Privacy
House Passes Credit-Reporting Bill Addressing ID Theft
     The House this week passed a major bill that would implement measures designed to help consumers combat identity theft and permanently bar states from regulating credit bureaus. The bill, H.R. 2622, would extend a series of pre-emptions against state laws on both credit reporting and identity theft, and would invalidate portions of a recently signed California law as it applies to sharing data among financial institutions' affiliated companies. Passed on a 392-30 vote, the measure would not pre-empt general state laws on financial privacy. Retailers, lenders and credit bureaus, and many people who believe that the pre-emption of state credit-reporting laws has enhanced the credit-granting process, eagerly sought to continue those pre-emptions. The pre-emptions were first enacted in 1996 amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and are set to expire Jan. 1. Republicans and Democrats who sponsored the measure touted its potentially positive impact on privacy by helping thwart identity theft, a crime that the FTC last week said affects nearly 10 million Americans.

Security
Experts, Forger Argue That Document Fraud Is Easy
     Anyone with a personal computer, scanner, graphics software and basic computer skills can forge Social Security cards, passports, visas and other key government documents, government officials investigators and a convicted forger told the Senate Finance Committee, and that has fueled a growing market in counterfeit documents and threats to national security. Investigators with the FBI, Social Security Administration, Homeland Security Department and General Accounting Office said criminals have easy access to counterfeit documents, facilitating various financial crimes and creating a vulnerability for terrorists who, once inside the United States, could use fake drivers' licenses and other documents to blend into communities, open bank accounts, obtain firearms and access government buildings.

Porn
Lawmakers Vow To Halt File Trading Of Child Porn
     Lawmakers vowed to halt the surge of online trading of child pornography through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. "Peer-to-peer networks provide a new and growing means for distribution of these disgraceful materials," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at a hearing of his panel. "They also pose unique challenges for law enforcement trying to combat child pornography and unique and unacceptable dangers to our children." Hatch played a video produced by the Recording Industry Association of America that chronicled how easy it is for an unwitting P2P user to find objectionable material. The video showed typing "Pokemon," a popular children's cartoon, or "Harry Potter" into a P2P search engine yields information on the actual children's characters but also produces much objectionable material. Committee ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont lamented the misuse of the promising technology for nefarious purposes, claiming that the use of P2P networks to exploit children "has to stop. And believe me, if there is a way to do it with legislation, we will."

Digital Television
FCC Approves Rules Encouraging Digital TV Growth
     The FCC agreed to rules designed to make cable television service and digital TV sets more compatible, but some consumer advocates are concerned that a portion of the rules addressing copy-protection issues will strip the public of "fair use" rights to copyrighted materials. "Today's decision by a unanimous commission is a victory for consumers and a major step in the digital-television transition," FCC Chairman Michael Powell said. The FCC approved "plug and play" rules that were hammered out between the cable industry and consumer electronics manufacturers and submitted to the FCC last year. If all goes as planned, consumers will be able to buy digital cable-ready televisions during the 2004 holiday season, enabling them to abandon the set-top boxes they currently need to view digital content.

Telecom
Mandate On Call-Location Systems Sought By Year's End
     Frustrated that after years of pushing for implementation of rules that would require wireless telephones to offer the same emergency-response capability as traditional 911 calls, lawmakers said they hope to have legislation to spur that effort signed into law soon. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, said he hopes his panel will vote on a bill, H.R. 2898, to do just that "as early as next week" and to move the bill to the House floor as quickly as possible. "My goal is to get it to the president's desk by the end of the year," the Michigan Republican said. While some carriers are ready to provide "enhanced 911" services that would let officials pinpoint the locations of emergency cellular phone calls, problems such as the diversion of funds from local response centers and a lack of funds in small wireless firms that serve rural areas has plagued the process.

Security
Call For Standards For 'First Responders' Sparks Debate
     Local "first responders" to emergencies will not be able to effectively react to a terrorist attack until they have a standard for response, an expert said. "What we need is a mandate for national minimum standards for homeland security for first responders," former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman, N.H., told members of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations. "You cannot establish priorities until you know what the standards are." More specifically, Rudman suggested that the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services departments work to set the standards, and that Homeland Security institute a "best practices" guide on how to work with state and local governments.

E-Government
Deadline For E-Health Claims Will Not Be Extended
     The Health and Human Services Department will not ask Congress to again extend the deadline for the healthcare industry to comply with standardized rules for submitting electronic claims, despite concerns that a large percentage of healthcare payers and providers will not meet the Oct. 16 deadline, officials said. "The administration's efforts in Congress will be on Medicare reform," Leslie Norwalk, acting deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters in a briefing on efforts to avoid what she called a "potential train wreck" putting at risk the $1.4 trillion the nation spends on health care each year. Congress already has delayed the compliance deadline by a year, in legislation passed in 2001.

Budget
Senate Seeks To Move Aid For E-Archives To Amtrak
     Responding to a critical government report and a shortfall in Amtrak funding, the Senate Appropriations Committee has voted to defer for one year the $35.9 million requested for the electronic record-keeping project of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and instead divert the funds to Amtrak. According to a Senate source, the funds were cut at the request of Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that approves funding for the Transportation and Treasury departments. Last week, the committee approved the bill, S. 1589, which also would fund NARA. Murray had planned to propose the funding cut for the archiving project in an amendment. But she and two Republicans reached an accommodation with subcommittee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and the language was inserted in the committee report, the source said.