E-commerce
Wine, Weapons, And Wrongs
The Senate approved two amendments that would limit online alcohol sales and put an end to providing bomb-making information on the Internet as part of a juvenile justice bill, which passed Thursday evening. The Senate voted 80-17 in support of an amendment by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, that attempts to limit online alcohol sales to minors by allowing states to pursue violations of their liquor transport laws in federal court. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, opposed the amendment and offered her own that was approved by a voice vote. Feinstein's amendment would require those shipping alcohol to include a label listing the package's contents and requires that an adult sign for it. "I feel the Byrd amendment is well-intentioned, but is overly broad," she said. "I happen to doubt that children will buy $90 bottles of wine" from the Internet.

Y2K
Dems Vent At Trent
A pack of 13 Democratic senators fired off a letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-MS, urging him to allow the Senate to act on Y2K liability legislation as soon as possible. "We urge that there be a debate on the merits of the Y2K Litigation Reform Act as soon as possible after action on the Juvenile Justice bill is completed," the letter said. The Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to move on the bill because Democrats feared that it would have prematurely shut down debate on the juvenile justice legislation. The letter was spearheaded by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-CT, who helped craft a compromise, S. 96, that a number of Democrats appear to support. The White House, however, has issued another veto threat on the Dodd compromise language and instead supports a proposal being floated by Sen. John Kerry, D-MA.

Cyberterrorism
Tuesday Tell-All
After "day-by-day" discussions with the White House, Rep. Christopher Cox, R-CA, plans a Tuesday press conference to release the report of his House select committee on technology transfers to China. Cox said he and ranking member Norm Dicks, D-WA, decided on the date after a late night meeting. Cox has said he plans to put on the Internet the 10-chapter narrative of the panel's 1998 investigation of the transfer of missile technology and other sensitive high tech data to China.

Contributions
Put In On My Card
The Federal Election Commission tentatively approved new regulations that would allow candidates to qualify for matching funds when they raise campaign donations over the Internet. Five of the FEC's six commissioners agreed that they would most likely approve the regulations by the beginning of next week. Current laws prevent campaigns from getting public matching funds for contributions received through credit cards, the chief way people pay for items on the Internet. The problem has been that the law requires a written authorization of a donation, usually a check, to verify a donor's identity. Normally, the first $250 of all individual contributions are eligible for public matching funds. The new rules would enable campaigns to qualify for matching funds for credit card donations, whether it is in person, or over the Internet. The rules for how a campaign verifies the identity of the credit card donor are expected to be laid out when the FEC holds a hearing to discuss overall presidential campaign regulations next month.

Intellectual Property
Commerce Conjures Up A Database Bill
House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley, R-VA, has introduced his panel's answer to the ongoing debate over how to protect intellectual property in a digital marketplace. Bliley's bill, H.R. 1858, is the Commerce Committee's response to a similar bill in the House Judiciary Committee sponsored by Rep. Howard Coble, R-NC. The Courts and Intellectual Property Subcommittee passed Coble's H.R. 354 this week. The Digital Future Coalition, made up of major U.S. library and technology associations, has endorsed Bliley's bill. While Coble's bill would essentially extend copyright protections to the work that goes into constructing a database, Bliley's does not. Coble aims to protect the producers of electronic databases from what they regard as the theft of their labor compiling phone books and other specialized listings. Bliley's bill would protect a database from outright theft, but would allow researchers and publishers to extract information from existing databases and use it in new products. The Supreme Court has ruled that facts do not have copyright protection.

Cyberporn
Crackdown Bill Breaks Through
The House Ways and Means Committee approved legislation to increase funding to help the Customs Service crack down on those who peddle child pornography over the Internet. "We have got to be more aggressive in going after this," said sponsor Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-CT. On a 36-0 vote, the panel approved H.R. 1833, which would authorize $10 million for Customs' Cybersmuggling Center to increase its efforts to detect, track and prosecute those who transmit child pornography over the Internet. The legislation, however, could face problems over an unrelated controversial provision that makes changes to how overtime pay is awarded to Customs Service employees.

Education
Funds And Gains
A contingent of mostly Democratic senators is lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to fully fund discounts for schools and libraries to get connected to the Internet. The letter, sent last week to FCC Chairman William Kennard, is signed by 33 senators and recommends full funding for the e-rate program's second year at $2.25 billion. Meanwhile, a group of Republicans, including two of the top three members of the House GOP leadership, are calling on Kennard to ditch an effort to increase funding for the program that provides schools and libraries with discounts to connect to the Internet. In a letter sent to Kennard, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-TX, and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-TX, joined 17 other GOP lawmakers in criticizing Kennard's effort to fully fund the e-rate program this year at $2.25 billion, the maximum amount that can be spent on it. The FCC was forced to scale back funding last year, to $1.7 billion, after the program and the FCC's handling of it came under fire on Capitol Hill.

Internet Access
Easier Said Than Done
The Federal Communications Commission has the jurisdiction to require cable companies to open their new high-speed data networks to competitors, but the process wouldn't be an easy one, said Chairman William Kennard. "Yes, I think the FCC has jurisdiction," he said at a Technology and Innovation Forum hosted by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, and Bill Frist, R-TN. "I don't agree with [AOL CEO] Steve Case that we can just craft regulations for nondiscriminatory access." Case, At Home Chief Technology Officer Milo Medin and Bell South CEO Duane Ackerman waded through the ongoing debate over what, if any, regulations are needed to speed the rollout of broadband services. Kennard also said this week at a National Consumers League conference that he maintains a hands-off stance toward broadband development as the best way to promote competition in the burgeoning high-speed data market.

On The Hill
Scorched Earth
House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts, R-OK, tried to turn the tables on Democrats upset that an Internet provision championed by Vice President Al Gore was eliminated from the NASA reauthorization bill. Watts said Democrats were playing politics in attacking a House Science Committee decision to block funding of a program to launch a satellite that would beam back pictures of the Earth for constant Internet broadcast. Instead, the committee decided to shift the money allocated for the program to disease research. Some Democrats accused Republicans of eliminating the program to embarrass Gore, who is the frontrunner for Democratic presidential nomination.

Cyberterrorism
Bill Brings Chemical Reactions
House lawmakers raised numerous concerns over a White House-backed bill that would restrict Internet dissemination of information about the consequences of accidents or attacks at chemical facilities. The administration proposed H.R. 1790, which was introduced on its behalf by Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley, R-VA, after concerns were raised about the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to post "worst case scenario" information on the Internet. The 1990 Clean Air Act required chemical facilities to submit "risk management assessment" plans to the EPA by June 21 that include information about worst case scenarios. The EPA scrapped the plan after national security and law enforcement officials raised concerns that such information could be used by terrorists to launch an attack on such facilities. However, lingering concerns remain over the impact of third parties such as public interest groups posting such information on the Internet.

Budget
The Scientific Approach
The House Science Committee plans to focus the federal government's information technology research funding under one long-term authorization bill, according to a letter from Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-WI, sent last week to the head of the House Appropriations Committee. Funding for information technology research has been spread across numerous federal agencies and bills that authorize funding for those agencies. But Sensenbrenner wants to put IT funding under one five-year authorization bill, which he plans to introduce by the end of the month. The letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-FL, was meant to ensure that appropriators do not think the Science Committee favors zeroing out spending for information technology even though the various authorization bills the panel has crafted for agencies that do such research include no funding in FY2000. Sensenbrenner is scheduled to outline his proposal June 1.

Encryption
A Crack In The Encryption Bill?
Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-NY, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, voiced strong concerns with legislation that would loosen most restrictions on the export of encryption products, saying the bill could impair U.S. efforts to improve multilateral controls on the data-scrambling technology. Gilman, who heads the House panel with primary jurisdiction over export control issues, made the comments on the encryption bill H.R. 850, during a hearing before his committee's International Economic Policy and Trade subcommittee. H.R. 850 would loosen most controls on encryption products that are generally available. Currently, the federal government only allows for the export of products with a strength level of 56 bits or lower except to a few selected sectors such as banks and insurance companies. Gilman said that he and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-FL, plan to hold a closed briefing Thursday for lawmakers on the national security implications of H.R. 850. Increasing the availability of strong encryption will boost the likelihood that criminals, terrorists and others will use it to hide information about their illegal activities, opponents of H.R. 850 say.

Taxes
Domain Holders Register Dissent
A group of domain name holders plans to appeal last week's court decision upholding a 30 percent fee added to domain name registration and dismissing antitrust claims against Network Solutions. That's when the district court upheld Congress' right to pass legislation ratifying the fee, collected until March 1998, added to the cost of registering a domain name. The plaintiffs argued that the fee was an unconstitutional tax. A lower court originally agreed with this claim but said the fee would be legal if Congress passed legislation ratifying it. Congress did just that in the 1998 supplemental appropriations bill. If the full court of appeals fails to overturn the decision by the three-judge appeals court panel, the plaintiffs are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. The domain name fee was collected to support a fund to maintain and upgrade the Internet. Rep. Lee Terry, R-NE, has introduced legislation H.R. 749, that would repeal the legislation ratifying the fee and require the National Science Foundation, which authorized the collection of the fee, to refund the money to domain name holders. An aide to Terry said he believed the appeals court ruling would have little impact on that legislation.

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