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Security
Senate Readies For Final Vote On Security Measure
After facing gridlock late last week, the Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on a handful of final amendments to a bill that would implement unfulfilled recommendations of the commission that studied the 2001 terrorist attacks. CongressDaily reports that one of the most contentious amendments is a proposal by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., that would require the Homeland Security Department to divert rail cars carrying hazardous materials away from population centers and other high-threat areas. Senators and aides were still working at press time to determine the amendments that will be voted on and those that will be dropped.
Security
Bush, Mexican President To Discuss Border Issues
President Bush will meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday to try to convince Calderon that he wants to sooth strained U.S.-Mexico relations, AP reports. Relations between the countries worsened after Bush signed a law to build 700 miles of combined physical barriers and virtual fencing along the shared border. Calderon plans to tell Bush that the United States has to do more to solve issues of drug-trafficking and immigration. They also are expected to discuss port security and modernizing customs to facilitate trade.
Privacy
FTC Acknowledges Probe Of Retailer's Data Breach
The FTC is investigating the recent data breach at the retailer TJX, The Boston Globe reports. Potentially millions of customers' credit- and debit-card data was exposed when hackers accessed the retailer's systems in 2005. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., praised the FTC's decision to probe the breach. "An FTC investigation into the TJX data breach should uncover the extent of the harm suffered by TJX customers and shine a light on the security weaknesses at TJX that were exploited by data thieves hunting for consumers' personal information," he said. The FTC told the Globe of the investigation after the newspaper requested documents relating to the matter. The commission said "disclosure of that material could reasonably be expected to interfere with the conduct of the commission's law enforcement activities."
Lobbying
Broadcast Lobbyist Fights Satellite Radio Merger
A former beer lobbyist has transformed himself into the leader of a loosely knit coalition trying to prevent the Sirus and XM satellite radio companies from merging. The Washington Post reports that National Association of Broadcasters President David Rehr has emerged as a key player in a debate before Congress, the FCC and the Justice Department on whether Sirius and XM should be allowed to merge. Rehr, who was the top lobbyist at the National Beer Wholesalers Association for six years before joining NAB, said he would use "all the tools the NAB has at its disposal" to fight the deal. He said at a recent House hearing that the companies should not be trusted with what would effectively be monopoly power in their market.
Spectrum
Tech Firms Want 'White Spaces' For Broadband Use
A coalition of technology firms is pushing federal regulators to allow high-speed Internet service to be delivered over the unused "white spaces" of television airwaves. The Washington Post reports that Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips plan on Tuesday to give the FCC a device built by Microsoft that is capable of providing Internet service on those idle television channels. The coalition first needs to convince the FCC that Internet traffic would not disrupt activity outside designated channels and interfere with other broadcasts. "These devices have the potential to take the success of the [wireless] phenomenon to another level," FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said.
Intellectual Property
House Democrats Urge Changes To Various Trade Deals
Twelve House Democrats on Monday urged U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab to rewrite intellectual property provisions of the Colombia, Panama and Peru free-trade deals, with an eye toward providing greater access to generic medicines to citizens of those countries. CongressDaily reports that seven of the Democrats who signed the letter to Schwab are members of the Ways and Means Committee, which will be the first to consider the trade agreements if they are sent to Congress by the Bush administration. Schwab is seeking to negotiate a compromise on labor provisions with House Democrats that would remove a key obstacle to passage of the trade deals. But some Democrats are also pressing for renegotiation of provisions dealing with the environment, port security and now intellectual property.
Intellectual Property
'Cyber Squatters' Get More Sophisticated, WIPO Says
The Internet-addressing system is in growing danger of becoming a chaotic speculative market because of more sophisticated "cyber squatters," according to the World Intellectual Property Organization. Reuters reports that WIPO officials said on Monday that new techniques are being developed by people who seek financial gain by registering Internet addresses based on company brands only with the intent to resell them at premium prices. The organization said it has been working on new approaches to allow patent holders to pursue such cyber squatters. New techniques of cyber squatters include using software to automatically detect expired site names, re-register them worldwide and park them on portals that generate advertising revenue.
Politics
Blog Pressure Kills Democratic Presidential Debate
After weeks of pressure from Internet activists on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cancel Fox News' co-sponsorship of a Democratic presidential debate planned in Nevada for August, Reid told Fox on Friday that the debate will not be held. The Politico reports that Reid on Thursday held a 20-minute conference call with liberal bloggers like Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos and Matt Stoller of MyDD. They told Reid, D-Nev., that his support of the debate, which Reid had called "great for Nevada," was costing him his popularity with the party's Internet grassroots. Reid said the decision to cancel the debate was made in a conference call with he and state party officials. In other news, Computerworld reports that Indian bloggers have spotted more instances of Yahoo duplicating their content.
Civil Liberties
Blogs Targeted In New Round Of Chinese Web Rules
The Chinese government plans to introduce more Internet regulations, Reuters reports. "We must recognize that in an era when the Internet is developing at a breakneck pace, government oversight and control measures and means are facing new tests," said Long Xinmin, China's director of general administration of press and publication. According to the Beijing Morning Post, Long highlighted the writers of Web logs as one challenge. Long also said "citizens' freedom of expression would be fully protected." In other news, The Wall Street Journal reports that China's economic planning agency has authorized Intel to build a chip plant in the northeastern city of Dalian.
Intellectual Property
Malaysian Police Use Sniffer Dogs To Fight Piracy
Malaysia is not calling off the dogs in the fight against music and movie piracy. Instead, the Asian nation is calling on the dogs for help. Reuters reports that Malaysia deployed two sniffer dogs to find discs of illegal recordings in cargo. It is the first country to use animals in such a way. Domestic Trade Minister Shafie Apdal said, "It's cost-effective, and in terms of time, it's very effective, too." A search of boxes that would have taken security officials a day only took the dogs 10 minutes. Malaysia is currently on a U.S. watch list for piracy but has bolstered its efforts to fight copyright infringement because it is in negotiations with the United States for a free-trade agreement.
Cyber Security
U.S. Government Web Sites Are Safest, Report Says
Internet addresses that end in .gov are the safest ones, News.com reports. The security firm McAfee reports that it found no dangerous Web sites within the domain for U.S. government agencies. On the other side, McAfee said one in 10 Web sites that end in .tk, the domain for the tiny island of Tokelau, spread malicious software or require a warning. The company said that 4.1 percent of tested Web sites require a warning. The most risky country-based domains include Romania (.ro) and Russia (.ru). Safer domains included Finland (.fi), Ireland (.ie) and Norway (.no). In other news, GovExec.com reports that a senior White House said Monday that federal agencies may not need their own access points to the Internet because they are not large enough to maintain the physical locations that house servers, routers and Internet service providers.
E-Government
Red-Light Runners Caught On Film -- Or Maybe Not
Roughly half of the red-light traffic cameras deployed in the District of Columbia are broken, according to the company that now manages the system. The Washington Post reports that a memorandum written by American Traffic Solutions found that 23 of the city's 50 traffic cameras have not been working, and the city may have lost millions of dollars in fines. "It's unconscionable that these have been inoperable," District Council Chairman Vincent Gray said. "I'm not even talking from the revenue perspective. I'm talking from the safety perspective." In other news, the Post reports that Montgomery County became the first county in Maryland on Monday to deploy a speed-enforcement camera system.
E-Government
Firm's Tech Work In Defense Intelligence Is Renewed
GTSI will continue to work with the Defense Intelligence Agency to provide Microsoft enterprise support, Government Computer News reports. The company received a $16.5 million renewal contract that includes desktop and laptop computers and software for the Defense Department's Intelligence Information Systems community, including DIA, Joint Reserve Intelligence Program, Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center, Missile and Space Intelligence Center, and J2 Intelligence Directorate. Government Computer News also reports that the Internal Revenue Service has tapped General Dynamics' information technology unit and awarded a five-year, $9.6 million contract to help modernize its systems.
Spectrum
Reports Downplay Mobile Interference At Hospitals
Two reports suggest that the danger of radio waves from devices such as cellular telephones interfering with implanted medical devices or hospitals is small. The New York Times reports that the studies were published in the March issue of The Mayo Clinic Proceedings and received research financing from manufacturers of medical equipment. One report found two examples in which anti-theft devices in cars apparently caused medical devices to malfunction. In the other report, researchers used wireless handheld devices in hospitals to see if they would cause interference with medical devices. No interference was reported, and the authors recommend that the existing ban on cell-phone use in hospitals be relaxed. In other news, AP reports that there were few problems with computers' shift to daylight-savings time over the weekend.
Business
Unprofitable Tech Companies Go Public, Find Takers
A number of unprofitable technology companies have launched initial public offerings of stock in U.S. capital markets since the beginning of 2006, The Wall Street Journal reports. During the dot-com boom, many unprofitable technology companies without clear business models were warmly greeted by investors when they entered the market. But the current growth of unprofitable tech IPOs is still not as high as 1999, when 85 percent of tech companies that went public had no profits, according to Thomson Financial. "There's now a tremendous willingness to pay for growth," said Vadim Zlotnikov, chief investment officer at Sanford Bernstein. "We've had four years of unbelievable capital discipline. Now we've entered a bit more of a speculative environment again." In other news, News.com reports that Microsoft is close to acquiring a firm that bridges the worlds of speech recognition and the Internet.
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Blog Bits
Movie Pirates Can Expect Subpoenas 'Early And Often'
Broadcast.com founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban does not intend to sue the users of Google's video-sharing site who have posted clips from a movie for which he holds the copyright. But he said this week on his Web log that he has subpoenaed Google for the names of the users.
Cuban is an owner of the distributor of the horror film "The Host." He sought a subpoena to disclose the identity of a Google Video user who posted clips from the film before its release without express consent.
On his blog, Cuban said he intends to continue to file subpoenas "early and often" to get the names and e-mail addresses of users who are uploading pirated content to the Web.
"I suspect that from time to time we will get the e-mails and actually be able to make contact with users," Cuban said. "That is when it could get interesting. I want to ask them some simple questions. The first of which is, 'Why?' Sure, there are a lot of possible and obvious answers, but maybe they will tell me something new or interesting that I can learn from."
Elsewhere in the blogosphere:
-- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos called on the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network, commonly known as C-SPAN, to go further in liberalizing its copyright policies for access to public affairs programming.
-- Mike Masnick at Tech Dirt opined on the value of the universal service fund, which subsidizes telecommunications infrastructure in rural and low-income regions.
-- Mary Katharine Ham at Townhall said the Nevada Democratic Party is catering to liberal bloggers by backing out of a debate scheduled to be hosted by Fox News.
-- And Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge lamented the "death" of legislation in Maryland designed to keep Internet network owners from charging premium rates to content providers for high-speed access.
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