at the agency. Such a change would let the PTO set fees and recover costs, which Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and PTO Director David Kappos have said would better address the agency's operational funding needs in a time of economic uncertainty.
Hatch's remarks came at a ceremony recognizing the PTO's grant of the 600,000th design patent to Goal Zero, a subsidiary of Provo Craft and Novelty, and a small business located in his home state. The patent was issued for the design of a battery system, which works in conjunction with a solar briefcase that recharges in the sun.
Lawmakers should improve the quality of patents at the front end so as to avoid costly and counterproductive litigation that stifles innovation at the back end, Hatch added. "Improving patent quality and reducing litigation uncertainty are the central tenets of the bipartisan congressional mandate for patent reform," he said, arguing that consensus is possible "but it will take willing partners from within Congress, the administration, and the patent community."
A group of minority groups and civil rights organizations on Tuesday wrote to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy in opposition to legislation he has introduced that would force AM and FM radio stations to pay new fees to performers and record labels. The bill, which the groups argue would be detrimental to minority-owned stations and the communities they serve, could be teed up for a vote by the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Some have estimated that the measure would throw at least a third of minority broadcasters into bankruptcy.
Among those signing onto the letter include: the Black College Communication Association, the Hispanic Institute, International Black Broadcasters Association, Telecommunications Professionals, Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, National Black Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Spanish Broadcasters Association and UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc.
A similar measure sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers underwent a major rewrite before his committee took up the bill. The version that ultimately passed his panel included a number of carve-outs aimed at appeasing small and minority owned stations and ultimately won the support of the NAACP, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and a number of unions. It remains to be seen what changes could be made to Leahy's bill in hopes of calming the fears of broadcasters.
Want to find a congressional office phone number or a Hill aide's e-mail address? Review a bill or peek at a member's Twitter feed? There's an app for that. Several, actually. One of the most popular appears to be "Congress in Your Pocket," which ranges from 99 cents to $99.99 depending on the version, National Journal magazine reports. The software, which has more than 20,000 iPhone and BlackBerry users, will soon feature note-taking and sharing capabilities, as well as Cook Political Report rankings, according to its creators at the Cohen Research Group. Fox News Channel has also hinted at a partnership for the 2010 midterm elections. "It's quick, easy, and essential," says Morgan Reed, a lobbyist for the high-tech sector. He says he loves the app for what it's not: "another spiral-bound facebook to be lost, stolen, or obsoleted every time a member or staff person leaves."
Legislation to make Congressional Research Service reports publicly available was introduced in the House on Thursday by freshmen Reps. Frank Kratovil, D-Md., and Leonard Lance, R-N.J. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman introduced a companion bill in April, restarting the perennial attempt by some lawmakers and open government advocates. Last Congress, he introduced a resolution with Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ranking member Susan Collins that called for a more accessible system. Over the past decade, a series of bills requiring public access to CRS reports has made little progress, including a 2007 measure by former Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.
Under the chairmanship of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., last Congress, the Rules Committee authorized CRS to create software to let senators place individual reports on their Web sites. Lieberman and his allies believe that didn't go far enough. As public debate becomes increasingly partisan and polarized, "it is more important than ever for citizens to have full access to the same neutral, unbiased information that many of us rely on to help us formulate important decisions," Kratovil said. Lance added that making taxpayer-funded research available to the American people is simply "good government."
In addition to piecemeal disclosures by lawmakers, CRS reports are made available through pay services and more intermittently at OpenCRS.com, a free Web database offered by the Center for Democracy and Technology.
A long list of colleges and universities want Congress to fix what they believe is an outdated Internal Revenue Service record-keeping requirement governing use of employer-provided cell phones and other electronic communication devices. Current IRS rules impose an onerous burden on higher education and other employers across the country, they wrote in recent letters to leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee, which have bills to overhaul the policy pending before them.
Reps. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., and Sam Johnson, R-Texas, and Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and John Ensign, R-Nev., introduced the legislation to change the regulation, which treats employer-provided phones as a taxable fringe benefit. A similar proposal was approved by the House in April 2008 but was never enacted. When Congress created the rule in 1989, cellular technology was in its infancy and devices were "big and bulky, expensive and rarely used," they wrote. Now they are "practically an appendage."
The IRS recently began enforcing the rules requiring employees to maintain detailed records of their business and personal use of phones, BlackBerrys and similar devices but has also acknowledged the law is burdensome. In June, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said he would work with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to urge Congress to repeal current law.
Privacy watchdogs on Thursday criticized the Senate Judiciary Committee's passage of legislation that would reauthorize expiring portions of the USA PATRTIOT Act, saying the version approved by the panel did not go far enough. The Center for Democracy and Technology argued the Obama administration secured changes to the bill that diminished some of the civil liberties safeguards initially proposed by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and opposed more sweeping changes that could have bolstered Americans' constitutional rights.
CDT was particularly disappointed in the defeat of an amendment that would have protected privacy by raising the standard for issuing administrative subpoenas known as national security letters. "As a result, NSLs will continue to be used to obtain sensitive records about people who are two or three steps removed from the target of an investigation," CDT senior counsel Gregory Nojeim said. Michael Macleod-Ball, acting director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office called the action "a missed opportunity."
Read full coverage of the Judiciary Committee's mark up in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
Twenty members of the House who represent rural communities have requested the FCC open a formal investigation into the nature and function of Google's Internet telephony service known as Google Voice. In a Wednesday letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the lawmakers said they are concerned with Google's assertion that it is not offering a "traditional" telephone service -- despite its use of 10-digit numbers and its ability to connect calls over a local exchange carrier -- and therefore should not be treated as a common carrier service like AT&T and Verizon.
Google "should not be able to evade compliance with important principles of access and competition set forth by the FCC by simply self-declaring it is not subject to them," they wrote. "If Google is allowed to operate its telephone service outside the rules by which all other common carriers operate, we worry that the market and support for universal service will be undermined." Rural consumers, whose calls would only be selectively connected, would be most harmed, they argued. The letter was signed by Reps. Steve Buyer, R-Ind.; Charlie Melancon, D-La.; John Shimkus, R-Ill.; John Barrow, D-Ga., and others.
AT&T last month asked the FCC to force Google to play by the same rules as its competitors on the heels of reports that the Internet giant blocked calls to rural areas for users of its Google Voice service and, as a result, is reducing its access expenses. Google defended itself on its blog saying that the company's goal is to provide consumers with free or low-cost access to as many advanced communications features as possible. To do that, Google Voice restricts certain outbound calls from its Web platform to high-priced destinations.
House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Darrell Issa has given the committee's minority Web site an overhaul. The enhanced site is designed to create a user-friendly hub for information about the panel's work and Republicans' oversight of federal programs. Features include an interactive calendar; custom-built pages for each GOP committee member; a rotating front page video module, allowing users to simultaneously watch live hearings and explore documents; and a Twitter feed, displaying minority committee member's tweets in real time.
"Our expanded online presence highlights important investigations and efforts to achieve real accountability and transparency in government," Issa said in a statement. "Our watchdog Web site is a straight-forward platform from which we will call out Washington's fiscal irresponsibility, engage all Americans in the daily fight for effective governance and transport users into the trenches of federal oversight."
House Homeland Security Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity and Science and Technology Subcommittee Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., on Tuesday introduced a resolution supporting the goals and ideals of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The Senate passed a similar resolution last week, which was sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Additionally President Obama issued a proclamation in honor of the month.
"Americans rely on information technology in every aspect of our lives - from managing businesses to social networking," Clarke said in a press release. "In this digital age, we are all interconnected and our national cyber infrastructure is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain." She pointed out that cybersecurity vulnerabilities can impact national and economic security. The Homeland Security Department logged 5,499 such incidents in 2008 -- a 40 percent increase over the previous year.
Clarke will join industry executives at a Tuesday event on Capitol Hill to discuss emerging threats, vulnerabilities and challenges. Additional speakers at the TechAmerica briefing include: Microsoft's Vinny Gullotto; RSA's Uri Rivner; Eric Cole of Lockheed Martin; IBM's Kristin Lovejoy; and John McCumber of Symantec.
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."
Legislation that would force AM and FM radio stations to pay fees to performers and record labels whose songs they broadcast has been added to the Senate Judiciary Committee's mark up agenda for Thursday. The controversial bill, sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, was the focus of an August hearing. A similar measure passed the House Judiciary Committee in May after key members added carve-outs intended to help small broadcasters cope with the charge. Resolutions have been introduced in the House and Senate opposing the fee.
It is unlikely that the Senate bill will see action this week because of a rule that allows any Judiciary Committee member to postpone consideration of legislation for one week after it is added to the line up for the first time. The panel has its hands full with other issues including legislation to extend and modify provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act; a bill to protect reporters who decline to reveal confidential information or sources; and a bill that would bar pharmaceutical companies from making deals with other drug companies to halt production of generic drugs.
Legislation that would let states to petition to operate wireless jamming devices in particular correctional facilities won unanimous Senate approval on Monday. The measure, sponsored by Senate Commerce ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, would require the FCC to conduct a rulemaking on the topic and establish rules and criteria for the approval of jamming systems and devices. Amid fears of signal interference in nearby areas, the bill also requires the FCC to conduct field testing of all devices submitted for approval and requires approved devices operate at the lowest possible power output necessary. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, sponsored a companion bill in the House.
"This legislation will disconnect the communications networks that prisoners and criminal enterprises have patched together using smuggled cell phones," Hutchison said in a press release. "With innocent lives on the line, Congress has a responsibility to give the nation's law enforcement community the tools necessary to effectively fight this growing problem." In 2008, corrections systems nationwide reported large numbers of confiscated phones. California reported nearly 3,000 phones found with inmates, while Mississippi had nearly 2,000. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reported the confiscation of more than 1,600 phones.
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.
The Senate Commerce Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee Wednesday will wade into the debate over how to reauthorize sections of the Satellite Home Viewer Act slated to expire Dec. 31. The House and Senate Judiciary committees passed their versions of the legislation last month and the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee approved its bill in June. The Judiciary and Commerce committees share jurisdiction over the statute, which permits satellite systems to retransmit local and distant television signals.
The Senate Commerce Committee announced its witness line-up on Monday:
• DirecTV Senior Vice President Robert Gabrielli
• Dish Network Executive Vice President Stanton Dodge
• Meredith Corporation President Paul Karpowicz
• West Virginia Public Broadcasting Technology Director Bill Acker
... Sen. (and Saturday Night Live alumnus) Al Franken, D-Minn., appearing at the Future of Music Coalition's annual policy summit, which runs Monday and Tuesday at Georgetown University. Franken delivers a day one keynote at noon in the university's Gaston Hall, 37th and O Streets, N.W., followed by another keynote at 2 p.m. -- in the same location -- by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. In addition, Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., a House Energy and Commerce member, as well officials from the U.S. Copyright Office and Justice Department will join high-tech and entertainment industry executives for numerous panels on the challenges and opportunities facing creators and fans in the rapidly evolving music business.
Read a full rundown of this week's tech policy events at CongressDaily's TechCentral here.
President Obama is facing pressure from House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor over FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's plan to prevent telecommunications and cable broadband providers from blocking or degrading competing content and services on the Internet. In a Friday letter, the pair wrote that the Commission should direct its energy on developing the national broadband plan, which is due to Congress in February.
"We believe that network neutrality regulations would actually thwart further broadband investment and availability, and that a well-reasoned broadband plan would confirm our view," Boehner and Cantor wrote. "To hastily begin the process of adopting network neutrality rules months before issuing such a plan implies that politics are driving the FCC's decision-making process." The FCC is slated to vote on the proposed net neutrality rules at its Oct. 22 meeting.
Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge and a proponent of Genachowski's effort, called it "truly unfortunate" that the House Republican leadership has tried to slow what she called "the greatest economic engine for job creativity and innovation ever created." The FCC's aim is to establish a set of principles to preserve an open Internet for all Americans, she said. "Net neutrality is simply a guarantee of fairness, a prohibition on discrimination," Sohn added.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, Homeland Security Committee ranking member Peter King and others wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday asking them to delay for one year implementation of a 2006 law that bans Internet gambling in the United States. The members referred to the regulations as an "unreasonable burden on regulators and the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis."
In May, Frank introduced legislation to put off the execution of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which is slated to take effect Dec. 1, 2009. Lawmakers have complained that the rules were completed by the Bush administration at the last minute and his bill would stop regulators from enforcing the measure until Congress has had a chance to decide national policy. Frank also sponsored legislation to create a federal regulatory and enforcement framework under which online gambling operators could obtain licenses allowing them to accept bets from individuals in the United States.
National Thoroughbred Racing Asssociation, the American Greyhound Track Operators Association and the Poker Players Alliance has petitioned the Obama administration to extend the date of compliance for 12 months. A copy of the letter from Frank, King and others can be found here.
House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., on Friday said he has lingering questions about an agreement that the Obama administration signed this week with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers that loosens the U.S. government's grip on the entity that administers the domain name system. Chief among his concerns are the plan's implications for potential legal and security risks if foreign powers are involved with the oversight and handling of data.
Under the agreement, which replaces a multiyear contract between ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration that expired Wednesday, a handful of expert panels will supervise a range of Internet governance related activities from the security and stability of domain names to ICANN's internal functioning. The U.S. government will have only one permanent seat as part of an accountability panel.
"Surely, the United States should have a permanent seat on all four panels," Stearns said in a statement. "The United States has been the leader in the Internet's development and should provide leadership into the future. All countries may participate in it's continue development, but the United States should still retain a prime leadership role." Others have been critical of the NTIA-ICANN deal as well. Read Thursday's CongressDaily PM Edition for more (subscription required).
As the Commerce Department works on the near-term release of a letter providing the Obama administration's views on a Senate bill aimed at overhauling the U.S. patent system, key Republicans are pressing Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions to resist proposals they believe could weaken the measure.
Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; James Risch, R-Idaho; Michael Enzi, R-Wyo.; and Robert Bennett, R-Utah, asked them to build on "careful compromises" reached when the panel approved the bill in April, 15-4. At the time, Leahy lost the support of Hatch, a key ally who was upset the amended version failed to address the issue of "inequitable conduct" claims at the Patent and Trademark Office.
Hatch, who chairs the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, said Wednesday that he voted against the bill because he "wanted to make sure patent reform was done right." Nonetheless, he said there were good provisions in the bill and he wants to make sure Leahy and Sessions are "vigilant in preserving what has been achieved." Stakeholders are divided over the bill's approach to administratively challenging a patent's validity after it is granted.
Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman capped off Wednesday's U.S. Chamber of Commerce intellectual property summit by touching on a range of issues -- from patents to copyrights to trademarks. How does the former head of the now defunct Judiciary Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Subcommittee keep abreast of the flurry of IP activity while heading up a panel with broad jurisdiction over international and diplomatic issues? "I can walk and chew gum at the same time," he said.
Berman said he hoped that the Senate will act on a version of a foreign relations reauthorization bill that would include language to increase resources and training for enforcement of IP rights. A bill he introduced, which overwhelmingly passed the House in June, would require the Secretary of State to appoint 10 new IP attachés to serve in embassies or other diplomatic missions with priority placement given to countries with particularly egregious IP regimes.
On the ongoing debate over whether and how to overhaul the U.S. patent system, Berman said he was hopeful that legislation could move forward. He noted that the Senate is poised to pave the way in the 111th Congress. Berman also said President Obama's nomination of the first White House IP enforcement coordinator last week should lead to "a more coherent and comprehensive federal policy." Rigorous enforcement and a focus on digital piracy should be at the top of that office's agenda, he said.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee easily approved two bills on Wednesday designed to require companies that store private information to better protect it against security breaches, and to warn consumers about potential dangers of downloading the "peer-to-peer" software that has been implicated in such unauthorized breaches, CongressDaily reports. The Data Accountability and Trust Act and the Informed P2P User Act, passed on voice votes with no individual amendments.
The Data Accountability and Trust Act requires entities that hold personal information to adopt appropriate security measures to protect it. In addition, if a breach occurs, such as inadvertent release of tax records or medical information, they must notify consumers. The FTC would be empowered to enforce the law, with penalties up to $5 million for violations. The Informed P2P User Act requires installers of peer-to-peer software, that allows many people to access information contained on a personal computer, to notify computer users that the software is about to be installed.
Read the full mark up report here (subscription required).
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue urged the Senate on Wednesday to "hurry up and confirm" former U.S. Assistant Trade Representative Victoria Espinel who was tapped last week by President Obama to serve as the first White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator. The Senate Judiciary Committee first must receive a completed questionnaire that details her background and experience and then a hearing can be scheduled. Espinel, who is highly regarded on Capitol Hill, within industry, and among international IP policy arenas, is expected to easily win confirmation.
"I'm calling on the administration to take the next logical and necessary step," Donohue said during a keynote at a Chamber-sponsored summit. "Work with the business community and Congress to create a bold IP strategy." Such a plan is required under the 2008 legislation that created the IP czar position, he said. The White House must ensure that, once confirmed, Espinel will have "the resources and authority to get things done."
Donohue also pressed the U.S. government to remain strong on protecting the IP behind green technologies as negotiators plan for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. At that meeting, countries will try to reach agreement on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but some governments want carve-outs that Donohue said could diminish incentives for U.S. manufacturers. "We must reject those claims that IP rights are a barrier to climate change innovation," he said, arguing that compulsory licensing could endanger a million jobs by 2020.
When President Obama tapped George Mason University professor Victoria Espinel as the first White House intellectual property enforcement coordinator Friday, lawmakers and industry stakeholders let out a collective sigh of relief. The announcement was months in the making, and Espinel, who previously served as assistant trade representative for IP, had been considered the top candidate for the job for some time.
One reason for the delay was that administration officials were conflicted over where to put the IP czar. Eventually they settled on OMB, after ruling out the Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, USTR and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, sources familiar with the process said. OMB oversees strategic planning, interagency coordination and budgeting, and it is seen as a successful coordinator of programs that span multiple agencies.
The fact that Espinel, who is expected to easily win Senate confirmation, would land at OMB is ironic, since that is where 2005 legislation offered by Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, placed the head of a proposed IP enforcement network. At the time, the idea was panned by critics, who thought OMB would be a peculiar locale for the post. Read the entire "Issue Of The Week" from CongressDaily's TechCentral here (subscription required).
More than 20 lawmakers are urging Justice Department antitrust chief Christine Varney and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz to view recent European antitrust rulings with a critical eye and weigh the impact of those decisions on U.S. high-tech firms such as Intel, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Qualcomm. Their effort comes on the heels of the European Commission's $1.45 billion judgment against Intel for excluding competitors from the market for chips known as x86 central processing units.
Sept. 18 letters to Varney and Leibowitz, spearheaded by Oregon Reps. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat, and Greg Walden, a Republican, argue the Intel ruling "is the latest evidence of a troublesome trend in Europe toward regulatory protectionism." Other successful U.S. firms have faced hefty fines, are under investigation, or possibly face scrutiny from the Commission's competition directorate, they said. The Intel decision "ignores the reality of a highly competitive marketplace," they wrote in the document initially circulated on the Hill this summer.
Intel, which is the subject of an FTC investigation, was a major contributor to the 2008 races of Blumenauer and Walden and employs more than 15,000 people at Oregon facilities, making it the state's largest private employer. The company also has a workforce of several thousand in New Mexico. Democratic Reps. David Wu of Oregon, Harry Teague of New Mexico, Rush Holt of New Jersey, House Science Chairman Bart Gordon and others signed the letter.
House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., has introduced a bill that would expand the Universal Service Fund's lifeline assistance program for broadband adoption. The bill directs the FCC to establish a broadband program that provides low-income Americans living in rural and urban areas with assistance in subscribing to affordable broadband internet service. Matsui said her measure would help "fully close the digital divide."
In California, an estimated 96 percent of residences have access to broadband but just over half have signed up for a high-speed connection at home. In most cases, adoption rates are associated with income as seen in recent data from the Public Policy Institute of California, which show that only 58 percent of the state's residents earning under $40,000 a year subscribed to dial-up or broadband at home, according to Matsui's release. In contrast, 97 percent of those earning $80,000 or more subscribed to one of the services.
"It is clear that millions of Americans cannot afford broadband services," Matsui said in a press release, pointing out that in the current economic climate, many cannot afford to pay up to $60 a month for broadband. The legislation models the assistance provided for basic telephone service under the FCC's current lifeline assistance program, which is designed to ensure that quality telecommunications services are available to low-income customers at reasonable rates.
Former Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who was tapped last week to become the new head of the National Association of Broadcasters spoke to reporters on Wednesday for the first time since being named to the post. His conversation with the press, which followed an appearance at NAB's Radio Show in Philadelphia, included a bit of perspective on legislation that would impose new fees on AM and FM stations. NAB has been lobbying hard against the bill, which broadcasters say could do great harm. The music industry has argued paying a royalty is only fair since other platforms already pay performers for the songs they play.
Here's an excerpt:
"I don't care whether you call it a fee, a fine, a tax... It taxes [stations'] ability to stay in business. As someone who, by the way in the Senate was very helpful to the artist community...What I've tried to stop for them is unlawful downloading of their material. That's a different issue than saying 'my business model was broken by my neighbor and so to make that right lets break their business model.' The truth is artists need broadcasters, broadcasters need artists. There's a mutual benefit society here, a community of interest that somehow has been lost by pointing to broadcasters and saying somehow they have to make this right by us. I'm anxious for members of Congress to know that these broadcasters are a vital piece of the economic and cultural life of the community they represent. If you want to buy some radio stations in Oregon there are a lot of them for sale. I want them operating. I don't want them out of business."
As radio executives gather in Philadelphia this week for the National Association of Broadcasters' annual Radio Show, attendees will likely get an earful about legislation moving through Congress that would impose new fees on AM and FM stations. The NAB has waged war against a pair of House and Senate bills, claiming they would impose an unfair burden on an already cash-strapped industry. But music stakeholders argue the bills would bring AM and FM in line with Internet, cable and satellite radio services, which already pay performers.
An NAB spokesman said Tuesday that support for "free and local radio" continues to grow despite the music industry-led effort. The group noted that 251 House members and 25 senators have signed onto resolutions opposing what they believe is a tax on local radio. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., along with Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif.; John Boccieri, D-Ohio; Brian Baird, D-Wash.; Joe Sestak, D-Pa., and Dan Lungren, R-Calif., were the most recent to back the resolutions.
Meanwhile, proponents of the legislation are turning up the heat on one radio giant. The MusicFirst Coalition said Wednesday that two Washington, D.C. area Clear Channel stations -- country station WMZQ and WIHT, "Hot 99.5," -- failed to comply with public disclosure rules for advertisements opposing the Performance Rights Act. MusicFirst argued the stations played NAB spots but an inspection of their public filings found no record of the broadcasts and nothing about the stations' opposition to the legislation.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names Chief Operating Officer Doug Brent defended his group's planned expansion of top-level domains -- such as .biz, .info and .us -- at a House Judiciary Courts and Competition Subcommittee hearing Wednesday, arguing that bringing potentially hundreds of new domains to market will benefit consumers and companies that do business online. He said multiple parties from around the world have already expressed interest in securing new domains (like .eco, .nyc, and .basketball) and there have been numerous venues for public comment.
But Nike, Verizon and Marriott along with trade groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have built up opposition to the ICANN plan, claiming that it could exacerbate cyber-squatting, fraud, and consumer confusion while forcing trademark owners to spend more money to defend their brands. ICANN had targeted February to begin accepting applications for new domains but Brent said that date would likely be missed due to ongoing discussions about how to protect intellectual property rights.
IP concerns are crucial, he said, noting "we cannot and will not allow the expansion if it does not protect trademark holders." Steve DelBianco of the e-commerce group NetChoice said the domain name expansion controversy is indicative of the larger issue of ICANN not being fully accountable to the entire Internet community. He apologized to lawmakers for "dragging you into this food fight" and said it "shouldn't take a congressional hearing to get ICANN to focus on fraud and abuse."
Read a related story in CongressDaily's Wednesday AM Edition here and look for more in the PM Edition (subscription required). More on the hearing testimony can be found here.
A Congressional Research Service report circulated this week on the increasing use of micro-blogging site Twitter on Capitol Hill shows the following:
• 158 members of the House and Senate are registered with Twitter and issued about 1,187 tweets during the two one-week periods in July and August analyzed for the report.
• Approximately 29 percent of House members and 31 percent of senators are registered with Twitter. Members sent an average of 85 tweets per day collectively.
• House Republicans sent the most tweets (54 percent), followed by House Democrats (27 percent), Senate Republicans (10 percent) and Senate Democrats (9 percent).
• More tweets were sent on Thursday than any other day of the week.
• Members' use of Twitter can be divided into six categories: position taking, press or Web links, district or state activities, official congressional action, personal, and replies.
• The most frequent type of tweets were press and Web link tweets, which comprised 43 percent of in-session and 46 percent of recess tweets.
• Official congressional action tweets during session (33 percent) and position-taking tweets during recess (14 percent)
(Hat tip, TweetCongress)
Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., urged Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy in a Tuesday letter to insist on a committee vote Thursday on legislation to protect confidential sources of journalists. "There has been ample time for consideration so that amendments should be presented and voted upon and the bill should be reported to the floor promptly," Specter said. Last week, the panel confronted bipartisan opposition on grounds the bill does not do enough to protect national security.
Specter reintroduced the bill in February and it has been on the committee's agenda since May. Since the introduction of the original measure in 2005, the panel has held multiple hearings and heard from 24 witnesses, he pointed out. In October 2007, the committee reported the previous bill on a 15-4 vote. "If there are objections, let the objectors offer amendments without a continuing filibuster," Specter said.
Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions have argued the bill could encourage leaks of classified information. Sessions has also claimed it would impede national security investigations and make it difficult to subpoena source material from reporters, especially where the crime is related to classified information. "I'm going to have a hard time voting for this bill," Feinstein said last week.
Warning that a free and open Internet "faces emerging and substantial challenges," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday outlined ambitious plans for rules designed to prevent telecommunications and cable broadband providers from blocking or degrading competing content and services. "I believe the FCC must be a smart cop on the beat preserving a free and open Internet," he told a packed audience at the Brookings Institution.
Such rules could potentially insulate the FCC from a lawsuit challenging its authority to enforce its network neutrality principles, which were introduced as voluntary. But the announcement could trigger a reaction from Republicans on Capitol Hill and at the agency, as well as major communications companies, which have argued that heavy-handed government intervention could stifle broadband investment. Industry players generally coupled their criticism with praise for areas where they have common ground, though privately, they are said to be nervous.
"I think they're reluctant to get in his face this early in his tenure," an industry source said, adding it appears that major carriers -- recognizing Genachowski has the votes to move forward -- will seek to shape regulations they can live with. The FCC will vote on the proposed changes at its October meeting, but the new rules are not expected to be in place until the spring, well after it issues a national broadband plan to Congress in February.
Read David Hatch's CongressDaily PM Edition story here and a follow-up piece in Tuesday's AM Edition here (subscription required).
Senate Republican High Tech Task Force Chairman Orrin Hatch on Monday slammed President Obama's same-day speech about innovation, arguing that his words did not match his policy proposals and in several instances "go in exactly the opposite direction." Obama's address at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y., was hailed by a range of technology industry stakeholders as a bold step toward achieving economic recovery and maintaining American competitiveness.
Obama articulated his support for making permanent a research and development tax credit, which is proposed in his FY10 budget request, by noting that it would help companies afford the high cost of developing new ideas, technologies and products. "What he failed to say, though, is that he and congressional leaders squandered the best chance in a generation to do this by not including a permanent extension in this year's stimulus bill," Hatch said. "Instead they opted to expand government social programs."
Also among Obama's talking points was the importance of a lower tax rate on capital gains to spur investments in start-up businesses. He said zeroing out the tax for investments in certain businesses is essential because they are engines of innovation and produce 13 times more patents per employee than large companies. Hatch countered that the FY10 budget "calls for a devastating tidal wave in the form of a capital gains rate increase that will totally swamp the small island of tax relief that he has proposed."
Among the more than 560 amendments submitted by Senate Finance Committee members late last week is a proposal by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to dedicate Internet gambling tax revenue -- generated through implementation of a pending House bill -- to increase low-income subsidies included in Finance Chairman Max Baucus' healthcare reform measure. Wyden also offered an amendment that requires employers to offer at least two choices of health insurance or provide vouchers their employees could use in the insurance marketplace proposed by President Obama.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank's Web gambling bill would overturn a 2006 federal gambling ban and create a framework to permit licensed operators to accept wagers from individuals in the United States. A companion to Frank's legislation introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., would raise revenue for the Treasury Department primarily through ensuring that applicable individual taxes, corporate taxes and license fees on regulated Internet gambling activities are collected.
"We applaud Senator Wyden's proposal to collect and put to good use tens of billions in Internet gambling revenue that would otherwise be lost in the underground marketplace," said Michael Waxman, a spokesman with the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, which backs Frank and McDermott's legislation. The group also pointed to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis that showed collecting taxes on regulated Web gambling would let the U.S. capture up to $62.7 billion over the next decade.
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.
Former Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., has been tapped to head the National Association of Broadcasters, the trade group announced Friday morning. Smith, who was defeated by Democrat Jeff Merkley in 2008 after two terms in office, starts Nov. 1. Among Smith's top priorities will be leading broadcasters' effort to stave off legislation that would force AM and FM radio to pay fees to performers whose songs they air.
NAB's former president, David Rehr, stepped down in May after four years on the job. Smith, who served on the Senate Commerce, Finance, and Foreign Relations Committees, will be introduced to NAB members and make brief remarks at the group's annual Radio Show in Philadelphia next week and will meet the entire NAB board in mid-October. While on Capitol Hill, Smith also chaired the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force -- a role that helped foster his interest in new media and technology issues.
His appointment comes on the heels of a string of recent defeats for the NAB, including its failure to block the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger. The association was also a key player in the nation's switchover to digital television signals. Smith issued a statement calling the NAB post "an opportunity of a lifetime." "As radio and television stations embrace new technologies and new business opportunities, I look forward to articulating to public policymakers the unique and positive role played by local and network broadcasters in the fabric of American society," he said.
Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
The Senate Commerce Committee's timetable for advancing broad cybersecurity legislation continues to slip as aides retool key provisions and the bill's co-sponsors -- Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine -- continue their prominent roles in the high-stakes healthcare debate. It appears unlikely that a hearing on the measure will happen this month, Rockefeller aides said Wednesday. An August e-mail from Commerce Committee General Counsel Bruce Andrews to outside groups said the panel was aiming for a hearing and a markup in September or October.
Several sections of the legislation are considered "wet cement," an aide said. One such provision, which high-tech policy watchers argued could give the president the power to effectively shut off the Internet in a Web crisis, is being reworded after lengthy consultations. The goal is to map out the untested responsibilities of the public and private sector in the event of a high-tech hurricane. More prominent in a forthcoming version of the bill will be language that details how the president and pertinent government and industry officials can develop emergency response plans.
Read the full story in CongressDaily's Thursday AM Edition here (subscription required).
3121, the first professional networking tool designed exclusively for congressional members and staff launches Thursday after several months of beta testing. National Journal Group's walled-off Web site offers a secure directory of contacts, communications tools and customizable news feeds so users can find and collaborate with colleagues and create personalized news filters. 3121 has been pre-populated with 9,500 user profiles, with about 56 percent belonging to Democrats and 44 percent to Republicans. Individuals with House and Senate e-mail addresses can log-on to claim and modify their listings. Learn more about 3121 here. FYI: "3121" is the extension for the Capitol Hill switchboard.
Two of the House Judiciary Committee's top Republicans wrote to the new head of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers on Tuesday to express concerns about the proposed introduction of many new top-level domains -- such as .biz, .info, and .us -- and the expiration later this month of a memo formally joining the Commerce Department and the California-based entity that administers the world's Web addresses.
In their letter to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith and Courts and Competition Subcommittee ranking member Howard Coble, R-N.C., said they are worried that a vast expansion of domains will carry "serious negative consequences" for U.S. businesses and consumers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and others have complained that adding hundreds of new domains could exacerbate cyber-squatting, fraud, and overall confusion in the Internet marketplace.
Smith and Coble said the absence of price caps in the new registry deals could mean that legitimate businesses could be discriminated against and asked to pay a premium for each domain they register or renew. ICANN, which has said it plans to begin accepting applications for new domains in early 2010, could bring in an initial $90 million from the plan, according to some estimates. The letter argued the only economic justification put forth so far is an ICANN-commissioned report that has been criticized for failing to include empirical data to support of its claim that the project will benefit consumers.
Legislation slated to come before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday will reflect the end to a copyright feud between cable television and content providers, Democratic aides told CongressDaily earlier this week. Under the deal, cable companies would give the Copyright Office $85 million over five years to cover "phantom signals" -- transmissions that are not viewable by consumers but nevertheless necessitate payment under a 2008 decision by the Copyright Office. Hollywood studios would get a portion of the money. The arrangement also includes money for past obligations, sources said of the deal reached by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and the Motion Picture Association of America.
Both groups were hesitant to comment ahead of Judiciary Chairman John Conyers' introduction of the broader bill, which would reauthorize sections of the Satellite Home Viewer Act that expire Dec. 31. MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman issued a statement lauding Conyers and his staff for bringing the parties together to reach a consensus. "This is a good agreement for consumers who enjoy entertainment programming, the people who create that programming and the cable systems that retransmit it," he said. NCTA had argued that its members should not have to pay for content that subscribers cannot access but is transmitted as a result of cable company consolidation.
Read the full story in CongressDaily here. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions introduced their version of the reauthorization bill on Tuesday. Read more here. (subscription required)
Even though Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and ranking member Charles Grassley are up to their eyeballs in healthcare reform, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy wants them to keep intellectual property on their radar screen. Coalition Chairman Richard Cotton, who also serves as general counsel for NBC Universal, wrote to the pair Monday commending them for including provisions aimed at bolstering IP protections in their customs and trade enforcement reauthorization bill. The measure was introduced just before August recess.
The legislation would ensure that there is sufficient leadership, resources, and legal tools to sustain effective IP enforcement at the Homeland Security Department, Customs Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Cotton wrote. The measure would allow those agencies "to work smarter and faster to stop the importation of counterfeit goods while also speeding legitimate commerce." Protecting IP is essential to creating quality jobs and growing the U.S. economy, he stated, noting that IP dependent industries in the U.S. account for more than $5 trillion of the gross domestic product and comprise more than half of all exports.
House Cybersecurity Caucus co-chairs Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, urged President Obama last week to swiftly appoint a permanent cybersecurity coordinator within the White House. In a Thursday letter, the pair said the absence of such an official "impedes the ability of federal agencies to move forward in updating and strengthening their aging cyber policies," while complicating efforts to collaborate with private institutions that also play a critical role.
The appointment of a cyber czar was among a number of recommendations offered by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Commission on Cybersecurity, which Langevin and McCaul co-chaired, and the administration's own comprehensive review of the government's cybersecurity infrastructure. Both reports also said the creation of a national security strategy for cyberspace is needed and the lawmakers lauded Obama for getting the ball rolling on that front.
"Foreign aggressors and criminals have been able to penetrate inadequately protected U.S. computer networks," the letter stated. "Those attacks have provided access to vast quantities of valuable information, and while our most sensitive U.S. military communications remains safe, economic competitors and potential military opponents have not hesitated to exploit opportunities presented by our lack of robust cybersecurity protections." The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has scheduled a Monday hearing on the topic.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins over the weekend gave a sneak peek at a Monday hearing intended to examine cybercrime that is directed at small- to medium-sized companies. In a Sunday press release, the pair said the event precedes the introduction of legislation focused on combating high-tech attacks on the private sector. Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, also introduced a broad cyber bill earlier this year.
"The Internet now is a global asset - a new strategic high ground - that simply must be secured just as any military commander would seize and control the high ground of a battle field," Lieberman said. "But unlike a battlefield, securing cyberspace is much more complicated to do since the Internet is an open, public entity. Security cannot be achieved by the government alone." Collins added that for every communications advance, there is a risk that the technology will be misused. She cited estimates that cybercrime may cost the global economy $1 trillion in losses - nearly $8 billion of that in the United States.
Witnesses at the hearing include Heartland Payment Systems CEO Robert Carr; Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center President William Nelson; U.S. Secret Service Office of Investigations Assistant Director Michael Merritt; and Homeland Security Undersecretary for National Protection and Programs Philip Reitinger.
The U.S. government's top copyright official told lawmakers Thursday Google's pending $125 million deal in a class-action lawsuit with authors and publishers will encroach on Congress' role in setting copyright policy. The settlement, which would embolden the Internet giant's effort to create the world's largest digital library and bookstore, would also let the firm "engage in a number of indisputable acts of copyright infringement," Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters told the House Judiciary Committee.
Specifically, the settlement awaiting a federal court's blessing would allow Google to sell out-of-print works without rights-holders' consent, Peters said, calling it "an end-run around copyright law as we know it." The deal would also interfere with lawmakers' recent efforts to rework a statute dealing with "orphan works" -- musical tracks, writings, images, videos or other content whose owners cannot be easily found. The Senate passed such a bill last Congress, but a companion bill stalled in the House.
Read the full story in Thursday's CongressDaily PM Edition here and a related story in the AM Edition here that questions whether the Google feud could fuel a renewed push for copyright reform on Capitol Hill (subscription required).
An executive at the Biotechnology Industry Organization on Wednesday said his trade group is hopeful that a Senate bill aimed at updating the U.S. patent system will reach the floor and receive a favorable reaction from the House. BIO Vice President for Governmental Relations Brent Delmonte told reporters that a measure that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in April is a "fair, responsible compromise." Chairman Patrick Leahy worked with Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to smooth out contentious language that would alter how damages are awarded in patent infringement lawsuits. Previously divided industry stakeholders lauded the changes.
"We hope that type of process will replicate itself [in the House]," he said. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers introduced a similar bill but his panel has yet to move the measure forward. A House Judiciary Republican aide told CongressDaily recently that there is a "real possibility" that legislation can advance without major changes even though damages language has yet to be tweaked in his chamber. "We'll see over the course of a few weeks whether we can reach a consensus," the aide said. "We've seen great ideas originate on both sides of the Capitol and in both parties," Delmonte said of damages proposals and efforts to adjust the system by which individuals can challenge an issued patent.
The National Association of Broadcasters on Tuesday filed comments with the FCC dismissing a complaint filed by music industry stakeholders as nothing more than a "carefully crafted public relations document" that runs counter to the First Amendment, the Communications Act, and precedent set by both the Supreme Court and the FCC. As such, the MusicFirst Coalition's argument that AM and FM stations are threatening and intimidating artists while rejecting the group's ad dollars, should be rejected, NAB said.
Music groups have backed legislation that would require over-the-air stations to pay a fee to performers when their songs are aired. They argue the bill would bring AM and FM stations in line with Internet, cable and satellite radio services, which all provide such compensation. NAB has deemed the effort a ploy by the Recording Industry Association of America to levy a "tax" on local radio. Read a detailed description of the NAB's FCC filing here and MusicFirst's initial complaint here.
Meanwhile, reports that Apple will include an FM tuner in the new iPod Nano highlight the important role music will play in radio's future success, MusicFirst Executive Director Jennifer Bendall said Wednesday. She called the iPod murmur "great news for music and great news for radio." "Radio needs music more than ever before. It must fairly support the artists and musicians who bring music to life and listeners' ears to the radio dial."
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers on Wednesday unveiled his witness list for a Thursday hearing on competition and commerce in the digital book industry. The hearing comes on the heels of considerable controversy over Google's plan to digitize mass quantities of libraries' stacks. A New York federal court has scheduled a fairness hearing for Oct. 7 on the $125 million settlement Google reached in a feud with authors and publishers. Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo and others have protested Google's project.
Witnesses include:
• Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond
• National Federation of the Blind President Marc Maurer
• Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken
• University of Chicago law professor Randal Picker
• Amazon Vice President Paul Misener
• Consumer Watchdog John Simpson
• Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters
• Center for American Progress Senior Fellow David Balto
Washington reawakens next week after its late summer slumber and there are plenty of high-tech events taking place on and off Capitol Hill. Here's a quick rundown:
• The Gov 2.0 Summit takes place Wednesday and Thursday. Notables include White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra; Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra; Deputy CTO Beth Noveck; Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas; Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf; Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey; Facebook's Tim Sparapani; and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
• The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Privacy Coalition unveils a privacy report card for the Obama administration on Wednesday at the National Press Club. A panel of privacy experts will also discuss the administration's performance on several critical privacy issues.
• The House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee holds a Wednesday hearing on expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and on Thursday holds a full committee hearing on digitizing literature as a result of controversy surrounding the Google Books project.
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz on Thursday expressed concern about Google's plan to digitize mass quantities of books, saying it "raises serious privacy challenges because of the vast amount of user information that could be collected." He said he was pleased that Google is taking steps to protect the privacy of Google Books users and noted that the Commission will have an ongoing dialogue with Google and others to ensure consumer privacy is protected when new technologies emerge. "As Google Books evolves we'll work to ensure that the privacy of online readers is fact, not fiction," he said in a statement.
Google recently told the FTC that users of Google Books are not and will not be required to have a Google account or register with Google to use most features although an account will be required to access books that a user has purchased. The application will also adhere to Google's existing privacy policy governing how it handles consumer data. Under that policy, Google only shares "personal information" when the consumer tells Google to do so or in certain other narrow circumstances. Google is also in the process of creating a specialized privacy policy specific to Google Books.
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to examine "competition and commerce in digital books" next Thursday and a New York federal court has scheduled a fairness hearing for Oct. 7 on the $125 million settlement Google reached in a feud with authors and publishers. The Open Book Alliance says Google's response to the FTC "essentially boils down to this - trust us." "We think it's too important to leave to blind faith that Google would do the right thing for consumers if the settlement is approved," said the group, whose members include Amazon.com, Microsoft, the Internet Archive, Yahoo and others.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will get an update by Obama administration officials next Thursday on implementation of the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program, Tech Daily Dose has learned. While the panel has not noticed the hearing on finalized a witness list, one might expect officials from the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service to testify. One might also expect those representatives to declare the program's early days a success, given the preliminary figures that have been floated.
The NTIA and RUS said last week that they received almost 2,200 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding for proposed broadband projects across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The initial $4 billion round of grants and loans are aimed at expanding broadband access and adoption to help bridge the technological divide and create jobs building Internet infrastructure. NTIA will utilize $4.7 billion to deploy broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas and other projects while RUS will invest $2.5 billion to facilitate broadband deployment in primarily rural communities.
"Applicants requested nearly seven times the amount of funding available, which demonstrates the substantial interest in expanding broadband across the nation," NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling said in a press release. "We will move quickly but carefully to fund the best projects to bring broadband and jobs to more Americans." RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein added that the overwhelming response "underscores the extensive interest in expanding broadband across the country."
Steve Largent, president of wireless association CTIA, told reporters Thursday that his trade group will use the FCC's recently announced notices of inquiry on innovation and competition in the mobile marketplace to share his industry's success story. Having a fact-based examination, which FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski requested at last week's Commission meeting, will "be a good thing for our industry," Largent said. Genachowski has faced pressure from Congress and smaller telecom firms to investigate whether firms like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel are unfairly dominating the space.
Largent insisted, as telecom companies' executives have, that there is vigorous competition in the wireless industry. Prices continue to fall; 95 percent of U.S. consumers have a choice of three or more carriers; consumer satisfaction is up and complaints are down, he said. Largent also acknowledged that the mobile industry has been impacted by the economic slump. "We have not seen the numbers grow the way they have the last three years but nonetheless we're still growing," he said.
CTIA is also lobbying hard for regulators to make available more spectrum. The FCC has held two auctions in recent years, which resulted in the freeing of valuable spectrum, but Largent said more is needed. He said the last auction took about a decade to come to fruition and companies and customers "cannot afford to wait" years for the next auction. Additionally, his group is pressing Congress to change tax laws -- namely placing a five year moratorium on increases to wireless taxes. Consumers pay an average of 15.3 percent taxes on their wireless bill and "that's unacceptable," Largent said.
Internet radio company Live365 has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking an injunction to prevent any further proceedings by a three-judge panel that determines music royalty rates, officials said late Monday. In the complaint Live365, which has 5 million monthly listeners and more than 270 diverse genres, questions the constitutionality of the Copyright Royalty Board and whether its judges were appointed in violation of the Constitution's separation of powers.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recently refused to rule on the CRB's constitutionality in a case brought by licensing firm Royalty Logic. The company had argued the CRB should be forced to vacate its decision in high-profile a proceeding that set the fee structure for webcasters. The panel has convened yet another rate-setting proceeding and music labels, licensing entities, artists, broadcasters and others are expected to spend millions of dollars presenting their cases, Live365 said.
"The constitutional issue is the elephant in the room at the CRB," Live365 CEO Mark Lam said in a statement. "Before any hard-earned artists' royalties and webcaster investments are spent on a potentially invalid royalty setting court, we are just requesting, for the benefit of all parties, to have this significant concern addressed and answered. The National Music Publishers' Association wrote to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers recently calling for legislation that would make moot any constitutional challenges to the CRB.
The House Judiciary Committee is planning a hearing soon after lawmakers return to Washington this month to examine Internet giant Google's controversial effort to digitize mass quantities of books. Sources on Capitol Hill and within industry told Tech Daily Dose on Tuesday that the hearing could occur next week or the following week in Chairman John Conyers's full committee or the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, which is chaired by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga.
A New York federal court has scheduled a fairness hearing for Oct. 7 on the $125 million settlement Google reached with publishers last October that lets authors and publishers cash in on the company's plan to display books online and profit from them by selling access to titles and by selling subscriptions to its collection. The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers filed a class action lawsuit against Google in 2005. The Justice Department formally acknowledged an investigation into the settlement this summer.
In related news, the National Writers Union wrote to former Vice President Al Gore on Tuesday asking him to use his influence to extend a Sept. 4 date for rights holders to opt out of the Google Books initiative and the Oct. 7 court date on the pending settlement. The deal "threatens to monopolize the access, distribution and pricing of the world's largest digital book database," NWU President Larry Goldbetter wrote. Gore serves as a senior advisor to Google and has a personal relationship with co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Update: A House Judiciary spokesman confirmed that a full committee hearing would be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 10.
Representatives of consumer and privacy advocacy groups on Tuesday will unveil recommendations they are making to Congress for new legislation that is intended to protect Internet users' privacy. Citing growing threats from the increasingly common practice of online behavioral tracking and targeting, the groups will make detailed recommendations for updated fair information practices that they believe would offer adequate consumer privacy for the 21st century.
House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., is crafting legislation that policy watchers believe will be introduced soon. "Today, electronic information from consumers is collected, compiled, sold secretly and without reasonable safeguards," the groups said in a media advisory. "Tracking people's every move online is an invasion of privacy. It's like being followed by an invisible stalker." Among those pressing Boucher and others for action include the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
Boucher told CongressDaily earlier this year that he envisioned language that would give Internet users greater confidence in how information collected about them online is used and would offer some consumer control over that use. "That will encourage people to engage in electronic commerce more readily," he said. Boucher and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., introduced legislation four years ago that would have required consumer notification and prominent privacy policies that explain what is being collected and how it could be used, sold or otherwise disclosed.
Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller said Monday's release of an FCC report on existing technologies that block television content deemed inappropriate for children was a welcome step but more must be done by the agency and Congress. Government and the private sector must go beyond simply offering information, he said in a statement. They must provide "simple ways for families to control and monitor their children's screen time [and] must offer the tools and policies that make it easy for people to be good parents and oversee the viewing that goes on in their homes."
Rockefeller said he looked forward to the FCC's next action in this area, noting that his interest in the topic has long been high as are his expectations. He vowed to "continue fighting for these important protections" and said he looked forward to working with Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and other Commerce Committee colleagues on the issue. The FCC report was required under the 2007 Child Safe Viewing Act and over the past six months, the agency has compiled a record on parental control technologies in use as well as those still in development.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the report "contains some important information for parents [but] also raises important questions and exposes the need for further study of this essential issue." The Commission will soon unveil a notice of inquiry seeking more information on the topic as well as others related to children and media in the digital age. "We recognize that technology has created profound new challenges for parents by vastly expanding the scope and quantity of media available to our children. But technology also can -- and must -- be part of the solution," Genachowski said in a statement.
Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., on Thursday welcomed the announcement by the FCC that it will open an investigation into the wireless industry. The five-member Commission unanimously approved a sweeping examination into the sector intended to better understand factors that encourage innovation and investment and identify concrete steps it should take. The FCC also wants to gauge the adequacy of consumer protection policies through "truth in billing" rules for communications services. See CongressDaily's coverage here (subscription required).
In June, Kohl's subcommittee held a hearing to examine competition in the wireless space and the senator subsequently contacted the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and the Justice Department's Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney, urging the agencies to take action to ensure that the cell phone industry is fully open to competition and that barriers to entry and expansion by new competitors be removed. "Strong competition in this market is the only way to ensure that consumers in all parts of the country have access to innovative produces and services at fair prices," Kohl said.
An Internet tribute to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., launched Wednesday hours after the legendary lawmaker's death at age 77 on Tuesday night. TedKennedy.org allows the public to share thoughts and memories about the senator who had been battling brain cancer since a May 2008 diagnosis. A schedule of memorial events and media logistics will be released as soon as they are available on the site. In the meantime, tribute areas honoring Kennedy are being set up at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston, the JFK Museum in Hyannis, Mass. and Kennedy's Washington Office in the Russell Senate Building in Washington. Read complete Kennedy coverage at NationalJournal.com and CongressDaily.com.
Sweeping cybersecurity legislation introduced by Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, in April has undergone major changes during the August recess and now features a more prominent focus on ensuring that the U.S. government and private sector have a properly trained workforce to thwart high-tech threats.
A revised version of the bill sent to Commerce and Intelligence committee aides late last week "captures a lot of the input we've received since its introduction" but is still a draft and has not been approved at the member level, Rockefeller aide Chan Lieu said in an e-mail to colleagues obtained by CongressDaily. A separate e-mail from Commerce Committee General Counsel Bruce Andrews said the panel is aiming for a hearing and a markup in September or October.
High up in the reworked document are provisions instructing the Commerce secretary to work with the White House Office of Personnel Management to train and certify government cyber professionals. Under the proposal, uncertified individuals could not represent themselves as such nor could uncertified service providers handle critical infrastructure information systems or networks. A new section would require the head of each federal department to develop an annual workforce plan that includes hiring projections, short- and long-term planning to address skill deficiencies, recruitment strategies and an analysis of barriers to recruitment.
Read the full story on CongressDaily's Web site here (subscription required).
A diverse coalition including retailers, real estate firms and state governments this fall is set to renew its decade-long push to require collection of online sales tax on out-of-state purchases, CongressDaily reported Friday. Aides to Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., and Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said they are working on revamped versions of measures they introduced in the 110th and previous Congresses, although there is no timeline for introduction. Sources said they expect the "Main Street Fairness Act" to be unveiled as early as September.
Under a 1992 Supreme Court decision, retailers are not required to collect sales tax on online purchases in states where they do not have a physical presence, such as a warehouse, store or distribution center, although some states have passed laws requiring online collections. Supporters claim that leaves brick-and-mortar stores victimized by online retailers like Amazon and eBay that generally do not have to collect the tax and deprives states of billions of dollars in tax receipts annually.
Earlier this year, the jewelry stores' trade association wrote Enzi and Delahunt urging them to move quickly. Jewelers said they have been hurt by consumers browsing to get a sense of what they wanted, and then heading home to buy at online vendors like Blue Nile to avoid sales tax. "Internet retailers should not receive a tax advantage at the expense of traditional retailers and state and local governments," say August talking points from the International Council of Shopping Centers. Read the full story here (subscription required).
GovernmentExecutive.com reports that it's unclear whether President Obama's campaign proposal to post copies of all government contracts online has the support of Congress or is even logistically viable. Kenneth Baer, communications director for the Office of Management and Budget, said Wednesday that Obama continues to support the principles of a bill he introduced while in the Senate that would have added vastly more information to USASpending.gov.
In June 2008, then-Sen. Obama and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced a follow-up to their 2006 Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act, which created USASpending.gov. The 2008 legislation -- ballyhooed at the time because it was co-sponsored by Obama's Republican rival for the presidency, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- received high-level support but never moved out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. An identical bill in the House also floundered.
A Senate Democratic source familiar with the legislation said in an e-mail that the bill failed to move because "OMB and others questioned whether it was possible to do everything that the bill tried to do, and Sens. Obama and Coburn didn't [or] couldn't address the concerns that were raised in time. "While many of the original sponsors continue to support the legislation's intentions, "there is no plan to reintroduce the bill," the source said.
Read the full story here.
Days after visiting with South Korean leaders and praising them for their progress on the intellectual property enforcement front, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman admonished the Chinese government for its failure to provide adequate protections for IP rights. Berman and others met Thursday with the National People's Congress Standing Committee Chairman Wu Bangguo, Vice Premier Wang Qishan, NPC Foreign Affairs Chairman Li Zhaoxing, Foreign Affairs Minister Yang Jiechi and Commerce Minister Chen Deming in Beijing.
"China's efforts to stop intellectual property theft have been weak and ineffective - heavy on tough talk but light on implementation," said Berman, whose congressional district houses a number of TV and movie studios. "Hundreds of Web sites provide downloads and links to pirated movies, recordings and games. And sales of 'hard goods' such as illegally duplicated CDs and DVDs continue at close to ninety percent of what they were before China launched its vaunted anti-piracy campaign. It's time for more serious action."
Optical disc plants in China produce and export millions of CDs, DVDs, software and videogames in violation of Chinese law, his office said, while Web services such as Baidu provide direct links to recordings and video games without paying the people who produced them. The country's infamous track record for IP infringement costs U.S. creative communities anywhere from $2.2 to $3.5 billion in each of the past four years, Berman said, urging Chinese authorities to impose stiff fines and meaningful criminal penalties. The country routinely ranks among the world's top offenders in evaluations of global IP like the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's annual "Special 301" report.
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.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman praised key government officials in South Korea on Tuesday for their efforts to protect U.S. content creators' intellectual property rights. In meetings about the proposed U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement with President Lee Myung-bak, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon, Berman emphasized the deal would bolster IP safeguards but said he remains concerned about its potential impact on the American automotive industry.
The trade deal would set penalties for those who abet piracy, including the seizure and destruction of pirated and counterfeit products; protect copyrighted performances on the Internet; and ensure the right of authors, performers and producers of recordings to determine use of copyrighted products. Earlier this year, Korea amended its copyright law to give producers and performers the right to remuneration for the public performance of their sound recordings and to impose obligations on Internet service providers to suspend the accounts of serial copyright abusers.
"South Korean authorities refuse to let the copyright pirates win," said Berman, whose California district is home to a number of major television and movie studios. "Through tightened legislation and international commitments, this country is taking important steps to protect the rights of the creative community, which in turn will safeguard U.S. businesses and jobs." Berman, however, noted that Internet music piracy remains a problem in Korea and urged police and prosecutors to coordinate more closely on enforcement actions.
High-tech industry giants such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle will intensify their opposition this fall to an Obama administration proposal aimed at limiting what critics insist are offshore tax breaks, according to CongressDaily's PM Edition. This showdown over the tax deferral on corporate revenue derived from overseas operations is a major lobbying battle that will stretch well into 2010.
"This is the linchpin in American competitiveness," Phil Bond, president of TechAmerica, the nation's largest high-technology advocacy group, said at a news briefing Tuesday. "The tax provisions around overseas income are critical to allowing our companies to go overseas to compete and succeed." With the United States representing only 5 percent of the world's population, domestic companies need to reach global markets, he emphasized, adding: "We do not think that it is a good trade to sacrifice long-term jobs for short-term revenue. And we'll be making that point on the Hill."
Read the full story here (subscription required).
The FCC is seeking comments on a petition filed by the Music First Coalition that claims radio stations across the country have refused to air their advertisements in support of legislation that would overturn a decades-long royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM stations. The music group also argues that the stations are running misleading ads produced by the National Association of Broadcasters. The Commission wants comments on the actions and, according to the FCC notice, "whether and to what extent broadcasters are engaging in a media campaign [coordinated by NAB] which disseminates falsities" about the Performance Rights Act.
"Corporate radio's spokespersons have not only confirmed the charges made in the petition, but boasted that they will continue to use the public airwaves to misinform policy makers and the public and punish artists and musicians for speaking out in support of a fair performance right," Music First Executive Director Jennifer Bendall said. "NAB will be commenting on the distortions raised in the Music First petition at the appropriate time," NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton said in a statement. "Contrary to suggestions in the petition, broadcasters are under no obligation to carry everything that is offered or suggested to them."
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).
Oregon Reps. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat, and Greg Walden, a Republican, want Justice Department antitrust chief Christine Varney to view recent European antitrust rulings with a critical eye and weigh the impact of those decisions on U.S. high-tech firms such as Intel, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Qualcomm, CongressDaily's PM Edition reported Friday. Their effort comes on the heels of the European Commission's $1.45 billion judgment against Intel for excluding competitors from the market for chips known as x86 central processing units.
"That ruling is the latest evidence of a troublesome trend in Europe toward regulatory protectionism," they wrote in a draft letter circulating on Capitol Hill. Other successful U.S. companies have faced hefty fines, are under investigation, or possibly facing scrutiny from the Commission's competition directorate, they said. The Intel ruling "ignores the reality of a highly competitive marketplace," said the draft, noting that microprocessor prices have dropped drastically in the last decade. "The significant decrease in prices, together with the unprecedented increase in quality, speed, functionality and choice of microprocessors, reflects that market's robust health."
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The full Senate late today confirmed IBM Assistant General Counsel David Kappos as the next director of the Patent and Trademark Office, following Kappos' approval Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a voice vote. The Senate's action came as it wrapped up business prior to a month-long August recess. Kappos will also hold the title of undersecretary for intellectual property at the Commerce Department. In a written statement following the Judiciary Committee's action, Chairman Patrick Leahy emphasized the importance of getting a PTO director in place quickly. "The PTO needs strong and accountable leadership," he said, pointing to the agency's growing backlog of patent applications and economic woes - which required recent passage of emergency legislation, due to a drop in user fees that fund PTO operations. Leahy said he also looked forward to working with Kappos on a bill the senator introduced that would overhaul the U.S. patent system.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., introduced legislation Thursday that would allow federally-regulated online poker and other games of skill. The bill is designed to raise revenue while protecting families through a crackdown on predatory Internet gaming sites that target minors and fleece their customers. A 2006 law banned most forms of Internet gambling in the United States and some members have been trying to get the statute repealed or significantly modified.
Under the Menendez bill, gaming companies would have to undergo a thorough review by the Treasury Department including an analysis of the financial condition of the applicant, business record, and background checks. In addition, an applicant must submit a full financial statement, corporate structure documentation, and a certification that the applicant agrees to be subject to U.S. gambling laws. The Treasury could deny licenses for any firm believed to not meet the criteria set by the government. The measure proposes a license term of five years and renewal would be subject to the same requirements.
The Treasury would be directed to develop guidelines for ensuring age verification and that bettors are physically located in a jurisdiction where gambling is legal. The agency would also have to ensure all taxes due are collected. Further, there are requirements to combat fraud, money laundering and compulsive gambling and to ensure games are fair and bettors' privacy is protected. Licensed sites would have to pay a 10 percent tax on all deposits into playing accounts, the proceeds of which would be split evenly between the federal government and the government of the state where the player is located.
Legislation that would ban inmates in some prisons from using smuggled cellular phones took a step toward the Senate floor Wednesday when the Commerce Committee approved the measure sponsored by ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison. Her bill would allow the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a governor or a governor's designee to petition the FCC for a wireless jamming device for a correctional facility. Hutchison's bill includes safeguards to ensure that jamming does not impair the ability of public safety officials or legitimate commercial mobile radio services outside a prison's walls.
"Imprisoned convicts are using contraband cell phones to coordinate murders, plot extortion schemes, and run drug trafficking, credit card fraud, and identity theft enterprises," Hutchison said in a statement. "Prisons are meant to stop the commission of crimes, but cell phones inside prisons mean business as usual for dangerous felons. With innocent lives on the line, Congress has a responsibility to make available all technologies that can prevent the illicit use of cell phones in prisons."
Wireless industry association CTIA said its members believe policy should favor non-interfering technologies but appreciate Hutchison's willingness to redraft her bill to protect commercial and emergency services from interference. AT&T Executive Vice President Tim McKone said his company supports Hutchison's effort and urged the full Senate to act. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, has introduced a companion bill in the House. Consumer groups and think tanks have warned the bills could cause more problems then they would solve. Read more here.
Grammy Award nominee Sheila E. faced off against Commonwealth Broadcasting Corp. CEO and NAB Radio Board Chairman Steve Newberry on Tuesday afternoon at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation that would end a fee exemption afforded to AM and FM radio. Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy issued a warning to Newberry and broadcasters at large: "This is legislation that's going to move," Leahy said. "The time to sit down and talk is now." The House Judiciary Committee has already passed its version of the bill. Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman joined Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., late Tuesday in calling for the creation of a permanent relationship between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which administers the world's Web addresses, and the Commerce Department. A memo formally joining the two entities is slated to expire late next month amid concerns on Capitol Hill and within industry that ICANN faces problems with transparency and accountability. ICANN leaders have claimed that after 10 years in business, the California nonprofit is ready for its independence.
A letter to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke from Boucher, Waxman and eight other Democratic lawmakers said a set of enduring principles "will place beyond doubt the value of the current model for managing" the domain name system and will prevent any one entity from controlling the underpinnings of the Internet. Their proposal would provide for periodic reviews of ICANN performance and create a mechanism for implementing ICANN's proposed broad expansion of top-level domains like .com and .biz. Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee are said to be preparing their own letter to Locke with recommendations for ICANN's path forward.
House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee members at a June hearing called for an extension of the U.S. government's formal oversight agreement with ICANN. At the time, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said ICANN remains "far from a model of effective and sustainable self-governance" and it would be unwise to shrink the federal government's role amid increased cyber attacks and rapid Internet innovation. Subcommittee ranking member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and Reps. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Lee Terry, R-Neb., each backed extending the oversight agreement between ICANN and Commerce.
Read the full story from CongressDaily here (subscription required).
House Cybersecurity Caucus co-chairs Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, pressed the Obama administration on Tuesday to move quickly in appointing a high-level White House official to coordinate agencies' efforts to identify and guard against attacks on public and private sector information technology networks. Their separate statements came on the heels of the news that Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils, was resigning effective Aug. 21.
"I greatly appreciate Melissa Hathaway's service and her dedication to ensuring the security of our nation's cyber infrastructure," Langevin said. "She has helped us make significant progress towards that goal, and I wish her the best in the future." He added that several months have passed since Hathaway completed the administration's cybersecurity review and he is hopeful President Obama will appoint a cyber coordinator soon. In May, Obama vowed to handpick such an official who would report to the National Security Council and National Economic Council.
McCaul called Hathaway's departure "a loss to our efforts to better protect our nation's cyber networks." "I hope the administration will proceed with deliberate speed to fill this important position," he said. Langevin and McCaul also served as co-chairs of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency. That panel's report informed much of Hathaway's deliberations and spurred several hearings on Capitol Hill. Read more congressional reaction to Hathaway's resignation in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
Music and broadcasting industry lobbyists have ramped up their rhetoric ahead of Tuesday afternoon's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation that would end a royalty exemption extended to AM and FM radio, according to CongressDaily's AM Edition (subscription required). The bills Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers introduced in February would bring over-the-air radio in line with cable, Internet and satellite services, which pay performers -- but broadcasters warn some stations could go out of business.
On Monday, the MusicFirst Coalition drew attention to a July CBO report that the group insists puts to rest the National Association of Broadcasters' refrain that the legislation is a "tax" on local radio. The CBO's analysis of the bill that passed Conyers' committee in May found the measure would not cost taxpayers money to implement nor result in federal revenue. A Monday release from the NAB highlighted a Senate resolution that opposes "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on AM and FM stations, which has attracted 23 co-sponsors. A group of 246 lawmakers signed onto a similar House measure. Additionally, 22 House Democrats wrote to Speaker Nancy Pelosi late Friday urging her not to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
Read complete overage of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Wednesday's CongressDaily AM Edition.
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.
With heightened international pressure facing Iran, some lawmakers are hoping to advance legislation that would crack down on foreign technology firms that do business there. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., introduced identical bills in late July that would punish companies selling equipment to aid the Iranian government in monitoring or blocking Internet and cellular phone communications. In particular, the bills would ban such firms from applying for U.S. government contracts or renewing expiring ones unless their ties with Iran were severed.
Electronics giant Siemens, for example, has thousands of federal contracts worth more than $250 million in 2009, and a joint venture with Nokia holds about $5 million worth of U.S. government contracts, Schumer's office said. Both have been implicated in Tehran's efforts to spy on its citizens and stifle communications, especially after the country's post-election unrest. Officials involved in the Siemens-Nokia joint venture have denied any wrongdoing. Nokia Siemens Networks Head of Corporate Affairs Robert Weisberg told Tech Daily Dose Monday afternoon that his firm has a stringent code of conduct and its work in Iran and other countries is done with an eye toward export control requirements and international human rights conventions. He added that the presence of companies like his are "a good thing" in Iran and have helped the world learn more about what is going on inside the country than ever before.
Read the full story in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
It's August, and the House is already in its summer recess -- with several legislators heading for the Other Coast. On Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. -- both of whom are also co-chairmen of the Congressional Internet Caucus -- will be in Silicon Valley at the third annual State of the Net West conference at Santa Clara University. They'll be joined by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Aneesh Chopra, the Obama administration's chief technology officer.
The event, which draws a range of scholars, public interest advocates and industry executives, is organized by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee and is an offshoot of a similar conference held annually in Washington. The conference begins a couple of days after a visit to Stanford University by newly installed FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who will discuss telemedicine and health information technology along with Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Read more about this week's tech policy events at CongressDaily's TechCentral site here (subscription required).
Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, plan to circulate after the August recess a retooled version of sweeping cybersecurity legislation they introduced in April, CongressDaily's PM Edition reported on Friday. The bill will likely be the subject of a September hearing, with a markup scheduled shortly thereafter. They had been aiming for July committee action but the healthcare debate "put everything on simmer," said one staffer.
One of the bill's most controversial provisions, which high-tech policy watchers say would give the president the power to effectively shut off the Internet during a cyber crisis, has been a critical component of discussions with stakeholders. It is uncertain how the measure may change in light of the White House's roadmap for fighting high-tech attacks, which was released in May. The original bill would establish an Office of the National Cybersecurity Adviser within the Executive Office of the President. But under the administration's plan, the cyber czar will report to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.
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Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., reprised the congressional push for a so-called "network neutrality" mandate on Friday by introducing legislation that would prevent Internet service providers such as telephone and cable companies from interfering with Web content that passes through their pipelines. The bill would essentially bar ISPs from using the claim of network management to impose their own priorities on data traffic, based on financial arrangements or other considerations.
Open Internet groups cheered the move. Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said the measure would "bring online certainty to millions of Internet users and companies" and Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, said the legislation would "help to ensure that the public -- not big phone and cable companies -- controls the fate of the Internet." Prior attempts at legislating in this arena have been met with fierce lobbying for and against the measures but they ultimately failed.
U.S. Telecom Association President Walter McCormick called the bill's introduction "a disappointing but not unexpected development." He said the language "would not preserve Internet freedom, but would instead lead to a government-managed Internet." President Obama, however, has repeatedly called for net neutrality and new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to fortify the agency's Internet guidelines -- which focus on protecting consumer rights -- by adding a fifth principle explicitly barring discriminatory behavior by broadband providers.
President Obama signed on Friday into law a temporary extension of a federal program that awards R&D grants to small businesses on the day it was set to expire. As a result, the Small Business Innovation Research program has been prolonged until Sept. 30, 2009 as lawmakers work on differing versions of reauthorization bills. Senate Small Business Chairwoman Mary Landrieu said the temporary relief ensures that the SBIR effort "will continue creating cutting-edge technologies and high-paying jobs" but a permanent reauthorization of that and the Small Business Technology Transfer program is critical.
"We have been working hard [with the House] to reach a fair compromise that will reauthorize and strengthen the SBIR and STTR programs and that will guarantee that these programs remain for truly small businesses," she said in a statement. The version that passed the Senate recently reauthorizes the programs for eight years while capping awards for start ups that are majority-owned and controlled by multiple venture capital firms. The House bill extends the programs for only two years and places fewer restrictions on the allocation of funds. A 2003 ruling made small businesses that receive substantial funding from venture capitalists ineligible for the programs.
Digital music royalty collector SoundExchange has completed four independent agreements with Sirius-XM, College Broadcasters Inc. and the National Religious Broadcasters Music License Committee, which will set the rate structure for the webcasters through 2015. An additional agreement signed late Thursday night will be confirmed publicly in coming weeks, officials said Friday. While the rates and terms are specific to each group, they all involve pre-set annual increases to reflect the rising value of sound recordings.
The deals come on the heels of an announcement earlier this month that a payment formula for "pureplay" services, whose main business is streaming music, had been reached after more than two years of private negotiations. See CongressDaily story here(subscription required). The agreements were negotiated under the Webcaster Settlement Act, which gave SoundExchange the authority to negotiate alternative rates and terms to those set by the Copyright Royalty Board in 2007.
House Foreign Chairman Howard Berman, whose previous leadership on the House Judiciary intellectual property subcommittee was instrumental in bringing negotiators together, cheered the new agreements. "I want to thank all the people who spent long hours in my office working towards a solution that works for artists, webcasters, and most importantly music fans. It was worth every moment to ensure that new technologies recognize that creators should have the opportunity to thrive," he said in a statement.
The House Judiciary Courts and Competitive Policy Subcommittee voted Thursday to prohibit agreements that set minimum prices on goods or services, reversing a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision. On a voice vote, the subcommittee agreed to the bill and sent it to the full committee, which is not expected to take it up before fall. Courts and Competitive Policy Subcommittee Chairman Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said the Supreme Court upset 96 years of law that will make consumers pay higher prices. "This bill takes a stand for the consumer," said Johnson. Read more about the split decision in Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. here.
Internet auction giant eBay, which has emerged on the front lines of the movement to restore the vertical price fixing ban, lauded the subcommittee's action. "When large manufacturers and their biggest retail partners enact price-fixing policies they burden consumers with inflated prices and rob the economy of the value provided by small business competition," eBay Vice President Tod Cohen said. But Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said there may be occasions when minimum resale price maintenance is important, such as to preserve warranties or to protect small retailers against giant discounters. He was assured by Johnson that the bill would be developed further before the full committee takes it up.
Read CongressDaily's full mark up report for H.R. 3190 here (subscription required).
If Apple ever needs a stand-in for the hip young actor who plays "Mac" opposite the geeky, lumbering "PC" in its popular TV ads, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., might be a good choice, National Journal reports. He told a high-tech luncheon recently that his office is 100 percent Macintosh and explained that the brand is easier to use and less prone to viruses. "I can spend more time getting things done and waste less time dealing with computer problems," he said. Stearns added that he uses the built-in video conferencing to interview and hire district office staff. "Even though we run Microsoft Office for Mac, I can also run Windows on my Mac too. So I have the best of both worlds," Stearns went on. The office of Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., is also entirely Apple, according to a spokesman for the House chief administrative officer. At last count, 268 Macs were assigned in the House, and most were laptops. Meanwhile, fewer than 5 percent of total devices in the Senate are Macs and no offices use them exclusively, said Kimball Winn, chief information officer for the Senate sergeant at arms.
Senate Judiciary Committee
"The Performance Rights Act and Parity among Music Delivery Platforms"
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226
2:30 p.m.
Sheila E
Grammy Award-winning Artist on behalf of the MusicFIRST Coalition
Bob Kimball
Executive Vice President, Real Networks
Marian Leighton-Levy
Owner, Rounder Records
Steve Newberry
Joint Board Chairman, National Association of Broadcasters
President and CEO, Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation
Ralph Oman
Adjunct Professor, George Washington University Law School
James L. Winston
Executive Director, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters
The outgoing chief of the federal government's intelligence-information sharing efforts told a House panel Thursday that his successor should report directly to Congress and the president without interference from any agency. Thomas McNamara, who has coordinated information sharing at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence since 2006, appeared before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment before leaving office Friday. At the hearing, he detailed the challenges ahead and laid out a roadmap for his replacement who has not been named. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition (subscription required).
Lawmakers who were instrumental in creating McNamara's job as part of 2004 intelligence reform legislation lauded the progress that has been made on his watch but said more must be done. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Chairman Joseph Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins told Tech Daily Dose that McNamara's was a Herculean task of creating a culture of sharing among previously siloed intelligence agencies. Collins urged President Obama to quickly appoint a replacement so the momentum will not be lost. Lieberman said state-run "fusion centers" must be improved and the problem of over-classification of data must be addressed.
"In an intelligence culture that for years has been plagued by turf protection, [McNamara] is a brave voice in the wilderness," added House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee Chairwoman Jane Harman, D-Calif. "His efforts over the years to elevate information sharing in our nation's counterterrorism toolbox have truly made us stronger and our intelligence capabilities more robust." House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson also issued a statement acknowledging progress made during McNamara's tenure but said he was concerned many enduring challenges are not new.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., want the FCC to consider probing allegations of retaliation by AM and FM stations over pending bills that would require over-the-air radio to pay performers for songs they broadcast, CongressDaily reported Wednesday. While the lawmakers did not take a position on the merits of the June complaint by the MusicFirst Coalition, they said in a letter that the agency should conduct a "thorough examination" of the merits of the claims.
MusicFirst's petition argued that stations have refused their ads but run ads by the National Association of Broadcasters, which opposes the legislation. Most recently, MusicFirst's media buyer was rejected by Clear Channel stations in Houston and Detroit. On Thursday, MusicFirst released the 30-second ad featuring Duke Fakir of the Four Tops, which stations would not run. The bill that is the focus of the ad war passed the House Judiciary Committee in May and will be the subject of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. Read a preview story about the hearing in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
While calls to Clear Channel were not immediately returned an NAB official said broadcasters are under no obligation to accept any and all advertising. WPGC in Washington, D.C., for example, is not obliged to take ads from WKYS claiming that WKYS is the best hip-hop music station in town. The seminal 1973 Supreme Court decision in Columbia Broadcasting System v. Democratic National Committee outlines that broadcasters have the right to reject advertising.
A little bird tells Tech Daily Dose that Sheila E., the multiple Grammy Award nominee best known for collaborating with Prince , may testify on behalf of the MusicFirst Coalition at Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation that would end a longstanding royalty exemption granted to AM and FM radio. E. recently embarked on a country career and her first music video "Glorious Train" debuted on CMT in March (see above). Or if you prefer classic E., check out "Glamorous Life" here. The National Association of Broadcasters, which has lobbied hard against the bills in the House and Senate, will have a seat at the witness table that will most likely be filled by Commonwealth Broadcasting CEO Steven Newberry. Newberry also appeared before the committee in 2007 opposite singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett. Read a preview story about the upcoming hearing in CongressDaily here (subscription required).
An advertising partnership unveiled Monday by Yahoo and Microsoft is already raising eyebrows among lawmakers. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said his panel would closely review the deal, which would result in direct competitors working together. A similar deal between Google and Yahoo fell apart in November after U.S. regulators warned they would file a lawsuit to block it.
"Our subcommittee is concerned about competition issues in these markets because of the potentially far-reaching consequences for consumers and advertisers, and our concern about dampening the innovation we have come to expect from a competitive high-tech industry," Kohl said in a statement. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he did not see "any immediate yellow flags" from an antitrust front. Competitive Enterprise Institute argued regulators "can best serve consumer interests by leaving well enough alone."
But some watchdogs disagree. They say the relationship could be an initial step toward complete integration of the two firms, raising questions about the collection and sharing of consumer data. The Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester said he will ask antitrust officials in the United States and Europe to "closely and skeptically" examine the deal. "What we are now witnessing is the emergence of a global digital advertising duopoly: Google and Microsoft/Yahoo," Chester said.
Drivers in the United States would be banned from texting on a cell phone or other personal electronic device while operating a moving vehicle under legislation unveiled Wednesday by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C. The measure comes in the wake of a rash of mass transit accidents caused by distracted operators and a new study by Virginia Tech researchers that found drivers are 23 times more likely to get into an accident when texting. A Car and Driver Magazine study last month indicated that texting while driving is more dangerous than driving intoxicated.
Under the bill, states that did not bar sending of text or e-mail messages while operating a car or truck would risk losing federal highway funds. The measure requires the Transportation Department to establish within six months of passage minimum penalties that must be contained within state law. States would have two years to pass compliant bans or else risk losing 25 percent of their highway money for each year they fail to comply. States that comply after the two-year deadline can retroactively recover lost highway funds, the senators said. Aides said a House companion has not been introduced.
"We have seen too many lives ruined due to drivers recklessly using their cell phones. With this new legislation, drivers will finally be held responsible for dangerous behavior that puts the public at risk," Schumer said in a press release. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia currently ban all drivers from texting while operating motor vehicles and 11 other states have a modified prohibition on texting while driving. Verizon Wireless General Counsel Steve Zipperstein said his company supports the bill because it is "consistent with our belief that good public policy is supported by good science."
IBM Assistant General Counsel David Kappos, President Obama's pick for Patent and Trademark Office director, appeared before a congratulatory and largely sympathetic Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. During the hearing, he outlined his priorities for the agency, should he be confirmed, and answered questions about the PTO's internal turmoil while offering thoughts about various legislative proposals before Congress that are intended to update the U.S. patent system for the 21st century. Details are available in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
But Kappos, who has a broad knowledge of intellectual property issues, also weighed in on the economic import of IP protection and spoke about the piracy and counterfeiting challenges faced by the movie, music and software industries. In response to a question from the committee's newest member, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., Kappos said the United States "unquestionably" faces IP theft problems on a global scale. He hinted at "new capabilities" in the Obama administration -- presumably the yet-to-be-named White House IP czar -- that he expects will lead to "aggressive actions" against bootleggers and more collaboration with foreign counterparts.
He went on to say that, if confirmed, he would work with various administration officials "to engage with whatever countries are needed" including IP offenders in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. Kappos said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's annual "Special 301" report, which documents countries doing poorly on IP and those that are improving, is "clearly an important part" of the effort. Education is also essential. He said the U.S. government should work with the governments of other countries to help put in place new laws and enforcement scenarios that protect the rights of content creators.
House Global Warming Chairman Edward Markey and ranking member James Sensenbrenner, who seldom agree on issues before their committee, will largely read from the same playbook at a hearing Wednesday intended to reinforce the importance of American intellectual property in conjunction with international climate change talks. The hearing comes as nations prepare for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December where negotiators will try to reach agreement on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers and the business community are working to make their views known to the Obama administration, and Sensenbrenner and Markey raised the issue during a trip to China with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in May.
The House has repeatedly made clear that IP needs to be protected. The House voted overwhelmingly in June to establish U.S. policy in opposition to any climate change treaty that could harm IP rights as part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, and the State Department's appropriations bill includes text requiring the agency to certify robust IP protections. Cap-and-trade legislation that passed the House last month said IP rights are vital for R&D investment. Sensenbrenner wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu in April asking for details about the administration's position on IP rights for energy technology, and Chu responded in May. In the letter, Chu affirmed his belief in protecting IP but noted opportunities to develop technologies through shared research investments.
Read a preview story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns on Wednesday was expected to blame the Bush administration for having a laissez-faire attitude that has allowed privacy and security problems posed by peer-to-peer networks to persist online. At a hearing on the topic, he is likely to call for legislation to guard against inadvertent file-sharing, heightened FCC and FTC involvement and the creation of a public awareness campaign to inform people about the dangers of P2P software. The panel held similar hearings in 2007 and four years earlier. In response, the P2P industry adopted a voluntary code of conduct to prevent unintentional data disclosures, but a new committee investigation showed popular platforms like LimeWire are not living up to their promises.
In his opening remarks, Towns pointed to an analysis by security experts at Tiversa and said specific examples of recent LimeWire leaks "range from appalling to shocking."
• The Social Security numbers and family information for every master sergeant in the Army had been found on LimeWire.
• The medical records of some 24,000 patients of a Texas hospital were inadvertently released and most of the files are still available on LimeWire.
• FBI files, including surveillance photos of an alleged Mafia hit man, were leaked while he was on trial and before he was convicted.
• A security breach involving the Secret Service resulted in the leak of a file on LimeWire containing a safe house location for the First Family.
Read a preview story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
More than eight months after abandoning its planned advertising partnership with Google amid intense scrutiny from Capitol Hill and the Justice Department, Yahoo is joining forces with Microsoft. The companies announced an agreement Wednesday that they believe will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers. Under the plan, which they expect to close in early 2010, Microsoft would power Yahoo search while Yahoo will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers, according to a press release.
The agreement does not cover each company's Web properties and products, e-mail, instant messaging, display advertising or any other aspect of the companies' businesses. "In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously," they stated. The transaction will be subject to regulatory review and the agreement entered into Wednesday anticipates that the parties will enter into more detailed definitive arrangements prior to closing. The pair acknowledged that their deal will "be closely reviewed by the industry and government regulators" and they welcome questions.
Under the 10-year agreement, Microsoft will acquire an exclusive license to Yahoo's core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo search technologies into its existing Web search platforms. Microsoft's new search engine Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo sites. "Providing a viable alternative to advertisers, this deal will combine Yahoo and Microsoft search marketplaces so that advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70 percent of all search," the firms said in an indirect jab at Google.
Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller issued his first subpoena Tuesday as head of the committee to Vertrue, Inc., for withholding information related to the company's allegedly deceptive online business practices. The subpoena requires the Norwalk, Conn. firm to produce documents that were explicitly requested by Rockefeller in May, including communications Vertrue had with business partners and credit card companies about "mystery charges" passed on to consumers as well as internal discussions regarding complaints about those unauthorized charges. The subpoena demands that Vertrue CEO Gary Johnson provide the files to the committee by Aug. 18.
Vertrue General Counsel George Thomas told Tech Daily Dose that his firm requested that Rockefeller issue the subpoena to better protect the personally identifiable information of consumers. Vertrue previously provided redacted documents that omitted individuals' names, addresses, telephone numbers and financial information. "Without a subpoena that information would not have been adequately protected in our view," he said, adding that if the contents were stolen or misappropriated Vertrue could be liable. Under the subpoena, the committee will have in its possession in a matter of days unredacted documents that include personal details and live credit card account information.
Regarding the panel's broader investigation, Vertrue maintains it has never done anything unlawful. The practices being examined by Rockefeller's staff -- including handling of so-called "pre-acquired account information" and "post-transaction sales" -- are specifically permitted by FTC laws and rules, Thomas argued. Rockefeller also issued letters to e-commerce marketing firm Webloyalty.com to get more details about the controversial business practices. Read Rockefeller's latest letter to Vertrue here and the subpoena here.
Update: A Senate Commerce aide said Vertrue requested a subpoena pertaining to the consumer complaints -- not on the larger issue of e-mail, financial documents and other internal communications. "They would like to make this look like it's a narrow issue, when the actual reason the subpoena was issued was a broader failure to cooperate in the investigation," said the aide, who accused Vertrue of "slow walking" the investigation.
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.
The FTC will likely recommend in an upcoming report that virtual worlds like Second Life incorporate some sort of age-verification technology to keep youngsters away from inappropriate content, Progress and Freedom Foundation senior fellow Berin Szoka said at a Monday briefing on online child safety. Requiring a small fee paid by credit card to access areas of Internet communities intended for adults could do the trick, he and DLA Piper attorney Jim Halpert said. But WiredSafety.org Executive Director Parry Aftab, who also spoke at the event, argued such a mandate could disadvantage those who do not have credit cards. Others pointed out there are ways to circumvent age verification tools and they may not keep minors out of restricted areas.
Report language from the fiscal year 2009 omnibus appropriations bill required the FTC to study the availability of explicit content in virtual worlds and report to Congress by December. An agency spokeswoman said the FTC was on target to meet that deadline. Appropriators asked for the report and for the agency to issue "a consumer alert to educate parents on the content that is available to children on virtual reality Web programs," according to the omnibus language. The Commission's last major action in this arena was a September 2000 report that was highly critical of the entertainment industry. As a result, companies promised to impose tougher standards and voluntarily comply with the paper's recommendations.
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).
• More than six months since President Obama took office, the process of filling key positions in his administration continues. Obama's nominee for director of the Patent and Trademark Office, IBM Assistant General Counsel David Kappos, will appear for questioning Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The session gets underway at 10 a.m. in Room 226/Dirksen Senate Office Building.
• The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday will resume its examination of inadvertent file-sharing over peer-to-peer networks, with a hearing that will focus on how the popular platform LimeWire could adversely affect both privacy and national security. The session takes place at 10 a.m. in Room 2154/Rayburn House Office Building.
• The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee plans to mark up legislation Wednesday that would replace a 2005 law -- popularly known as 'Real ID' -- which required states to issue new secure drivers' licenses and identification documents to their residents. The session kicks off at 10 a.m. in Room 324/Dirksen Senate Office Building.
• With last month's nationwide transition to digital television signals firmly behind them, broadcasters plan to celebrate with a Tuesday reception on Capitol Hill that will trumpet their latest technology: digital broadcasts to mobile devices, including cell phones, netbooks and in-car displays. Invited dignitaries to the event -- which kicks off at noon in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building -- include Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Cliff Stearns, R-Fla.
Read more details at CongressDaily's TechCentral here.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and a number of colleagues on Friday asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the Arbitron ratings company's use of so-called portable people meters and their impact on radio station revenue streams. Many minority-owned broadcasters have expressed concerns about the validity of data collected by the machines and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters Executive Director James Winston complained about the devices at a hearing earlier this month. Conyers wants the report finished by April 2010.
Winston argued Arbitron has a monopoly over radio rankings and stations that do not subscribe lack data to show potential advertisers. At the same hearing, Arbitron CEO Michael Skarzynski said his firm is developing solutions to help broadcasters, particularly minority and niche outlets, weather the bad economy. One such measurement tool, which will be tested this month, would pair radio exposure with audience engagement so an advertiser could get a clear picture of what ads are most successful with a given station's audience. Read more about the hearing here (subscription required).
"The advertising revenues and viability of minority-owned radio stations depends on an accurate measurement of their audience ratings. I believe it would best serve the public interest to conduct an independent review of the methodology and accuracy of this process," Conyers said in a statement. Other members signing on to the letter include: House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns and ranking member Darrell Issa, R-Calif.; Rick Boucher, D-Calif., Hank Johnson, D-Ga., Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., Mike Quigley, D-Ill., Pedro Pierluisi, D-P.I., and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
Center for Democracy and Technology President Leslie Harris and Google public policy chief Alan Davidson on Friday dismissed a recent Technology Policy Institute report that argues there is a trade-off between increasing Internet privacy protections for consumers and the free flow of Web-based goods and services. Harris said "In Defense of Data: Information and the Costs of Privacy" should be renamed "In Defense of Straw Men." "Privacy and having a robust marketplace online are not inconsistent," she said at a Capitol Hill event sponsored by TPI.
"It's not true that somehow privacy advocates are anti-advertising or our ultimate goal is to rid the Internet of advertising," said Harris, who appeared alongside Davidson on a panel that included proponents of the paper written by Emory University economist Paul Rubin and TPI's Thomas Lenard. Harris rebuffed the report's "parade of horribles" including the idea that increasing privacy would curtail ads; add difficulty to search engine functionality; and diminish companies' ability to protect against network threats. She and Davidson both argued in favor of baseline privacy legislation, which is currently being drafted by House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va.
Davidson wants a bill that provides transparency, meaningful choice and security for users. Such a measure would be helpful to companies like his because it gives users some level of confidence that they will be protected online, he said. "Privacy is not about draconian restrictions on companies. It's about providing consumers with some control over their data," Harris added. Rubin defended his report, arguing he did not say "the world would collapse if there were regulation." He believes regulation will lead to more expensive Internet-based services and there will be more barriers to innovation. He also argued that no one has pointed to specific harms to consumers from the statutes already on the books.
Read more about the event in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
The battle over legislation that would end a longstanding royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio will move to the Senate early next month with an Aug. 4 hearing in the Judiciary Committee. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers introduced the legislation, which would bring traditional broadcasters in line with Internet, cable and satellite platforms that pay performers for their works. The Recording Industry Association of America, SoundExchange and the American Federation of Musicians are carrying the torch for that effort while the National Association of Broadcasters has fought hard against the measures. Leahy's panel previously held a hearing on the issue in November 2007 where singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett testified.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing. No witnesses have been announced. The House Judiciary Committee approved its version of the bill in May with a vote of 21-9 after members made changes aimed at addressing broadcasters' concerns. The committee adopted, by voice vote, a manager's amendment that would delay the bill's enactment date and reduce the amount of fees stations would have to pay. Conyers said the compromise would cover 90 percent of minority-owned stations and 77 percent of all stations. Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, sponsored a resolution opposing the royalty. More than 240 members have backed his effort. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., offered a similar Senate resolution, which has 22 cosponsors.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will wade back into the debate over inadvertent file-sharing over peer-to-peer networks next Wednesday. The panel has scheduled a hearing that will focus on how popular platform LimeWire and other services could endanger citizens and jeopardize national security. Lime Group Chairman Mark Gorton, Tiversa CEO Robert Boback and Progress and Freedom Foundation Senior Fellow Thomas Sydnor are scheduled to testify. The committee held similar hearings in July 2007 and four years earlier. After the 2003 hearing, the P2P industry adopted a voluntary code of conduct to prevent inadvertent disclosures of sensitive information.
In March 2007, the Patent and Trademark Office released a report suggesting that inadvertent file-sharing may still be a serious problem and that the industry might not be living up to its promises. In response to the PTO report, committee staff conducted its own probe. Using LimeWire, aides ran a series of common searches during a one month period. They were able to easily obtain personal bank records and tax forms, attorney-client communications, corporate strategy documents for Fortune 500 companies, confidential corporate accounting documents, government emergency response plans, and even military operation orders.
Meanwhile, Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., who is not on the committee, introduced legislation earlier this year that would help educate Internet users about P2P privacy and security risks. The bill came on the heels of reports that file-sharing software was implicated in a security breach involving Marine One, the helicopter used by President Obama. Bono Mack's measure, which was cosponsored by Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., and Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton, would ensure P2P programs cannot be installed without providing clear notice and obtaining user consent. It would also make it illegal for firms to prohibit users from blocking, disabling, or removing the software.
CongressDaily's AM Edition reports (subscription required) that Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy hopes the third time will be a charm for his legislation intended to better protect citizens' personal information. The bill, which he reintroduced Wednesday and in two previous Congresses, would increase criminal penalties for identity theft involving electronic data and criminalize intentional or willful concealment of a security breach. Leahy said passage of the measure, which would pre-empt a patchwork of state data breach laws, is among his top legislative priorities.
Leahy's cybersecurity bill is one of many expected in the House and Senate. Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, were first with legislation in April, which could see committee action before August recess. Rockefeller issued a statement saying he and Snowe are working hard on the measure and hope to mark it up soon. "This is an enormously critical issue that cuts across every agency of government, every sector of our society and our economy, and of course multiple committees," he said. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman is reportedly working on his own measure.
Nearly two dozen business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter Monday to the leaders of the House Financial Services Committee raising concerns about proposals to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The letter urges Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and ranking member Spencer Bachus to delay consideration of a CFPA until after the August recess "to provide due time for all stakeholders and decision-makers to fully understand the legislation's scope and its potential economic and legal impacts," CongressDaily reported (subscription required).
Also signing on were a number of major players in the high-tech and advertising space including the Consumer Electronics Association, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Consumer Data Industry Association, Direct Marketing Association, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The letter is viewed by some consumer advocates like Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy and Ed Mierzwinski of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group as an attempt to kill the legislation, which would create a new federal watchdog.
The IAB, whose board's executive committee includes representatives from Google, AOL and Walt Disney Co., is afraid of having an agency that would be empowered to investigate how online marketers sell and promote a wide range of financial products online, Chester said. Mierzwinski called the proposal to create such an agency "a game changer" and "the biggest thing for financial consumers since deposit insurance in the 1930s." He testified June 24 at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the issue. Read a copy of the business groups' letter to Frank and Bachus here (PDF).
Cable television, the Internet, cellular phones and other handheld electronic devices have provided new opportunities for techniques like viral and word-of-mouth marketing that add new complexities to the government's job of monitoring deceptive advertising, FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Director David Vladeck told the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance Subcommittee on Tuesday. "We are continually learning about new and creative methods to get promotional messages out to consumers," he said at a hearing that covered issues ranging from false claims in weight loss promotions to bloggers who are paid by advertisers to endorse certain products.
National Consumers League Executive Director Sally Greenberg said blogging, by its nature, has encouraged an explosion of discourse about practically every product available -- but the FTC needs to crack down on those who are cash in by writing favorably about a product. Marketers frequently fabricate "spontaneous" Internet "buzz" around products and services by paying for endorsements by influential bloggers and celebrities, she said. "As with any emerging means of communication, 'rules of the road' must govern to protect against deceptive advertising," she added. The FTC has proposed requiring consumer-generated media outlets to disclose a financial relationship with a product. Read more about this topic in CongressDaily's PM Edition (subscription required).
The House late Tuesday passed legislation 417-5 that would help find children or senior citizens in the critical moments after they are reported missing by expanding a widely praised Florida non-profit into a national program. A Child Is Missing utilizes the latest technology to place 1,000 emergency telephone calls every 60 seconds to residents and businesses in the area where the person was last seen. The program works in concert with the AMBER Alert, but is activated more quickly, according to a press release from Rep. Ron Klein, D-Fla., who sponsored the bill. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., has introduced a Senate companion measure.
The House bill would authorize the Justice Department to dole out $5 million a year through 2015 to broaden the initiative's reach. "This legislation is essential to every family around the county," Klein said. "Every parent's worst nightmare is to find that their child is missing, and today's legislation can put their minds at ease by utilizing the latest technology to quickly find missing children and avoid potential tragedy." Time is a critical factor as 74 percent of children who are kidnapped and murdered are slain within three hours of their abduction, he said. A Child is Missing was founded by Sherry Friedlander and is based in Ft. Lauderdale. The program has safely recovered kids from Ohio to Alaska.
Following on last week's passage of a resolution by the NAACP saluting House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and supporting performance royalties for musicians that would be provided under a bill he is shepherding through Congress, the Detroit branch of the organization is taking similar action. The Rev. Wendell Anthony, who heads the NAACP in the Motor City appeared at a news conference Tuesday to support the bill that would let performers as well as songwriters get royalties for songs played by AM and FM stations, the Associated Press reported. Radio stations in Detroit and around the country have bashed the Conyers bill, arguing that performers and record labels already are compensated and the measure could hurt stations already struggling in the recession.
"This civil rights for musicians legislation guarantees fair pay for musicians. This is a rebuke of Radio One and Clear Channel for exploiting musicians and smearing members of the Congressional Black Caucus," a spokesman for the MusicFirst Coalition said last week upon passage of the NAACP's resolution at the group's centennial conference. Radio One founder Cathy Hughes and her son, CEO Alfred Liggins, were criticized by Conyers and other members of his committee earlier this month for refusing to appear at a hearing on minority owned media. Hughes previously wrote an open letter arguing the legislation would "murder black owned radio" and in May, the Michigan Broadcasters Association vowed to defeat the measure, claiming it could cost stations in the state more than $63 million annually.
The heads of three high-tech industry associations sent letters late last week to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate committees currently writing healthcare legislation urging them to avoid technology mandates and ensure "broad, fair, and open competition" among health IT providers. The letter -- signed by Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman, Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield, and Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology -- outlined a set of principles "to maximize the contributions health IT can make" to improving Americans' healthcare. Read the House letter here and Senate letter here.
"There is near-universal agreement that we can deliver better care less expensively through the use of existing and new technologies. Efforts that would limit new ideas and participants ... should be opposed," they wrote. "We urge you to oppose the inclusion of any explicit or implicit technology mandates in health-related legislation that would prevent ... governments or private parties from considering and procuring the best available technologies in health care management." They said health IT systems should be interoperable; information should be portable; procurement should be inclusive; cost analysis should be comprehensive; security and privacy protections should be a high priority; and usability should be a key criterion.
President Obama and key advisers appealed to liberal bloggers during a conference call Monday evening, urging them to support the administration's healthcare reform agenda. Obama was joined by David Axelrod, healthcare guru Nancy Ann DeParle and White House Online Programs Director Jesse Lee. The call marked Obama's first serious interaction with the progressive blogosphere since taking office, bloggers who were invited to participate said. Obama gave brief remarks about the healthcare reform debate, noting that the blogs can cut through the conventional wisdom and debunk myths about this legislative battle. He also pressed them to keep the pressure on members of Congress in the run up to August recess because the default position in DC is "inertia."
Obama took questions from John Amato from Crooks and Liars; Jonathan Singer from MyDD; David Dayen from D-Day; Cheryl Contee from Jack and Jill Politics; Gerald Weinand, formerly of Turn Maine Blue; and Joan McCarter from DailyKos, according to a post by Joe Sudbay of AmericaBlog. On the call, the president outlined his criteria for reform: (1) Does it cover all Americans; (2) Will it drive down costs over the long-term; (3) Will it improve quality; (4) Are prevention and wellness included; (5) Does it contain insurance reforms on issues like pre-existing conditions; (6) Does it provide relief to small business; and (6) Is there a serious public option? He warned that House and Senate bills may not have all of the above but the conference committee will be critical.
Listen to a recording of the entire call with liberal bloggers here.
CongressDaily's David Hatch writes in TechCentral's latest Issue Of The Week that the iPhone and BlackBerry Storm are at the eye of a political storm in Washington. These and other ubiquitous smart phones have triggered debate over the future of exclusive deals that tether wireless handsets to select carriers. The iPhone is only available on AT&T's network, a problem for consumers outside its coverage area or dissatisfied with its service. The BlackBerry Storm has a similar relationship with Verizon, posing the same set of challenges.
Powerful lawmakers, regulators and watchdogs want to disconnect such deals for good to give consumers more options. "The best handsets are reserved for the largest carriers," complained Harold Feld, legal director for Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that wants to ban these arrangements. For smaller carriers serving rural and less-populated markets, "there's no way they can compete." Critics of the status quo point to Europe and Asia, where many cell phones can be operated on multiple networks and customers switching providers can retain their handsets by using removable SIM cards -- short for "Subscriber Identity Module."
Major wireless carriers that routinely offer handsets under exclusive terms insist the approach spurs innovation by letting them share the risk of introducing cutting-edge products along with manufacturers. "Exclusive handset arrangements have provided U.S. consumers the most advanced devices in the world at distinctly affordable rates," AT&T lobbyist Jim Cicconi argued this month in a letter to Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis. Read more here (subscription required).
Proposed changes to the Patent and Trademark Office's post-grant review process included in a bill sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy would increase the patent pendency waiting period by more than 25 percent, and could add to the cost of defending patent validity by billions of dollars, according to an analysis by Case Western Reserve University economist Scott Shane. Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions requested that Shane examine the issue earlier this month as staffers for Leahy and Sessions continue meeting with stakeholders about the topic.
The Leahy measure, which passed his committee 15-4 in April, would adopt House-passed text from 2007 that lengthens the timeline for challenging a granted patent and strips out a "public use or sale" provision that Leahy added as a basis for challenging a patent. Specifically, Shane's research found that the length of time between patent application and issuance would increase from 32 months to 40 months and the costs of defending patent validity could rise by $2.2 billion. He also argues that the proposed changes would lead to an annual reduction of $4.4 billion in industrial R&D and would make uncertain the validity of $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion of patents issued annually.
Earlier research from Shane, which was commissioned by the Manufacturing Alliance on Patent Policy, concluded that adopting House language on how damages are calculated in patent lawsuits could lead to job loss and decreased R&D. The alliance, which also bankrolled the new report, is backed by Corning, Monsanto, DuPont and others critical of Leahy's patent reform push. A recent report by the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which supports patent overhauls and counts Cisco Systems, Apple, Dell and others as its members, found that pending legislation would create 100,000 new jobs.
Some exciting news so please forgive the shameless self promotion... National Journal Group, the parent company of Tech Daily Dose, will soon unveil 3121, a new feature on NationalJournal.com that will become available exclusively to Capitol Hill staffers in September. 3121, now in beta, will be the first professional networking tool designed exclusively for congressional members and staff. The site will offer an online directory of contacts, communications tools and customizable news feeds and users will be able to find and collaborate with colleagues and create personalized news filters. Hill staffers can visit 3121launch.nationaljournal.com to request to participate in the beta and read the latest updates about the project from the 3121 development team, which has collaborated with New Media Strategies, Jive and JESS3 on the project. *FYI* "3121" is the extension for the Capitol Hill switchboard.
Follow the jump for screenshots of 3121...
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).
Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, who helped launch companies like Amazon.com, Symantec and Google, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday that the United States has led the world in high-tech innovation but distantly trails China on clean energy because existing policies "haven't given us any clear, long term market solutions." The key is cap-and-trade, he said. He urged senators to send a long-term signal that low carbon energy is valuable. "We must put a price on carbon and a cap on carbon emissions. No long-term signal means no serious innovation at scale, which means fewer new American success stories," he said in testimony.
The hearing came on the heels of House passage last month of cap-and-trade legislation sponsored by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee Chairman Edward Markey. Senate Environment Republicans panned that bill, saying it would cost the country jobs and won't bring down costs for consumers. Senate Energy ranking member James Inhofe called the Waxman-Markey bill a "1,000 page contradiction." He argued it would cause a net reduction of up to 2.7 million jobs, citing an analysis by the National Black Chamber of Commerce, whose president also testified.
Senate Environment Chairwoman Barbara Boxer pledged to do even more than the House to protect consumers and ensure that traditional power companies and innovative new technologies are kept on a level playing field as it crafts its cap-and-trade bill. She added that she is "carefully reviewing" Waxman-Markey language that would assist industries that are energy intensive and that are subject to international competition. Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., noted the country faces huge energy challenges and lawmakers have the potential to "find a pony in that pile of manure." Read more about the hearing here.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, slammed Grants.gov on Thursday on the heels of a new Government Accountability Office report (PDF) that shows the Web site designed to streamline the federal grant process is plagued by technical limitations, degraded performance and user difficulties. Lieberman urged the Office of Management and Budget to work with Congress and the stakeholder community to "strengthen both the management and technology behind Grants.gov, while streamlining and increasing transparency."
Voinovich, who is ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia, said he was "concerned that a tool designed to improve the distribution and effectiveness of federal grants has so many issues in this technological age, in some cases putting applicants at a disadvantage compared to those who utilize other channels." He said the GAO report underscored the need for the House to pass the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act to help put Grants.gov back on the right course.
The legislation, sponsored by Lieberman and Voinovich, passed the Senate in March but does not yet have a House companion. Their bill would require OMB to maintain a public Web site that allows federal grant applicants to search and apply for grants; manage, track and report on the use of grants; and provide required certifications and assurances for grants. The measure also requires OMB to report to Congress within nine months of enactment, and biennially thereafter for 15 years on progress made in implementation. Additionally, the bill lays out a framework for OMB and agency-level strategic plans.
From CongressDaily's AM Edition...
FCC nominees Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Baker were generally noncommittal during their Wednesday confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, giving few, if any, hints on how they might decide policy and regulatory issues. That left lawmakers to use the hearing to reiterate their strong criticisms of the commission Clyburn and Baker would join, if confirmed, to fill the remaining Democratic and Republican vacancies, respectively. Read more.
Meanwhile... Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller has asked 11 federal agencies, including the FCC, the FTC and the Commerce, Homeland Security and Transportation departments, to report on their cybersecurity preparedness and the effectiveness of their incident-response capabilities. Read more.
And... A group of public interest, library and technology organizations are urging U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to set aside a controversial portion of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations focused on "Internet distribution and information technology." Read more.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) began his questioning of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor (see video above) by raising questions about Internet service providers' ability to speed up and slow down Web traffic. He asked whether there is a "compelling First Amendment interest in ensuring this can't happen and the Internet stays open and accessible." Sotomayor responded that the Internet is "revolutionary" and it affects all areas of the economy and society. But the role of the court is never to make the policy. It's to wait until Congress acts," she added.
The two remaining FCC nominees -- South Carolina regulator Mignon Clyburn and former Commerce official Meredith Baker testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday afternoon. The Democrat and Republican, respectively, would round out the five-member agency, which now has three regulators, including its new chairman, Julius Genachowski. Read more in CongressDaily later.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor fielded questions from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., during the continuation of her confirmation hearing Wednesday about her perspectives on U.S. v. Falso, a recently decided case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit involving the legality of evidence obtained in a home search -- specifically the search of a defendant's computer. Sotomayor, who was on the panel, held that police did not have probable cause because there were no allegations that the defendant, Jon David Falso, actually possessed child pornography or subscribed to any such Web site. Concerning Falso's past crimes, the court held that the correlation was not strong enough.
Sotomayor said the case "presented a very complicated question" because there had been two cases addressing how much information a warrant had to contain in order for the police to search a defendant's computer. "I was looking at it in the backdrop of the conflict that it appeared to contain in our case law, and what our case law said was important for a police officer to share with a judge," she said. "I held that the acts violated the Constitution, but that the evidence could still be used, because the officers had -- there was in law a good-faith exception to the error in the warrant."
Read a longer summary about U.S. v. Falso written by the Electronic Privacy Information Center here and view the actual opinion here.
The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday will hear perspectives on a proposal by ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison to ban inmates in some prisons from using smuggled cellular phones. Her legislation and a companion bill introduced by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, would allow the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a governor or a governor's designee to petition the FCC for a wireless jamming device in a particular correctional facility. Under the measures, which were introduced in January, the FCC would have to consider whether the jammer would interfere with emergency or public safety communications outside the prison's walls. Current law prevents interference with wireless services.
According to news reports in Texas, death row inmate Richard Tabler used a smuggled phone to make threatening calls to a state senator. Tabler's phone was found in the ceiling above a shower and officers found 11 additional phones belonging to other death row inmates while looking for it. "This legislation will fight criminal enterprises behind bars and protect innocent victims and public officials from harassment and threats from criminals," Hutchison said in press release. Corrections officials have reported a surge in phones infiltrating prisons and in some states, the number confiscated phones has doubled in two years.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., appears to have come along way with his technology literacy since the 2008 presidential campaign. On Monday, his account on the micro-blogging Web site Twitter topped one million followers. "I'm both honored and humbled that over one million people follow me on Twitter. It has been one of the most enjoyable experiences in my long political career - not too bad for an old guy," McCain said in a statement. Flashback to July 2008: McCain told the New York Times in an interview that he was learning how to use a computer but isn't an e-mail enthusiast.
"I don't e-mail, I've never felt the particular need to e-mail," he said. "I don't expect to be a great communicator. I don't expect to set up my own blog." At the time, McCain said he was "becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need including going to my daughter's blog." Meghan McCain wrote McCainBlogette.com during the campaign. He also told the newspaper that his staff surfs the Web on his behalf.
A few recent McCain tweets:
# Live interview with Russ Clark, KBLU-AM 560 in Yuma, AZ @ 10:45 am ET to chat about my upcoming trip to Yuma on Friday.about 1 hour ago
# Wow, I just went over 1 million followers - thanks everyone!!about 19 hours ago
# Interview with Voice of America on upcoming Afghanistan elections.
# Fighting the good fight on Senate floor 2 strike F-22 funding from DoD bill -saving the taxpayer $1.75 b - Need Joint Strike Fighter insteadabout 23 hours ago
And here are a few folks McCain is following on Twitter: CNN's Larry King; comedian Rainn Wilson ("The Office"); House Minority Whip Eric Cantor; Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.; Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.; basketball star Shaquille O'Neal; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; ABC's George Stephanopoulos; NBC's David Gregory; and McCain's daughter, Meghan. (Psst, President Obama has 1.7 million Twitter followers -- and McCain isn't one of them).
The Senate late Monday unanimously passed legislation to reauthorize two federal programs intended to increase research and development funding for small businesses, which are slated to expire July 31 absent congressional action. The House passed its version of the bill to prolong the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs last Wednesday. Recipients of SBIR and STTR awards have produced more than 85,000 patents and have generated millions of well-paying jobs across all 50 states, Senate Small Business Chairwoman Mary Landrieu said in a press release that commended her colleagues for moving forward with the measure. She pledged to work with the House to get a bill to President Obama before the end of the month.
"Reauthorizing the SBIR and STTR programs will unleash the ground-breaking innovation potential of our nation's small businesses, particularly given that these critical initiatives direct more than $2 billion in federal research and development funding annually to small-tech firms across the nation," ranking member Olympia Snowe said. "At a time when the nation is struggling to dig out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, we must ensure that our country once again brings to bear the kind of ingenuity, creativity, and innovation that made America and our free-market economy the greatest and most powerful on earth."
The Senate bill, which differs from the House version, provides for an increase to the SBIR program allocation, raising it to 3.5 percent, spread out over 11 years. The SBIR allocation increase includes all agencies, including the National Institutes of Health. The bill also increases the STTR program allocation from 0.3 percent to 0.6 percent over six years. Additionally, the Senate bill would amend eligibility requirements to allow businesses owned and controlled by multiple venture capital firms to compete for a percentage of SBIR projects. To improve the diversity of the programs, the measure also reauthorizes the Federal and State Technology program and Rural Outreach Program.
Read CongressDaily's coverage of House action here (subscription required).
*Updated* The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday refused to rule on the constitutionality of a federal panel that sets copyright royalties. Licensing firm Royalty Logic claimed the Copyright Royalty Board is unconstitutional because the Librarian of Congress, who is not technically the head of a government department, appoints its judges. As such, the complaint argued the CRB should be forced to vacate its decision in a proceeding that set the fee structure for webcasters.
National Music Publishers' Association President David Israelite wrote to House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and ranking member Lamar Smith recently urging them to consider introducing legislation that would make moot any constitutional challenges to the CRB. Israelite argued that Royalty Logic's lawsuit could have meant the unraveling of all the panel's decisions since its judges (pictured) were appointed in 2006. He said Friday's ruling was a "sigh of relief" for the music industry. David Oxenford, an attorney who represents small webcasters in CRB proceedings, said the decision "really just delays the consideration of the issue of the constitutionality of the CRB. Now that this issue is on the table, it is bound to be raised by other parties in other CRB proceedings."
As the CRB embarks on its consideration of webcasting rates for 2011-2015, "there is a cloud hanging over its existence -- one that may take another Court decision, or some corrective action by Congress, to remedy," he wrote on his blog. Royalty Logic's attorney Kenneth Freundlich said he was surprised at the court's failure to address what he called a "fundamental issue." At the hearing, the judges pondered whether there should be further briefings on the matter but never followed up. Instead they cited "'inadequate briefing' as a basis for ducking the issue," he said, noting the ruling cites two cases that support his arguments. "Let this decision be a warning to all concerned and a message to Congress to fix this mess," Freundlich said.
Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., secured $30 million in federal funding for the State Department's efforts to promote Internet freedom as part of the agency's fiscal year 2010 spending bill. The program must be approved by the full Senate and the House before it makes its way to President Obama's desk. The money would promote widespread, secure Internet use by individuals residing in countries practicing repressive Internet monitoring, censorship and control. The outlay is "a low-cost method of allowing people, especially those living under repressive regimes, to access all-source, uncensored, unfiltered information," the senators said in a Friday press release.
"Tearing down these Internet cyberwalls can match the effect of what happened when the Berlin Wall was torn down," Specter said. "This funding seeks to enable freedom of thought, expression and the unimpeded flow of ideas and information, and I am pleased my colleagues have recognized the program's importance." Brownback added the battle being waged in the streets of Iran and China is also being fought on micro-blogging site Twitter, social network Facebook and other platforms. "This is a pivotal moment for people living in oppressive regimes. The best way to ensure their ability to communicate and share their story with each other and the world is to keep the Internet open," he said.
The House passed a State spending bill Thursday that did not include Web freedom funding but Energy and Commerce Committee member Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., earlier this week urged lawmakers to hold a hearing on the role of the Internet in giving a voice to those in repressive countries. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who in the 109th Congress chaired a high-profile Internet freedom hearing of the House subcommittee that oversees global human rights, has repeatedly introduced legislation that would prevent U.S. tech firms from working with nations that capture and convict citizens for engaging in democracy promotion and human rights advocacy online.
House Judiciary Courts and Competition Policy Subcommittee Chairman Hank Johnson, D-Ga., was among the most vocal lawmakers at Thursday's hearing on issues confronting minority-owned media. While Judiciary Chairman John Conyers was critical of Radio One founder Cathy Hughes and her son, CEO Alfred Liggins, for refusing to appear before his panel, Johnson took his criticism of their absence a step further.
While humorously pondering what might have taken precedence over the hearing, the former DeKalb County Commissioner suggested that Hughes -- who has been critical of legislation Conyers introduced that would end a royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio -- was "out spending some of that 700 percent increase in salary" that she was reportedly gifted as matriarch of the largest minority-owned media company in the United States. And Liggins? "I guess he's out spending the $10 million bonus that he received last year in the midst of these difficult economic times," Johnson riffed.
But during a hearing recess, Tech Daily Dose reached Liggins by phone and he was definitely not on a shopping spree. The Radio One executive explained that he did not want to testify at a hearing that would further bash broadcasters for opposing the Conyers performance rights legislation. Had the session focused solely on slipping advertising revenue and other challenges facing his industry, he might have been on board. Liggins also clarified that the purported bonus was, in fact, not as steep as Johnson indicated and "compensation at our company should be irrelevant."
Read more coverage of the hearing in CongressDaily's PM Edition here and in Friday's AM Edition (subscription required).
Radio One, the largest U.S. minority-owned media company, came under fire from the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday for refusing to testify at a hearing billed as a forum to examine plummeting advertising revenues, increased media consolidation and pending legislation that would end a long-standing copyright royalty exemption for over-the-air radio, which broadcasters oppose. Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and others scolded Radio One founder Cathy Hughes and her son, CEO Alfred Liggins, for being no-shows. Other critics of the bill who Conyers said snubbed him include National Action Network President Rev. Al Sharpton; Rainbow Push Coalition President Rev. Jesse Jackson; syndicated radio host Tom Joyner; and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council's David Honig.
Judiciary Courts and Competition Policy Subcommittee Chairman Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said broadcasters were invited to weigh in on the bill before it passed the committee in May, but their unwillingness to offer performers any compensation is unreasonable since Internet, cable and satellite services all pay. Liggins called the hearing "misguided and disingenuous." He said he backed out as a witness after learning Conyers would focus on the royalty bill and had invited a supporter of the measure, R&B Foundation Chairman Kendall Minter, to testify. "I'm not going to sit there and get beat up," Liggins said in a phone interview. Read the full story in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
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.
House Energy and Commerce Committee member Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., urged the panel's leadership Wednesday to hold a hearing on the role of the Internet and communications technologies in giving a voice to those silenced by repressive governments. Calling attention to recent events in Iran and China, where mobile phones and applications like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube delivered uncensored, citizen-fueled reports from the streets, Bono Mack said it is time that Congress examines the threat that Web censorship poses to free expression. "We cannot stand idly by while the voices of the oppressed are silenced," Bono Mack said in a press release and in a letter to Chairman Henry Waxman and ranking member Joe Barton.
Web sites developed in the United States provide opportunities for people whose words would otherwise never be heard and can foster respect for human rights and freedom across the world, she said. Following last month's disputed election in Iran, a "Twitter Revolution" allowed citizens there to broadcast firsthand accounts and on-the-scene footage of protests and violence in Tehran. At the same time, the government was doing everything in its power to control messages and images leaving Iran. Meanwhile, China has continued to use its "Great Firewall" to block content on a regular basis and researchers estimate that 30,000 or more Internet police monitor online traffic, Web sites and blogs for political and other offensive content.
In the 110th Congress, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin chaired a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee that examined U.S. companies' business dealings in Internet restrictive countries. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others were on the hot seat. In 2006, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chaired a similar high-profile hearing of the House subcommittee that oversees global human rights. Smith has introduced legislation on multiple occasions that would prevent U.S. tech firms from working with foreign governments that seek to conduct Internet surveillance to find, capture, convict and often torture citizens for engaging in democracy promotion and human rights advocacy online.
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.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., will soon introduce legislation that would create a competitive grant program for state and local education agencies and non-profit organizations to provide Internet safety education to teachers, schools and parents. The measure, which would authorize up to $175 million over five years, would be administered by the Justice Department in collaboration with the departments of Health and Human Services and Education. Wasserman Schultz's bill will be a companion to one introduced earlier this year by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
"There's no silver bullet, no one technology," Wasserman Schultz said at a Wednesday briefing on Capitol Hill sponsored by Point Smart, Click Safe -- a coalition of non-profits and companies like Comcast, Google, Verizon, and Yahoo. "Our bill recognizes that knowledge must be our children's first line of defense," she said. Wasserman Schultz, who has 10-year-old twins and a five-year-old daughter, said she hoped her legislation could provide the strong federal leadership called for in a new Point Smart, Click Safe report. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who also spoke at the event, said it is imperative that non-profits and high-tech firms "help us help parents understand."
The Point Smart, Click Safe paper asks policymakers to consider expanding online safety efforts to emphasize digital media literacy programs. It also calls for the president or Congress to lead a federal agency that would work collaboratively with all major stakeholders in marshaling resources for improved online safety. Additionally, the group urged policymakers to consider adopting a set of national goals for online safety, including minimum standards for a curriculum on digital literacy. Click here to review Point Smart, Click Safe's recommendations and here to read a new paper by Web safety expert Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation.
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.
From Tuesday's CongressDaily PM Edition (subscription required).
After more than two years of private negotiations, music and Internet industry stakeholders have arrived at a formula for commercial webcasters to pay copyright owners and artists for their songs. The deal came a week after President Obama signed legislation sponsored by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that kept deliberations on track while delaying implementation of a controversial 2007 rate-setting by a federal panel that determines royalty fees for various distribution platforms.
Under the agreement announced today, "pureplay" services, whose main business is streaming music under a government license, would pay a percentage of their U.S. revenue up to 25 percent as well as a $25,000 per year minimum royalty as an alternative to the Copyright Royalty Board's calculation, which webcasters argued could put them out of business. Wyden said he was happy to help reach a deal and ensure that the "unjust decision of the CRB wasn't applied to this dynamic new medium." Inslee said webcasters and copyright holders "needed this freedom to negotiate and craft a royalty rate structure that's fair for all impacted parties."
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.
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.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., on Monday successfully pushed through an amendment to the $3.1 billion FY 2010 legislative branch appropriations bill that he argued would make it easier for the public to examine Senate expenses, such as salaries for staff, travel and office operations. Those records are already computerized but his plan would make the files available online for public review. Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee Chairman Bill Nelson, D-Neb., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid supported the proposal and agreed to a limited debate on the issue. He said his amendment would help the Senate "lead by example" and rein in spending within individual offices while providing much needed public accountability for taxpayer dollars. "I'm just as frugal with their money in my office as I am on the floor," said Coburn, who routinely objects to congressional spending sprees and has earned the nickname "Dr. No."
Meanwhile, a similar effort in the House has been delayed due to "security and support issues" that the House Administration Committee says must resolved before so-called "statement of disbursements" are made available in an electronic format. Although the chamber's servers were upgraded to handle massive, sudden influxes of e-mail and Web hits, the new technology needs to be tested in preparation for what is expected to be an enormous online interest in records, the committee said in a Thursday statement. Additionally, the committee and the Chief Administrative Officer want to ensure staffers are fully trained to explain the SODs to constituents who may call or e-mail. Online support materials like a frequently asked questions page and a glossary of terms are in the works. The first SOD to be posted on the Internet will cover the quarter beginning July 1, 2009 and will be posted as soon as possible following the end of that quarter.
High-tech advocacy groups this week filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing efforts by music licensing organization ASCAP to impose additional licensing payments on providers of musical ringtones for mobile phones. The Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge urged a New York federal court to reject ASCAP's claim that ringtones are "public performances" under copyright law simply because a phone may ring when the user is in a public place. ASCAP's position implies that mobile phone users are copyright infringers and would expand liability in ways that could chill innovation in products far beyond the relatively narrow context of ringtones, the groups argued.
ASCAP, which has about 360,000 members, recently released a memo in support of its legal battle against AT&T and Verizon that argues wireless carriers make billions of dollars from ringtones including per tone charges and multiple additional charges surrounding the transmission of ringtones. The revenue generated is "more than sufficient to cover a reasonable payment to ASCAP members," the organization said. Additionally, ASCAP stressed that it seeks to license carriers' transmissions of music and is not trying to charge consumers. EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann called ASCAP's an "outlandish argument," noting that under its reasoning, someone playing a car radio with the window down would be violating copyright law.
A related debate could play out on Capitol Hill. In a recent recent letter, songwriter and music publisher representatives requested legislation to expand the scope of the public performance right so that it will apply to digital downloads of audiovisual works. Trade groups representing Internet music providers, e-commerce firms and electronics manufacturers claim the effort would "impose a licensing obligation and potentially significant royalties on activities that are unequivocally unrelated to public performance." House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers is planning a hearing on the issue while Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has begun talking with stakeholders.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman praised the Office of Management and Budget's announcement Tuesday of a new Web site that allows the public to track and comment on federal information technology spending. "When I won enactment of the E-Government Act almost a decade ago, the federal government was a newcomer to the online world and had only just begun to think seriously about how to provide American taxpayers with valuable electronic services and information. All that has changed," Lieberman said in a statement.
The IT dashboard on USASpending.gov "marks another leap forward for open government, public accountability, and management efficiency and serves as a model to open up more information on federal spending." With a click of the mouse, anyone can see and have their say about the decisions, successes, and setbacks of how tax dollars are spent on IT projects, he said. Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Financial Management Subcommittee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del., concurred, saying he wants to work with the Obama administration to expand the effort to bring greater transparency for other large investments, including weapons acquisitions.
Read CongressDaily's Tuesday coverage of the issue here (subscription required).
Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions has requested that Case Western Reserve University innovation expert Scott Shane analyze the potential impact of a pending bill's approach to administratively challenging a patent's validity after it is granted. The proposed changes to the Patent and Trademark Office's post-grant review process are included in a bill sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, which passed his committee 15-4 in April. Staffers for Leahy and Sessions have been meeting with stakeholders about the issue in recent weeks even as the panel focuses on the forthcoming confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
As amended, the measure would adopt House-passed text from 2007 that lengthens the timeline for challenging a granted patent and strips out a "public use or sale" provision that Leahy added as a basis for challenging a patent. Shane's research earlier this Congress on apportionment of damages concluded that adopting House language could lead to job loss and decreased R&D investment. Leahy's panel ultimately watered down the damages text so the bill could advance. Shane's report was commissioned by the Manufacturing Alliance on Patent Policy, a group backed by Corning, Monsanto, DuPont and others. His latest research will be ready for Sessions within two weeks, Tech Daily Dose has learned.
Click here to read recent CongressDaily coverage of the emerging conflict over post-grant review language (subscription required).
President Obama on Tuesday signed legislation that would allow months of royalty negotiations between the music and Internet industries continue while delaying full implementation of a controversial rate-setting for webcasters imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The measure replaces a Feb. 15, 2009 deadline that was part of legislation that passed the 110th Congress, with a 30-day window from the date of enactment for a deal to be reached between digital royalty collector SoundExchange, which is negotiating on behalf of copyright owners and performers, and Internet services represented by the Digital Media Association and others.
The bill's sponsor was Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., who had support from Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and others. Its Senate sponsors were Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan. A source told Tech Daily Dose that so-called "pureplay" negotiations have been completed and a deal could be signed as soon as stakeholders return from Independence Day vacation. As soon as that happens, the proposal will be announced and submitted to the Register of Copyrights for publication. "Pureplay" webcasters refers to those whose sole business activity is to stream sound recordings over the Internet.
The House Armed Services Committee last week offered its support to the Army's controversial high-tech effort to increase awareness and knowledge of the military among recruitment-age youth. In a report accompanying the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill, which passed the House last Thursday, the panel commended the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia and its transportable counterpart, the Virtual Army Experience. The initiatives are examples of projects "that hold great potential to reshape recruiting techniques and conduct recruiting operations on a more cost effective basis," the report said. Critics argue the 14,500 square-foot center encourages youth to play violent videogames and in May, several groups including Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace held a protest outside the facility.
"The committee believes this type of investment is essential if the Army intends to keep pace with societal changes regarding the subjects that capture the attention of young people and methods young people use to gather information and socially interact," the House Armed Services report stated. "The committee understands that during periods when recruiting is relatively easy, investment in experimental programs draws increased scrutiny." The document urged the Army to invest in the projects to maximize their immediate value and learn more about how the military can further adapt technology to harness the power of the information age to support its recruiting mission. At the May protest, Iraq veteran Jesse Hamilton called the center "an abomination" that targets impressionable minors and glorifies war.
National Music Publishers' Association President David Israelite urged House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and ranking member Lamar Smith late Friday to consider introducing legislation that would clear up any confusion surrounding the constitutionality of a federal panel that sets copyright royalties. The request comes on the heels of a May complaint from licensing firm Royalty Logic asking that the Copyright Royalty Board be forced to vacate its decision in a controversial proceeding that set the fee structure for webcasters. The filing claims the CRB is unconstitutional because the Librarian of Congress, who is not technically the head of a government department, appoints its three judges.
If successful, the protest could mean the unraveling of all of the CRB's decisions since its judges were appointed in 2006. "This could cause complete chaos in the marketplace," Israelite wrote in a letter. In it, he notes that in the proceeding in question, songwriters, music publishers, digital media firms and record labels negotiated a landmark deal on the rate and terms for musical works delivered by interactive streams and limited downloads. The board's decisions "should not be thrown away because of a technicality," he said. NMPA wants Conyers and Smith to sponsor a bill that would make moot any challenge to the CRB based on the appointments clause of the Constitution as well as uphold its determinations.
When Rod Beckstrom accepted the top job at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers last week, a former Homeland Security Department colleague warned him that his tenure as director of the National Cybersecurity Center was a walk in the park compared to being CEO of the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet address system. "I hope you enjoy jumping out of frying pan and into the fire," the colleague said in an e-mail. But the Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author and computer security expert says he is ready for the challenge. ICANN, which is based in California but has ramped up its Washington presence in recent years, has faced intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill as it prepares to end its formal relationship with the Commerce Department in September.
Lawmakers and industry stakeholders have raised concerns about the international entity's transparency, accountability, budget processes and stakeholder affairs. Most recently, a chorus of lawmakers called for an extension of the U.S. government's formal role and closer scrutiny over how the 11-year-old organization has evolved. At a House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee hearing earlier this month, ICANN's departing CEO Paul Twomey came under intense questions, while Internet executives voiced an array of concerns. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said ICANN was "far from a model of effective and sustainable self-governance", and Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., said ICANN seemed "better at furthering its own interests than those of the millions of Internet users it's supposed to look out for."
Read the full "Issue of The Week" at CongressDaily's TechCentral page here.
Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will soon introduce legislation to sanction any company that sells sensitive technology aiding the Iranian regime in monitoring or blocking the Internet connections or cellular phone conversations of protesters. The bill, which will be filed in the coming days, would require the Obama administration to identify foreign firms that export certain equipment to Iran and those companies would be barred from applying for contracts with the U.S. government, or renewing expiring ones, unless they first terminated those exports.
That requirement could be waived if the president determines such a waiver would be in the national interest of the United State but he would have to report to Congress on the reasons for the waiver. "It is utterly outrageous that Western companies sell equipment that allows the Iranian government to spy on their citizens, prevent communications between citizens and thwart any type of uprising against the regime," Schumer said in a press release. "This legislation is going to crack down on these companies so that we can do our part in preventing this regime from controlling the Iranian people."
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the systems used by Iran to spy on its citizens and stifle communications were installed by Nokia and Siemens. According to a federal spending Web site, Siemens has almost 2,000 contracts with the U.S. government, including 300 contracts with the Pentagon as well as other deals with the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, and the Department of Energy. The deals total over $250 million in 2009 alone. The joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks, has at least six contracts with the U.S. government, totaling $5 million.
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.
A Chinese government rule slated to take effect next week that would require all computers produced and sold there to install controversial Internet filtering software has piqued the interest of lawmakers, according to Thursday's CongressDaily AM Edition. In the story, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force chairman; Helsinki Commission co-chair Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., each weigh in on the proposal. Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., also chimed in late Wednesday, telling Tech Daily Dose that China's purported plan "is just the latest example of China's obsession with controlling the free flow of information." "They have been unrelenting in making sure the government's position is the only position on every issue," he said.
The initiative also drew ire from Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. The high-ranking Obama administration officials sent a joint letter to the Chinese government warning the plan could run afoul of World Trade Organization obligations Their joint letter also laid out for Industry and Information Technology Minister Li Yizhong and Commerce Minister Chen Deming the fears raised by high-tech firms, Chinese citizens and media about the software's stability, the scope and extent of filtering, and potential security weaknesses. U.S. business and tech groups wrote to China last week saying the effort "seems to run contrary to China's own goal of becoming a leading IT and information-based society."
For the full CongressDaily story, click here (subscription required).
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions came to the rescue of the Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday night when they introduced a bill that will allow the agency to use funds designated for its trademark portfolio to be used to address its growing backlog of patent applications. The trademark budget, which is statutorily untouchable, has a $60 million-$70 million surplus. CongressDaily reported this week that Commerce Department and PTO officials had been making the rounds on Capitol Hill to let key lawmakers know how the office was struggling in the recession and offering up legislative ideas like the loan plan.
The PTO, which is funded through fees collected from its users, suspended overtime pay for patent examiners effective Sunday and earlier this year instituted a hiring freeze amid a slump in the number of patent applications filed. Under the bill, the PTO can make use of the money "to support the processing of patents and other activities, services, and materials relating to patents" if the office's director certifies to Congress the use of funds "is reasonably necessary to avoid furloughs or a reduction-in-force." The borrowed money would have to be put back in the trademark basket no later than Sept. 30, 2011.
If the agency and lawmakers deem the situation urgent enough, the bill could advance without a new PTO director in place. IBM executive David Kappos, President Obama's pick for the job, was only named last week and has to trudge through the confirmation process presumably after Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is considered. John Doll is acting director. Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee on Wednesday approved its FY10 spending bill, giving the PTO full funding at $1.9 billion. Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said the allotment could help attack the backlog in patent applications.
Update: A Leahy aide on Thursday said the bill did not get introduced Wednesday night but could move soon.
On the eve of a major White House immigration summit, technology industry stakeholders are urging participants to make high-skilled immigration part of the discussion. President Obama and a bipartisan group of congressional leaders will take part in the Thursday event and Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Charles Schumer, D-N.Y, earlier today highlighted the need for high-skilled immigration to be one of seven key principles for reform. His first priority in crafting legislation is making a serious stand against illegal immigration, and suggested that a biometric-based employer verification system would be a key element as well. Schumer added he remains optimistic that immigration legislation, which he intends to introduce, can become law as soon as this year.
"Many of our nation's finest entrepreneurs, business leaders, doctors, scientists and Nobel laureates are foreign-born and contribute to the success of America's economy," Information Technology Industry Council President Dean Garfield said in a press release. "Any reform to our immigration policy should ensure that America's doors remain open to these individuals and business leaders." While the guest list for the summit has not been officially released, ITI understands that a number of high-skilled immigration proponents have been invited. Garfield said he hoped congressional consensus over retaining a top notch workforce is not sacrificed by contentious items in the immigration debate.
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.
As staffers for Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy resume negotiations with stakeholders who are divided over sections of his bill to overhaul the U.S. patent system, (see CongressDaily's AM Edition for coverage), aides for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are trying to build support for a proposal that would essentially let the Patent and Trademark Office examine information that was not considered during an earlier patent review. Officials from the generic and brand pharmaceuticals industries as well as biotechnology interests met with Hatch's team on Monday. Under the longtime intellectual property crusader's plan, if a patent is issued, the information in question may not be used to hold the patent unenforceable.
Language that Hatch prepared to introduce when Leahy's panel marked up the broader bill in April also clarifies that requesting the reissue (or the decision not to) cannot alone be the basis of an "inequitable conduct" challenge. The proposal would leave untouched the underlying doctrine, which generic drug makers believe is vital to ensure timely market entry of medicines. Hatch, an original cosponsor of Leahy's bill, announced during the mark up that he could no longer support the final product and was one of four members who voted against the measure. "[The bill] has the very real potential to undermine the stimulatory effects of not only our patent system but those abroad," he said at the time.
Generics manufacturers previously argued Hatch's proposal would incentivize deception before the PTO. It's a back door "but for" test that would do away with the inequitable conduct defense, they said. But the senator's office is trying to engage in good faith negotiations with key players and hopes to reconvene the group for further talks after the Independence Day recess, sources said. One individual who attended the Monday meeting said there was "a great deal of positive interaction," with all parties trying to understand each others concerns. If the patent reissue problem can be solved, Hatch is more likely to rally his GOP colleagues in support of Leahy's bill as it heads toward the Senate floor.
Former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said Tuesday that he does not want the job of President Obama's cybersecurity coordinator despite recent rumblings that he was one of the top contenders for the position. "If I'd wanted to stay in government, I would have stayed in Congress," he said at a National Press Club briefing. "I don't have any real interest in going back." Davis joined the federal services team of consulting firm Deloitte last year after serving as chairman and ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee where he took the lead on legislation aimed at improving e-government, information security and critical infrastructure. When pressed further by reporters, Davis said he was "not a candidate for anything... [but] you never say never." He has maintained his departure from public service is only a sabbatical.
His main concern with the cyber czar position, which Obama described on the campaign trail and formally announced last month in conjunction with a wide-sweeping report that examined the federal cybersecurity posture, is the job description remains vague. Davis said it is unclear what the position would entail and how much authority the individual, who would report jointly to the National Security Council and National Economic Council, would have. "For this job to work you'd better get some understandings up front," he said. Davis lauded Obama for recognizing the need for a strong cybersecurity leader but said he thinks the administration has brought on too many czars. Melissa Hathaway, a senior adviser to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, is potential candidate. Former Microsoft security chief Howard Schmidt's name has also come up.
Four congressional leaders on competitiveness Monday asked the National Academies to form a panel to examine the standing of the nation's research universities amid growing concerns that U.S. schools could be outpaced by foreign institutions. The group would answer the following question: "What are the top 10 actions that Congress, state governments, research universities, and others could take to assure the ability of the American research university to maintain the excellence in research and doctoral education needed to help the United States compete, prosper, and achieve national goals for health, energy, the environment, and security in the global community of the 21st century?" The request is similar to one in 2005 that led to an Academies report that became the basis for competitiveness legislation that passed the 110th Congress.
Members who signed the letter to the Academies were Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former education secretary and chairman of the Senate Republican Conference; House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon and ranking member Ralph Hall. "America's research universities are powerhouses of innovation, incubators for the ideas and breakthroughs that have made America an economic superpower," Mikulski said in a press release. "We need the best minds working on what steps we can take today to keep our nation innovating tomorrow and every day after that." Alexander called U.S. research universities "our secret weapon for creating jobs" but warned that other nations are catching up.
President Obama on Thursday nominated IBM Assistant General Counsel David Kappos to become director of the Patent and Trademark Office. As reported in CongressDaily's AM Edition, the news was uniformly welcomed by lawmakers, industry leaders and members of the legal community. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said Kappos is "exceptionally qualified" to lead the PTO, which faces serious challenges in the recession and a spokesman for Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions said his boss believes Kappos' credentials and experience are impressive and looks forward to evaluating him. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke issued a statement saying Kappos "will be a strong voice for patent reform" and will be charged with making a big dent in the growing application backlog, which now exceeds 750,000.
Foley & Lardner attorney Jon Dudas, who served as PTO director in the Bush administration, said Kappos is an excellent choice. "He is deeply respected in the intellectual property community, the U.S. government and internationally," Dudas said. "Dave also has the leadership and management skills to inspire the thousands of incredibly professional colleagues he will soon lead." American Intellectual Property Law Association Executive Director Todd Dickinson, who served as head of the PTO under former President Bill Clinton, said Kappos "has a genuine appreciation for the tough issues facing intellectual property policy and administration today." His nomination offers an opportunity for a fresh start, Dickinson said.
Groups involved in the ongoing congressional battle over patent reform also hailed Obama's pick. The Coalition for Patent Fairness and Innovation Alliance, which have been at odds over pending legislation, both backed Kappos. CPF said he has the experience needed to lead the PTO "at a time when it faces significant operational challenges in an ever-evolving competitive global marketplace." The Alliance said its members "look forward to working with him in what will be a very difficult, but important effort to revitalize the PTO, which all agree is under funded and overburdened." Congress should provide PTO the funds it needs to upgrade its technology, improve the patent application process, and attract and retain professional talent, the group said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and a handful of other senators urged President Obama on Thursday to protect intellectual property as talks begin on a global climate change treaty. Proposals have surfaced by representatives of some countries to allow foreign producers to copy or infringe patented technologies. "The United States government cannot afford to sit idle while others seek to weaken IP protections," they wrote. "America must continue to set the standard for IP protection, and be willing to confront those countries and organizations that attempt to weaken IP rights." Hatch collected signatures from Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; Robert Bennett, R-Utah; Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; Arlen Specter, D-Pa.; George Voinovich, R-Ohio; John Thune, R-S.D.; Judd Gregg, R-N.H.; and David Vitter, R-La.
The senators explain that some governments mischaracterize IP rights as an obstacle to progress and require compulsory licenses of IP or forced technology transfers. China and India claim they cannot meet future global emission requirements without free or significantly discounted access to climate change mitigation technologies. "These short-sighted approaches to IP rights will curtail growth and development, and stagnate the very industries that these countries depend on," they wrote. A coalition backed by the Chamber, General Electric, Microsoft, Siemens and other multinationals has been putting similar pressure on the Obama administration. A series of meetings will culminate at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, where parties will seek agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly shows a House Energy and Commerce Committee staffer how to adjust privacy settings for her profile on the popular social networking Web site. Kelly, who is also a Democratic candidate for California attorney general, was in Washington testifying before a joint hearing on Internet privacy held by the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Consumer Protection subcommittees. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
Trade groups representing high-tech, manufacturing, retail, and financial services firms wrote to House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders Wednesday urging them to "use extreme caution" when crafting Internet privacy legislation and refrain from imposing duplicative, inconsistent and ineffective regulations that could hurt consumers and businesses. The letter, sent to leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Consumer Protection subcommittees on the eve of a high-profile hearing on the topic, acknowledges there are "important issues around online privacy that Congress is looking into, issues that industry takes seriously as well." But during deliberations, lawmakers should take into account the range of industries, companies, and jobs that could be impacted by potential legislative or regulatory action, they said.
"The vast majority of companies of all shapes and sizes are online in some capacity and use the Internet to communicate with consumers, employees, existing customers, potential customers, and business partners around the world," added the letter signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Financial Services Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers, National Retail Federation and others. The FTC also weighed in, sending lawmakers its recent staff report on behavioral advertising. An accompanying letter states the Commission "has actively encouraged industry to embrace new measures relating to behavioral advertising to inform and empower consumers and is monitoring developments" so privacy is protected.
The Senate late Wednesday passed legislation intended to promote more openness regarding statutory exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act by tacking the measure onto another bill that would prevent the release of photos of detainees in U.S. custody. The FOIA bill, sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, "will make certain that when Congress provides for a statutory exemption to FOIA in new legislation, Congress states its intention to do so explicitly and clearly," the senator said in a statement. He said new statutory exemptions to FOIA should always be carefully considered before they are enacted and his bill will help to stop that practice and "shine more light on the process of creating legislative exemptions to FOIA." The Sunshine in Government Initiative's Rick Blum lauded the FOIA bill's passage, saying it "lets the public cry foul when secrecy ideas are overbroad or unjustified." He said he hoped the House would act on companion legislation soon. The detainee photo measure was sponsored by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Following on swift action in the House, the Senate on Wednesday passed legislation by unanimous consent that would allow months of royalty negotiations between the music and Internet industries continue while delaying full implementation of a controversial rate-setting for webcasters imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The legislation was sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., would replace a Feb. 15, 2009 deadline that was part of legislation that passed the 110th Congress, with a 30-day window from the date of enactment for a deal to be reached between digital royalty collector SoundExchange, which is negotiating on behalf of copyright owners and performers, and Internet services represented by the Digital Media Association and others.
A companion bill sponsored by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., passed the House earlier this month with support from Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and California Democrats Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo. DiMA Executive Director Jonathan Potter lauded the action and used it as a platform to press his members' agenda pertaining to a bill that would end a longstanding royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio. "Hopefully, as Congress continues to focus more broadly on sound recording performance rights legislation, more comprehensive legislation will soon level the regulatory playing field for all forms of digital radio."
The online marketing practice known as behavioral advertising, which is being employed increasingly by Internet companies that want to tailor Web surfers' content, will come under scrutiny on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Executives from Google, Facebook, and Yahoo will take the hot seat alongside some of their most prominent critics at a joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Consumer Protection subcommittees. House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., is preparing legislation that he hopes would give Internet users greater confidence in how information collected about them is used and would offer consumer control over that use. "That will encourage people to engage in electronic commerce more readily," he said earlier this year. At the time, Boucher had not decided what rules could be in the measure.
The rare joint session "is but one hearing along a continuum of legislative activity examining the domains of the online and offline consumer privacy and how companies handle and treat consumers' personal information," Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said in an excerpt from his opening statement. He will point out there are no federal laws specifically aimed at behavioral advertising nor is there a comprehensive general privacy law on the books. Google Deputy General Counsel Nicole Wong, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly and Yahoo Vice President of Policy Anne Toth plan to defend their business practices and tell lawmakers that high-tech advances in advertising lead to more enjoyable Internet experiences for users. Read the full preview story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here and look for more coverage in the PM Edition.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., on Wednesday stepped down as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, following his announcement Tuesday that he had an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer. Ensign, whose exit sets up a vacancy for the fourth-ranking job in GOP leadership, served two consecutive terms as chair of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force. "His voice for tech interests at the leadership table will be missed," one industry insider told Tech Daily Dose. "Hopefully, a tech savvy Senator like John Thune will come in to replace him." GOP leadership aides told CongressDaily that Thune of South Dakota is considered the front-runner at this point but Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina has expressed interest in the past. Thune is a member of the high-tech task force, which is being chaired this Congress by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Thune also recently joined Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va.; Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition here (subscription required).
From CongressDaily's AM Edition:
Nominee For FCC Chairman Urged To 'Fix' The Agency
Julius Genachowski, President Obama's pick for FCC chairman, played it safe during his confirmation hearing Tuesday as senators delivered marching orders on fostering more transparency at the agency, bolstering broadcast indecency enforcement and extending broadband to homes lacking access. Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller stole the show with a stern request for Genachowski to repair the damaged reputation of the commission, known for its bitter negotiating environment, by operating more openly and not kowtowing to powerful corporate interests. "Fix this agency, or we will fix it for you. Prove to us that the FCC is not battered beyond repair," Rockefeller warned.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Kohl Pushes For More Competition In Cell Phone Industry
Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., urged the FCC Tuesday to "take all necessary action" to remove barriers to competition in the cell phone marketplace and prevent giants like AT&T and Verizon from gaining a stranglehold on the industry. He also pressed the Justice Department to closely scrutinize mergers and allegations of anti-competitive practices in the wireless sector. Nowhere is the changed market for cell phones more noticeable than in the text messaging space, Kohl argued at a hearing. From 2006 to 2008, the price of sending and receiving messages among the four largest carriers increased from 10 to 20 cents per message within weeks or months of each other. The price increases occurred despite the fact that the cost to cell phone providers for texting -- less than a penny per message -- has not increased.
Read the full story here. (subscription required).
Telecommunications analyst Scott Cleland, whose work is bankrolled by companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, also signed on as a hired gun for Microsoft earlier this year, according to a summary of testimony he plans to deliver Thursday at a joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee and Consumer Protection Subcommittee. The focus of the session is Internet privacy and behavioral advertising. Cleland, a frequent critic of Google, runs Precursor, an industry research and consulting firm, and chairs NetCompetition.org, which he describes as a "a pro-competition e-forum funded by broadband companies."
While Cleland asserts that his testimony reflects his personal views and not the views of his clients, Google sympathizers wonder if his new affiliation with Microsoft might further fuel what they believe is an already staunchly anti-Google agenda. Last December, Precursor issued a report alleging that Google "is by far the largest user of Internet bandwidth," the company's share of bandwidth usage is rising rapidly, and it's bandwidth use "is orders of magnitude greater than its payment for its cost." Google's telecom counsel Richard Whitt responded to the attack, calling the report "payola punditry." Google Associate General Counsel Nicole Wong will testify Thursday, presumably in defense of her firm's practices.
Regardless of who signs Cleland's checks, his testimony concludes that if Congress decides to legislate on Internet privacy, a competition/technology-neutral framework is the way to go. According to Cleland, such a proposal would: emphasize protecting people not technologies; empower consumers with the control/freedom to choose to either protect or exploit their own privacy; prevent competitive arbitrage of asymmetric technology-driven privacy policies with a level playing field; stay current with ever-evolving technological innovation; and accommodate both privacy and public interests by empowering real consumer privacy choice.
Update: Cleland told Tech Daily Dose his work with Microsoft has been focused on Internet security and safety.
"Technology is the future of education," House Committee on Education and Labor Chairman George Miller said Tuesday while playing with a computer simulation of a dissected frog during a showcase of up-and-coming education technologies. "Now the frogs don't have to die," he joked. Earlier in the day, Miller presided over a hearing on how technology is transforming the public school system. President Obama's recently confirmed Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra testified. "We need to harness the power and potential of technology and innovation to revamp our educational system," Chopra said.
At the post-hearing demonstration sponsored by the State Educational Technology Directors Association and the Software & Information Industry Association, Miller was joined by educators and other lawmakers, including Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who is also a member of the Education and Labor Committee. The gadgets ran the gamut from data management software to interactive whiteboards that have touch-screen capabilities. "The goal is to show, not just tell, what's possible using technology in education," said Mary Ann Wolf, a former teacher who now serves as SETDA's executive director. SETDA, the principle association representing state directors for education technology, organizes several meetings a year including a leadership summit and an educational forum. -- Eliza Krigman
As CongressDaily's AM Edition reports, House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., on Monday released a narrow discussion draft of a bill to reauthorize for five years provisions of the Satellite Home Viewer Act set to expire Dec. 31. As written, the proposal leaves out language opposed by broadcasters that would allow satellite and cable providers to import signals of stations in adjacent markets. CBS, NBC and FOX have argued the change could be disadvantageous in retransmission consent programming negotiations.
Another key section attempts to level the playing field between local stations and those deemed by the FCC to be "significantly viewed." The draft would update the statute to account for last week's nationwide shift to digital television and directs the FCC to update its predictive modeling methods for gauging how well certain locations receive satellite signals in an all-digital environment. At a hearing on the topic Tuesday, Boucher's panel will hear from Walt Disney Executive Vice President Preston Padden, DirecTV Executive Vice President Derek Chang, Dish Network General Counsel R. Stanton Dodge and others.
Padden will urge the subcommittee to "avoid interference with workable marketplace relationships" that exist in great abundance today in the multi-channel video programming market, according to written testimony. He will also argue those who invest billions of dollars to produce content should have the ability to determine where and on what terms that content is licensed and distributed. In his testimony, Chang will urge members to modify the current regime "to give consumers the stations that truly serve their communities." He will also ask lawmakers to modify how consumers can qualify for distant signals, "to ease their burden when local signals are not available to them."
Look for more coverage in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
Here's a sneak peek at the expected witness line-up for Thursday's eagerly anticipated Internet advertising and privacy hearing to be held jointly by House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill. The event is a follow up to a session Boucher held in April that featured broadband providers. He is working on privacy legislation that he hopes will ensure Internet users a secure Web surfing experience. Rush has already introduced a separate data breach notification bill.
• Jeffrey Chester, Executive Director, Center for Digital Democracy
• Scott Cleland, President, Precursor LLC
• Charles Curran, Executive Director, Network Advertising Initiative
• Christopher Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook
• Edward Felten, Director, Center for IT Policy, Princeton University
• Anne Toth, Vice President of Policy, Yahoo
• Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel, Google
Some Internet policy watchers fear the hearing might strike a decidedly anti-Google tone with Chester and Cleland on deck. Both are prominent critics of the Web giant's growing presence in Washington and in the Web marketplace. Chester's group is funded by philanthropic foundations and individual donors but does not take corporate funding. Cleland runs NetCompetition.org, whose members include AT&T, Comcast, Qwest, Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Facebook and Yahoo have also taken heat in recent years for privacy-related practices.
Arrive early and brace for a crowd if you'll be attending Tuesday's highly anticipated FCC nomination hearing, when Julius Genachowski, President Obama's choice to run the agency, appears before the Senate Commerce Committee. Also appearing at the session, which kicks off at 2:30 p.m. in Room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, will be FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Republican who has been nominated for a second term. Genachowski -- a close friend and law school classmate of the president, and Obama's chief technology adviser during the campaign -- is expected to oversee an ambitious agenda if confirmed, with new broadband policies as the centerpiece.
Speaking of which...The Internet Innovation Alliance, a coalition of businesses and non-profits, hosts a Wednesday event at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. on the development of the FCC's national broadband strategy. Guest speakers at the gathering, which runs from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., include West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin. And that's followed Thursday and Friday by the annual Broadband Policy Summit sponsored by Pike and Fischer, to be held at the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel, 1800 Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington, Va. Keynote speakers Thursday are House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and the head honcho at the FCC pending Genachowski's confirmation: acting Chairman Michael Copps.
For more tech-related happenings this week, check CongressDaily's TechCentral page.
Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has been working on legislation that would let states impose the local tax on Internet sales where the seller is out of state. That's going to hurt e-business, says Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Utah-based Internet retailer Overstock.com. National Journal's Winter Casey sat down with Byrne on Friday, when he was in Washington to discuss education reform. Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: What are your thoughts on Internet taxes?
Byrne: We have been supporting a permanent moratorium on Internet taxes. It doesn't make sense for the states to be taxing the Internet for a number of reasons. First of all there's the Supreme Court decision from 15, 16 years ago, where the Supreme Court said, "Look, it's just unreasonable to expect somebody in the catalog business to know the different taxes in 7,000 jurisdictions."...
Now the argument is being made that it would be possible to overcome that inexpensively -- a couple hundred million dollars, say -- with technology to keep track of the tax rates on every product in 7,000 jurisdictions. They haven't done that, and even if they did I'd say it's not fair because we and other catalogers and Internet companies, we don't put the same load on the local infrastructure that it does to have a retail store there. We don't have employees, we don't have kids in school there and so on and so forth, we are just based in Utah and use UPS and FedEx. We don't put the load on states' budgets that a local brick-and-mortar retailer does. Therefore it is not fair.
CongressDaily's Chris Strohm writes in TechCentral's latest Issue Of The Week that House appropriators have approved most of what the Obama administration requested for Homeland Security technology programs and even gave it credit for "some hard decisions" not to seek money for certain efforts. By the time they voted Friday to send to the House an FY10 Homeland Security spending bill with $42.6 billion in discretionary spending, it was clear the Democratic-led Appropriations Committee is far more closely aligned with the Obama administration than it was with the Bush administration in the previous Congress. Floor action on the bill is expected this week.
In a report accompanying the bill, the committee commended the department for such budget decisions as not seeking funding for advanced cargo scanning technology and an electronic system to verify when foreigners leave the country. But no budget request goes through Congress unscathed. When appropriators disagreed with administration decisions, they didn't hesitate to say so. "The committee understands the demanding nature of the department's mission, as well as resources and technology limitations that make it difficult to consistently satisfy the wide range of expectations from Congress, state and local governments, industries, citizens, other federal departments and foreign governments," appropriators wrote.
Read the full story here (subscription required).
Rep. Gary Peters, R-Mich., helped launch MakeItInMichigan.org on Monday -- a Web campaign aimed at pressuring General Motors to build its newest car in the Great Lake State. The American automobile giant, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month, has announced that it will choose between three plants -- one in Tennessee, another in Wisconsin and one in Michigan -- to manufacture its latest subcompact model. "It makes good business sense to build in Michigan," Peters said in a videotaped welcome message. "Our state is home to GM's key auto suppliers, GM headquarters and the tech center -- and the most talented engineers, skilled trade, and line workers in the world." The former states senator and lottery commissioner notes that Michigan has been GM's home for 100 years and the state has invested in the company in good times and in bad. Not surprisingly, the Orion, Mich., assembly plant being considered is in Oakland County, which is part of Peters's district.
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.
The House voted overwhelmingly late Wednesday to establish new U.S. policy in opposition to any global climate change treaty that weakens the intellectual property rights of American green technology as part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act. The vote comes as diplomats prepare for December negotiations as part of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. "American innovations in clean energy technology create good-paying jobs today and will fuel our country's economic growth in the future," said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who offered the amendment with Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. Kirk, a member of the U.S. delegation to Kyoto in 1997, emphasized that jobs will not be created if foreign competitors are allowed to seize U.S. inventions.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman's core bill included language to increase resources and training for enforcement of intellectual property rights. Berman is a longtime leader on IP issues and chaired the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property in the 110th Congress. Under the bill, the Secretary of State would appoint 10 new IP attachés to serve in embassies or other diplomatic missions with priority placement given to countries with particularly egregious IP regimes. "This legislation will play a vital role in efforts to protect job-creating intellectual property abroad," said Mark Esper, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global IP Center.
Key business groups offered support Tuesday for a legislative amendment that would reaffirm intellectual property rights for U.S. technologies developed to deal with climate change, CongressDaily's AM Edition reported. The National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the United States Council for International Business said that as talks proceed on a climate change treaty, proposals have surfaced to allow foreign producers to copy or infringe patented technologies. On a parallel track, a coalition backed by the Chamber, General Electric, Microsoft, Siemens and other multinational firms is putting pressure on the Obama administration and key lawmakers as trade negotiators prepare for U.N. climate change talks this summer.
"While progress on these environmental negotiations is vitally important, such compulsory licensing is not the answer," the groups said in a letter Tuesday backing a proposal by Reps. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., offered as an amendment to the foreign relations authorization bill expected on the House floor soon. The House Rules Committee approved a slightly modified version of the amendment Tuesday that will be considered with the bill on the House floor. Business groups worry that countries like Brazil, China and India will push for mandatory carve-outs for alternative energy innovations. A series of meetings begin this month and will lead up to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, where parties will seek agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Read CongressDaily's recent coverage of this issue here and here (subscription required).
A group backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, digital royalty rights collector SoundExchange and other music interests filed a complaint with the FCC late Tuesday claiming that AM and FM radio stations belonging to the National Association of Broadcasters have threatened performers, refused to run their advertisements, and made misleading statements to the public. The filing by the MusicFirst Coalition comes as Congress contemplates whether to end a long-standing royalty exemption afforded to terrestrial radio. "For more than 80 years radio stations have been using the work of artists and musicians without compensating them, now they're using the public airwaves unfairly for their own self interest," said MusicFirst Executive Director Jennifer Bendall. "We respect the First Amendment rights of broadcasters to air their views in this and any debate, but they've crossed the line."
NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton issued a statement calling the allegation "an act of desperation by a record label lobby losing on Capitol Hill and in the court of public opinion." He added that Will.i.am, a vocal proponent of the performance fee legislation, and his group The Black Eyed Peas currently hold the No. 1 slot on Billboard's Pop 100 Airplay Chart with the song "Boom Boom Pow." "If there's an FCC probe involving the music business, it ought to focus on claims from numerous artists -- from The Beatles to Prince to Cher -- that they were cheated out of royalties by their record labels," Wharton said. The House Judiciary Committee recently approved the bill backed by MusicFirst and a companion measure awaits action in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Congressional Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention Caucus Co-Chair Robert Wexler warned an international crowd of copyright executives Wednesday that the intellectual property policy push outside of Washington and Brussels has not gained enough steam. Most average citizens would be unable to describe what IP piracy is and others don't see it as a threat, the Florida Democrat said during a luncheon keynote at the World Copyright Summit. He cautioned that momentum for international IP infringers is building and offered as proof the fact that Sweden's Pirate Party won a seat in the European Parliament early Sunday. The group, buoyed by young people and first-time voters, became known earlier this year for its support of the controversial file-sharing Web site Pirate Bay.
Government and private sector efforts to make IP theft taboo have fallen short, he said. "Those of us who understand the importance of IP law fail to do the job of educating others toward our point of view," Wexler said, urging creators, governments and industry to spread a cohesive message. "We have a great story to tell but we must tell it better." Traditional advocacy is not enough because it gets lost in a sea of detractors who "don't necessarily play by the rules," Wexler said. Groups like Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants more free Internet content, woo supporters with attractive prose that is not based in fact, he said. "We end up with the difficult task of explaining the finer points of copyright law to a public that has little or no interest in an explanation," Wexler said.
The House on Tuesday passed legislation under suspension of the rules that would allow many months of royalty negotiations between the music and Internet industries continue while delaying full implementation of a controversial rate-setting for webcasters imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., with support from Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and California Democrats Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo. It would replace a Feb. 15, 2009 deadline that was part of legislation that passed the 110th Congress, with a 30-day window from the date of enactment for a deal to be reached between digital royalty collector SoundExchange, which is negotiating on behalf of copyright owners and performers, and Internet radio services represented by the Digital Media Association and others.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a companion measure with Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., last month and the bill has been referred to the Judiciary Committee. SoundExchange and the National Association of Broadcasters already reached agreement on Internet radio royalties earlier this year that provides discounts on previously set rates for 2009 and 2010 and establishes rates for 2011-2015. Under the arrangement, which involves AM and FM radio stations that simulcast programming over the Internet or that create new stand-alone Internet stations, simulcasts or Web channels operated by local stations are reduced for the first two years by about 16 percent then gradually increase through 2015 -- from $0.0015 per streamed sound recording in 2009 to $0.0025 per stream by 2015. Read more on the topic here.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday he is hopeful the Senate Judiciary Committee will move forward on its intellectual property agenda as early as this summer despite a packed schedule of judicial appointments, most prominently that of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Among the issues awaiting the panel's attention include a proposal to end an AM/FM radio royalty exemption; overhauling a portion of U.S. copyright law that deals with musical tracks, images, videos or other content whose owners cannot be easily located; and a bill to reauthorize expiring provisions of a statute that lets satellite systems retransmit local and distant TV signals into markets across the country. His comments at the World Copyright Summit echoed Thursday remarks by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy.
"There's no question that radio play promotes artists and their sound recordings," Hatch, himself a songwriter. "There's also no question that radio stations profit directly from playing artists' recordings." Despite an oppositional lobbying blitz by the National Association of Broadcasters, a bill that would require payments to performers passed the House Judiciary Committee last month. Representatives from both camps faced off at the conference with NAB and Recording Industry Association of America executives predicting a lengthy, potentially multi-year fight. "The question is not will this pass, but when will it pass," RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol said. Digital Media Association Executive Director Jonathan Potter and Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn urged for a broadening of the effort to ensure parity across music platforms, including Internet radio.
A California appeals court's reinstatement of an antitrust lawsuit against a firm that administers the .com and .net domain name registration systems could add a new wrinkle to the ongoing debate in Washington over the future of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and its relationships with various entities that have a stake in the security and stability of the World Wide Web. The unanimous 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last Friday will allow an Internet industry trade group to proceed to trial on claims that Mountain View-based VeriSign inflated the cost of domain names by engaging in predatory and monopolistic behavior. The court reversed an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte, who dismissed the suit brought by the Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) four years ago.
The lawsuit alleged VeriSign secured the ICANN contract through 2012 without a competitive bidding process. After solidifying its control of Internet addresses ending in .com, VeriSign has incrementally increased registration fees. At a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee last week, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., asked VeriSign Chief Technology Officer Ken Silva whether his firm planned to raise rates again in 2009. Silva could not answer. At the same hearing, an executive at Web hosting firm GoDaddy argued the manner in which the VeriSign-ICANN deal was negotiated lacked transparency and an official from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration pledged to conduct "a fulsome review" involving the Justice Department and others when the contract's expiration nears.
Proponents of proposed changes to the U.S. patent system are getting antsy as the increasingly packed House and Senate calendars dash their hopes for swift action on legislation this year. At its recent meeting, the Intellectual Property Owners Association board of directors adopted a resolution urging the Senate to bring a bill sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to a vote soon. The bill passed his committee in April and staffers for Leahy and Majority Leader Harry Reid have begun discussing how and when to move the measure to the floor. "We are still taking a look at this complicated issue and how it fits into the broader floor schedule," a spokeswoman for Reid said Friday. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and other judicial appointments will consume much of Leahy's time in the weeks ahead.
IPO's board approved a number of other resolutions for 2009, including:
• Support for legislation to repeal the qui tam cause of action of Section 292(b) of the patent statute for false marking of products.
• Support for U.S. Customs and Border Protection statutory and regulatory authority over design patents by creating a registry similar to what currently exists for goods protected by trademarks or copyrights.
• Opposition to legislation that does not respect the essentially territorial nature of patent rights by providing that it shall not be an act of infringement in the United States to use, offer to sell, or sell within the United States, or import any patented invention based on first sale abroad of the patented invention by or under authority of the owner or licensee of an applicable U.S. patent or corresponding foreign patent.
Read more IPO resolutions here.
Senate Rules Chairman Charles Schumer and ranking member Robert Bennett offered colleagues some tips this week on how to use Internet-based new media since September 2008 changes allowing senators to move beyond their official Senate.gov sites to take advantage of innovations like the micro-blogging service Twitter and video sharing site YouTube. At that time, offices were instructed that "care needs to be taken not to violate Senate rules, regulations, standing orders and statutes governing Senate operations, including the prohibition on using Senate Internet resources for personal, promotional, commercial, or partisan political/campaign purposes."
Their Wednesday letter points out:
• Senate business must be separate from political/commercial/promotional activities.
• No official resources (office funds, staff time, equipment, space) may be used for the creation or maintenance of political, commercial, or promotional material on these sites.
• Members maintaining sites outside Senate.gov domain should ensure that public commentary, if permitted, is clearly distinguished from official content.
• Certain Web sites may collect data from users and members are cautioned against having an official presence on sites that may use such data for political or commercial activities.
• Sites with official Senate content may not require a fee or service charge for viewing.
• Certain sites, especially those that are not official sanctioned by the Senate Rules Committee, may place advertising on pages containing official member content. This can pose risks to members who may have no control over the content.
• At this time the only third-party Web site that has formally entered into an agreement to keep all promotional, commercial, or partisan advertising and commentary from member sponsored pages is YouTube.
• The Rules Committee is actively working with other sites to include them on the list of sites that agree to the Senate Internet regulation requirements.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy on Thursday reaffirmed his commitment to moving forward on several technology-related measures this summer. In opening remarks at his panel's first business meeting since Memorial Day recess, he stressed the importance of voting on a number of key judicial nominees, which have stalled in his committee, so members could begin to advance their legislative priorities on the intellectual property front. "Both the list of nominees and our legislative agenda continue to grow with new and important matters. We really need to make progress," Leahy said. While Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will consume much of the committee's time in the weeks ahead, the Performance Rights Act is still among his top priorities. That bill would end a long-standing copyright royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio stations that has been backed by the music business but panned by broadcasters.
Leahy also said he wants the Judiciary Committee to consider provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that are slated to sunset on Dec. 31. The expiring sections include a "roving wiretap" provision that allowed government bugs on a phone used by a person being tapped as well as language broadening law enforcement access to library and bookstore patrons' records. Also set to sunset is a "lone wolf" amendment to a related intelligence law that covers a noncitizen who engages in or prepares for international terrorism. Another bill awaiting action would extend the Satellite Home Viewer Act, "so that those of our constituents who watch television through satellite reception do not see their service interrupted," Leahy said. The statute permits satellite systems to retransmit local and distant TV signals into markets across the country.
Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, plan to reintroduce legislation Thursday that would grant a five-year moratorium on new telecommunications taxes. Currently, telecom services are taxed at a rate that rivals - and in some places exceeds - taxes on tobacco and alcohol. Their Mobile Wireless Tax Fairness Act will also be cosponsored by Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. The measure stalled in the Senate Finance Committee last year. Related bills were introduced in the 110th Congress by McCain and Reps. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. Lofgren also reintroduced her legislation in March.
Upon introduction of his identical bill last session, Wyden stressed that it would not impact a single current tax that has been levied by a state or locality nor would it remove a dollar from their communal coffers. "What it will do is guarantee our wireless network providers protection from even greater taxation at a time when we are asking them to implement the largest technology upgrade in history -- an upgrade that will bring economically important, true broadband speeds to wireless customers for the first time," he said. "There are lots of problems with the way federal, state and local taxes are levied on telecommunications services. This legislation addresses only one of those problems, but it is a big one," he said.
Wyden's prior bill won support from CTIA-The Wireless Association and other groups like FreedomWorks, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group led by ex-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. At the time, CTIA CEO Steve Largent called the current taxation regime "unfair and discriminatory" and said that Wyden and Snowe's states are examples of places that have reasonable taxes. He pointed out that the average U.S. wireless customer pays more than 15 percent of his or her monthly bill in taxes and fees -- more than twice the rate imposed on other goods subject to sales tax. "This is an indefensible level of taxation for most any product, let alone one that allows millions of Americans to constantly stay connected with the world around them," Largent said.
A chorus of House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee members today called for an extension of the U.S. government's formal oversight agreement with the nonprofit that administers the Internet domain name system, citing concerns about the 11-year-old organization's transparency, accountability, budget processes, and stakeholder affairs. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers remains "far from a model of effective and sustainable self-governance" and it would be unwise to shrink the federal government's role amid increased cyber attacks and rapid Internet innovation, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said at a hearing. Subcommittee ranking member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., Mike Doyle, D-Pa., John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Lee Terry, R-Neb., each backed the extension of a joint project agreement between ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
"ICANN seems better at furthering its own interests than those of the millions of Internet users it's supposed to look out for," Doyle said. Terry and others emphasized the issue is a matter of national security and must be examined carefully." Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said ICANN does not have the independent, authoritative governance structure to keep other governments from abusing their power to interfere with Internet governance and citizens' use of the platform. Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., is reportedly drafting a letter to NTIA with the backing of Stearns and Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton that recommends a one-year extension of the agreement. Boucher told Tech Daily Dose after the hearing that he had not made a firm decision on how to proceed but would be doing so in the near future.
Google's recruitment of Seth Webb, the House Financial Services Committee's second-most senior Republican aide, is the latest in a string of recent GOP hires by major high-tech companies in Washington. The trend, some policy watchers believe, demonstrates the tech lobby hasn't shied away from wooing Republicans even as much of K Street has augmented its Democratic workforce since President Obama took office. Webb, who is Financial Services ranking member Spencer Bachus' deputy staff director, served as chief of staff for Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., and before that was a senior aide to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. He will join the ranks of recently hired Republicans at IBM and SAP. Also this spring, IBM brought on Chris Padilla, former Commerce Department undersecretary for international trade under former President George W. Bush to run its government affairs office. Padilla, who replaced veteran IBM executive Christopher Caine, spent three years at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and lobbied for AT&T. Caine opened a consulting firm, Mercator XXI. Read the full story in CongressDaily's AM Edition here (subscription required).
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked the chamber's Chief Administration Officer Dan Beard to enforce a new level of disclosure for official expenditures from the offices of House members and to post the documents online as soon as possible. She announced the expansion of House rules, which is part of her larger effort to increase transparency and accountability on Capitol Hill, on her blog Wednesday. Member's expenses are currently collected and published as bound paper volumes called the "Statements of Expenditures" but Congress has not made this public information available in an online format, the Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich said on his group's blog. The watchdog group called for online disclosure of the expense records in December 2008 and again last Wednesday, he pointed out.
Transparency watchdogs have argued that failing to make disbursement reports available online gives them an air of secrecy that is largely unwarranted given the uncontroversial content of the reports. As Sunlight advocates in its model Transparency in Government Act, a transparent 111th Congress will open up its books for review by the public, "and will find that this painless endeavor helps to begin to restore the public's trust in the accountability of the institution," Wonderlich said. By instructing the CAO to place the expenditures on the Internet, Pelosi is opening lawmakers' expenditures to unprecedented public scrutiny, he added. The move follows a recent scandal in the United Kingdom where Members of Parliament faced scrutiny for expensing personal items on the public dime. Read more here.
On the eve of a congressional hearing to examine the future of the government's relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the California-based entity that administers the Web addressing system is getting some celebrity support. Former Vice President Al Gore has joined with Vint Cerf, known to many as one of the fathers of the Internet, in acknowledging the success of the group's multi-stakeholder, bottom up governance. Gore led an interagency panel 12 years ago that was charged with coordinating the U.S. government's electronic commerce strategy, which led to the creation of ICANN.
"What we have all those years later is an organization that works," Gore said. "[ICANN] has security as its core mission, is responsive to all global stakeholders and is independent and democratic. We should make permanent those foundations for success," he said. Cerf, who long-served as ICANN's chairman and is now Google's chief Internet evangelist, argued the past decade has shown the ICANN model has worked. "The ICANN of today is larger, more capable, more international, and better positioned to fulfill its mandate." ICANN has benefited from a joint project agreement with the U.S. government, which is slated to expire in September, but "the time has now come to conclude it," Cerf said.
Cerf's comments are contained in written testimony, which ICANN will ask the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee to accept for the record on Thursday. Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., has been be urged by Internet industry stakeholders to hold the hearing amid continued concerns about ICANN's accountability and transparency. Invited witnesses include: National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Fiona Alexander; ICANN President Paul Twomey; Verisign Senior Vice President Kenneth Silva; GoDaddy General Counsel Christine Jones; Verizon Vice President Sarah Deutsch; and Thomas Lenard, president of the Technology Policy Institute.
A non-binding resolution opposing legislation that would end a long-standing royalty exemption granted to AM and FM radio has gained majority support in the House. The measure, which was sponsored by Texas Reps. Gene Green, a Democrat, and Republican Mike Conaway, had 219 cosponsors as of Tuesday, aides said. The latest additions that put it over the 50 percent mark were Reps. Ron Kind, D-Wis.; Bob Inglis, R-S.C.; Dale Kildee, D-Mich.; Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla.; Leonard Lance, R-N.J.; Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.; Harry Teague, D-N.M.; Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M.; Ed Royce, R-Calif.; and Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa. In the 110th Congress, Green's resolution gathered more than 220 backers.
"This is our base whip list," Green said in a recent interview. "This is nonbinding but if someone signs on and votes another way, they'd have to explain that to a lot of constituents." If the House royalty bill, which is sponsored by Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and has already cleared his committee, makes it onto the floor, Green said he hopes he will have enough supporters to vote it down. News of the mounting opposition came as Conyers hosted a town hall meeting in Detroit aimed at drumming up support for his bill, which would give a boost to performers and record labels. Minority owned Radio One, which has several stations in the Motor City has panned the measure, arguing it could put some broadcasters out of business.
Meanwhile, the MusicFirst Coalition, which supports the Conyers bill, circulated an annotated side-by-side comparison [PDF] of the legislation and Green's resolution on Monday in an attempt to debunk critics' claims. A number of changes were made during House Judiciary Committee deliberations that proponents believe would lessen the burden on small and medium-sized stations as well as minority broadcasters.
Washington will be crawling with high-tech executives Tuesday and Wednesday as the Business Software Alliance hosts a major fly-in for members to meet with movers and shakers on Capitol Hill and in the Obama administration. The timing and purpose of the gathering is critical given that a range of top policy debates have implications for the future of software and IT networks. Economic recovery and jobs, healthcare reform, tax reform, infrastructure investment, energy independence, workforce skills, openness in government, global cooperation and other topics have the potential to create new opportunities -- as well as risks and challenges -- for the software sector.
The fly-in also comes on the heels of President Obama's Friday remarks about his sweeping cybersecurity agenda and his view that the issue be treated as a top national priority. In March, BSA co-hosted a meeting of IT industry executives with Melissa Hathaway -- a top adviser to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair who conducted a 60-day review of the federal cybersecurity posture -- and submitted detailed recommendations. BSA members who will be making the rounds include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen, and Symantec Chairman John Thompson, who at one time was a rumored contender for Commerce secretary under Obama.
TechCentral's latest Issue Of The Week reports...
Now that the results of President Obama's cybersecurity review are out, the focus has shifted to the yet-unnamed White House cyber czar who will carry out five broad goals: developing a comprehensive strategy to secure networks; coordinating with states and cities to respond to any future attacks; strengthening coordination between the government and the private sector; ramping up government investments in research and development; and launch
