Privacy
Bank Bill Stalled By Privacy Squabbles
     Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm, R-TX, is attempting to modify agreed-upon financial privacy protections against telemarketers in the much-contested Financial Services Modernization Bill, H.R. 10, enraging key Democrats and possibly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Gramm has proposed an exception to restrictions in the bill that forbid financial institutions from sharing account numbers or credit card numbers with third-party telemarketers unless the customer consents. The exception — instigated at the request of Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-NE — would exempt the sharing of data as long as it is encrypted, said his spokeswoman.

Privacy
Raising The Barr On An Open Internet
     Law enforcement officials already have exceeded their legislative mandate to maintain the status quo in conducting telephone wiretaps and should be definitively precluded from deploying surveillance structures on the Internet, Rep. Bob Barr, R-GA, said. In a letter to the chairman of a key technical steering group governing Internet protocols, Barr urged opposition to any effort that would force a "surveillance-friendly" Internet architecture. The letter was well received by Internet technicians who said that law enforcement officials had pressured certain members of the Internet Engineering Task Force working group to develop wiretap capabilities for Internet phone calls.

Encryption
Prove It, Leahy Says
     Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, late last week introduced a bill that would force law enforcement officials to provide evidence to back up a claim they have long used in arguing against legislation to loosen controls on the export of strong encryption. The bill, S. 1769, would reauthorize a measure expiring Dec. 21 that requires the Administrative Office of the Courts to provide an annual report to Congress on the number and nature of requests by federal and state law enforcement agencies for orders authorizing the use of wire taps to intercept wire, oral or electronic communications. Leahy, a long-time supporter of relaxing controls on encryption, added a new provision to the legislation that would require law enforcement agencies to supply information to the Administrative Office of the Courts when authorities encounter encryption during a wiretap operation, including whether it prevented them from obtaining an unscrambled version of the data or communications.

Exports
Export Control Amendment Dropped
     Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid, D-NV, backed off of an effort Wednesday to shorten the time Congress has to review changes to some computer export controls, saying he will instead work to pass legislation extending the Export Administration Act, which includes a similar computer provision. The banking panel last month approved a measure, S. 1712, to reauthorize and overhaul the nation's law governing the export control process, which includes a provision to reduce the congressional review period to two months.

E-commerce
Dig Sig Bill Almost Ready
     A final agreement on electronic signature legislation is close to being reached in the House, after weeks of negotiations between members of the Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee, who each passed different versions of the bill known as H.R. 1714. The final legislation adds stricter consumer protection language, after Democrats and the White House raised concerns that the version that passed unanimously out of the Commerce Committee would have pre-empted federal and state consumer laws. The bill's chief sponsor is House Commerce Chairman Tom Bliley, R-VA. Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, citing consumer concerns, blocked movement of digital signature legislation to the floor of the Senate early this week — halting for the second time in three months the efforts of Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-MI, to bring his legislation to the floor.

Taxes
Lawmakers Push For R&D Extension
     Top members of the Finance Committee are urging Senate leaders to move their compromise bill extending for a year and a half some expiring business tax benefits such as the research and development tax credit, saying the measure has the best chance of passing the Senate. Finance Committee Chairman William Roth Jr., R-DE, and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, the panel's top Democrat, sent their letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-MS, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-SD, asking for consideration of the committee's "extenders" package approved by the panel last week. That bill would extend the R&D tax credit and other items until Dec. 31, 2000.

Business
H-1B Cap Lifted Under McCain Bill
     Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-AZ, introduced a bill that would provide grants to encourage more students to seek high-tech careers and increasing the available pool of foreign workers. McCain's bill, S. 1804, aims to address both the short-term and long-term needs of the high-tech industry, which claims it cannot find enough U.S. workers with the skills necessary to fill its expanding labor pool. The industry has been addressing this problem in recent years by trying to hire skilled foreigners on a short-term basis through the H-1B visa program. "Many companies are finding that there are more jobs to be filled than qualified candidates," McCain said in a statement. "We must lift the H-1B visa cap in the interim so that our companies don't fall behind."

On The Hill
House Wants FCC To Quicken Its Pace
     House lawmakers continued to pound the Federal Communications Commission, as they criticized the agency's drawn-out restructuring plan and its lengthy merger review process. "We failed to reform the fundamental mission of the FCC" as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-LA, chairman of the House Commerce Committee's telecommunications subcommittee. "It's not working as well as it could or should." This is the second time Tauzin has called all five FCC commissioners before his panel this year as part of his effort to reform the agency. Tauzin said the five-year plan drafted by FCC Chairman William Kennard would not reform the agency fast enough. But Kennard said the agency is "rolling the plan out as we speak."

Internet Access
Kennard: Short And Sweet
     Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard this week reiterated the agency's stance against imposing access charges on Internet service providers to connect to local telephone networks. Kennard clarified the agency's stance in a letter to House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-TX. In the short note, Kennard said reports that the FCC is considering such charges for ISPs "does not reflect the commission's policy or my views." Replying to Kennard's response, Armey told the FCC chief that he's glad to have an ally in the fight against Internet taxes.

Internet Access
Dems Push For More Broadband Support
     Subsidies supporting rural telecommunications services need to evolve to include high-speed Internet services, or risk leaving rural communities on the wrong side of the digital divide, Democratic senators and Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard said this week. "Where the private sector through competition fails to close the divide, the government must provide additional incentives through universal service," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle at the second forum he's called on rural broadband development. Also this week, the Information Technology Industry Council threw its support Thursday behind broadband legislation by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-KS, saying it's the most feasible approach toward deploying high-speed Internet services to rural areas.

Intellectual Property
Minor Changes Mean Major Headaches
     Proponents of a patent reform bill passed by the House are deeply worried that minor language changes by a Senate committee will force the bill into a conference that could unravel months of intense work to reach compromise language. "Almost any change would blow this bill sky-high," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-UT, acknowledging the risk in proceeding with a Senate version of the American Inventors Protection Action, S. 1798, introduced Wednesday by Hatch and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT. Attempts to reform the patent system in the U.S. have been fought for years, pitting mostly large corporations — especially in high-tech fields — against independent inventors.

Fraud
Small Businesses Target Of Internet Scam
     Small businesses are the latest target of telephone bill scams, in which they receive charges for unauthorized Web page design and Internet services, Senate Small Business Committee Chairman Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-MO, said. The Federal Trade Commission, which is tracking the practice, said that prior to July 1998, it had received no complaints regarding Internet "cramming," as the practice is known, but the numbers increased to more than 400 by March.

Business
GDP To Include Software Effects
     As part of the Commerce Department's ongoing efforts to better gauge the information technology industry's impact on the economy, the government unveiled its five-year revision of the gross domestic product data that will recalculate the software industry's effect on the nation's economic growth. For the first time, software will be treated as a business investment, just like computers and communications equipment, rather than a raw material item, and it is expected to add about 1.5 percent or about $135 billion to the overall annual GDP.

Y2K
Schools Not Making An 'A' For Y2K
     With only 65 days to go until the new millennium, the U.S. Education Department said that more than one third of the nation's school districts are still not Year 2000 compliant.

Net Governance
Conflict Resolution Policy Adopted
     The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Board formally has adopted rules implementing a controversial uniform dispute resolution policy, aimed at resolving conflicts over Internet domain names. The interim board of ICANN, the group charged by the U.S. government to take over administration of the Internet, adopted the rules during a teleconference early this week. A working group was picked after ICANN's last board meeting in August to come up with language to implement the policy. It requires domain name holders to agree to go through an arbitration process if someone alleges that the domain name was registered in bad faith. The policy is aimed at cracking down on cybersquatting, or the practice of registering a domain name with intent to sell it for profit.

Domains
Politicians Could Get New Domain Name
     A provision inserted into the anti-cybersquatting bill passed by the House would establish a new Internet domain for members of Congress and candidates for federal, state, and local office. The provision, a part of the Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Action Act, H.R. 3028, sponsored by Rep. James Rogan, R-CA, would require that the Secretary of Commerce to establish a second level domain name under the ".us" domain by the end of next year. The idea behind the new domain — ".ele.us" is one possible designation, for "election" — is to "create a place in cyberspace that can be separate, and we don't have to step into the .com arena to do the same thing," said Rogan spokesman Grayson Wolfe.

Campaigns
Gore Admits He Didn't Invent Net
     Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-NJ, barely touched upon technology issues during their first debate in New Hampshire, but Gore did take the opportunity to apologize for a gaffe he made earlier this year when he claimed to have invented the Internet.

Campaigns
When The Net And Politics Collide
     At a meeting of the Federal Election Commission this week, the commissioners decided that the cost of registering a domain name would fall under volunteer exemption rules, meaning that the fee would not be considered a contribution. Also at issue was the re-publication of downloadable information from a candidate’s Web site onto a site owned by an individual or party not affiliated with the campaign. The FEC's draft stated that "any attempt to use material downloaded from the campaign web site by campaign supporters to establish a web site supporting Mr. Bush would be an in-kind contribution to his campaign from these individuals." But the commission verbally clarified that if the downloaded information already was exempted to begin with, it would not be considered a contribution.

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