Intellectual Property
Music Industry Preps To Sue The File-Sharing Masses
     The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that it will begin gathering evidence on alleged users of illegal peer-to-peer networks for sharing music files. The goal of the search is to eventually sue those individuals. File sharing "robs songwriters and recording artists of their livelihood," RIAA President Cary Sherman said during a teleconference. "The courts have repeatedly confirmed that this is the legal equivalent of shoplifting [compact discs] from stores." Sherman said the evidence will be gathered for about eight to 10 weeks before lawsuits are filed. One file-sharing firm vowed to lobby lawmakers over the promise of future lawsuits.

Budget
White House Endorses Homeland Security Spending Measure
     The House overwhelming passed the first bill to finance the new Homeland Security Department and shower $29.4 billion on local emergency workers and airport screeners, among other things. The measure would provide $4.4 billion for "first responders" to emergencies, as well as $350 million for new identification technologies to screen and track visiting foreigners. Before the vote, the White House had endorsed the fiscal 2004 measure. The Bush administration listed several concerns, noting that the bill would cost $1 billion more than proposed. But officials did not specifically demand that the legislation be trimmed, pointing instead to the need to maintain overall fiscal discipline.

Telecom
Senate Commerce Amends, Approves FCC Reauthorization Bill
     The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation to reauthorize the FCC. Concerned that the FCC has not adequately enforced decency standards or upheld the public interest in other ways, lawmakers offered amendments designed to protect the listening and viewing public. The bill, S. 1264, would authorize the FCC to investigate allegations of abuse in the e-rate program, which helps wire schools and libraries with the latest technology. It also would boost the amount the FCC can fine a company for violating agency rules, forbid any non-governmental entity from paying the travel expenses of FCC employees and seek to ensure that spectrum won at auctions not be protected by bankruptcy laws. The panel also approved legislation that would create a trust fund to reimburse government spectrum users who are reallocated to new spectrum to make way for commercial services.

Net Governance
ICANN Board Votes To Accept Bids For 'Sponsored Domains'
     Meeting in Montreal, the board of the Internet's oversight body voted to begin a process that could result in the creation of new Internet addresses. With overwhelming support, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board agreed to release a draft plan for adding three new domain-name suffixes to the Internet infrastructure. ICANN General Counsel Louis Touton said that because the proposed expansion is considered a test bed, the organization proposed limiting new Web suffixes to three "sponsored domains" that would serve specific purposes or communities like .pro, which is limited to certified professionals. On another front, ICANN is working toward forming a joint committee focused on concerns surrounding the "Whois" system that reveals personal information about domain-name owners.

Privacy
'Do Not Call' Registry's Birth Lauded At White House Event
     Flanked by FTC Chairman Timothy Muris and FCC Chairman Michael Powell, President Bush praised the official creation of a national "do not call" registry for telemarketing. "Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, they are annoying and they're all too common," Bush said at a Rose Garden ceremony. "When Americans are sitting down to dinner, or a parent is reading to his or her child, the last thing they need is a call from a stranger with a sales pitch." He then urged people to go to the "do not call" Web site, www.donotcall.gov, to join the service. "As of today, 108 persons per second are now registering their phone numbers," Bush said.

Courts
Judge Ruling Gives Sun A Partial Victory Over Microsoft
     Sun Microsystems won a partial victory over Microsoft when the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court judgment that Microsoft should be barred from bundling its own version of Java software with its Windows operating system. But the appeals court threw out the harshest element of the lower-court ruling, the requirement that Microsoft "must carry" Sun's version of the Java programming language with Windows. In February, Microsoft stopped distributing its version of Java, dubbed the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine, saying that it was a further step in "moving out of the Java business."

Fraud
FTC Offers Little Remedy To Lawmakers Concerns On ID Theft
     House lawmakers determined to deal with identity theft when reauthorizing the federal credit-reporting law implored the head of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection for legislative recommendations, but received little satisfaction. Bureau Director Howard Beales testified before Congress on extending the Fair Credit Reporting Act, repeating previous testimony that the agency is still developing its position on the matter. Members of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions offered suggestions on the issue, including giving consumers free annual credit reports, requiring credit bureaus to give notice about discrepancies in their credit files, and requiring lenders to comply with fraud alerts that consumers put on their credit reports.

Crime
Officials Target Cyber Crime Through Cooperation In Americas
     Government officials from the Americas met in Washington to build cooperation against cyber crime in the Western Hemisphere. The issue was addressed at the initial meeting of governmental experts on cyber crime within the Organization of American States (OAS). The meeting was expected to result in a document containing recommendations for next steps, officials said. OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria began the event by calling new technologies "without question ... the most valuable tools for improving the lives" throughout the hemisphere. But he noted that the Internet "can also be a powerful weapon, one that requires international legal cooperation."

Cyber Security
Warning Center For Cyber Attacks Is Online, Official Says
     A national early-warning network and analysis center for cyber attacks is operating in 30 locations, a senior White House official said. Paul Kurtz, a special assistant to President Bush and senior director for critical infrastructure protection in the Homeland Security Council, said the Cyber Warning and Information Network (CWIN) has begun operating, and administration officials are working to add state and local officials to the network. "It's not a first-responders network," Kurtz said at a cyber-security conference. "But we've been hearing a lot of questions about how we'll share information ... and CWIN is just the beginning" of that effort.