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Spectrum
Google Shapes Rules, But Will It Bid On Airwaves?
by David Hatch
When the FCC votes Tuesday to approve "open platform" regulations governing a major spectrum auction, Google will be credited with having spurred Chairman Kevin Martin to champion the idea. But will the restrictions be enough to convince Google to actually bid?
That question remains uncertain as regulators, lobbyists and congressmen engage in last-minute negotiations and horse-trading over the auction rules.
Google recently stated that it would participate if four "open access" conditions are imposed on roughly one-third of the airwaves to be designated for commercial use. Sources expect the FCC to mandate two of the four. The two conditions Martin has proposed would permit devices and software applications not affiliated with the licensee or licensees to operate on a designated spectrum block.
The prospect of the FCC embracing only those requirements raises uncertainties about whether Google will spend the minimum $4.6 billion or more needed to secure frequencies to offer a nationwide wireless high-speed Internet service.
"I think the odds are against [Google] participating," said Blair Levin, managing director at the investment firm Stifel Nicolaus, though he noted that the firm might invest in another company that bids. AT&T and Verizon Communications are eying the same frequencies that Google wants.
Google has several options at its disposal. It could partner with one or more carriers, possibly a major telecommunications player, or secure frequencies at auction and unilaterally impose additional restrictions. Google also could remain on the sidelines and instead have a presence through the openness requirements it helped forge. A company spokesman could not be reached for comment.
Tuesday's vote on rules for licensing airwaves in the 700-megahertz band of frequencies, which will become available as analog broadcasters shift to digital signals, is viewed by many as "historic" because of its potential for revolutionizing the wireless marketplace.
"This is the next step in the evolution to compete more openly," said Jessica Zufolo, a senior telecom analyst at the investment firm Medley Investment Group, explaining that customers could use one handset with multiple carriers.
But Levin downplayed the significance, noting that the FCC may face difficulties enforcing its mandates, which only affect a limited amount of airwaves. "I don't think this will have a historic impact," he said. Paul Glenchur, an analyst with the Stanford Group Company, said eleventh-hour negotiations include efforts to add some enforcement teeth.
Democrats Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps are expected to align with Martin, a Republican, in backing the open-access provisions. The positions of GOP members Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate are considered a toss-up, though a few observers predicted that Tate would align with Martin. Sources noted that McDowell may dissent on open access while backing the overall item.
At deadline, there was last-minute wrangling over the size of the open-access block.
U.S. Cellular is one of several rural wireless companies pushing for those frequencies to be auctioned in smaller chunks that are more accessible to regional players. It outlined its views in a July 27 letter to top Democratic and Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In another letter the same day, North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan urged Martin to adopt more consumer-friendly conditions.
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Crime
Rep. Chabot's Anti-Piracy Bill Draws Criticisms
by Andrew Noyes
A sweeping intellectual property measure tucked into a batch of crime-fighting bills that House Republicans introduced last week is getting a chilly reception from some high-tech experts and advocates of "fair use" of copyrighted content.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio, would increase criminal penalties for IP crimes and for repeat offenders, and it would authorize additional resources for federal investigators and prosecutors to focus on those offenses.
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IP policy in a digital age
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In a "dear colleague" letter, Chabot, the House Small Business Committee's top Republican called intellectual property "the lifeblood of the American economy" and said his measure, H.R. 3155, would protect "the ingenuity of inventors and artists." The Justice Department floated a similar proposal in May and in the 109th Congress.
Derek Slater of the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the legislation "an awful idea" and said it would go even further than previous efforts in boosting statutory damages for some piracy.
Current copyright law does not require copyright owners to prove they have been harmed in order to get statutory damages, which can climb as high as $30,000 per work infringed, Slater said on EFF's blog.
Under the new bill, a judge could set damages for each separate piece of a derivative work or compilation, rather than treating it as one work, he said. "Copying an entire album could translate into damages for each individual track, even if the copyrights in those tracks aren't separately registered," he said.
The Consumer Electronics Association's Michael Petricone said he is worried about a section of the bill that would create a federal offense for attempting or conspiring to infringe on a copyright. That could have "serious unintended consequences," he said.
Jennifer Stoltz, a spokeswoman for the CEA-backed Digital Freedom campaign, warned that the legislation would "allow people to be jailed when no actual infringement took place." Congress should instead focus on reforms that would promote innovation, she said.
But IP protectionists welcomed Chabot's effort. Mitch Glazier, a lobbyist for the Recording Industry Association of America, said he is encouraged by "all efforts to strengthen the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights."
Patrick Ross, who heads the Copyright Alliance, also lauded the legislation, noting that Chabot's role on the Small Business Committee is relevant given that millions of creators work for small companies or are self-employed.
"This effort to reduce the serious threat of piracy likely will be the first of several legislative attempts this Congress," Ross said.
A spokeswoman for House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers told Technology Daily on Monday that the Michigan Democrat is working on his own IP bill, but a timeframe for its introduction is not yet known.
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Civil Liberties
Bush's Surveillance Plans Get A Chilly Response
by Andrew Noyes
Remarks made by President Bush over the weekend about the need to revise a 30-year-old intelligence surveillance law to aid anti-terrorism efforts has ruffled the feathers of civil libertarians and key lawmakers.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is "badly out of date and Congress must act to modernize it," Bush said during his weekly radio address. Intelligence agencies have been hampered in their ability to get vital information to keep American people safe, he said.
The country faces "sophisticated terrorists who use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate with each other, recruit operatives and plan attacks," Bush said Saturday. "Technologies like these were not available when FISA was passed ... and FISA has not kept up with new technological developments."
Not so said Caroline Fredrickson, the American Civil Liberties Union's top lobbyist. The intelligence law was written to be tech neutral, and there is no new technology that cannot be intercepted with a warrant, she said.
The solution proposed by the administration would protect "the privacy interests of people inside the United States so we don't have to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located in foreign locations," Bush said.
He also said the changes would let the government work better with private-sector entities, like telecommunications companies. Bush urged Congress to pass an intelligence modernization bill before the August congressional recess starts this week.
But Fredrickson called the administration's proposal "a blank check for warrantless domestic and international surveillance."
Lisa Graves, deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies, said Bush further misled citizens during his radio address, and his administration is "playing chicken with the privacy rights of Americans."
The White House is trying to win dramatic revisions to the law that would impact privacy rights of Americans "by stoking fears and yet again subverting intelligence to advance the administration's political ends," she said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that if changes are needed to FISA, "we'll do that -- we've done this half a dozen times already."
The bigger problem is the lack of information being provided about the scope of government spying, the Vermont Democrat said. "We have an administration that feels they're above the law, that the law applies to everybody except them, and we have a Department of Justice that goes along with that."
"We do not know if the administration has been leveling with us or not," added the panel's ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. He told host Bob Schieffer that a briefing from administration officials was planned for the following day. When asked on Monday, a Specter aide said he did not have details about the meeting.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee, said the administration appears to have violated FISA numerous times. "We should not reward such behavior by giving the president more unchecked powers," the New York Democrat said.
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Campaigns
New Bid To Regulate Blogs Is Expected To Falter
by Heather Greenfield
A little more than a year after the Federal Election Commission decided to largely exempt blogs from campaign finance rules, that ruling is being tested with a complaint aimed at one of the most popular liberal blogs. Both liberal and conservative bloggers are rallying for another fight.
An FEC spokeswoman confirmed that the agency has received a complaint against the online community Daily Kos from John Bambanek, who writes at Blogcritics.org and teaches at the University of Illinois. Bambanek argues that bloggers at Daily Kos have said their goal is to get Democrats elected, so that makes the site a biased publication that advocates political action and earns money from advertising.
The complaint doesn't appear likely to gain any traction at the FEC. Scott Thomas, a Washington attorney who chaired the agency when the controversy over regulating blogs first broke and who authored the rules now on the books, said the FEC already has ruled on the matter. "There isn't much chance of this complaint going anywhere."
Thomas said the thinking behind the decision in 2005 is that blogs backing candidates are akin to The Washington Post and other media outlets making endorsing endorsements. Election commissioners knew that some blogs would be biased when they issued their decision, he said, and that bias doesn't change the status of blogs as media.
"It was really the desire on the part of all the commissioners to give as much latitude as possible to this new medium that seemed to be a dramatic expansion of political discourse," Thomas said.
Daily Kos, the conservative blog RedState and other site formed The Online Coalition in 2005 to appeal to the FEC not to stifle political debate by requiring them to submit financial disclosures for supporting candidates, and they are fighting Bambanek's complaint now.
Adam Bonin, the lawyer who represented Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and two other bloggers before the FEC and Congress in 2005, referred to the coalition in his response to the complaint.
"Hypothetical-but-now-sadly-real complaints like this are precisely why we banded together with RedState and sites across the blogosphere to ensure that no site of any ideological stripe has to face threats like this, so that election seasons don't become tit-for-tat complaints across the Internet that end up shutting down online activism," Bonin wrote.
Top bloggers on the right agreed. David Freddoso for the National Review called Bambanek's complaint "an outrage against the First Amendment that every conservative should fight vigorously. And Mike Krempasky, a co-founder of both RedState and The Online Coalition, said at RedState that Bambanek is "woefully uninformed about the law."
James Joyner of Outside The Beltway said the primary activity of political blogs is political debate. He noted the FEC's directives in 2005 and 2006.
"After quite a bit of lobbying by the likes of Daily Kos and RedState, the FEC ruled that bloggers are essentially exempt from the dictats of [campaign finance law] because we are considered 'media.'"
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E-Government
Grassley, Sun Vie Over Contract Audit Allegations
by Aliya Sternstein
Sen. Charles Grassley and Sun Microsystems continue to spar over allegations that Sun is not cooperating with an audit of the company's government contract.
On Monday, the Iowa Republican's office said that to its knowledge, Sun has not met any of the deadlines for supplying documentation to the inspector general at the General Services Administration during its audit of the agency's contract for Sun products and services. Grassley had requested the audit June 5 after claims of misconduct within GSA surfaced.
Last week, Sun said in a statement that it is cooperating with the audit and repeatedly has offered to meet with Grassley to discuss both parties' concerns. In a July 25 letter, Sun Chairman Scott McNealy told Grassley that "any information you have received that suggests Sun has not or will not cooperate with the contracting officer and does not intend to provide information on [cost-savings data] is demonstrably false."
Grassley's staff said it wanted to set the record straight that Sun initially requested a meeting the same day that it contacted the senator -- a scheduling impossibility for the busy lawmaker. Sun attorney Ty Cobb of Hogan and Hartson countered that the company offered to make McNealy available on a date of the senator's choosing, "and we never got a response."
According to GSA, Sun was responsive to GSA's request for information regarding the contract. The agency issued a statement on Monday that said, "GSA believes that the recent contract negotiated with Sun Microsystems Inc. is a good deal for the taxpayer."
In a July 24 letter to Sun, Grassley expressed dismay that the IG still had not received documents needed to proceed with the audit. The review involves a contract extension awarded to Sun in September by GSA. The contract has faced scrutiny partly because House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called GSA Administrator Lurita Doan to testify about her alleged meddling during the business dealings.
At a March hearing, GSA Inspector General Brian Miller stated that Doan and her top staff intervened in negotiations with Sun, going against the judgment of three career contract officers and choosing a higher-priced offer from Sun.
Miller testified that "as a direct consequence of her intervention ... the pricing concession made to Sun means that the U.S. taxpayers will inevitably pay far more for government IT products and services than they should."
Sun's July 25 letter in response to Grassley's letter said "we feel strongly" that this particular inspector general and his staff "have a significant and well-documented conflict of interest and a demonstrated predisposition regarding our contract."
Because of the IG's statements, Sun has asked to be audited by someone outside the IG's office. Sun apparently "got mixed up" in the IG's efforts "to get the administrator ousted. It's bizarre that we got picked as the whipping boy," Cobb said.
Grassley spokeswoman Beth Levine said on Monday: "Frankly, it is irresponsible for Sun to shirk its obligations as a government contractor and to argue that the IG is biased. ... Senator Grassley is confident that the IG will conduct a fair and objective audit of the new Sun contract."
The GSA IG's office did not wish to comment on Monday.
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Privacy
Ohio Intern, Official Lose Jobs Over Data Breach
by Michael Martinez
As investigators have delved deeper into the ramifications of a data breach discovered earlier this summer in Ohio, the number of people impacted has been getting bigger by the week.
In addition to exposing the personal information of more than a million Ohioans, the breach has now cost a public official and an intern their jobs, and several companies have lost contracting deals with the state.
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The state of state tech policies
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According to a report prepared for Gov. Ted Strickland by state Inspector General Tom Charles, the breach occurred when an intern at the state's Administration Services Department lost a computer tape with information on thousands of state employees. Inspectors later discovered that the tape, which was taken from the intern's car, also included data on hundreds of thousands of Ohioans and records of companies that did business with the state.
Charles also found that department officials did not attempt to locate the lost tape until several days after the intern, DeVry University student Jared Ilovar, reported it had been stolen.
"Given the elevated level of risk, it defies common sense that [department] officials allowed state workers, contractors and interns to take data tapes home," the report said. "It also seems incongruous that [department] officials considered the backup tapes important enough to be shuttled back and forth between offices and homes yet gave no thought to trying to find one of the tapes after learning it had been stolen."
Strickland responded to Charles' report by forcing Ilovar to resign and terminating the contracts of two consultants from the company Compuware, which had been working on one of the department's projects. David White, an Administrative Services Department project manager, also has resigned, and the department has been instructed to discipline two of his co-workers.
The state has offered millions of dollars worth of free identity-theft services to those whose information was compromised, even though it insists there is no evidence that the data on the tape has been accessed or harmed. Strickland's office has issued new estimates for the scope of the breach multiple times during the past several weeks.
Ilovar did not respond well to being fired from his internship. In a statement released to news outlets in Ohio on Wednesday, he accused Strickland's administration of using him as a scapegoat. He said he has learned that "failure and responsibility starts at the top."
"As an intern, I do not create policy, I do not interpret policy, and I do not question policy," he said. "I do what I am instructed to do. Take the tapes out of the building and return them the next day."
Ilovar, a 22-year-old who is expected to graduate next spring, lamented that his mistake cost him his job. He also asked Strickland to consider hiring him as an intern at his own office.
A Strickland spokeswoman said Friday that the governor's office would not consider Ilovar for an internship, even though it appreciated the work he put in at his previous post.
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Health
Mobile Signals Are Not A Fatigue Factor, Study Says
by Winter Casey
People in the United Kingdom who suspected negative health effects such as anxiety and tiredness when exposed to electromagnetic fields from objects such as cellular telephone towers were not significantly affected by whether tower signals were on or off, according to a study.
The three-year study, released this month, found that physiological measures such as heart rate, blood pressure and skin conductance were not significantly influenced by exposure to tower signals, according to scientists from the United Kingdom's University of Essex.
The study, billed as one of the largest research projects to examine the short-term health effects of mobile technology, concluded that "short-term exposure to a [mobile] base station-like signal did not affect well-being or physiological functions in sensitive or control individuals."
Participants included 44 people who had previously reported sensitivity to mobile technology and 114 people who had not reported any impact on their health. The study, which was funded by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research program, found that the sensitive individuals reported more symptoms regardless of whether the signal was on or off.
However, the study said the group that previously had not referenced any exposure problems reported more symptoms during one type of exposure. Sensitive participants also reported elevated levels of arousal during this exposure but further research "indicated that this difference was likely to be due to the effect of order of exposure."
James Rubin of the Mobile Phones Research Unit at Kings College London said in a statement that the study's findings "are in line with those from most other previous experiments." John Moulder, a professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said the exposure levels from mobile base stations that follow established international guidelines on electromagnetic exposure rates "are so low that it is very difficult to imagine that there would be any health effects."
Moulder noted that exposure standards are necessary because biological effects can result from animal or human exposure to radio-frequency energy, according to the U.S. FCC Web site. He previously has provided consulting in the research area for the telecommunications industry.
The FCC also states that "at relatively low levels of exposure to radio-frequency radiation ... the evidence for production of harmful biological effects is ambiguous and unproven." The World Health Organization states that the current debate on exposure concerns whether "long-term," low-level exposure "can evoke biological responses and influence people's well being."
According to the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. cellular base stations must comply with exposure limits, and "the radiation pattern for an antenna array mounted on a tower can be likened to a thin pancake centered around the antenna system."
When antennas for personal communications services are mounted on rooftops, the FDA says, radio-frequency levels of nearby roofs "would probably be greater than those typically encountered on the ground" but levels "approaching or exceeding safety guidelines should be encountered only very close to or directly in front of the antennas."
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Today's Feature:
Issue of the Week
As lawmakers debated homeland security legislation last week, they grappled not only with establishing the right policy and funding for technology-related programs but also whether Congress is impatiently pushing the U.S. government to do too much, too soon in some areas.
Every Monday, read the Issue of the Week by the Technology Daily staff.
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E-briefs
Privacy: The FTC on Monday announced that it is seeking comments on the uses of Social Security numbers in the private sector in an effort to reduce identity theft. The request for information comes after a presidential task force on ID theft recommended that relevant agencies develop a record of the numbers' use in the private sector and evaluate their necessity. The task force report claimed that thorough examination would help policymakers and the private sector find ways to limit the unnecessary uses of the numbers. The FTC asked that comments about the issue include detailed information such as studies, surveys, research and cost estimates. The FTC also plans to host one or more public forums on the issue in coming months.
E-Government: Some federal agencies now will be assessed based on their health information technology systems. The latest White House Office of Management and Budget management scorecard has added a health information quality and transparency category for the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs, and the Office of Personnel Management. This quarter, the scorecard said the biggest problem area in implementing the President's Management Agenda was competitive sourcing, with some agencies not making strides to improve efficiency. "Because labor unions continue to communicate myths about competitive sourcing, we have to do a better job educating Congress and the public about the value of competitive sourcing," Clay Johnson, OMB's deputy director for management, said Monday. About 60 percent of agencies, meanwhile, earned the highest level (green) for initiatives to advance e-government. The Homeland Security Department, NASA and OPM rated red, the lowest level on the color-coded grading system.
Politics: The Republican debate being planned by CNN and YouTube may include more of the frontrunners after all. CNN Senior Vice President David Bohrman said the network is in talks with the campaigns to resolve scheduling conflicts with the debate currently planned for Sept. 17 in St. Petersburg, Fla. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had said late last week they would not attend due to scheduling conflicts. A spokesman for Romney confirmed that the campaign has been speaking to Bohrman and would attend if the date could be "pushed back." The Giuliani campaign said it is working with CNN to find a date that would work for everyone. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson and libertarian Ron Paul said they would attend the Sept. 17 debate. Conservative bloggers are urging Republican frontrunners to participate and have created an online petition.
Domains: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the Web-addressing system, launched formal consultations last week on its accreditation system for firms that register domain names. The activity was spurred by the collapse of RegisterFly, a New Jersey-based registrar that was stripped of its ICANN affiliation earlier this year for failing to respond to repeated customer complaints. ICANN President Paul Twomey called for the policy examination in March. The existing process is more than six years old and there are now more than 900 accredited registrars. ICANN's consultation seeks input on amendments to the policy that will give more protection to individuals who register domains. Discussions within the ICANN community, most recently at the group's June meeting in Puerto Rico, generated various suggestions. "These consultations will make sure we have input from the wider community and help us make the changes needed to protect registrants," Twomey said.
Taxes: The wireless association CTIA last week praised a bill, H.R. 743, that would make permanent the ban on taxing Internet use, which is set to expire Nov. 1. The legislation includes a grandfather clause that allows states that were taxing Internet access before 1998 to continue to do so. The association said, "While we strongly believe a permanent moratorium is in the best interests of all wireless consumers, determining whether any states should be grandfathered and clarifying congressional intent with respect to the definition of Internet access are also areas that need to be resolved." The group urged the House Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee to approve the legislation this week. The statement followed the subcommittee's hearing on the issue.
E-Government: A panel of computer-security and voting experts recommended to California's chief election official on Monday that she develop a comprehensive approach for auditing elections. Secretary of State Debra Bowen assembled the panel earlier this summer to examine how the state's methods for post-election audits could be strengthened. Bowen also recently completed a "top-to-bottom" review of her state's voting systems, in which researchers determined that several of the state's e-voting platforms were susceptible to hackers. In the report provided to her Monday, experts suggested that she take a risk-based approach by manually counting a higher percentage of precincts. The report also recommended that the state conduct additional manual audits of "high-risk voting systems" and to increase the sample size of manual recounts in close races.
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