Privacy
White House Considers More Court Orders
     The Clinton administration is considering proposing stronger legal protections governing the privacy of electronic communications in exchange for the ability to obtain nationwide "trap and trace" court orders, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said. Speaking before the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications about the recent rash of Internet attacks, Holder said the Internet's decentralized nature has made national court orders necessary to expedite criminal investigations. Also this week, Attorney General Janet Reno said that online crime should be treated in the same manner as conventional crime and called for updates to six existing laws instead of seeking sweeping new rules against Internet crime.

Fraud
FTC Needs Funds To Help ID Thieves
     One year after Congress made it illegal to steal an individual's identity, the Federal Trade Commission is still trying to ramp up its efforts to aid victims without any financial help from Capitol Hill. Jodie Bernstein, the FTC's director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the agency has established a consumer hotline, created a database of identity theft incidents and launched a consumer education effort by shifting around current funds. Bernstein said the agency has asked for $2.8 million for each of the next three years to bolster its efforts, including an expansion of the database that would allow local police to tap into the information.

Cyberterrorism
Wanted: One Cyber Security Czar
     Panelists at a House subcommittee hearing Thursday agreed that John Koskinen, the White House's Y2K guru, succeeded in making sure there was no meltdown at the beginning of the year. Now, members of the Hill want to know if a similar person, like Koskinen, who had the ear of the president, should be named to handle cybersecurity issues across government agencies.

Exports
EAA Falls Apart In Senate
     Efforts to begin Senate action on a bill reauthorizing the Export Administration Act fell apart after supporters and critics of the measure failed to agree on language to address concerns that the legislation does not go far enough to protect national security. It is unclear whether supporters will have another opportunity bring up the bill,S. 1712, after its sponsor, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm, R-TX, asked that it be pulled from the floor shortly after senators had begun considering it. Gramm said he would not favor bringing it back to the floor unless a deal can be worked out with the chairmen of the Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Governmental Affairs and Intelligence committees, who have raised national security concerns about the measure.

Telecom
House GOP Reaches Deal On FCC Merger Reviews
     Key House Republicans reached a compromise on a bill that would curb the FCC's ability to review telecommunications mergers. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-LA, chairman of the House Commerce Committee's telecommunications subcommittee, said he had brokered a deal between rival bills introduced last year by Reps. Chip Pickering, R-MI, and Richard Burr, R-NC. The compromise bill would give the FCC 90 days to approve or deny mergers. It also would restrict the agency's ability to place conditions on corporate combinations and require the agency to provide a "detailed" explanation when it denies merger applications. Tauzin scheduled a subcommittee hearing on the issue for next Tuesday.

Education
Lawmaker, Industry Wrestle With Education Reform
     Putting a computer in a classroom is not the answer to improving the quality of education in the nation's schools systems, Rep. Michael Castle, R-DE, told a hearing on efforts to integrate technology into the curriculum. Rather, he said, industry should work hand-in-hand with government to provide schools the proper tools and teachers the necessary training. At a hearing before the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families, industry representatives and officials discussed ways to solve technology problems facing the nation's school systems, such as the "digital divide" and the challenge of protecting children from access to inappropriate materials online.

Education
Gregg Crafts Plan To Consolidate Ed-Tech Programs
     A proposal by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, that would consolidate federal education technology programs into one technology block grant would require participating states to implement a comprehensive student Internet safety program that could include filtering software. Gregg plans to offer the amendment to S. 2, the Education Opportunities Act, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Republicans and Democrats are bogged down over how federal education dollars should be doled out to the states. Republicans support a block grant approach, like Gregg's technology plan. They say it gives states the flexibility to apply funding where it is needed. Democrats support more targeted programs to solve specific shortfalls they see in the public education system.

E-rate
Can E-rate Be Expansion Bridge Over Digital Divide?
     Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-MD, called on Congress to expand e-rate funding to community technology centers as a way to bridge the digital divide. "It's not about one more government program," she said. "It's about the tools for success." Mikulski's plan also would create a new "e-corps" to train teachers and community leaders how to use technology, double teacher training funding, authorize $100 million for community technology centers and would authorize a $10 million pilot project to put computers into the homes of low-income students. Although Mikulski said she's received support from 25 other centers and endorsements from the House Black and Hispanic caucuses, it's unlikely the Republican majority in Congress would vote to expand the e-rate. The program has been tagged by Republicans as an unauthorized tax since it is funded through fees paid by phone companies that they pass on to consumers.

Cyberporn
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
     More than 16 months after it was chartered, the Child Online Protection Act Commission met this week for the first time to select its chairman, discuss its agenda and strategize about ways to solicit funds from a Congress that didn't allocate it a dime. Meeting under the auspices of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration at the Department of Commerce, the commission hashed through procedural issues and almost completely avoided the commissioners' underlying philosophical differences about whether legislation is needed to keep children from online pornography. The commission selected Donald Telage, executive adviser for global Internet strategy for Network Solutions Inc., as its chairman.

E-Commerce
House Panel Hears Woes Of Online Gambling
     The House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee that held a hearing on Internet gambling, H.R. 3125, although it already voted to support the bill last year. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA, who opposes the measure, called for the hearing since one had not been held when the bill was reintroduced in 1999. The committee had held hearings on a similar bill in 1998.

Business
Kennedy Plans Bill To Raise Visa Cap
     Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, is crafting legislation to boost the cap on H1-B temporary visas for skilled foreigners that also would include a much stronger domestic training and education component than that contained in a bill that the Senate Judiciary Committee addressed this week. "The bill is going to acknowledge the short-term needs of the high-tech industry while at same time seeking to deal with a long-term solution with very strong and aggressive domestic training programs," Kennedy spokesman Will Keyser said. Also this week, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-CA, and a group of House Democrats are trying to craft legislation that would raise the cap on H-1B visas. Dreier has been working with members of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of moderate Democrats, and other Democrats such as Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-CA. Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved H1-B legislation, S. 2045, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-UT.

Internet Access
Federal, State Regulators Mull Broadband
     Federal and state telecommunications regulators began an investigation into how and where high-speed Internet services are being deployed throughout the country. The Joint Conference brings together the Federal Communications Commission and state regulatory commissions as part of an effort to gather information for the federal agency's next report to Congress on the state of broadband deployment. "We must ensure these broadband services are equally available in our classrooms, urban areas and rural areas," FCC Commissioner Susan Ness told the conference's first meeting in Washington, DC. "Before we start to craft solutions, we must collect information to see if a problem exists."

Taxes
Bill Slips By With Barely A Peep
     During a hearing on S. 1755, the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, said he expects a smooth ride for the legislation, which would tax mobile communications to the jurisdiction of the user's "place of primary use." Users would be taxed at the level of their home or work address regardless of where the call or the cell phone tower used is placed. The legislation, introduced by Dorgan and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-KS, was developed after three years of discussions between telecom and state organizations.

Trade
Daley: It's All Their Fault
     Commerce Secretary William Daley sharply panned the business community's campaign to secure congressional approval of permanent normal trading relations for China, accusing his own allies of waging a lackluster effort that has failed to generate grassroots support. "The people who generally win ... a vote on the Hill are the people with the intensity," Daley said. "The people who are in favor of trade — those in the business community who are out there pushing trade issue — don't have intensity. If that doesn't change, that is not a good sign."

Domains
Is This A Good Or Bad Sign For NSI?
     Network Solutions Inc.'s announcement that it is being sold is not expected to have an impact on the deal it signed last year with the Commerce Department and ICANN over the company's continued role in the domain name registration business, a company spokesman said. NSI announced that VeriSign has agreed to acquire the company in an all-stock purchase deal. Until last year, NSI had a monopoly on the business of registering generic top-level domains, those that end in .com, .org and .net. While the agreements it signed with the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in 1999 introduced competition into this market, it allowed the company to dominate the domain name registration business.
- by Sharon McLoone