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Security
Delay In ID Mandate Does Not Sway Critics In States
by Michael Martinez
State and local lawmakers are still frustrated with a federal law mandating nationwide driver's license and identification standards even though they have been given extra time to begin taking steps toward compliance.
The Homeland Security Department on Thursday released long-awaited guidance for compliance with the so-called REAL ID Act, a law that about a dozen states are considering rejecting.
The proposed implementation deadline for compliant driver's licenses was pushed back from May 2008 to January 2009 for states that need extra time. Homeland Security estimated that it will cost states and individuals about $23 billion over a 10-year period to implement REAL ID, which would entail replacing about 240 million driver's licenses by 2013.
Both the National Conference of State Legislatures and National Governors Association still consider the law an unfunded federal mandate and have expressed severe concerns about Homeland Security's proposed rules, which are in the 60-day comment phase now.
NGA Director of Federal Relations David Quam said it is particularly problematic that the rules would not let states that receive extensions to begin issuing cards do so on the back end of the process. They still would have to replace all of their licenses by 2013. He also said the rules do not do enough to outline what would be done to protect the data that states would have to make available to each other through motor-vehicle databases.
Under REAL ID, those without compliant ID cards will not be able to board commercial airplanes, enter government buildings or access federal services.
"You just can't shrink that window," Quam said of the implementation deadlines. "You need to move that window."
Homeland Security also announced that 20 percent of state homeland security grants would be made available in fiscal 2008 to help states pay for REAL ID. But Quam said it would not help states that already obligated those funds to other programs.
The Bush administration did not direct any money to REAL ID compliance in its fiscal 2008 budget request. "There's no new money here," Quam said. "[The rule] rearranges funds that were already directed elsewhere."
At a press conference Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff defended the price estimate of REAL ID compliance. He said the law is an integral security measure that is well worth the money.
"Secure identification that can't be exploited and can't be forged by terrorists or criminals is exactly what we need to prevent another terrorist attack on our soil and to protect Americans from a whole host of criminal activities which currently victimize them," he said.
In a statement, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said he is committed to national security as well, but the proposed rule would hurt his state financially and inconvenience his constituents. He also said the extensions for compliance would do little to satisfy his concerns about the law.
"We have always known this law would be a nightmare for motorists and taxpayers, and [the Bush administration's rules] have just confirmed that nightmare," he said.
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On The Hill
Lawmakers Seek To Draw Attention To FOIA
by Aliya Sternstein
The annual campaign by open government activists and journalists to raise awareness about the importance of transparency, known as Sunshine Week, will continue with congressional action this year. During the celebration from March 12 to March 16, senators will reintroduce legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act.
The 2005 Open The Government Act, co-sponsored by now-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, touched on electronic openness and helping new media journalists but concentrated mostly on organizational changes within federal agency FOIA offices. The committee is still drafting the final language for the 2007 bill, but it will be very similar to the original bill, according to committee spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.
Provisions in the bill would give agencies "strong incentives to act on FOIA requests in a timely fashion," Schmaler said. "This bill will be more than just pro-openness, pro-accountability and pro-accessibility. It will also be pro-Internet."
The new bill would ensure that Internet-based journalists and people who write Web logs are given the same reduced FOIA fees as other members of the press. In addition, it would mandate the establishment of FOIA hotline services, provided either over the telephone or the Internet, where requesters could track the status of their information requests.
Some of the 2005 proposals included: creating a new FOIA ombudsman to evaluate agency compliance with the act, improving personnel policies for FOIA offices; and imposing harsher consequences for missing statutory deadlines.
That bill did not address compliance with previous FOIA amendments mandating that agency FOIA Web sites post frequently requested documents in online "reading rooms" easily accessible to the public. Nor did it discuss the use of technology and the Internet internally for processing, redacting and responding to FOIA requests.
Leahy authored the amendments as part of a 1996 law, known as e-FOIA, aimed at speeding the processing of FOIA requests and providing electronic versions of documents to the public. According to Senate Judiciary Committee staff, e-FOIA could be one of the issues raised during a March 14 committee hearing on open government.
Government watchdog groups say many agencies have not yet implemented the e-FOIA rules. Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org, said the House and Senate are both aware that the e-FOIA amendments are "being barely implemented."
"[Agencies] certainly don't comply with putting up the documents they anticipate would be requested by more than three requestors," she said. "For the most part, what is in the FOIA reading rooms is really minimal."
She and other open government proponents say FOIA should be a last resort for seeking records regarding the government's activities.
Steven Clift, the board chairman of E-Democracy.org, said the government hopefully is moving toward "information dissemination as the default."
"This bill is a fine step forward except for the general premise that we must request information versus having it automatically put forward. ... That will change," he said. "It may take decades."
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Intellectual Property
Internet Watchdog Picks A 'Fair Use' Fight With C-Span
by Andrew Noyes
A well-known Internet watchdog wrote to C-Span CEO Brian Lamb this week, offering to purchase the network's entire collection of 6,000-plus congressional hearing videos for the purpose of posting them online so anyone could use them.
The proposal, valued at just more than $1 million, was made by Carl Malamud. He is the founder of the Internet Multicasting Service, which is credited with creating the first Web radio station.
Malamud said on Friday that he sent the letter because of the network's "overly aggressive" intellectual property protection. "Saying that you can't use any video at all without prior permission is just wrong; fair use means you don't have to ask," he said.
"We are open to hearing about any ideas that allow the greatest number of people to watch government in action while continuing to explore and develop our own approaches to increasing the public's access to government proceedings," C-Span said in a statement.
Malamud's letter came after a claim made last month by the House Republican Study Committee that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., infringed on C-Span's copyrights by posting video of floor proceedings on her Web log, The Gavel.
The network said Pelosi could use that video but later reaffirmed its strict enforcement policies on video of other congressional activities like hearings. C-Span asked her to remove footage of her testimony on global warming to the House Science the Technology Committee. Pelosi later reposted the footage via a feed direct from the committee's cameras, according to The New York Times.
Malamud, who broke ground in 1994 by making congressional floor activity available online with live audio feeds, called for a better archive of government proceedings. "A public hearing isn't public if you can't attend, and in this day and age, that means a video file suitable for use on YouTube, the Internet Archive or any other place," he said.
He already has purchased C-Span video of a May 2006 congressional hearing on Smithsonian Institution operations. He "ripped" more than a minute of footage, edited it and posted the clip at the Internet Archive without C-Span's permission.
In his letter, Malamud acknowledges that C-Span has been "a pioneer in promoting a more open government" but claims that "holding congressional hearings hostage" is not in keeping with its charter or its commitment to the American people.
Other Internet pundits joined Malamud's call for a change in C-Span's IP regime. William Patry, a senior copyright counsel for Google, said on his blog that "the very transparency in government C-Span purports to seek is antithetical to claims of ownership in the events as recorded."
Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig said the debate raises larger questions for U.S. politics. Lessig wrote on his blog that as more takedown notices are ordered for video remixes of political events, an advocate is needed "to take the lead to assure that the Web can be used for politics (without the mess of copyright)."
An Internet-led reform effort called The Open House Project also has taken an interest in the C-Span debate. "This is a discussion that needs to be had," wrote Nancy Scola, one of the bloggers leading the project. "Confusion over copyright sows fear, and fear creates a chilling effect."
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Politics
Web Experts At Two Events Note Influence Of Blogs
by Heather Greenfield
Bloggers and those reaching out to them on political campaigns gathered on Capitol Hill on Friday to talk about how new media is changing elections. George Washington University's political science department organized the discussion.
Carol Darr, who directs GWU's Institute for Politics Democracy and the Internet, said it is not just a matter of studying the tools like the YouTube video-sharing site, Web logs or Web sites but of understanding how digitization influences what information spreads and who it is reaching.
Between the minimal cost of producing the messages and the ability to "microtarget" potential voters, Darr predicted that messages will become "meaner, sharper and more polarized." She said campaigns don't pay for such research to send bland, generic messages.
Chris Cillizza, who blogs for The Washington Post, said a comment that Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss, made about the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., in 2002 did not get attention in the mainstream media. But Lott ultimately was forced to resign from his majority leader's position because his perceived praise for Thurmond's stance in favor of racial segregation in the 1948 presidential race was repeatedly criticized by blogs.
Mo Elleithee, a spokesman for the presidential exploratory committee of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., resurrected the oft-cited "macaca" incident involving then-Sen. George Allen.
Elleithee worked for now Sen. James Webb, D-Va., when Allen, the Republican in last year's Virginia Senate race, called a Webb volunteer a "macaca." Some people considered that a racial insult. Elleithee said he had no clue that the video would have the impact that it did, with Allen quickly plummeting in the polls and eventually losing to Webb in part because blogs refused to let the macaca story die.
Across town at the Conservative Political Action Committee, bloggers and online political strategists also talked about how blogs can "bypass the media."
Erick Erickson, CEO of the RedState blog, said conservatives also scored victories in the last election. He said bloggers "can't necessarily help a campaign," but they can do damage. "Just ask the Edwards camp," Erickson said of two bloggers who resigned last month from the campaign of Democratic presidential contender John Edwards after an uproar over their personal writings.
David All, an online consultant for conservative candidates, noted the episode of Clinton singing parts of the national anthem off-key recently. All said the video aired once on MSNBC but spread online via The Drudge Report and YouTube.
"The biggest lesson she [Clinton] took away was not to sing in public anymore," Elleithee said.
The conservatives lamented that they trail liberals in the blogosphere, but they are taking steps to remedy that concern. Chuck DeFeo, who manages the conservative Townhall.com, said his company has created a section for people to start local blogs and 3,300 have done it recently.
Erickson said RedState has started a state blog project to help move traffic to right-of-center blogs, but in maintaining the list, he said he has found that conservative blogs "start and they die, and they don't do that on the left."
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Campaigns
Campaigns And Blogs: Lessons Learned The Hard Way
by Heather Greenfield
When it comes to managing outreach to bloggers, candidates are turning to the bloggers themselves. The practice can help or haunt a campaign, as Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards learned earlier this month after two bloggers resigned amid an uproar over controversial statements on their personal Web logs.
Those resignations, however, have made campaigns more aware of the liability of hiring bloggers -- and bloggers more aware of the dilemma of blogging after taking campaign jobs.
Jerome Armstrong, the founder of MyDD, did new media work for both the Howard Dean 2004 presidential campaign and, more recently, for the political action committee of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner. He said the Edwards incident essentially proved the guideline that he and his workers have followed.
"If working for a presidential candidate, you have to pretty much give up blogging because everything you say is scrutinized," Armstrong said.
Patrick Hynes, of Ankle Biting Pundits and an online strategist for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can relate to the time crunch. "I don't write as much as I used to, but I still contribute to it," Hynes said.
He also noted that blogging while associated with a campaign "ends up being self-policing, limiting what you can write about." But Hynes said that's not all bad because it makes him a better writer -- more considerate of what he wants to say.
Both Armstrong and Hynes have faced criticism in the past for blogging while working for campaigns.
The presidential campaign team for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R- Calif., recruited blogger John Hawkins of Right Wing News after an article he wrote for Townhall.com. Hawkins agreed to help the campaign with new media strategy but just for three months.
"I'm a professional blogger," Hawkins said in an interview. "I don't want to be a professional consultant. My first consideration was taking care of the blog. That's why I put the time limit on it and I decided not to talk about the Republican candidates" at Right Wing News.
He said his goal in temporarily refraining from writing about the 2008 GOP contenders -- "unless a story too big to ignore hits the wires" -- is maintaining credibility with readers. "I don't want to come across like a shill for Duncan if I eviscerate one of his opponents or talk him up," Hawkins said.
Katha Pollitt, a reporter for The Nation, wrote at TPMCafe that it will be inevitable for political opponents to try use bloggers' words against campaigns, so bloggers must choose their masters.
"To me, being a writer and being a political operative are very different things, and ought to remain so," Pollitt said. "A writer should be free to say what she believes, and the reader should know that the writer has that freedom."
Armstrong said no blogging while working for campaigns is likely to become the voluntary practice now, but he doesn't advocate a rule to mandate it. He said the Federal Election Commission has provided enough guidelines for blogs.
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Cyber Security
Experts Struggle To Find Answers To Cyber Threats
by Heather Greenfield
Greg Garcia, the cyber-security czar for the Homeland Security Department, said that when customers or partners refuse to do business with companies that do not meet certain cyber standards, "that's when the groundswell [for improving security] is going to come."
Speaking Thursday to the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, Garcia also did not rule out having his department someday bestow the equivalent of the "Good Housekeeping seal of approval" on systems that meet certain criteria.
At a panel discussion following Garcia's speech, Larry Clinton, the chief operations officer for the Internet Security Alliance, expressed frustration with getting companies to comply with best practices in cyber security.
Clinton also railed against a voluntary standardization and accreditation program that would be created under a broad security bill, S.4, being debated this week in the Senate. He questioned whether it really would be voluntary.
"I'd suggest if it really will be completely voluntary, it really will completely fail," Clinton said. "Industry doesn't need a federal law to tell us we can voluntarily comply with standards that we have voluntarily created."
He and others on the panel want government to encourage companies to adopt best practices. Clinton cited a PricewaterhouseCoopers study that said firms using them did not face the downtime and revenue loss as others even though they faced the same number of attacks.
Panelists said incentive programs had worked for other industries like agriculture or for flood insurance. They also said better information-sharing about cyber attacks is needed but were at a loss for how to do it.
"The liabilities with sharing are huge," said Al Edmunds, president and CEO of Edmunds Enterprise Services. While information technology departments want to share information, they are blocked by their own companies' legal departments, he said.
Another impediment to sharing information on attacks is privacy concerns, said John Nagengast, a program director for AT&T.
Edmunds said, however, that companies are doing better at protecting themselves but ultimately will need to do more to protect the rest of the system.
Jerry Dixon, who works for Homeland Security's cyber division, said businesses also need to test their disaster-recovery plans by actually operating on them. He said it is "amazing" how many businesses have never done that.
Karl Brondell, a consultant for the Business Roundtable, said the nation needs a better early-warning system for attacks and a plan for who does what when recovering from a major attack. He said institutions that have a role in that now are "clearly stepping over one another's feet."
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On The Hill
Sen. Akaka Files Placeholder Bill On Repealing REAL ID
by Theresa Poulson
On the eve of the Homeland Security Department's release of regulations for a federal identification mandate, Sen. Daniel Akaka introduced legislation to repeal the so-called REAL ID law that imposed the mandate.
The measure, S. 717, will act as a placeholder as Congress and other stakeholders review how the department proposes to implement the law, said Akaka, D-Hawaii. He plans to hold a hearing on the regulations in the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee and develop legislation to address privacy and civil liberties problems he sees in the act.
Akaka said the privacy risks include requiring that driver-licensing agencies collect and store records with sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, proof of residence and biometric identifiers. "If the state databases are compromised," he said, "they will provide one-stop access to virtually all information necessary to commit identity theft."
Other tech-related measures introduced this week were:
-- S. 744, which would make more spectrum available for public safety and establish a working group to provide standards for public-safety spectrum needs (See separate story);
-- H.R. 1201, which seeks to correct what they say is an erosion of consumer rights when it comes to "fair use" of digital media (See separate brief);
-- S. 711, which would allocate $500 million annually within the universal service fund to construct high-speed Internet infrastructure in rural America and other underserved areas;
-- H.R. 1194, which would repeal the excise tax on telephone and communications methods;
-- H.R. 1307, which would establish a claims office to reimburse veterans for injuries suffered as a result of data breaches at the Veterans Affairs department;
-- S. 730, which aims to protect voting rights and to improve the administration of voting technologies;
-- S. 737, which seeks to compare and improve the quality of voter access to polls;
-- H.R. 1298, which would require that telephone political pollsters disclose certain information to respondents and the Federal Election Commission;
-- S. 704, a bill to prohibit manipulation of caller-ID information;
-- S. 699, which aims to prevent the fraudulent use of Social Security numbers by letting federal agencies share data for identity-theft prevention and immigration enforcement;
-- H.R. 1269, a bill to improve the security of railroad and public transportation;
-- H.R. 1299, a bill to permit the televising of Supreme Court proceedings.
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Today's Feature:
Executive Summary
The Homeland Security Department this week proposed long-overdue guidelines to fulfill a federal mandate for standard driver's licenses and identification cards.
Every Friday, read the Executive Summary by K. Daniel Glover.
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E-briefs
Courts: The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved an amendment to a court security bill that would add a new judge to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California, which hears a number of high-technology cases. The language seeks to transfer a judgeship from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The 12th seat on the D.C. circuit, first authorized in 1984, has remained vacant for the last decade. California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who co-sponsored the amendment, said it makes sense to take a spot from "where it is needed least and put it where it is needed most." There are approximately five times more filings per judge in the California court than in the District, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The Ninth Circuit also has the highest number of pending appeals in the country, the office reported.
Security: A bipartisan group of senators hope to add to the security bill currently pending on the floor language that would make it easier to punish people or recoup costs in connection with hoaxes that could be interpreted as terrorist threats. The provision would make it an offense to perpetrate terrorist-related hoaxes against an expanded number of sites, such as energy facilities, military bases, railways and mass transportation facilities. It would let public-safety agencies seek reimbursement from a person who perpetrates a hoax and becomes aware that emergency responders believe that a terrorist offense is occurring but fails to inform authorities otherwise. The language was prompted by a Jan. 31 incident in Boston involving an offbeat marketing stunt for a Turner Broadcasting System cartoon. Lighted displays that were part of the promotion led to a bomb scare. Turner agreed to pay the city $2 million as a result of the incident.
Television: Iowa lawmakers on Thursday advanced legislation to overhaul the state's video-franchising rules. A measure approved by the Senate Commerce Committee would allow the state to grant franchises to video providers. Under the bill, new entrants to the market could bypass local governments in order to seek statewide deals. Large telecommunications providers such as Qwest Communications International have backed the bill, which they argue would give consumers faster access to a competitive market. Similar legislation has been enacted during the past two years in about a dozen states, including California, Indiana, Michigan and Texas.
Courts: California Superior Court Judge Barbara Scheper has scheduled oral arguments for April 16 in a multimillion-dollar case that pits Microsoft against the Internet service provider FutureLink Online. Scheper denied Microsoft's request to exclude any reference of its name from court proceedings, FutureLink said Friday. The company "will not be allowed to hide," said FutureLink co-founder Dave Durko, who has been pursuing the case against Microsoft for nearly a decade. The case involves Microsoft's $503 million purchase of WebTV (now MSN TV) and stems from the firm's alleged interference with a FutureLink contract and alleged theft of its subscriber base. FutureLink co-founder Emilio Farina said Microsoft killed his company and "tried to bury us in mountains of legal briefs." Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans countered, "The court very clearly said it will instruct the jury that Microsoft's acquisition of WebTV has nothing to do with the allegations in this case."
Telecom: Cities experimenting with owning and operating their own telecommunications networks are setting themselves up for economic failure, according to a report released this week. A study by the Pacific Research Institute examined 52 municipal telecom markets and found that such projects tend to slow innovation and discourage private investment. "City-run telecom systems have proven to be nothing but a digital white elephant, costing the public much more than they're worth," said Sonia Arrison, director of technology studies at the institute. According to the report, the municipal networks studied have cost taxpayers millions of dollars and undercut the private providers operating in their areas. "The best course of action local governments can take with regard to emerging technologies is to refrain from meddling in their market sphere," Arrison said.
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President -- John Fox Sullivan, 202-739-8468
Editor in Chief -- Louis Peck, 202-739-8481
Editor -- K. Daniel Glover (bio)
Assistant Editor -- Theresa Poulson
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Special Correspondent -- Chris Strohm (bio)
Staff Writer -- Michael Martinez
Senior Business Affairs Manager -- Chris Hamby
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