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E-Government
Senate Deal Won't End Debate Over Immigrant Workers
by Chris Strohm
A section in the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill that would require employers to check the immigration status of their workers could be finalized as early as Tuesday. It is gaining rapid support from industry groups and immigrant advocates alike.
The Senate is redrafting sections of the measure, S.2611, after negotiations broke down last month. One section would establish an electronic system that employers would have to use to verify that workers they hire are legally able to be employed. The system also would give the Homeland Security Department access to Social Security Administration databases, something that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently said is critical for investigations.
When finalized, the section most likely will become part of a "manager's amendment" that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., plans to make to the immigration bill. An aide to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the revised section is "very close" to being finished.
Industry groups and immigrant advocates support the Senate's plan, as opposed to requirements in the border security bill the House passed last December. "We don't like the House bill at all," said Laura Foote Reiff, a lawyer at Greenberg Traurig and co-chair of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a group of businesses and trade associations.
Major differences between the House and Senate bills include compliance deadlines, employer penalties, privacy protections, redress processes for correcting errors, and employer liability protections, Reiff said.
For example, the House bill would require employers to verify the immigration status of all their workers. The Senate version would require employers to do checks only on newly hired workers. The House bill also would not cap how much employers could be fined for knowingly employing illegal immigrants. The Senate version would cap fines at $20,000 for repeat offenders.
Aides to House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and key architect of the House bill, said the Senate is being too lenient on employers and would provide amnesty to illegal immigrants if they are already employed. "The Senate isn't requiring current employees to be checked, and that's a big loophole," one aide said.
Developing an employee verification system that can work on a mass scale is also an enormous task, said Marshall Fitz, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The House would require Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to expand a program that employers use on a voluntary basis to check immigration status. Only about 6,200 employers currently use the program.
The Government Accountability Office, however, identified several weaknesses in the program in an August 2005 report, concluding that it "may not be able to complete timely verifications if the number of employers using the program significantly increased."
Fitz said: "The real concern is that unless or until they're able to get their databases accurately updated and corrected ... it seems unlikely that we could have a seamless transition into a broad expansion of this program."
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Lobbying
Family Groups Push For Action On 'Indecency' Bill
by David Hatch
Two national family groups were scheduled to meet with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens on Monday to urge him to move a bill against "indecency" to the Senate floor.
At deadline, the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family planned to appeal to Stevens, R-Alaska, as other advocacy groups also increase efforts to pass legislation that would raise fines on broadcasters violating the FCC's obscenity rules. The measure, authored by Sam Brownback, R-Kan., is pending before the panel. It requires Stevens' approval to reach the floor.
Brownback's office on Friday asked Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to move the bill to the floor. Both developments follow Frist's unsuccessful attempt last week to hold a vote in the upper chamber on a separate indecency measure that the House already had passed. Lawmakers had placed procedural "holds" on the move, blocking the bill.
There was disagreement over Frist's decision last week to "hotline" the House bill, which religious and family groups had been seeking action on for months. Hotlining allows a measure to be considered under unanimous consent.
There is speculation that Frist knew the House version would be blocked but tried to move it to appease concerned citizens who had inundated his office with telephone calls. Other observers said Frist is sincere about holding a vote.
Brownback's bill, first introduced in 2004, would raise fines for television and radio stations that violate FCC indecency rules from $32,500 to $325,000 per incident. Senators in 2004 voted 99-1 to add the language as an amendment to an appropriations measure. The provisions later were stripped due to germaneness concerns.
The bill now has 27 cosponsors, including: George Allen, R-Va.; Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; John Ensign, R-Nev.; Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.; Trent Lott, R-Miss.; and John McCain, R-Ariz.
Brownback no longer sits on the Commerce panel, but his legislation is under its purview. Last Thursday, he asked Stevens to discharge the measure, S. 193, directly to the floor. One source said Stevens is open to the idea. Senate Commerce did not comment.
Brownback also could reintroduce his measure under a new bill number to try to bypass Commerce and move it directly to the floor.
A source with a group that supports heftier fines said it is still possible for the House version to reach the Senate. Or a senator could try to amend the major communications bill Stevens unveiled last week with tougher indecency restrictions.
Some observers view Brownback's bill as less controversial than the House measure, H.R. 310. Both would raise penalties, with the House bill increasing penalties to $500,000 per violation. But the House version would go further by fining artists and performers, and initiating license-revocation proceedings against stations cited repeatedly by the FCC for obscenity violations.
"We will continue to keep the pressure on," said Dan Isett, director of corporate and government affairs for the Parents Television Council.
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Business
Tech Allies At Loggerheads Over 'Net Neutrality'
by Drew Clark
As the debate over "network neutrality" becomes a driving force in telecommunications legislation on Capitol Hill, the information technology community is split. It is geek versus geek.
The dispute about whether Bell telephone and cable companies must be barred from charging Internet companies for speedier delivery has clinched a raw nerve in Silicon Valley.
The business battles are only part of the struggle. Ebay, Google and Yahoo are at odds with neighbor Cisco Systems. The former are pure Internet companies and sell directly to individual consumers. Cisco, the original networking company because its routers powered the Internet protocol, sells its products to consumers and carriers.
There is fundamental disagreement among the Internet's eminence grises.
The Internet has gotten where it is today as a result of open access, said Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, who has taken the lead arguing for neutrality rules. Cerf co-created the protocol upon which the Internet runs and is considered the Internet's "father." He was with MCI for more than a decade, and joined Google last year.
Cerf and pro-neutrality compatriots see rules as necessary to stop Bell and cable domination over the last mile of telephone wires to consumers. They say innovation is at stake.
"If Google had to get permission from a [Bell company to offer its content], it is doubtful that it would have been able to do it at all," Cerf said.
Many other technologists are with him: former FCC chief Reed Hundt, networking consultant David Isenberg, Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig and Internet telephone entrepreneur Jeff Pulver.
Hundt has been writing online about the subject at the TPMCafe Web log. He sees neutrality rules as essential so the Internet "doesn't become subjected to a variety of proprietary claims," he said. "That space in the U.S. cannot be jeopardized by the lack of a public thoroughfare."
But other geeks disagree. Dave Farber, a computer science professor at the Carnegie Mellon University who was instrumental in the early involvement of the Defense Department and National Science Foundation in computer networking, believes Cerf's neutrality rules could stifle Web advances in the Internet.
"As one of those who has been involved with the Internet since its earliest days, I do think it is getting old," Farber said on his widely read e-mail list. Some consider Farber the Internet's "grandfather."
"We don't want to inadvertently stall innovation in these areas by imposing rules or laws the implications of which are far from clear," Farber said. "The technology, operations and management of the Internet's functions are very complex, and we must be aware of the likelihood of unintended consequences with respect to federal regulation or legislation."
Farber's cautionary words are supported by Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior research scientist David Clark, futurist George Gilder, former FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Vanderbilt University law professor Christopher Yoo.
Powell said at a Pulver-Isenberg conference that neutrality rules would work against innovation because they would empower incumbent telecom providers that currently enjoy top strength at agencies like the FCC.
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Courts
Ad Firm For Maine Agency Ends Suit Against Blogger
by Michael Martinez
A New York-based advertising firm on Friday dropped a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the author of a Web log who has been critical of the company's work with Maine's tourism office.
The agency, Warren Kremer Paino, dismissed its three-count libel, defamation and copyright-infringement suit against Lance Dutson, a Maine resident and author of the Maine Web Report, ending a free-speech case that captured the attention of the blogging community and the mainstream media.
Dutson authored a series of posts blasting the advertising campaign the state had hired the company to conduct. One of his critiques noted that a draft version of one of the ads, which was available on the Web, included a number for a telephone sex operation instead of one for the tourism office. He also lambasted the tourism office for hiking the rates for keyword Internet ads of local merchants.
Warren Kremer Paino accused Dutson of posting defamatory content on his blog that injured the company's reputation and its business.
Dutson said he is relieved to have the matter behind him and pledged to continue his investigation of the department's marketing campaign. He said the situation had become a massive burden for his business and his family.
Nancy Marshall, the head of the public relations firm that represents Maine's tourism office, has admitted to sending e-mails to Dutson's business clients and to his wife's employer in order to alert them of the situation.
"All along I have wanted everyone to work together for the good of the people of Maine," Marshall said in a statement released Monday. "I am happy that we can now refocus on doing what we do best, which is working with the travel media to encourage stories on travel and tourism in Maine."
In a phone interview, Warren Kremer Paino President Tom McCartin said the suit had "grown into something it was never intended to be" and that his clients were best served by dropping it. He said he valued the role of criticism in the creative process and that the suit was not designed to infringe upon Dutson's speech rights.
"My feelings on what I felt he did wrong haven't changed," he said. "What has changed is our approach."
The dismissal of the suit has been declared by pundits throughout the blogosphere as a victory for free speech on the Web. Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said the case should be a "cautionary tale" for those contemplating similar suits.
"Our message is simple: 'Don't Mess with the bloggers,'" he said in a release posted on the group's Web site.
The firestorm created by Dutson's case also extended to the state capital. Maine Rep. Stephen Bowen on Friday wrote a letter to state Economic and Community Development Department Commissioner Jack Cashman.
Bowen requested that the state suspend its contract with Warren Kremer Paino until the suit had been settled. Bowen said that the state's relationship with the firm had become a liability as a result of the controversy.
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Science
Experts Offer Tips To Close Federal Research Gap
by Danielle Belopotosky
AUSTIN, Texas -- Technology experts urged the House Science Committee to support research and development programs that are designed to close the gap between university research and commercial product offerings.
They spoke here on Friday at a field hearing organized by Reps. Lamar Smith and Michael McCaul, both Texas Republicans, as the last day of the World Congress on Information Technology came to a close. Members of the Texas technology community offered advice on how Congress could best appropriate its research funding.
In the face of increased competition from China and India, Smith said, "we must leverage the unique strengths of each of the three sides of this triangle: government, universities and industry."
"Unconstrained by the need to turn a profit, government can take research risks that private industry never could," he said. Furthermore, universities are uniquely situated between government and private industry, allowing university research labs to use their "resources and intellectual power more quickly than can government."
As Congress debates the R&D budget request of $137.2 billion for fiscal 2007, the panelists said lawmakers should strengthen that shared ecosystem by focusing on programs that bridge the innovation gap. Pike Powers, chairman of the Texas Technology Initiative and a partner at the Fulbright & Jaworski law firm, said universities and industry should be linked to ensure that the "innovation chain remains unbroken."
Powers said insufficient investment for middle-stage research, where conceptual ideas become prototypes, is a barrier to commercializing information technology products. He added that federal aid such as the Advanced Technology Program bridge the gap at that stage, which often is called the "Valley of Death."
Powers further said a new mechanism to fund the "'hardening' of raw university technology" should be created. He cited the work of the Center for Economic Development Innovation and Commercialization as an example. Under his direction, 12 universities have formed the center to help facilitate entrepreneurship, research collaboration and tech transfers to the private sector.
Randall Goodall, director of external programs at SEMATECH, which works with the semiconductor industry to accelerate research commercialization, said federal funding in that market segment is unevenly concentrated in long-term research.
Goodall said university research often misses the "insertion point" of putting student research online. "These decisions are often irreversible," he said.
In addition to increased research funding, an R&D and manufacturing tax credit, and investments in education and workforce development, Goodall recommended that Congress consider offering specific support for nanotechnology, which focuses on matter at the atomic and molecular levels.
Goodall called for funding partnerships between the federal government and states in semiconductor and technology development. He also recommended the establishment of funding for education and workforce training in nanoelectronics.
Juan Sanchez, vice president for research of the Temple Foundation mechanical engineering endowment at the University of Texas at Austin, said the federal government also should support investments in cyber infrastructure, simulation-based engineering and science, and advanced hardware and software technologies.
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Intellectual Property
Global IP Body Nears Broadcasting Agreement
By William New, for Technology Daily
GENEVA -- Member governments of the World Intellectual Property Organization took a major step Friday toward full negotiation of a treaty on broadcasters' rights by culling a U.S. proposal to include webcasting.
The decision came in the final hours of the May 1-5 meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. A final committee meeting on the draft proposal for a treaty on broadcasting and cable-casting is scheduled for the first week of September, just weeks before the annual WIPO General Assembly. Treaty proponents hope the assembly will set a 2007 date for a diplomatic conference or full-fledged negotiation for a treaty.
In an interview afterward, WIPO Deputy Director-General Rita Hayes called the outcome of last week's meeting "successful" and said it shows the organization's support for a treaty. She said while there is "a lot of hard work ahead, in the first week of September hopefully they can make enough progress" to recommend a diplomatic conference.
Negotiators removed an annex on transmissions of broadcasts over the Internet that derived from an unpopular U.S. proposal. However, they agreed to revisit it in 2007.
In the meeting, the U.S. delegation reluctantly agreed to the removal but said that if no diplomatic conference is set by the September assembly, the webcasting proposal would be resurrected, according to participants. Other governments did not formally agree with that demand.
Lead U.S. negotiator Jule Sigall of the Copyright Office signaled near week's end a U.S. willingness to narrow the webcasting proposal to signal theft on the Internet, sources said. But concerns about the inclusion of webcasting were too great for developing countries and others that see the Internet as U.S.-centric.
A European Union proposal to include simulcasting in the treaty was seen by some as a compromise, but it was sidelined along with webcasting.
The September copyright committee meeting still faces language to cover transmissions "by any means," including over "computer networks." That has raised concerns about webcasting among its opponents. The committee also is scheduled to tackle problematic clauses on rights to use technological protection measures.
A general concern is that the treaty would create new rights for broadcasters that do not need them.
Ben Ivins, senior associate general counsel at the National Association of Broadcasters, said in an interview that broadcasters would not get new rights. But he said it is necessary to stop cross-border signal piracy not covered by international law. He opposed the inclusion of webcasting as different from traditional broadcasters putting their own signals on a computer network.
Technology interests such as Intel and the U.S. Telecom Association, whose members include most of the Bell telephone firms, joined the opposition for the first time. The movie and music industries also came out publicly against the treaty, joining many non-governmental organizations.
Sarah Deutsch, vice president at Verizon Communications, raised concern that firms like Google and Yahoo could be given new rights, and content-producing broadcasting companies like Fox could gain the ability to use technical protection that would limit access to customers of their service.
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Security
CIA Nominee's Hearing May Focus On Wiretapping
by Heather Greenfield
The Senate confirmation hearing for Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to head the CIA may turn into an investigation of a wiretapping program by the National Security Agency. At least that is the hope of some privacy rights groups.
"It's an excellent opportunity for Congress to ask some tough questions about NSA's warrantless wiretapping program," said Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The American Civil Liberties Union urged the Senate to "vigorously question the nominee" about the program, calling it a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, called the nomination "troubling." "The concern is Gen. Hayden was head of the NSA when the agency undertook the warrantless surveillance of American citizens," Rotenberg said.
Hayden, 61, sailed through the Senate confirmation process to be sworn in as the NSA director in April 2005. But that was before The New York Times broke the story about NSA's surveillance program in December.
While Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts, R-Kan., supported Hayden then, he told reporters that he is not in a position now to say he will vote for Hayden. Roberts' committee will conduct the confirmation hearings.
The nomination comes as polls show President Bush has low popularity among voters and fellow Republicans.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said confirmation hearings should center on the legality of the wiretapping program. He said it is an issue he has tried to investigate himself through hearings but without success. But in a statement released by Specter spokesman Scott Hoeflich, Specter called Hayden "a real professional" and said he represents a chance to "really revive the CIA and go back to the professionalism."
Bush told reporters Monday that Hayden is "the right man to lead the CIA at this critical moment in our nation's history." Hayden said he looks forward to "meeting with the leaders of the Congress, better understanding their concerns and working with them to move the American intelligence community forward."
Rotenberg said EPIC plans to work with other privacy and civil-liberties advocates to make sure the oversight committee "presses Hayden very closely on the legality of the domestic surveillance program."
The group has posted a transcript of Hayden's January speech at the National Press Club on its Web site. Hayden defended the wiretapping program, saying that NSA does not have the staff or the time to spy on ordinary Americans.
"It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about," Hayden said. "This is targeted and focused. This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States.
"This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda. We bring to bear all the technology we can to ensure that this is so."
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Today's Feature:
Issue of the Week
As Illinois Republican Rep. Mark Kirk tells it, the top worry among high-school class presidents in his district is about questionable activity on social-networking Web sites.
Every Monday, read the Issue of the Week by the Technology Daily staff
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E-briefs
Broadband: Four organizations representing local governments on Friday denounced video franchising legislation introduced last week by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and panel top Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. They said the bill would harm consumers, cities and counties. In a letter, the National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, U.S. Conference of Mayors and National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors said that "while the bill ostensibly preserves local franchising authority, the net effect is that it strips local authority...to determine virtually all franchise terms." The bill also would send disputes about rights-of-way to the FCC, not courts. That approach "abandons commitments to keep localities financially whole;" permits Bell companies to "pick and choose which neighborhoods they wish to serve;" and could potentially preempt locally-imposed telecommunications taxes. The groups said they sought legislation preserving "level playing fields" and maintaining franchising authority within the local community.
States: Pending House telecom legislation would impose costs of up to $350 million on state and local governments by 2011, exceeding the threshold established by a law on unfunded federal mandates to the states, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report issued last week. Implementing the measure, H.R. 5252, would cost less than $7 million in the five years from 2006 to 2011, but the costs imposed on cities and states would be considerably greater -- between $100 million and $350 million -- because the bill would eliminate the ability of local governments to seek additional video-franchising revenues from Bell or cable companies. "By prohibiting intergovernmental entities from charging certain cable providers more than 1 percent of gross revenue to provide [public, educational and governmental] programming, enacting the bill would lead to a loss in state and local revenues," CBO wrote.
Lobbying: A group of free-market advocates and social conservatives formed a new group to fight "network neutrality" regulation because they want to counter the impression that conservatives are either uninformed on the issue or advocating neutrality regulations. Calling themselves the Internet Freedom Coalition, the 24 organizations oppose rules that would bar Bell telephone and cable companies from offering faster-speed service to preferred partners. That position is similar to the stance of Hands Off The Internet, an AT&T-supported advocacy organization. IFC is eschewing corporate support in order to be above reproach, said Jason Wright, co-director of IFC and president of the Institute for Liberty. "MoveOn and their Save The Internet group say they have not received any corporate support," Wright said. "If we are going to counter them, we counter them without any corporate support.
Education: An initiative to help protect young people who socialize online was announced Monday. CyberSmart Education will join several public and private organizations to support the effort by the National Cyber Security Alliance. The campaign will provide materials to help educators guide classroom discussions on Internet safety. The Consortium for School Networking also announced plans to participate in the initiative. "With the increased use of technology in education comes the responsibility of district technology leaders to educate students on maintaining a safe online atmosphere," Linda Sharp, the project leader of CoSN's Cyber Security for the Digital District project, said in a statement. "This initiative is a natural fit for CoSN's cyber-security goals, and we are a proud to play a part."
Labor: Microsoft has awarded the National Center for Women and Information Technology a $1 million grant to encourage women to pursue tech careers, Vnu Network reports. "We believe that only by working together with corporations such as Microsoft will we be able to address the need for a greater diversity in the sciences," said Bradley Feld, the center's chairman and the managing director of Mobius Venture Capital. Microsoft said it is supporting the center to help address "critical shortages" of females in the technology industry. "It is a virtual certainty that all workers will have some sort of IT function as part of their job duties, and yet IT enrolment at local colleges is down as much as 60 percent, with enrollment numbers for women lower than in 1971," said Jon Roskill, vice president of U.S. marketing at Microsoft.
Courts: A Florida law firm on Monday filed a class-action lawsuit against Dell Financial Services on behalf of Miami resident Juan Arteaga. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. district court for southern Florida, alleges that the organization, which is a joint venture between the Dell computer maker and CIT, violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act by refusing to give credit to individuals based on their ethnicity. "The exact number of people affected by these discriminatory practices [is] unknown," Thomas Equels, managing shareholder of the Holtzman Equels law firm, said in a statement. "We believe there are thousands of victims who simply don't know that they were denied credit based solely on their race or ethnicity."
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