Telecom
Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Debate In Telecom Cases
     The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case on the rules governing the regional Bell telephone companies' networks. The court declined to hear an appeal, brought by WorldCom and other telecom companies, of a decision that rejected the FCC's rules. The U.S. Telecom Association (USTA) originally challenged those rules, and an appellate court last year found that the FCC's justification for the list of unbundled network elements of the Bell networks that competitors could use was unsound. USTA praised the decision; WorldCom declined to comment. The court also declined to hear an appeal of a decision that said the city of White Plains, N.Y., could not charge franchise fees or impose other obligations on one telecom carrier's ability to use public rights-of-way for network lines and not another carrier's ability.

E-Government
FBI Chief Details Progress On Securing Computer Systems
     FBI Director Robert Mueller told a congressional panel that the bureau has made significant progress updating its computer systems and that one operations center soon will connect and manage all of the bureau's computers. Mueller told the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the FBI that by the end of the month a wide-area network will link the agency's 21,025 desktop computers spread throughout 622 locations. He said the Enterprise Operations Center will begin business this spring to manage data, network, hardware, software applications and security access. "We are now focused on implementing a corporate-data warehousing capability that is key to FBI intelligence, investigative and information-sharing initiatives, as well as to our records-management system," Mueller said.

Budget
Rep. Rogers Decries Lack Of Justifications For Security Money
     The Homeland Security Department has provided Congress with "no justification" for the $6.7 billion it has budgeted for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in fiscal 2004, a House subcommittee chairman said during a hearing on border security spending. Kentucky Republican Harold Rogers, chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, told Asa Hutchinson, the department's undersecretary for border and transportation security, that he is "extremely disappointed" with the delay in explaining the budget request. "If such funding is urgently required, as I believe it is, the details, plans and specifics to back up the request should have been available long ago," Rogers said. He also noted that the department did not submit materials to support its proposed $2.8 billion for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement until this week.

Business
Tech, Defense Sectors Quietly Assess Iraqi Reconstruction
     The State Department next month is expected to request a proposal from the private sector for rebuilding the telecommunications sector of Iraq's economy, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Spokeswoman Ellen Yount could not detail the size of the expected contract but said the information should be available when the "request for proposals" is issued. The contract follows eight other agency requests for reconstruction and humanitarian-aid proposals offered earlier this year. Those contracts are being awarded on an expedited basis this week. The agency also may query for an information technology proposal next month, Yount said. Meanwhile, high-tech firms and defense contractors quietly have been strategizing about possible contributions to rebuild Iraq.

Cyber Security
Creation Of Cyber Post In Administration Appears Imminent
     The Bush administration appears poised to announce the creation of a position designed to ensure that cyber security gets high-level attention, officials said. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge currently is seeking the best candidate and the choice "will be coming sometime soon," said Sallie McDonald, a senior official in the Homeland Security Department division focused on information analysis and infrastructure protection. At the same time, cyber security is getting more attention at the White House. Paul Kurtz, who is working on critical infrastructure protection for the White House Homeland Security Council is "very interested" in cyber security, McDonald said. Meanwhile, Howard Schmidt, who is the Bush administration's interim top official for cyber security, said the government needs a distinct position devoted to the issue.

Intellectual Property
Key Lawmakers Seek Changes To Copyright Royalty System
     The leaders of a House Judiciary subcommittee introduced legislation to change the way copyright royalties are determined by eliminating an arbitration panel and creating a full-time judge empowered to hear such disputes. The administrative judge would be hired by the librarian of Congress for a five-year term and would have to be a copyright law expert with 10 or more years of legal experience. The judge, who would have two full-time staffers, would replace the much-criticized Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panels (CARPs). Lamar Smith of Texas and Howard Berman of California, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, authored the bill, H.R. 1417, to address complaints about previous CARPs. The panels set royalty rates for broadcasters and webcasters.

E-Commerce
House Panel Grapples With Proliferation Of Online Pharmacies
     The House Government Reform Committee opened hearings to determine the best federal medicine to cure abuses by online pharmacies. "It is now very simple to obtain virtually any medication online without ever seeing or speaking with a physician," said committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va. In many cases, he added, "all a consumer has to do is type the name of a drug into a search engine, quickly identify a site selling the medication, and then click to purchase." John Taylor of the Food and Drug Administration said it would be easier if there were a single definition of a "valid prescription" applicable in all states. But Taylor declined to take a position on whether any legislation to that end should be passed. Lawmakers also addressed the issue of blocking Americans from buying low-cost drugs online from Canada.

Domains
ICANN Acts To Deploy Foreign-Language Web Addresses
     The Internet's governing body agreed to guidelines enabling the deployment of Internet domain names in non-English characters in the coming weeks. The Internet Corporation for Assigned and Numbers (ICANN) also called for policies to aid in determining how those new domains will be registered. For more than two years, Internet experts and industry groups have been developing a global standard for the deployment of domain names in foreign-language scripts, such as those in Asian or Hebrew characters. That standard became final earlier this month. A resolution adopted by the ICANN board during its meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this week will allow domain-name wholesalers, or registries, to develop a framework for deciding how names with similar letters in non-English characters will be made available.