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Security
Former Border Agents Assail Senate Immigration Proposal
by Chris Strohm
Former Border Patrol chiefs and agents Monday ripped apart the Senate's immigration bill as being unrealistic and technologically unfeasible, and instead offered their own six-part plan for increasing border security, removing illegal immigrants from the country and overhauling the nation's immigration system.
Not mincing words during a press conference, members of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers said the Senate immigration bill is "a slap in the face," "disastrous," "cynical," "dangerous," "a lie," "silly," "a recipe for disaster," "a bureaucratic shell game," "misguided, "fundamentally flawed," "so bad it'd be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous," and "the al-Qaida dream bill."
Kent Lundgren, the association's chairman, said; "Our experience tells us that this bill is insultingly, unforgivingly bad." Hugh Brien, a former Border Patrol chief under President Reagan, added: "The current Senate bill ... is a travesty in my opinion. It's a sellout in my view. It's a complete betrayal of the nation."
Members of the group said they believe the bill would give amnesty to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. They asserted provisions in the bill are also unrealistic. For example, they charged that technology is not capable of doing background checks and processing fingerprint scans in the timelines laid out in the bill.
"There will be no meaningful criminal or terrorist record checks of the applicants," Lundgren said. "Despite what the administration and Congress say about record checks to ease the voter's mind, they are lying about it. ... Yes, technology has improved and fingerprint checks can now be done online. But there is more to a criminal record check than a fingerprint check and even with technology it can't be done as quickly as they're calling for it to be done."
They also argued that the Homeland Security Department would not have adequate staff in place to vet applicants applying for new work visas. And they said the Border Patrol would not be able to hire, train and deploy 6,000 new agents within 18 months. They added that the Border Patrol would also have to account for attrition in its ranks, which means at least another 2,000 agents will need to be hired. And they said there is no indication that Congress would allocate the money needed to carry out the bill's provisions.
Instead, the association has drafted its own six-point plan for immigration reform and border security that says, in part, illegal immigrants must be compelled to leave the United States through "firm and relentless pressure on all aspects of their lives."
The association says it is not calling for illegal immigrants to be rounded up and deported in mass. Rather, their plan assumes that illegal immigrants would mostly voluntarily leave the country if they are denied work, social services and education and forced to undergo identity checks. The association's plan also calls for increased border security, no amnesty, stiff penalties against employers who hire undocumented workers and training and job relocation for legal U.S. workers.
Once all the conditions of the plan have been met, and if there are labor shortages, then the government could create a temporary guest worker program, the plan adds. Association members said they could not put a timeline on how long their plan would take to show results or estimate how much it would cost.
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Crime
Indictment Issued For Jefferson In Bribery Case
by Christian Bourge and Mark Wegner, CongressDaily
Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on 16 counts stemming from a bribery scheme that unraveled when FBI agents found $90,000 in a freezer at his home. The 94-page indictment handed up in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., charges Jefferson with racketeering, soliciting bribes, money laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and other counts. According to federal sentencing guidelines, Jefferson could face more than 200 years in prison. Prosecutors scheduled a news conference this afternoon to discuss the case.
Two of Jefferson's associates have already struck plea bargains with prosecutors and have been sentenced. Brett Pfeffer, a former congressional aide, admitted soliciting bribes on Jefferson's behalf and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Another Jefferson associate, Louisville, Ky., telecommunications executive Vernon Jackson, pleaded guilty to paying between $400,000 and $1 million in bribes to Jefferson in exchange for his assistance securing business deals in Nigeria and other African nations. Jackson was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.
By running for re-election in 2006, Jefferson indicated to Democratic leaders he would not leave Congress easily, and an indictment does not necessarily mean he would resign his seat. But his legal woes have proven an embarrassment to Democrats at a time they have been trying to take advantage of ethical and legal troubles by a handful of GOP lawmakers, including former Reps. Randy (Duke) Cunningham of California, Bob Ney of Ohio and Tom DeLay of Texas. Cunningham and Ney are serving prison terms, while DeLay was indicted and awaits trial. Two current Republican lawmakers, Reps. John Doolittle of California and Rick Renzi of Arizona, have temporarily stepped down from committee assignments because federal investigators are probing family businesses.
An aide said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had no immediate comment, but another Democratic aide said the indictment "certainly doesn't help us. He had been sidelined, but now it is something we are going to have to deal with and in a very public way." Despite his legal troubles, Jefferson has shown resilience in the New Orleans 2nd District, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After revelations about the investigation, Jefferson was seen as extremely vulnerable and faced a dozen challengers in Louisiana's general election. Jefferson won 30 percent and placed first in that election and advanced to a December runoff against Democratic state Rep. Karen Carter. He easily won a ninth term, 57-43 percent.
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Cyber Security
Expert: Cyber Security Officials Face Enforcement Hurdles
by Heather Greenfield
Thousands of computer security specialists who are on the front line protecting networks from cyber attacks learned more about the obstacles the FBI and postal service agents face when investigating those crimes during the opening day of the Gartner Security Summit on Monday.
Greg Crabb, the manager of the Postal Inspection Service's International Affairs Group, said the United States cannot control how much other countries cooperate with an investigation or punish a criminal as he related how he helped apprehend cyber criminals in Thailand, Lithuania, Cypress and the Ukraine.
He noted that some U.S. laws are helping cyber criminals. Crabb said a provision of Sarbanes-Oxley, a law providing new accounting regulations in response to the Enron scandal, requires companies to disclose their security vulnerabilities in their financial statements. While Congress is making some revisions to the law after complaints from business that it is too tedious and costly, there have been no calls to making the vulnerability reporting requirements confidential.
Crabb said such information helps more amateur cyber criminals exploit companies. "Why are we telling a lot of people who you don't know your security vulnerabilities? Why isn't that disclosed confidentially to the government?" Crabb asked.
Lately, Crabb said criminals in Nigeria are winning as many eBay auctions as possible, then paying with counterfeit checks. "This is the fastest growing fraud scheme among consumers," Crabb said.
While the recent hacking into credit card data at discount retailer TJX gained much media attention in the United States, Crabb said he sees many similar attacks. He pointed to one Eastern European hacker who set up an operation in Cypress with friends with advanced degrees to hack into Dataprocessing Inc. to steal credit cards. When Roman Vega was arrested in February 2003, Crabb said Vega had over 1 million credit card numbers on his computer.
Crabb also told of the arrest of a man he described as the pioneer of phishing, fraudulent e-mails designed to get consumers to reveal personal information such as credit card numbers or the username and password of an Internet buying account such as PayPal.
A cyber security report released at the conference Monday by MessageLabs found that phishing and virus attacks increased slightly last month. While spam decreased 3.4 percent, sudden surges known as "spam spikes" increased.
A spam spike is designed to boost the unsolicited e-mail that gets through a network, while a distributed denial of service attack disrupts connectivity. But a spam spike mimics a distributed denial of service attack.
"This month, the bad guys continued with their aggressive attacks by developing new tactics to fly under the radar and cause the most damage," said Mark Sunner, chief security analyst for MessageLabs, which provides Web security. "With the increase in spam spikes and new techniques with image spam, it is crucial for businesses to take a multi-layered security approach among email, Web and [instant messaging]."
The report from MessageLabs found one in every 156.3 emails was some sort of phishing attack.
Those working to change laws to improve cyber security, such as the Internet Security Alliance, are pushing Congress for tougher data protection legislation this session. That includes notifying consumers when data is compromised, and an incentive program to encourage businesses and government agencies to follow best security practices.
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Environment
E-Recycling Proposal Draws Criticism From Policy Group
by Winter Casey
A recent electronics recycling legislation proposal from the Electronic Industry Association has received heavy criticism from a public policy issue coalition supported by retailer groups such as Amazon.com, Best Buy and the National Retail Federation.
Late last month, EIA released a policy framework for recycling obsolete electronic products that was said to represent a consensus among the technology industry. Under the proposal introduced May 23, collection and recycling of old televisions would be primarily conducted by an industry-sponsored third party organization and paid for by a fee imposed on televisions at the time of purchase.
The proposal was approved by EIA's Environmental Issues Council, which includes companies such as Lenovo, Panasonic and Sharp, and covers the recycling of household televisions and information technology products such as computers and computer monitors.
However, Marc Pearl of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition said the framework "contains a major provision that is opposed by retailers, environmental groups, recyclers and all of the states but California that have passed laws dealing with the handling of consumer electronics at their end of life." The contentious proposal, according to Pearl, is for the collection of an advanced recovery fee or "tax" at the point of sale.
The chances of "the U.S. Congress passing a national sales tax is politically pretty remote ... And the amount of consumer confusion would be enormous," said Pearl.
Pearl said that, if the proposal were to make it into law, when a person purchased a 20-inch television screen a tax would only be attached if the screen had a tuner. This policy does not seem to have an environmental basis, he said.
Thus far states such as California, Maine, Maryland and Washington have attempted to address the problem of e-waste by enacting their own laws. Recycling Today reports that legislative bodies in Oregon and Texas have also passed e-waste laws that await signatures by the states' respective governors.
Both CERC and EIA say they are seeking national e-waste legislation. A number of lawmakers such as Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., are looking to formulate such a measure.
However, another issue of contention concerns how a national law would address the number of state e-waste laws that have been passed. Pearl said the issue of pre-empting state laws through a national bill is a big issue for his group. He said CERC is advocating states that are passing laws to include a pre-emption clause.
A number of important questions will need to be addressed soon if there is any chance for a consensus bill to be introduced within the next couple of months, said Pearl.
David Isaacs, director of public policy at Hewlett Packard, said the outcome of national legislation on states that have already enacted laws is a bridge that has not yet been crossed. HP's preference is for a harmonized national approach but the company understands that is a challenge politically, he noted.
Isaacs said that though his firm supports EIA's work, his company is not generally in favor of a bifurcated approach for televisions and IT or a new fee or tax -- because it would be less effective and create jurisdictional and political hurdles.
HP does support the producer responsibility approach for information technology equipment proposed by EIA, Isaacs said.
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Telecom
Commerce Department Touts Public Safety Grant Program
by Michael Martinez
Commerce Department officials on Monday outlined how a federal grant program for public safety communications will be implemented.
The department's National Telecommunications Information Administration, in consultation with the Homeland Security Department, has been tasked with allocating nearly $1 billion in grants to improve the ability of state and local public safety networks to communicate with each other across different jurisdictions. The grants will be awarded by the end of the year.
Congress has authorized NTIA, which advises the White House on telecommunications issues, to transfer roughly $960 million as part of the public safety interoperable communications grants program. The money will is being allocated for the general purpose of helping state, local and federal first responders communicate better during natural or man-made disasters. The applications will be due one month after grant guidance is issued in July. Grants will be awarded in September. The money will be available to public safety agencies in all of the states and territories.
At a public meeting, Commerce Department Program Specialist Laura Pettus said draft guidelines are being finalized. She said the federal government is not going to dictate interoperability solutions to states and localities but that grant applicants will be required to address certain questions, such as how they intend to improve spectrum efficiency.
Pettus did not provide any advanced details about what the guidance may entail, though she did note that NTIA is planning to use Homeland Security's "risk-based" grant formula as a starting point. She also said NTIA is looking to direct no less than 80 percent of the grants to local public safety entities.
John Bunting, a regional inspector general for audits at the Commerce Department, advised the audience, which included officials from both the private and public sector, how to avoid auditing problems in drafting grant requests. He said the grant program is going to offer an important opportunity for public safety officials to improve their infrastructure.
"We have one time and one time only to get this right," he said.
Interoperability has been a buzz word on Capitol Hill since the 2001 terrorist attacks. The issue took center stage again in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina rocked the Gulf Coast region.
Funds for the interoperability grants are being borrowed from the anticipated auction of the 700 mhz spectrum that will be relinquished by television stations as they make the congressionally mandated switch to digital signals.
In an interview, Rocky Lopes, a homeland security project manager for the National Association of Counties, said he hopes federal officials recognize the importance of local first responders in emergencies as funds are allocated.
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Labor
Survey: Unauthorized Federal Teleworkers A Security Risk
by Aliya Sternstein
Federal teleworkers are less of a security risk than many of their in-office colleagues who take home government work without authorization, according to a report released Monday by the public-private partnership Telework Exchange.
An online poll of 258 federal employees including sanctioned teleworkers, non-teleworkers and non-teleworkers who unofficially work at home revealed that federal data is significantly more mobile and still vulnerable. Telework Exchange conducted the survey in May to examine changes in data mobility and security awareness one year after the loss of a Veterans Affairs Department laptop that contained personal data on 26.5 million veterans and active-duty members.
The report found that 63 percent of respondents who worked from home unauthorized -- more half of the non-teleworkers surveyed -- used their home computers in doing that work. "People were saving documents on their home computers that were unprotected," said Josh Wolfe of Utimaco, a data security company that underwrote the study.
After the VA incident, 13 percent of federal employees surveyed said their newly issued laptops did not have encryption. And while 65 percent of employees said their agencies reinforced security policies after the event, only 48 percent said their agencies provided additional training.
When teleworkers and nonteleworkers where asked if they had antivirus protection on their laptop or desktop computers, 94 percent of teleworkers responded yes, while only 75 percent of non-teleworkers said yes.
The survey, which had a six percent error margin, did not break down results by agency or job function.
"We're not sure if these people are dealing with spreadsheets with Social Security numbers on them or something more mundane than that," Wolfe said.
Still, he said, agencies should be reemphasizing security procedures for all authorized teleworkers and making sure all mobile equipment -- not just laptops -- is secure.
The report recommends that agencies audit the online behavior of unofficial teleworkers who work at home and give them the same home computer security training and equipment as official teleworkers.
Diane Merriett, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, which helps agencies maintain security controls to enable telework, said the behavior of unauthorized teleworkers "is outside the realm of GSA comment."
She directed Technology Daily to the GSA's March bulletin on telework IT guidelines. The bulletin states that agencies should encrypt all data on mobile computers and devices that carry agency data, "unless the agency determines that the data are nonsensitive."
Each agency is supposed to establish its own policies for "limited personal use" of government e-mail and Internet systems based on 1999 recommendations by the CIO Council, according to the bulletin. That guidance advises agencies to review user activity logs for inappropriate activities.
Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said the study's finding that agencies failed to encrypt data on some new laptops is "disappointing."
A large number of her members "routinely travel in the course of their daily work. These include Internal Revenue Service revenue agents and revenue officers, bank examiners of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and many others," she said, adding, "This is an important shortcoming that must be addressed by agencies, even as they seek to expand telework opportunities."
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Privacy
Personalized Search Is Too Personal For Some
by Winter Casey
As technology advances, some are pointing to personalized Web search as the inevitable trend of the future -- but privacy concerns could pose restraints.
"Personal Web search is the wave of the future. As the technology advances search algorithms will need to advance with it. Individuals will want more and more targeted search results. ... People want to be able to search faster, and if personalization will help this then it is inevitable," said Sean Kane, a partner at New York's Drakeford & Kane.
"Developing more personalized search results is crucial given how much new data is coming online every day," Peter Fleischer, the global privacy counsel for Google, said in an opinion piece published by the Financial Times on May 25.
This search ability is necessary to reduce the guesswork of the search engine, added Fleischer.
However, not everyone is so enthusiastic about technological advances that enable a search engine to retain a user's history in order to provide information that more accurately fits a person's needs.
Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of the People For Internet Responsibility, pointed out that the personalization trend requires more personal information to be saved.
Weinstein said Google can collect transactional data on what people search for, regardless of whether they are logged in or not. Fleischer said Google enables users to turn on and off the personalized function.
Weinstein said that, because Google is still retaining all the data in either case the privacy issues remain the same. "It is just a matter of whether the user is aware," he said.
He added that through search key words it is possible to determine a person's identity. Google's presentation could "mislead people into thinking that when they delete their histories they are deleting them from Google's own files," Weinstein noted.
Technology solutions could be explored that would better address privacy concerns, said Weinstein.
Kane acknowledged that privacy concerns are valid for some and the more search information that is retained for any one person the more that Web anonymity is eroded. But "others that don't care if their Web searches are being tracked in some way, especially if it will lead to better search capabilities. ... There is a growing population that is working to make the Web less private," he said.
Kane concluded that ultimately the balance of privacy and technology will be a "balance," but algorithms will continue to be improved to the point where they push the privacy line.
Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said "search personalization that depends on a search provider developing a detailed dossier of an individual's private concerns and interests is fundamentally at odds with personal privacy." He noted that legal privacy protections for personal records that are stored by third parties are significantly less than those for data located in a person's home.
Under the Justice Department's reading of current law "it could be a very simple matter for the government or even civil litigants to subpoena such data" without a person's knowledge, Bankston added. "There's also the possibility of leaks or security breaches concerning such data," he said.
If companies like Google are going to encourage Internet users to trust them with personal data, those companies should push Congress to update privacy laws, Bankston said. Until this happens, consumers should be wary of personalized search results, he added.
When people log in to do searches for personalized search this adds another layer of information Google is able to obtain, said Weinstein.
Google did not respond to requests for comment.
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Today's Feature:
Issue of the Week
If the Internet radio industry loses its fight against a forthcoming royalty rate hike it would not be due to a lack of trying.
Every Monday, read the Issue of the Week by the Technology Daily staff.
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E-briefs
Telecom: A federal appellate court on Monday called the FCC's policy of penalizing broadcasters for expletives accidentally uttered on the air "arbitrary and capricious," but stopped short of outlawing the policy. AP reports the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a challenge to the policy led by Fox Television. The case has been returned to the FCC, which has been asked to provide "reasoned analysis" for its approach to regulating indecency and profanity. According to the court, the FCC's new policy for accidentally aired expletives "represents a significant departure from positions previously taken by the agency and relied on by the broadcast industry." An FCC spokesman said the commission would respond to the ruling once it finished reviewing it.
Security: National Security Agency expert James Bamford told the Gartner IT Security Summit on Monday that he is happy that the agency's acronym is "becoming a household word" in the wake of the controversy over the Bush administration's domestic wiretapping program. When Bamford wrote The Puzzle Palace, his best-selling 1982 book on the NSA, many in and outside of the government had not heard of the agency. He recalled briefing former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., a 2000 presidential hopeful, on what the NSA did. Before the NSA became better known, bookstores routinely shelved his book next to compilations of crossword puzzles, Bamford added. The author is one of several plaintiffs who recently sued the U.S. government over the NSA eavesdropping initiative. A federal court in Michigan ruled in their favor but the case now awaits a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Nanotechnology: The Department of Defense has released its annual review of nanotechnology research and development, the National Nanotechnology Initiative said. The report found that DOD funding levels for nanotechnology was sufficient. The review recommended that more Defense Department funding be allocated towards small business innovation research and technology such as programs that would "facilitate transitioning and a sustained supply of nanotechnology-based products for defense technologies." Andrew Maynard, an advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, said the report is positive in that it shows awareness of health, safety and environment issues. He also said it is encouraging to see of the need to address these issues as well as to develop new technologies and applications. However, far more needs to be done to integrate what DOD is doing on the nanotechnology front with other agencies, according to Maynard. He said a first concern for DOD should be to determine how it is going to protect researchers from the potential health and safety effects of nanotechnology.
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