White House
Clinton Calls Hack Attacks No Big Surprise
     Fear of Internet attacks should not cause the government to overreact to the threat of hackers, President Clinton said at a summit on cybersecurity. "One reason that the Internet has worked so well is that it has been free of government regulation," Clinton said prior to the meeting, held in the cabinet room with Chief of Staff John Podesta, Attorney General Janet Reno, Commerce Secretary William Daley, National Security Council Director Sandy Berger and 29 technology industry officials. Also this week, Attorney General Janet Reno told Congress that the Justice Department is drafting recommendations for updating and strengthening current laws in an effort to keep up with changes in technology.

Crime
Shackle The Hackers...For A Long Time
     Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX, announced plans to introduce legislation that would allow criminal penalties for computer hackers to increase from five to 10 years in prison for the first offense and from 10 years to 20 years for the second offense. Last week, several popular commercial Web sites were vandalized, sparking industry and government outcry to increase Internet security.

Crime
Leahy Lays Down The Cyberlaw
     Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, said he will introduce legislation lowering the threshold for prosecutors to indict hackers and boosting law enforcement's funding to tackle the new crime challenges posed by technology. "I am convinced that we should be doing more to combat the current wave of computer crime," Leahy said in an opening statement before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Commerce, State, Justice. Leahy's bill would modify the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to more precisely define what constitutes loss and damage caused by an intruder on a computer system. Right now, damages cannot be less than $5,000 or prosecutors will not normally investigate alleged offenders.

Crime
Lawmaker Looks To Get Tough On Hackers
     Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, said he plans to introduce legislation next week that would modify current federal law to make it easier to investigate and prosecute cyber criminals. Schumer's bill would expand laws covering the use of "trap and trace" devices, which allow law enforcers to track the origin of phone calls and electronic messages. Current law requires law enforcement to obtain a trap and trace order from each state, but Schumer's bill would allow for the issuance of one order to trace messages from beginning to end.

Crimes
GOP Aims To Fight Cybercrime
     A group of Republican lawmakers joined Capitol Hill's crusade against computer crimes by unveiling a team designed to raise public awareness about safeguarding against hacker attacks on Web sites. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-IL, announced the creation of the House Republican Cyber-Security Team. The 16-member panel, chaired by House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts, OK, plans to work with local law enforcers, businesses and technology experts to educate Congress about computer hacking. Joining Watts are Reps. Tom Davis, VA, and Bob Goodlatte, VA, David Dreier, CA, and Steve Horn, CA, and Pete Sessions, TX, among others.

On The Hill
Is Administration Security Weak?
     Weakness in the Environmental Protection Agency's computer security system point to a general lack of Clinton administration oversight to protect sensitive information, a House Commerce Committee spokesman charged. "It was good political theater for the president to hold a summit on computer security, but his own house is not in order," said Steve Schmidt, House Commerce Committee spokesman.

Business
Lobbyists Predict Dig Sigs Could Move Fast
     The exclusion of House Banking and Judiciary committee members from a conference committee charged with hashing out a compromise on digital signature legislation shows that congressional leaders are serious about finishing the bill by next month, according to lobbyists working on the issue. The House limited its conferees on H.R. 1714 to House Commerce committee leaders, Chairman Tom Bliley, R-VA, ranking Democrat John Dingell of Michigan, and Reps. Billy Tauzin, R-LA, and Ed Markey, D-MA. Though House Banking Committee Chairman James Leach, R-IA, and House Judiciary Courts and Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble, R-NC, had expressed an interest in joining the conference.

Privacy
Groups Blast White House Privacy Rules
     Congressional Republicans, a key medical association and health care industry representatives criticized the Clinton administration's proposed medical privacy rules, saying that they would foster bureaucratic procedures that would fail to adequately protect patient privacy while creating confusion between the states and the federal government.

Fraud
What Are My Bids For Fraud-Free Auctions?
     With fraudulent on-line auctions accounting for 87 percent of all Internet fraud, the Federal Trade Commission announced a partnership with the Justice Department, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and state attorneys general to combat the growing problem. The alliance will focus on training state and local law enforcement officers to seek out and prosecute Internet fraud.

Business
Trying To Stay On Top
     The House passed legislation to authorize a significant increase in funding for information technology research aimed at helping the United States maintain its dominant role in high technology. H.R. 2086's sponsor, House Science Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, said "maintaining our global leadership is not a given." The measure would authorize a near doubling in funding, a total of $4.8 billion, through fiscal 2004 for long-term, high-risk research not likely to be done in the private sector. This includes research into such areas as high-end computing and network stability. It also would authorize funding for grants to colleges and universities and to complete work on the Next Generation Internet. The House adopted several amendments that would bring total funding authorized by the bill to about $6.9 billion.

Exports
Quickening The Pace On Exports
     Reps. David Dreier, R-CA, and Zoe Lofgren, D-CA, introduced legislation that would allow the Clinton administration's most recent announcement and future announcements relaxing computer export controls to go into effect much faster than is permitted by current law. The legislation would reduce the amount of time Congress has to review some changes to computer export controls to 30 days from 180 days. The bill is similar to H.R. 2623, which Lofgren introduced last year with one key difference. The Dreier-Lofgren measure would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2000, covering the administration's Feb. 1 announcement on computer export controls as well as future changes to export restrictions.

Telecom
FCC To Study Whether Rural Roll-out's Fast Enough
     The Federal Communications Commission is planning to reexamine whether high-speed data services are being rolled out fast enough in rural and other underserved areas. An agency official said that the FCC plans to use more detailed data, possibly collected from companies actually deploying broadband services, to get a better picture of how fast and where broadband services are being offered. "Last year we didn't have any way to find out in a comprehensive way what was going on," the FCC official said. "That's why we relied on anecdotal evidence."

Intellectual Property
I Crave Your Copyright
     House lawmakers raised concern over how to balance Internet growth with traditional copyright protections for cable and television programming rebroadcast over the Internet. "As we move into the broadband digital age, the television set becomes a computer monitor," said Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-LA, chairman of the House Commerce Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee. Alex Alben, vice president of government affairs for RealNetworks, urged lawmakers to create a level playing field, rather than apply old regulations to Internet broadcasting.

Business
Labor Needs Advice About Letters
     A House subcommittee questioned whether the Labor Department is overstepping its authority when it issues "advisory letters" that interpret — and may vastly expand — existing law on a range of issues, from home office safety to ergonomics problems in the workplace. Rep. David McIntosh, R-IN, chairman of the House Government Reform panel's subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs, said that when businesses ask for help on how to interpret current law or regulations, the answers they get often go beyond the intent of Congress.

Business
Things Just Aren't Adding Up
     A bipartisan group of House members is urging the Labor Department to help it craft legislation that effectively would overturn an advisory the agency issued that some believe could require companies to include stock option profits in a worker's base salary when calculating overtime pay. Six lawmakers sent a letter to Labor Secretary Alexis Herman concerning the brewing controversy over an advisory letter, which was only recently made public, issued by the department's Wage and Hour Division last year to an employer. The letter said the employer must include profits its workers make from stock options provided by the company in the employee's base pay, which is used to calculate overtime compensation.

Campaigns
GOP Bests Democrats In High-Tech Funds
     The Republican presidential candidates are edging out the Democrat presidential candidates in the race for campaign contributions from the high-tech industry, according to a new study by the Center for Responsive Politics. The non-partisan organization found that the industry gave a total of $838,569 to Republican presidential candidates John McCain, R-AZ, and George W. Bush, R-TX, an analysis of 1999 campaign donations showed. Democratic candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley received $663,520 from the industry.