Lobbying
Library Groups Urge PTO To Rethink 'Open Source' Stance
by Drew Clark
A group of five library associations on Thursday wrote to Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Director James Rogan to express "surprise and dismay at recent statements" made by a PTO deputy about the "open source" software-development model.
The American Library Association and the four other specialized library groups urged Rogan to reverse the office's opposition to an international meeting devoted to open-source software and other models of "open and collaborative projects."
Unlike proprietary software, the programming code of open-source software is freely available to anyone who seeks to obtain copies. Microsoft and other proprietary companies have been critical of the government's use of one type of open-source software on the grounds that it undermines intellectual property rights.
But open-source advocates and a wide range of copyright lawyers disagree with that assertion.
"Our software relies just as much on copyright law than does software created by Microsoft," said Eban Mogelin, general counsel of the Free Software Foundation, which creates the general public license used by Linux, the most popular open-source product.
"The difference is not whether we rely on copyright but for what purpose," Mogelin said. Proprietary software uses copyright to seek profits, he said, but "we use copyright for a purpose more fully in keeping with the intentions underlying the copyright system in the first place -- to promote the progress of science and the useful arts."
The controversy most recently erupted after Lois Boland, the PTO's acting director of international relations, told National Journal's Technology Daily that the U.S. government opposes a conference of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) devoted to topics including open-source software.
Boland said WIPO's charter is "clearly limited to the protection of intellectual property. To have a meeting whose primary objective is to waive or remove those protections seems to go against the mission."
In an Aug. 22 letter to Boland, Ed Black, CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and founder of the new Open Source and Industry Alliance (OSAIA), said those comments "reflect a profound misunderstanding of open-source licenses and the copyright law."
In their letter to Rogan, the five library groups said PTO "openly chastised [WIPO] for its favorable reaction to a proposal" by distinguished scientists and open-source software advocates.
"The application of open and collaborative models raises important intellectual property issues for the international community that WIPO should be addressing," the library officials said in the letter, noting that models like open-source software and the Human Genome Project "are experiments in creative use of intellectual property law to achieve socially responsible and productive ends."
Regarding the controversy over Boland's remarks, PTO spokeswoman Brigid Quinn said, "There is no debate, and there has never been a debate within the USPTO concerning the viability of underlying copyright protection for so-called open-source software."
Budget
Senate Panel Targets Technology Administration Funds
by Drew Clark
Senate appropriators on Thursday voted to halt funding for the Commerce Department's Technology Administration in approving a bill that would fund the Commerce, Justice and State departments in fiscal 2004. Under the bill, the Bush administration's $8 million request for the agency would be rejected entirely.
Instead, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to boost funding for both the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA).
The administration requested $497 million for NIST, and the competing House-passed spending bill, H.R. 2799, would provide only $460 million. By contrast, the Senate draft bill would allocate $842 million for NIST, restoring funds the administration had sought to take out of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).
The administration requested $27 million for ATP; the House voted to zero out funding. The Senate measure would restore the funding to $260 million. For MEP, meanwhile, the administration had requested $13 million. The House legislation would allocate $40 million, and the Senate committee upped that to $107 million.
The Senate panel also voted to boost NTIA funding, from both the $21 million administration request and $33 million House proposal, to $85 million. The committee's bill also would allocate $55 million into public telecommunications facilities and planning, and $16 million into information infrastructure grants. The administration had requested $3 million and zero dollars for those two categories in NTIA's budget.
"We feel very confident that the money will be restored" in conference committee, said Connie Correll, senior adviser to Technology Undersecretary Phil Bond, whose entire budget had been cut earlier in the appropriations process. House appropriators had pared the request to $7.8 million, after initially zeroing Technology Administration funding in a subcommittee markup.
Correll cited support for the agency from the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, congressional leadership and technology industry groups. In a letter earlier this week to Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, chairman of the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Subcommittee, the task force urged full funding of the Technology Administration.
The group recommended that the Republican appropriators "affirm our support for the pro-technology efforts of the Bush administration" and "be supportive of the Technology Administration to ensure its continued good work for the industry and the administration."
"The decision is short-sighted and we are going to reverse it," said Ralph Hellman, senior vice president for the Information Technology Industry Council. "It is a very important office that helps the high-tech community fight for its priorities in order for the industry to continue to rebound and create new jobs."
The controversy between appropriators over the ATP and MEP comes after the administration announced plans to reorganize the Commerce Department, where NIST and NTIA are housed, and to fold technology and telecommunications programs into the Technology Administration. Congress has been chilly to the proposal.
Security
House Chairman Favors Temporary Terrorist-Threat Center
by William New
The new Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) for compiling terrorism information from various agencies must be temporary if the Homeland Security Department is not to violate its statutory requirements, the chairman of a congressional oversight committee said on Friday.
"It's very plain if one reads the act [establishing the department] that the 'one-stop shop' is the Department of Homeland Security," California Republican Christopher Cox, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview. "I am satisfied that in the short run [that the TTIC] is a useful expedient. The department after all is still under construction. But we have to view TTIC as an interim step, not as a displacement of the statutory responsibilities."
Cox added that the law establishing the department "reflects the careful balancing of some very sensitive policy choices made my Congress," and said "one of those policy choices was [that] we do not wish the CIA to be increasingly involved in our domestic life. Homeland Security, by its very nature, involves our domestic life. Per force, the CIA cannot be in charge of ultimate oversight of the domestic-intelligence fusion function."
Cox said the handling of domestic intelligence on terrorism is "in flux," which is "why Congress has a significant role to play."
Cox's committee also is temporary at this point, scheduled for termination in a year. Cox spoke in the committee's new offices in the Library of Congress' Adams Building, saying that if his committee was made permanent and he remained chairman he would cede his position in the Republican leadership.
"I have a leadership position in the House, which is of some significance and which I value highly," he said. "I'm also chairman of a select committee, which by its structure will cease to exist at the end of the 108th Congress. If the committee becomes permanent, it would be extremely unlikely that I would participate both as chairman of the committee and as a member of the leadership."
On other tech issues, Cox said cyber security remains a top priority for him. He said his approach on that and other issues has been to communicate directly with department officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who have assured him that progress is being made.
"This is a work in progress, so it's a Rorschach test," Cox said. "Is that glass filling up, or is it way the hell too empty? I prefer to view this as a work in progress because I have a very clear idea of where I think the department should be, and I talked to many people in the department, including the secretary, who share that vision."
Cox also said that despite the establishment of the department he is getting "more [vendors] than ever" seeking to offer the government high-technology products. He said he refers the vendors to the department, sometimes with a letter from him.
Cox, who is from a tech-heavy district, said he consults regularly with technology executives on homeland security and other issues.
Privacy
Advocacy Group's Survey Highlights Privacy Trends
by Ted Leventhal
Systems of government control are on the rise as nations continue to use the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a pretext to expand surveillance and law enforcement powers, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) concluded in its sixth-annual survey of world privacy laws and developments.
The survey, "Privacy and Human Rights," was conducted in association with Privacy International and reviews the state of privacy in more than 55 nations. The report was unveiled at a press conference on Friday at the National Press Club.
EPIC reported a shift in public opinion against controlling systems, citing as evidence the suspension of spending for a program to mine commercial databases for information on potential terrorists, the resignation of retired Adm. John Poindexter from the Defense Department agency overseeing that project, the backlash in more than 150 U.S. communities against the 2001 anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act, and public opposition to biometrics and computerized identification cards around the world.
Public opposition to the PATRIOT Act and the data-mining program known as Terrorism Information Awareness has been an "extraordinary development," EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg said. While the American public supported expanded law enforcement authority as a response to terrorism in 2001 and 2002, Rotenberg noted, this year Americans are "voicing skepticism and opposition" to the two initiatives.
The most egregious ongoing privacy threat, according to the survey labeled, is an airline passenger-profiling system known as the Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System, or CAPPS II. "When a system as sophisticated as CAPPS II is put in place, there will be a strong incentive to use this to look for other things the government is interested in," from parents who do not pay child support to college graduates who do not repay government loans, EPIC general counsel David Sobel said.
Sobel added that in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed on Thursday by EPIC, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has agreed to release a privacy-impact statement on CAPPS II by Sept. 25. An earlier EPIC lawsuit against TSA identified large numbers of individuals being wrongfully detained in airports nationwide.
Rotenberg and Sobel also said that by demanding that European airlines divulge passenger lists to TSA, CAPPS II has put the United States on a collision course with European privacy laws as soon as this fall.
EPIC also targeted the "Whois" databases of people who register Internet addresses as another emerging threat to privacy. The group said the databases expose personal information of domain-name registrants to spam e-mail, stalkers, criminal investigators and copyright enforcers.
The survey also noted that personal-identification systems are being developed for citizens of other industrialized nations. Japan has launched a computerized national ID system, and others are being established in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Singapore and Spain.
Inventory-tracking tags, video surveillance technologies, and the potential abuse of genetic and medical data all are hot topics worldwide, the survey reported, and many countries have issued reports on the impact of such technology.
E-Government
Panel Eases House Rule On E-Mail To Constituents
by Susan Davis, CongressDaily
House members are now allowed to send e-mails in excess of 500 without receiving an advisory opinion from an internal commission that oversees mass mailings after the House Administration Committee approved a new policy on Friday. In the past, postal mail and e-mail were held to the same standards and restrictions, particularly during the 90 days before any public election.
"These forms of communication are different and therefore should be regulated differently," said House Administration Chairman Bob Ney, R-Ohio.
Incumbents now can send mass e-mails solely in response to solicitations from citizens, most commonly found in the form of sign-up newsletters available on legislators' Web sites.
According to sources, House Administration ranking Democrat John Larson of Connecticut originally supported the policy change but led the Democrats' opposition at Friday's hearing. He argued that the policy change creates "an enormous temptation for abuse" because the content of the e-mails does not have to be approved by the Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards, better known as the Franking Commission.
Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., argued that the purpose of e-mail newsletters is "to educate the public about what we are doing here, not to curry favor." While members do not have to seek an advisory opinion before distributing mass e-mails, they must adhere to the current rules on content set by the commission during the 90-day pre-election period.
Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., argued that the new policy would give incumbents who represent wealthier districts an advantage because more of their constituents have access to computers. Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., countered, "You don't cut down all the tall trees in the forest so they're no taller than the short ones. ... You can't punish people for being successful."
Democrats had four amendments to propose to the policy, but Larson chose not to submit them and delay the final vote because it was clear they would not pass. Larson said the parties had a "principled disagreement" on the e-mail policy and that the Democrats were trying to "save members from themselves or overzealous staff members."
The policy change was adopted by a party-line vote of 5-3.
Business
Experts Cite Cost As Reason For Transfer Of Tech Jobs
by Ted Leventhal
Outsourcing information technology jobs to businesses in the United States and overseas saves the private sector and government millions of dollars annually, government and business experts said on Thursday.
Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, which sponsored the briefing on public-sector outsourcing, said that while private-sector IT budgets have slumped recently, the public sector's will be "brisk for the foreseeable future." The federal IT budget is expected to grow from $45 billion this year to $68 billion over the next few years, he said, and the $50 billion state market will continue to be strong.
The outsourcing portion of federal and state IT contracts is expected to grow by 18 percent from 2002 to 2007, he said, adding that "competition at the federal level is huge because the stakes are huge."
However, with the country heading into an election year with a slow economy, political pressure is mounting against the practice of sending some IT jobs overseas, creating a dilemma for government agencies and businesses that want to maximize the value of their IT budgets.
Forrester Research has predicted that 3.3 million U.S. jobs will be shipped overseas by 2015, and skilled professionals are expected to fill a majority of those jobs.
"Right now, the climate does not exist in government to say the word 'offshore' out loud," said George Newstrom, Virginia's chief information officer, adding that "the political climate is adverse" to outsourcing jobs overseas or out of state.
Newstrom said Virginia is auditing its IT spending with "a long way to go," hoping to eliminate redundancy in its $925 million annual budget and eventually save $100 million by outsourcing.
Miller said ITAA opposes plans, such as recent "Buy American" language, that would limit Defense Department procurement to U.S. firms. Miller said the proposal would transform personal computers, with most of their components manufactured overseas, into prohibitively expensive goods. If you open up a Dell Computer PC, for example, "it looks like the United Nations in there," he said of the different nations that produce the various computer parts.
"I've talked to procurement officials, and all of them are nervous, afraid of becoming the focus of a front-page story" for striking a deal that would send jobs overseas, Miller said.
"If the law passed, a PC will cost $5,000 instead of $500," he said. "I think it's bad policy, bad for the taxpayer, and I'm glad [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld opposes it."
While no legislation banning state-level government outsourcing has passed, Miller expects a "push" for more legislation before the 2004 presidential election.
William Sweeney, vice president for global government affairs at Electronic Data Systems, said outsourcing information technology is not synonymous with exporting jobs across state lines or overseas. The customer ultimately decides where the work will be done, he said, and in a public-sector deal such information certainly would be disclosed.
But, he added, "I fear both of these topics will be merged in uninformed, protectionist legislation."
Privacy
Lawyers Offer Advice On Satisfying California Law
by Chloe Albanesius
The most important step that companies subject to California's new privacy law should take is to develop strategies for notifying consumers of their privacy rights, according to participants in a Thursday briefing on the statute.
Having such a plan "gives you an ability to redefine some of the legislative terms" of the bill, said Stewart Baker, a partner with the Steptoe & Johnson law firm in Washington, D.C., who focuses primarily on technology issues.
Baker was a speaker for an audio conference sponsored by the International Association of Privacy Professionals on a California law that took effect July 1. The act requires all companies to notify customers if their personal information is compromised.
Baker and Reed Freeman, a partner with the Collier, Shannon Scott law firm in Washington who has experience with online privacy issues, said that a well-defined notification plan would enable companies to deal with the various ambiguities of the law.
Chief among those ambiguities is what actually constitutes personal information. The law states that customers must be notified if their first and last names are accessed in combination with their Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, California identification numbers, or bank-account or credit-card numbers.
"The most important thing is that [the breach] involves the name plus the information; it must be in combination with one another," Reed said. "Let's say you have a name and address in one database and name and credit-card number in another database. If the first database is hacked, it does not appear that you would have to give notice under [the law, but] if the second database was hacked, presumably you would."
Another puzzling point is whether a company is considered to be "conducting business" with a California resident. An out-of-state company's California customer base could be less than 1 percent, but the company still would be subject to the law.
"One area that might be a little more promising is" regulated business, Reed said. "Often financial and sometimes other businesses require a license to do business from state to state. You could say, 'I don't conduct business because if I did, I'd have a license and I don't.' It's a plausible but evanescent hope."
The legislation says that companies must inform customers when there is a "reasonable belief" that information has been compromised. "I think what we'll be seeing people struggle with is what constitutes reasonable belief?" Reed said.
Many companies will be able to avoid the legislation because of a provision that exempts those that encrypt customer information.
While many companies viewed that language as "a savior in terms of avoiding liability," Stewart said, the main objective of having a customer database is to access information quickly and regularly, and encryption often slows the process.
Considering those issues and developing action plans before actual privacy breaches will make it easier to cope, Stewart and Reed said. "It's the best prophylactic you can engage in," Stewart said.
Taxes
Scholar Advocates E-Commerce Taxes In State Of Origin
by Chloe Albanesius
If a New Orleans resident buys a jacket online from a New York retailer and has it shipped, taxes on the purchase should go to the Big Apple and not the Big Easy, a study released on Friday said.
Michael Greve, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the study's author, said Internet sales involving cross-border transactions should be taxed at their point of origin rather than their destination. "The destination-based tax system is broken," he said. "Origin-based taxation certainly beats any destination system we could practically construe."
Greve argued that "subjecting electronic transactions to destination regulation" is tantamount to "killing the market." The only way the destination-based system is going to work, he said, is via "perfect collusion between all governments."
To make that happen in the United States one would have to "mandate state participation," he said. That, however, is "effectively a national sales tax, and "it's an option but not a politically serious option because the states don't want it and that's the end of the debate," he said.
Greve said advocates of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP), a state plan to implement a sales- and use-tax system across state boundaries, are trying to "establish some regime that guarantees cooperation" but that likely will not work because the system thus far does not involve all 50 states and some states will never join.
"Even if [SSTP] could harmonize itself once, it will de-harmonize again," he said. "My conclusion is, scrap the whole system, reverse the principle and ... let's tax goods delivered over any sales channel at the point of origin."
That would mean state governments would not have to hassle with cross-border regulations, he said, adding that "governments can stick to regulating their own firms and citizens rather than [those of] other states."
Greve acknowledged that his plan is "politically impossible at the national level. What I hope someone can imagine is an origin-based sales-tax program among a few brave states. Let them implement those things, and then you can study what actually happens in the real world. Maybe what we need is actually an experiment to break through the sterility."
Peter Merrill, director of PricewaterhouseCoopers' national economic consulting group and a panelist at the paper's presentation, argued that origin-based taxation would "require more government cooperation than destination-based taxation."
One potential problem he pointed to is tax exemptions. "The origin state would not be forced to tax when there's a company with an exemption certificate," he said. "That would require a new system between states to prevent fraud."
"If [the] origin-based sales tax is such a good idea, why aren't there more success stories out there?" Merrill asked.
Merrill also criticized U.S. sales-tax policy overall. "It's hard to imagine a worse tax system than the way the current retail sales tax operates." As opposed to Greve, however, Merrill said the "destination-based taxes can be modernized to address e-commerce issues."
Today's Feature:
Executive Summary
Business and consumer groups voiced widely different interpretations of an FTC report on identity theft released this week. Meanwhile, California's enactment of strong financial privacy regulations could dramatically change the contours of the debate on Capitol Hill about whether to renew portions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act that pre-empt state laws.
Every Friday, read the Executive Summary by Editor Sharon McLoone
|
E-briefs
On The Hill: Lawmakers eased into the legislative routine their first week back from the August congressional break, introducing only a smattering of bills -- and only two related to technology. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., introduced a measure, S. 1581, that would take several steps designed to protect victims of identity theft. Among other things, the bill would require businesses to give victims of ID theft free copies of records that could serve as evidence of fraud and strike from consumers' credit reports information related to ID theft. The other bill, H.R. 3015, seeks to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs by establishing a national database that healthcare practitioners could access to monitor when other officials prescribe certain drugs.
Telecom: Senate leaders have reached a tentative bipartisan deal to bring a "resolution of disapproval" overturning the FCC's new media ownership rules to the floor Monday morning, GOP sources said Friday. Under the tentative agreement, the Senate would begin a three-hour debate on the measure at 10 a.m., according to an aide to Senate Rules Chairman Trent Lott, who is co-sponsoring the resolution with Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. The agreement also calls for the Senate to vote on the resolution Tuesday, during a series of stacked votes on the Fiscal 2004 Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill. Dorgan has not yet agreed to the deal. The resolution is a rarely used "congressional veto" that would roll back all of the new media ownership rules approved by the FCC June 2. Those rules were scheduled to take effect Thursday, but a federal appeals court temporarily stayed the rules earlier this week.
Trade: As U.S. trade officials packed their bags for Cancun, Mexico, and the World Trade Organization's meeting there next Wednesday through Sept. 14, they strove on Friday to reassure observers that they have not lowered their expectations. "We continue to have a very high level of ambition, and we remain aggressive on the timetable," a senior U.S. trade official said in a background briefing. Foreign officials are more skeptical. The U.S. official outlined four key issues from the Bush administration's perspective, unintentionally creating a template for measuring the success or failure of the talks. The tests are based on the U.S. ambition level, backburner issues such as competition policy, issues of interest to developing nations and environmental concerns. "We want to push the negotiation as far as we can in the week we are there," the trade official said. "And there is certainly a minimum level we have to have."
Trade: President Bush plans to create a new government bureau that will focus exclusively on ensuring fair Chinese trading practices, according to administration officials. The China office will report to the new Commerce assistant secretary for manufacturing and services. Manufacturing and other business representatives in recent months have claimed harm from unfair Chinese trade practices and an under-valued Chinese currency. The new China office will handle all antidumping and countervailing duty cases related to China. In what administration officials describe as a major restructuring, the existing Commerce International Trade Administration will be revamped as a manufacturing position. According to an internal administration document obtained by CongressDaily describing the reorganization, the assistant secretary's overall responsibilities will include analyzing the impact of domestic regulations and trade agreements on manufacturers, moving industry experts "into the field" to understand and respond to industry needs, and working with a newly created "Interdepartmental Advisory Committee on Manufacturing."
Telecom: The U.S. Telecom Association (USTA) and a host of telecommunications companies on Thursday asked the FCC to delay implementing new telecom rules it released last month. The fate of the rules is uncertain, with numerous court challenges being brought, including one by USTA that alleges that the new rules are unlawful. Implementing the rules could harm the industry, the group said in the petition it filed with the FCC. "The commission's order blatantly ignores the dynamics of the rapidly evolving, highly competitive communications marketplace and should not be implemented without first being reviewed by the courts," USTA President Walter McCormick said. The petition asks the FCC to stay the rules that govern competitors' access to the regional Bells' traditional telephone networks. Four Bell firms signed the petition. If the FCC does not rule on the request by Sept. 11, the group will go to the courts, the petition says.
E-Government: Computer systems of the House Homeland Security Committee had to be made compatible with those of the Library of Congress (LOC) as the committee on Friday became the first ever to move into the library, a committee staffer said. The committee outgrew its quarters in the Cannon House Office Building as it neared fulfillment of its 50 authorized staffers, plus officials on detail from the executive branch. "We're very excited to have space that is adequate for the complement of staff that Congress has authorized," committee Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said as he sat in the committee's first conference room. Workers scurried to put finishing touches on the two spaces in the Adams Building, which has a tunnel to the Capitol. The office includes a "sensitive, compartmented information facility" with padded walls and security measures to prevent detection of conversations held there.
Business: MCI is in the midst of an internal review involving allegations by AT&T that MCI fraudulently rerouted long-distance telephone calls and has found no evidence of wrongdoing, a company official said on Friday. AT&T claims that MCI, formerly known as WorldCom, improperly routed calls to avoid charges and jeopardized national security by sending government calls across the Canadian border. "There is nothing wrong or illegal about routing calls through Canada," MCI General Counsel Anastasia Kelly said during a conference. "National security was not jeopardized in any way. It is becoming clear that AT&T's true motivation is to damage us in the marketplace." If AT&T shows MCI concrete evidence of wrongdoing, MCI will take necessary action to fix the problem, she said. Kelly noted that MCI would consider "other options" if AT&T refuses engage in a discussion in a business-like manner.
Telecom: About 60 percent of adults may sign up for the "do not call" registry against telemarketing at the FTC, according to a poll by Harris Interactive. The survey found that 32 percent of respondents said they already have registered to avoid calls from telemarketers, and four in 10 said they plan to enroll. The survey of 1,011 people found that 83 percent think the registry is a good idea, and 50 percent of those who submitted their phone numbers believe the number of telemarketing calls will decrease "a lot" as a result. However, there is public confusion about just what calls the registry will preclude. The registry applies to sales-related and commercial calls, but 42 percent think it also applies to fundraising calls from political parties and candidates and surveys on products and services, and 37 percent think it also bars calls from nonprofit and charitable groups.
Culture: Fifteen- to 25-year-olds are less likely to get their news from the Internet than other mediums, a new study found. The study, sponsored by the Center for Information and Research in Civic Learning and Engagement, found that among those people who check the news seven days a week, only 10 percent turn to the Internet for information. That number jumps to 20 percent among daily users older than 26. Twenty-five percent of young people consult television, while 22.9 percent listen to the radio and 21.5 percent read newspapers. Researchers were surprised at the number of radio listeners. "The decline in newspaper readership has been happening for some time, but the importance of radio as a news source is somewhat surprising," CIRCLE Research Director Mark Lopez said.
|
