E-Government E-Voting Bill Delayed Further As Wrangling Continues by Michael Martinez      An election bill that Democratic leaders have been trying to push to the House floor might not make it there for another week or even longer.      A spokesman for the House Rules Committee said Monday that the panel would not have time to consider a "rule" for the measure, H.R. 811, this week. House Rules met last week to consider the plan for floor debate, but a second meeting on Friday was canceled.      An aide to bill author Rush Holt of New Jersey said the proposal, which would require the nationwide adoption of e-voting paper trails, is still on track to be on the floor next week. More than two dozen states already have implemented paper-trail rules similar to those that would be mandated by Holt's bill.      The House Administration Committee approved the legislation in May. The bill then stalled when concerns were aired about accessibility by the disabled to new voting machines, cost, and timetables for implementation. Holt struck a compromise with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., to settle those issues.      Republicans pounced on House leaders after the bill sputtered in the Rules panel again last week. Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio issued a news alert accusing Democrats of "imploding" and being openly hostile to a bill supported by its party's leaders.      Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., reportedly voiced serious concerns about the legislation at the meeting, along with several of her Democratic colleagues.      "Democrats would be wise to work with states and counties to address the current challenges which could lead to disastrous unintended consequences in the 2008 presidential elections," Boehner's office said.      Alysoun McLaughlin, an associate legislative director for the National Association of Counties, said the bill was rushed through the committee process, and its supporters are beginning to pay the price for not paying enough early attention to the concerns of states and localities. "The chickens are sort of coming home to roost," she said.      McLaughlin also said she hopes House lawmakers carefully consider a proposal that Susan Davis, D-Calif., is planning to introduce to restrict the use of touch-screen machines. Davis announced last week that she intends to offer an amendment that would allow polling places to offer one such machine backed by paper receipts for people who prefer that type of device.      "This proposal slices the issue in an entirely different way," McLaughlin said.

Security Administration Defends Secret Warrants, Spy Satellites by Chris Strohm      Senior Bush administration officials on Monday defended their support for broad counterterrorism powers, including the ability to spy on suspected terrorists without warrants and plans to open an office to coordinate the use of space satellites for domestic purposes.      National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the administration needs to keep powers it gained from a recent temporary change to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.      The new authorities, passed by lawmakers last month, let the administration spy on communications between suspected terrorists that are routed through U.S. telecommunications infrastructure without warrants. They also allow the administration, without warrants, to spy on communications that involve U.S. citizens.      McConnell said the administration would lose 50 percent of its ability to track and understand suspected terrorists if the changes were halted. He said U.S. officials used the new powers to help German officials stop a suspected terrorist cell last week.      The law also gives liability protections to telecom companies that assist the government in spying. Because of that, McConnell said the administration has not lost any cooperation from carriers. But he urged lawmakers to give retroactive liability protection to carriers that assisted the administration in the past. Congress is considering such legislation.      FBI Director Robert Mueller added that the biggest concern for his agency is terrorists coming to the United States from Europe.      Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff defended the administration's move to create an office that coordinates access to satellites and space technology for domestic purposes, including law enforcement support. The office is expected to open Oct. 1.      Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, expressed concerns about how privacy rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens will be protected. He said the department has failed to brief his staff on the project. "This raises further suspicions concerning the department's intent. And it's not clear what this new office will do," Akaka said.      Chertoff said the office appears to be a bigger deal than it is. He said the new office is designed to create a disciplined way for space imagery and technology to be used for domestic purposes. He said nothing will change in terms of existing authorities or restrictions for using satellites.      But senators noted problems with at least one existing counterterrorism tool: terrorist watch lists. The Justice Department's inspector general reported this month on problems with the quality assurance of watch lists, increasing the chance that innocent persons could be misidentified.      The lists also omitted some known suspected terrorists, the IG said. Mueller said the FBI, which is responsible for managing the lists, is looking at adding personnel to help ensure their accuracy, as well as ways to improve the redress process for people who are wrongly listed.

Education Critical Thinking Preferred Over Multiple Choice by Aliya Sternstein      If states were allowed to measure broader skill sets and, more importantly, how those skills are applied, the U.S. education system would be more globally competitive, a Stanford University professor testified Monday.      The House Education and Labor Committee invited more than 40 experts, representing myriad interests from civil rights to philanthropy, to discuss a draft of legislation that would reauthorize a 2002 education law. The hearing was packed.     Educational technology proposals A public draft of a House bill that would renew the so-called No Child Left Behind Act contains several provisions that technology education advocates applaud: • Increased funding for schools that serve disadvantaged and low-income students to purchase computers, software and other technology. • Standards to ensure all students are technologically literate by the eighth grade. • Grants to provide professional development and competitive awards for schools who promise to carry out methodical, careful technology projects. Supported by the Consortium for School Networking. • A national study "to determine the extent to which students have gained technology literacy" by the eighth grade. Supported by the State Educational Technology Directors Association. • Funding to establish partnerships between math and science teachers and university faculty. • Adding science proficiency as one measure of student achievement alongside math and reading competency. Supported by STEM Education Coalition, but the group advocates that science be required in evaluating schools' yearly progress.      Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond said the No Child Left Behind Act, which currently stresses holding schools and teachers accountable through standardized student assessments in reading and mathematics, needs more performance measures. "My comments are based on studies of U.S. education and of the education systems of other countries that are outperforming the U.S. by larger and larger margins every year," she stated in her written remarks.      For example, in the most recent Program for International Student Assessment, the United States ranked 20th in science and 28th in math. The study defines literacy in math, science and reading as students' abilities to "apply" what they know to new situations, Darling-Hammond noted.      "We ought to ask ourselves, 'What are these other countries doing to gallop ahead as they prepare for a knowledge-based economy.'" The answer, she said, is that their examinations blend open-ended questions, essays and local assessments designed by teachers. The local exams include oral presentations and applied science experiments.      "These high-achieving nations" focus their curricula on critical thinking, "using examinations that require students to conduct research and scientific investigations ... and defend their ideas orally and in writing," Darling-Hammond testified.      The committee's draft bill, which was released last week, contains a provision that would let states use multiple, state-developed assessments periodically to calculate annual measures of student progress, known as adequate yearly progress. Those additional indicators could include science proficiency.      "We need to not be constrained by only multiple-choice tests," Darling-Hammond said. "I think the multiple-measures component is very important for this reason."      In an interview Monday, James Brown, co-chairman of the STEM Education Coalition, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and math instruction, said the "bottom line is that science should be a required component" of adequate yearly progress rather than "an option under the multiple measures section." He added that "most schools will likely not choose to add science if it is a multiple measure."      Referring to the current situation, where science tests are not used for accountability, Andrea Messina said the Aspen Institute Commission on No Child Left Behind, where she is the commissioner, "believes this is a mistake" but "does not believe that any additional indicator should be used in a way that diminishes [reading and math] measures of progress."      House committee member Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., said to Darling-Hammond, "I'd like to ask you, are we teaching the wrong stuff?"      Darling-Hammond replied, "Our testing is primarily, increasingly so based on multiple-choice questions" while other countries are concentrating on thinking, on gathering, processing and synthesizing information, and on writing. "They are studying science in an investigative way ... and our students are bubbling in questions."

Intellectual Property Provision To Put Health Research Online Spurs Fight by Andrew Noyes      Copyright advocates urged Congress last week to nix a provision in a fiscal 2008 appropriations bill that they argue would dramatically reduce the intellectual property protections afforded to scientific research papers.      A provision in the legislation to fund the National Institutes of Health would require authors of scientific articles who have received NIH grants to submit their papers for free access on the NIH Web site after they have been accepted for publication and undergone peer review.      It is reasonable for lawmakers to want wide distribution of research results that are federally funded, according to the Copyright Alliance, but the bill would require any researcher receiving NIH money to surrender a manuscript. The group's members include the Association of American Publishers, the Software Information Industry Association and the publisher Reed Elsevier.      Free, online publication has never been an obligation connected with NIH grants and it could chill the ability of would-be publishers to conduct peer review and publish and disseminate their works, alliance Executive Director Patrick Ross said.      The language in the House-passed measure, H.R.3043, has moved through the appropriations process without input from IP experts or Judiciary Committee members, he said. The Senate has not yet voted on its NIH spending bill, S.1710, which also includes the text.      House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote to appropriators before the bill's passage, asking them not to include the section about putting research online. In the letter, he noted that Judiciary's Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee wanted to hold a hearing to examine the issue.      California Democrat Howard Berman, who chairs the IP panel, said in a June letter that "such major changes in policy warrant thorough consideration by Congress." He also urged Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., to delete the mandate.      But Prue Adler of the Association of Research Libraries said the bill does not ask for a copyrighted final product. Rather, authors would have to submit the latest version of a peer-reviewed manuscript to NIH -- before it is copyedited by the publisher, she said.      The proposal "merely expands access to publicly funded research findings, nothing more," added Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association's Washington Office.      Heather Joseph, who runs the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, called the alliance's effort "an 11th-hour ploy" to dislodge legislation that has solid bipartisan support.      On a related note, the recently launched Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine has caused a stir within the research community for what Joseph said amounts to an "anti-open-access lobbying effort."      The AAP-backed PRISM targets efforts to expand public access to federally funded research results and is "clearly focused on the preservation of the status quo in scholarly publishing ... and not on ensuring that scientific research results are distributed and used as widely as possible," she said in an e-mail.      Some publishers, like Rockefeller University Press, have called for a disclaimer on PRISM's site to say the group does not represent their views on open access.

Television Broadcasters, Tech Firms Battle Over 'White Spaces' by David Hatch      Broadcasters warned Monday that their historic shift to digital television signals could be threatened if companies such as Google and Microsoft are permitted to use vacant television airwaves to deliver wireless high-speed Internet service to mobile, handheld devices. The FCC is expected to decide next month whether such use is permissible and under what parameters.      "Millions of Americans will suffer if unlicensed devices in the TV band threaten their ability to watch America's great broadcast programming," David Rehr, president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, said at a press briefing.      He suggested that the case for interference-free television only must be made in Washington. "The rest of America, where the average American watches eight hours of TV per day, understands this issue quite clearly," Rehr said.      The dispute involves efforts by technology companies to harness dormant TV channels, known as white spaces, to provide broadband to unlicensed devices that would operate on the frequencies.      David Donovan, president of the Association for Maximum Service Television, another broadcaster group, emphasized that recent FCC testing indicates that even a small level of interference can freeze digital pictures. In addition, sensors on some prototypes could not always detect TV signals. "If you can't detect, you must reject," he quipped.      Representatives of ABC, Fox, NBC, public broadcasters, the digital TV set maker LG Electronics, and major sports leagues, including hockey, baseball and basketball, either participated or attended the press conference to show their support.      In a Sept. 10 letter, NAB endorsed FCC efforts to permit white spaces to be used for offering wireless broadband to stationary gadgets in rural areas. But it reiterated that mobile devices operating in the band would wreak havoc with DTV signals and make it impossible for affected parties to pinpoint the causes or locations of the interference.      Following the briefing, broadcasters headed for the FCC and Capitol Hill to appeal directly to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, the other four agency commissioners and lawmakers.      "They're simply wrong on all accounts," responded Scott Blake Harris, counsel to the White Spaces Coalition. The group's members also include Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips Electronics. "These devices can be used successfully and will be used successfully," he said, adding, "The spectrum does not belong to the broadcasters and they are not licensed to use it."      Harris downplayed the FCC's findings, insisting that the agency demonstrated that at least one prototype works effectively and that sensors can be calibrated to avoid interference. His claims were backed by a report issued Monday by the New America Foundation.      At the press conference, LG Electronics spokesman John Taylor showed a tiny, portable digital television and said that in a few years, broadcasters would beam signals to similar devices, cellular telephones, laptop computers and personal digital assistants. Broadcasters dismissed suggestions, however, that they are seeking to warehouse unused TV spectrum so they can offer ancillary services over it years from now.

Politics MoveOn Ad Against Gen. Petraeus Triggers Outcry by Heather Greenfield      As Army Gen. David Petraeus testified before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees Monday to update Congress on progress in Iraq, the Internet group MoveOn.org led a side skirmish on the issue via an advertisement in The New York Times.      The liberal group with 3.2 million members ran a full-page ad under the headline "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" The ad accuses Petraeus of being "a military man constantly at war with the facts" and of cooking the books on war statistics to make it look like the recent U.S. troop surge in Iraq is working.      Part of the ad strategy could be to pressure Democrats in Congress to declare a position on troop withdrawal. Republican leaders responded with their own push to get Democratic leaders to denounce what they call a personal attack on a military general.      "Democratic leaders must make a choice today: Either embrace the character-assassination tactics Moveon.org has leveled against the four-star general leading our troops in the fight against al Qaeda or denounce it as disgraceful," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. Minority Whip, Roy Blunt, R-Mo., also e-mailed reporters a statement condemning MoveOn.      "It is bad enough that MoveOn.org has been trying to bully members of Congress into a course of action that most experts believe would lead to catastrophe in Iraq and the death of tens of thousands in a regional sectarian war," National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole said. "But comparing an American general, who has spent his life serving and defending our country, to traitors ... goes too far."      In addition to urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to respond, the NRCC singled out Rep. Nick Lampson. The Texas Democrat won the seat of former Rep. Tom DeLay last year and received donations from MoveOn.      Jennifer Crider a former spokeswoman for Pelosi now at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee noted that "MoveOn is an independent organization." "The Republicans will use any tactic to distract from the issue, which is that the American people support Democrats' efforts to end the war," Crider said.      "It's unfortunate that they're concentrating on the headlines instead of the facts in the ad," said Nita Chaudhary, MoveOn's spokeswoman. "We stand by every single fact [in the ad], and we challenge Boehner ... and any other politician to refute those facts."      Some conservative bloggers also responded to MoveOn's ad by trying to pressure moderate Democrats. RedState listed 30 Democratic members of Congress on Monday and urged readers to call them to ask if they support the MoveOn ad.      At Townhall.com, conservative blogger Amanda Carpenter wrote about the MoveOn ad, which drew criticism in the comments, including a few by self-declared liberals.      The MoveOn ad is part of a broader $12 million, anti-war campaign, which includes TV ads targeted to run in four states represented by senators who support the war. The ads ask whether America should "start training our children now" for war if Republicans do not end it.      MoveOn also e-mailed members last week to ask about adding another battlefront to their war on the war by targeting Democrats who support it. The e-mail criticized DINOs -- "Democrats in name only" -- and asked whether MoveOn should get involved in primary challenges to them.

Today's Feature: Issue of the Week Amid the controversy over network neutrality, a growing chorus of voices in the middle of the debate is calling for more competition and a comprehensive high-speed Internet policy. Every Monday, read the Issue of the Week by the Technology Daily staff.

E-briefs Security:   Internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be blocked in the European Union, an EU official said Monday. "I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector ... on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism," EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said, according to Reuters. "Frankly speaking, instructing people to make a bomb has nothing to do with the freedom of expression, or the freedom of informing people." The European Union's executive arm plans to make the proposal to EU nations in November. Other anticipated proposals would address topics like the screening of private data of passengers flying into those countries.

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