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Privacy
More States Rebel Against Driver's License Standards
by Michael Martinez
More states are moving against pending nationwide standards for driver's licenses, even as Congress is reconsidering the law that mandated them.
Measures to reject the so-called REAL ID Act already have been approved in Idaho and Maine, and have cleared at least one chamber in about a dozen more state legislatures. States have cited concerns about both the cost of compliance and the possibility that REAL ID would create an invasive national ID system.
Legislation to repeal the law also has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on REAL ID on Monday.
A bill proposed by Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and John Sununu, R-N.H., would repeal REAL ID and reinstate a negotiated rulemaking process to develop national ID standards, a proposal recommended by the commission that studied the 2001 terrorist attacks. A rulemaking panel created by a 2004 intelligence law was abandoned after one meeting once REAL ID was passed in 2005.
On March 1, the Homeland Security Department proposed guidelines for states on how to comply with REAL ID. The regulations are open for comment for 60 days.
REAL ID-compliant driver's licenses and ID cards eventually will be needed to board airplanes, enter federal buildings and access some types of federal services, such as Social Security.
Jim Harper, the Cato Institute's director of information policy studies, said the guidelines have galvanized the anti-REAL ID movement. He said it has become easier for those who oppose the law to make their case now that they know exactly what they face.
"The argument linking identity security to security against terrorism is really coming apart," Harper said.
Governors wrote to the leaders of the House Budget Committee earlier this week demanding federal funding for REAL ID implementation, which Homeland Security has estimated could cost as much as $23 billion. They urged the committee to include in its fiscal 2008 budget resolution at least $1 billion to help states cover the costs of complying with the law next year.
Homeland Security officials addressed some of the concerns about the law this week at the quarterly meeting the Homeland Security Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee.
At a briefing on Thursday, officials at the Center for Democracy and Technology said their concerns about how REAL ID would affect privacy were not put to rest by the proposed guidelines or by the discussion at the Homeland Security meeting.
CDT Deputy Director Ari Schwartz said there already is talk among REAL ID opponents about mounting a constitutional challenge to the implementation of the law. But he said his group, which supports the general concept of strengthening the security of the driver's licensing system, is focused on letting the issue run its course on Capitol Hill.
"The negotiated rulemaking process was working," Schwartz said, adding that he believes it is a mistake to consider privacy and licensing security as contradictory goals.
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E-Government
Florida Governor Outlines E-Voting Plan To Panel
by Winter Casey
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist outlined his plans for an improved voting process in his state during a brief appearance Friday before a House subcommittee.
"This proposal will move Florida toward a comprehensive, streamlined elections system that uses a paper ballot in every voting precinct in time for the general election in the fall of 2008," Crist said of the plan he has proposed to the state legislature.
His proposal would "replace all touch-screen voting machines in polling places" with optical-scan voting machines that "provide a paper trail that can be used for any recount," Crist told the House Administration Elections Subcommittee during a hearing on whether to require paper trails for e-voting.
Crist's proposal also calls for "ballot on demand" that "allows for individual optical-scan ballots to be printed when the voter arrives for early voting, thus eliminating the need for touch screens with voter-verifiable paper audit trails to be used at early-voting sites," he added. "With these two measures, 99 percent of all ballots in Florida would be on a voter-marked ballot."
Florida was home to the most recent controversy surrounding e-voting. In the 2006 U.S. House race for the 13th District, Democrat Christine Jennings cited e-voting glitches as the reason for her razor-thin loss to Republican Vern Buchanan. She has challenged her defeat in court and before the House Administration Committee.
Other speakers at Friday's hearing commented on a measure, H.R. 811, introduced by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., to require a voter-verified, permanent paper ballot.
Rep. Thomas Petri, R-Wis., voiced support for Holt's legislation. "Electronic voting technology is certainly part of the answer, but we cannot turn over the electoral process entirely to technology, as voting is a human activity," he said. "Voter-verified paper vote receipts are a means of marrying the modern and the traditional, and will allow us to manage the changes wrought by new voting technologies without losing sight of the disparate individual actions they are designed to quantify."
He added that about half of the states "have adopted legislation similar to H.R. 811, and there is a broad pool of experience on which to draw."
Warren Stewart, policy director of VoteTrustUSA, a group aimed at improving e-voting, said the legislation would "significantly improve the accuracy and enhance the transparency of federal elections."
Some witnesses disagreed. Donald Norris, director of the National Center for the Study of Elections, said the bill has some "serious limitations" and would "put an end to electronic voting" and "significantly stifle or kill innovation in voting technology."
Gail Mahoney, a county commissioner from Jackson County, Mich., said the bill would "undermine public confidence in our elections by imposing impractical requirements under unrealistic deadlines and will needlessly subject counties to tremendous financial burdens."
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Education
NASA Is Shirking Its Educational Duties, Union Says
by Aliya Sternstein
NASA's largest union complained in a March 16 letter to congressional appropriators that the space agency is "shirking its outreach and educational responsibilities."
On Friday, Lee Stone, vice president for legislative affairs at the Ames Research Center chapter of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said that as a scientist, he is most concerned about the deterioration of a post-doctoral fellows program that had recruited much of NASA's talent in the past.
"Twenty years ago, people like myself and [many senior staff in his division] were brought in as post-doctoral fellows," said Stone, a human factors researcher. "The funds for that have almost completely dried up." Like interns in medical school, the fellows supplied NASA research centers with extra manpower and gave NASA scientists the chance to tap -- and usually keep -- the talented ones for permanent positions.
The union called on appropriators to give NASA about $1 billion more than President Bush proposed for fiscal 2008, or a total of $18.3 billion.
"Given that the Department of Defense's military space programs have been funded in excess of $20 billion annually and that NASA's exploration activities will likely produce new dual-use capabilities, we recommend that you consider moving some space funding from DOD to NASA to cover the plus-up," the letter said.
On Friday, NASA defended the agency's commitment to education. "Education is and will continue to be a fundamental element of NASA's activities reflecting a diverse portfolio of higher, pre-college and informal education programs," spokesman Bob Jacobs said.
He added that NASA's "primary role in education" is providing U.S. youth opportunities to experience "the kind of exciting programs" that will propel them to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
More money is always welcome but not necessary, Jacobs said. The real challenge is prioritizing available resources in a manner that benefits the students and the taxpayers, he said. "We believe we can do that with the funds provided."
But Keith Cowing, editor of NASAWatch.com and a former NASA scientist, said cuts have prevented the agency from fulfilling its innovative outreach goals.
"Everybody expects every agency to be hip and with it," but that takes time and money, he said. "The real problem is when they try" to meet these expectations, "Congress cuts their budget."
"To their credit, [some officials] are actually getting hip to this," Cowing said. He pointed to NASA's Ames Center, where the agency is sharing computer scientists and office space with Silicon Valley neighbor Google.
House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., noted that NASA's fiscal 2008 request for education is down more than 8 percent from last year's request.
"With respect to outreach, I don't agree that it is a case of NASA shirking its responsibilities; rather, I think that the agency could do a better job utilizing the resources it does have," he said in a statement. "NASA is a well-known and respected 'brand.' It has inspired previous generations, and there is no reason it can't continue to do so."
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Privacy
Ways To Protect Kids On Social Networks Debated
by Andrew Noyes
Proposals to mandate age-verification technologies for social-networking sites are an imperfect and possibly a detrimental way to protect children from online predators and pedophiles, high-tech and security experts said Friday at a Capitol Hill luncheon.
Child safety concerns have prompted federal lawmakers and several state attorneys general to demand that sites like Facebook and MySpace incorporate age restrictions on people looking to join their increasingly popular online communities.
John Cardillo, CEO of the online identification provider Sentinel Tech Holding, said attorneys generals' "hearts are in the right place" but "they're going down the wrong road." His firm already works with MySpace to flag and block convicted sex offenders from its system.
Technology to accomplish what is desired by age verification in the social-networking world "simply isn't here yet," he said at the Progress and Freedom Foundation event. Authentication for purchases of tobacco and alcohol can prove someone is over 18, but "hundreds of thousands of felons and child predators can get right through" if age checks were implemented on MySpace, he said.
Adults looking to engage in sexual contact with minors could create fake profiles and appear online as youngsters, Cardillo said. "These are not solutions," he noted. They are "tools for bad guys to hunt down kids."
Jeff Schmidt, who runs the data-security firm Authis, said he also disagrees with proposals that have surfaced in Connecticut, Georgia and North Carolina. He said he believes they are facilitating a false sense of security that will "create more problems and a less safe environment."
"It is impossible to 100 percent secure anything," Schmidt said.
But other tech experts support age verification for social-networking sites. Raye Croghan, vice president for IDology, said "we do this on a regular basis" for clients in telecommunications, travel and financial services industries. "It's a proven technology."
Jay Chaudhuri, special counsel to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, defended his boss's effort. Age verification for social networks is "a far more effective way of keeping children safe than what currently exists," he said. Safety mechanisms already deployed by sites "can be sidestepped by falsifying age."
"There is no doubt that parents are the front line in protecting our children on the Internet," Chaudhuri noted. "However, a parent can't do that job alone, and clearly the industry needs to step up to the plate and take on some corporate responsibility to make the parents' job easier."
Internet Education Foundation Executive Director Tim Lordan skirted the age-verification issue, saying that targeted messaging and educational outreach can promote safety on social networks.
Research has shown that 13- to 15-year-old girls are statistically the ones "engaging in risky behavior online," he said. A new public-service campaign sponsored by the Justice Department and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has been launched to target that demographic. (See separate brief)
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Labor
Immigration Bill Is A Vehicle For H-1B Visa Debate
by Heather Greenfield
A new immigration bill that includes language about visas for high-skilled workers already has become the target for a potential amendment aimed at helping U.S. students get high-tech jobs.
Introduced Thursday, the immigration bill, H.R.1645, would more than double the H-1B visas available to skilled workers -- from 65,000 to up to 180,000. The measure, introduced by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., also would allow unlimited visas for foreign students who have earned advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from U.S. universities.
"As the first comprehensive bill introduced in either the House or Senate, we think this lays down a good marker for the high-skilled provisions and we're hopeful a bill will get across the finish line," said Kara Calvert, director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council.
Oregon Democrat David Wu, the chairman of the House Science Technology and Innovation Subcommittee, sees H.R. 1645 as a good vehicle to move one of his pet proposals, and he plans to petition the Judiciary Committee to add a provision to it.
While H-1B visas have bipartisan support, some lawmakers say more steps should be taken to train U.S. students for high-tech jobs. Since 1999, Wu has responded to that argument by introducing his own legislation that would require companies seeking H-1B visas to pay a fee directly to the Pell Grant program in order to help pay for a U.S. student to get a tech job.
This week at a conference on setting technology standards, Wu explained the idea to a roomful of representatives from high-tech companies, including Adobe Systems, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. "It links H-1B visas to college financial aid," Wu said. "It helps fund a future stream of people being highly qualified. This is an idea that deserves a chance."
Wu spokeswoman Jillian Schoene said Wu's goal is to either get the idea inserted into the immigration bill by gaining a Judiciary Committee co-sponsor or passing it as a stand-alone bill.
Robert Hoffman, a lobbyist for Oracle and co-chairman of the Compete America coalition, supports the immigration bill and said the H-1B visa program is really a short-term solution to address a shortage of high-tech workers. Better education is among the long-term solutions, he added.
Hoffman said he hopes Wu's proposal will help focus attention on education in addition to H-1B visas. "Congressman Wu is right on the mark for turning our focus on home-grown talent," Hoffman said.
He said the H-1B visa fees already go toward various programs designed to improve the U.S. pool of math and science workers. Since 1999, $1 billion in fees have been collected and part of the money has funded scholarships for 40,000 math and science students, he added.
But Hoffman said a discussion to ensure those funds are going to the most effective place to boost U.S. talent is always welcome.
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Business
New Revenue Options Emerge For Political Blogs
by Heather Greenfield
A combination of advances in technology and online advertising models could allow more political bloggers to quit their day jobs.
Many Web logs import postings from other blogs or video from sites like YouTube. The practice has flourished because it's free. The next evolution may be bloggers getting a share of the advertising money from driving Web traffic to that content.
A new Web site, The Newsroom, is combining video- and news-sharing with high-tech advertising that follows the content. At an online politics conference this month, The Newsroom demonstrated how a blogger clicking a "mash" button on its Web site could instantly import video of a congressional hearing.
The Newsroom subscribes to news services like the Associated Press and Bloomberg and offers the content for free. The online distributors are paid with income provided by banner ads.
Jeff Crigler, the CEO of Voxant, which started The Newsroom in November, said it has been a long-time goal to let Internet "content wander where it wants to live and monetize it at the edges." The tricky part over the past few years was figuring out how to get the money to sustain the idea, he said.
He said Internet advertising has been "stuck in an old paradigm," and no one had learned how to get beyond spending ad revenue on the top 10 highest traffic sites.
"What's going to happen over the next decade is advertisers are going to reach the places viewers hang out," Crigler said. "That's going to force a lot of changes in business models."
Crigler is hoping The Newsroom will be among the Web sites responding to that need. Bloggers, candidates or perhaps more importantly advertisers can see where content from The Newsroom goes after someone hits the mash button.
It took a little more than a year for engineers to write algorithms to track which Web sites published a news story, blog article or video and then instantly send an ad to match. For example, an ad for Schwinn bicycles might appear on a bicycling blog.
Crigler said the more viewers a blog has, the more money they will share from advertisers. The split will be 40 percent of profits for content providers, 40 percent for Voxant and 20 percent for distributors, which could include all varieties of Web sites and blogs.
"We think of it as a way to really monetize their blog," Crigler said.
Another growing opportunity for bloggers, and anyone who has ever wanted to host a radio show, is BlogTalkRadio. The site uses conference-calling technology broadcast live over the Internet to let anyone host an online radio program for free. The hosts can take live callers, and the content is turned into a podcast after the live webcast.
Ed Morrissey, the founder of the conservative blog Captain's Quarters, is quitting his day job to become the political director for BlogTalkRadio. "Blogs took the print world and democratized it for everyone," Morrissey said. "BlogTalkRadio will do that for the broadcast" medium.
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On The Hill
Bill Seeks Electronic Tracking Of Mail-In Ballots
by Theresa Poulson
One of the new technology-related bills introduced this week would require states to create systems so voters could track the delivery of their mail-in ballots.
"Although voters across the nation are increasingly choosing to cast their ballots by mail because it is more convenient and they have more time to study their choices," said Rep. Susan Davis, the California Democrat who sponsored the legislation, "many voters have been hesitant to do so because they fear their ballots would get 'lost' in the system."
The measure, H.R. 1646, aims to curb such fears and ensure the delivery of ballots by allowing voters to use the telephone or Internet to track the progress of their ballots. Davis said such systems would also reduce the burden on elections offices.
On another front, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., introduced a bill, S. 948, that would establish a program within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to study the role and impact of electronic media in the development of children.
Lieberman, who has been a vocal critic of violent television programming, said numerous studies have shown increased aggressive behavior in children following interaction with violent videogames.
"We need to move research beyond these studies to learn, for example, how new interactive technologies can best support and enhance traditional learning while making certain that these new technologies, and marketing increasingly targeted at children through these technologies, do not damage children's long-term health," he said.
Other technology-related measures introduced this week were:
-- H.R. 1597, which would require that the FCC issue a final order on how "white spaces," the unlicensed, unused part of analog television spectrum, can be used;
-- H.R. 1645, which would ease visa rules for highly skilled workers, (See separate story);
-- H.R. 1577, H.R. 1578, H.R. 1579 and H.R. 1580, which would create a patient-tracking system for soldiers;
-- H.R. 1601, which aims to facilitate the provision of telehealth services;
-- H.R. 1656, which would permit increased access to sex-offender registries;
-- H.R. 1652, which would authorize the FTC to prohibit any telemarketing calls from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.;
-- S. 966, which is designed to respond to a shortage of personnel at the State Department for processing passports;
-- H.R. 1574 and H.R. 1633, which would prohibit the Homeland Security secretary from setting rules that pre-empt more stringent state security regulations on chemical facilities;
-- H.R. 1568, which would authorize scholarships to high-achieving students for degrees in mathematics, science, engineering and health-related fields;
-- H.R. 1657, which would establish a science and technology scholarship program for careers in weather, marine research, atmospheric research and satellite programs;
-- And H.R. 1615, which would provide penalties for aiming laser pointers at airplanes.
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Today's Feature:
Executive Summary
A Philadelphia court this week overturned a 1998 federal law against Internet pornography that critics said would impose draconian criminal sanctions for people who post online material deemed "harmful to minors."
Every Friday, read the Executive Summary by K. Daniel Glover.
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E-briefs
Telecom: The House on Wednesday passed so-called anti-spoofing legislation by voice vote. The measure, H.R. 740, would make it illegal to falsify caller-identification information with the intent to defraud or deceive, and it contains a law enforcement exemption. The bill is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee. A similar measure, H.R. 251, was pulled from floor consideration earlier this week because it lacked the exemption.
Intellectual Property: A federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Friday barred Internet telephony carrier Vonage from using Verizon Communications' patents, the AP reported. The permanent injunction filed by Judge Claude Hilton follows a March 8 jury decision that Vonage violated some of the telecom giant's patents. The AP also noted that the jury ordered Vonage to pay $58 million in penalties to Verizon and to potentially turn over some of its future royalties to Verizon. But the fines are less than the $197 million that Verizon had requested, the news service reported.
Intellectual Property: A YouTube video created by the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org and Brave New Films was back online Friday -- a day after the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court against Viacom over the video. A day earlier, those seeking to view the video on YouTube instead got a red-lettered notice saying the clip was "no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom." EFF accused the media giant of impinging on the filmmakers' free speech rights, but Viacom insisted it was not behind the takedown. After sending a counter-notice to YouTube under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the plaintiffs got an e-mail from BayTSP, an online copyright enforcer that works with Viacom, apologizing for the mistake. "We're glad the video is back up, but it's unfortunate that it took a federal lawsuit to make that happen," EFF attorney Corynne McSherry said. The suit is still pending, she said.
Privacy: A new public service campaign announced Friday by the Justice Department aims to educate teenage girls about the potential dangers of posting and sharing personal information on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Law enforcement and child safety officials say they are concerned that personal data, pictures and videos uploaded to the sites can make users more vulnerable to online predators. Teenage girls are particularly at risk for online sexual exploitation, according to a recent study conducted by the University of New Hampshire for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The "Think Before You Post" campaign, sponsored by the center, the Justice Department and the Ad Council, reminds children and their parents to be cautious when putting personal information online "because anything you post, anyone can see -- family, friends and even not-so-friendly people," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in a statement.
E-Government: The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it has submitted final recommendations to Congress for reauthorizing a law that allocates appropriated funds and fees collected from drug and biotechnology companies to the system for reviewing new human drugs. FDA is proposing $6.25 million in new user fees for a voluntary program that would pre-screen television advertisements for accuracy and fairness. The suggestions contain revised language clarifying FDA's commitment to combine its current safety data collection with methods that actively seek information about medications and adverse events. FDA is asking for $4 million to move toward an all-electronic drug review system.
Net Governance: The president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers earlier this week called for a substantial review of the organization's accreditation process for companies that sell Internet address registrations to the public. The focus on accreditation comes after ICANN, which manages the Internet addressing system, cancelled RegisterFly's accreditation following a wave of user complaints. "There must be clear decisions made on changes. As a community we cannot put this off," Paul Twomey said in a statement on ICANN's Web log. The system was designed in the late 1990s when the domain name market was much smaller, he said. The sector now supports about 70 million generic top-level Internet addresses, also known as domains, and it is growing. It is important to be able to respond to challenges "more strongly and flexibly" in the future, he said. ICANN's board is set to meet next week in Lisbon, Portugal for its first meeting of 2007.
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Editor in Chief -- Louis Peck, 202-739-8481
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