Privacy
Foes Of Passenger-Screening Plan Heartened By Changes
     Privacy advocates and civil libertarians this week applauded the idea that major changes will be made to a screening system for airline passengers and that the program might be canceled. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System (CAPPS II) is dead. Earlier in the week, however, the acting administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which manages CAPPS II, said his agency plans to "reshape and repackage" the system. A spokeswoman for the TSA said a replacement program is under development. The new system would incorporate views of the privacy and civil-liberties offices of the department and would have a better method for clearing passengers whose names wrongly appear on the high-risk list, according to a TSA spokeswoman. Privacy groups and civil libertarians were quick to endorse the idea of changes to the system.

Lobbying
Business Groups Press Case In Stock-Options Debate
     America's three leading business organizations called for delaying a proposal to change the accounting rules that govern employee stock options, and a conservative anti-tax group urged legislators to quickly approve a bill to gut those pending changes. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and Business Roundtable (BRT) in urging the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to delay implementing a proposal that would require businesses to treat stock options as an expense. Stopping or delaying the implementation of the FASB proposal -- currently planned for finalization later this year -- is one of the most important issues to the technology companies. NAM and BRT are working with technology association members of the International Organization for Employee Stock Options, and they have advocated a bill, H.R. 3574, designed to thwart mandatory expensing.

Intellectual Property
Industry Rift Over Copyright Bills Surfaces At Forum
     Consensus on reforming digital copyright legislation is elusive because technology companies are split over both a House bill designed to ease the law and a Senate bill to tighten the law. That rift was apparent at a forum in the Senate, where some representatives from the movie and software industries spoke out against the House measure, H.R. 107, while others challenged the merits of the Senate bill, S. 2560. Representatives from the Consumer Electronics Association and the Electronic Frontier Foundation support the House bill, which would loosen the prohibition in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act against cracking encryption that protects movies, music and software. Bill sponsor Rick Boucher, D-Va., defended the legislation, which would let consumers crack codes on digital videodiscs and software for "fair use" of legally purchased content.

Net Governance
Internet Interests Voice Opinions Before ICANN Meeting
     Constituents in the Internet community are letting their opinions fly on key issues in the days before the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meets next week. ICANN, which oversees the Internet-addressing system, will hold its meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from Saturday through Friday, July 23. The ICANN board will meet the last day, followed by a special session July 24 on ICANN's role in global Internet governance, an issue attracting many opinions. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) issued a report calling for ICANN reform in light of the global debate about Internet governance. CDT said ICANN is "arguably straying from its original design as a private-sector, bottom-up, consensus-based, technical coordination body."

Trade
Senate OKs Australia Pact, Moves Toward Talks On Tax Bill
     The Senate voted 80-16 to approve the U.S.-Australia trade agreement, offering a strong message of support to a close ally in the war on terrorism. The broadly supported deal was not expected to encounter much substantive opposition. Also Thursday, the Senate amended and then passed by voice vote the House version of the corporate tax bill, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., appointed negotiators for the bill according to a procedural deal reached with Senate Democrats. Various industry groups voiced their support for the Senate's action.

Privacy
Companies, Civil Libertarians Square Off Over Tracking Tags
     Civil-liberties advocates and representatives of technology companies and U.S. retailers outlined for House lawmakers what promises to be an ongoing debate over the privacy concerns raised by wireless tracking technology. The technology in question is known as radio-frequency identification (RFID). The Defense Department, retailers such as Wal-Mart and manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble have programs to deploy the technology. Both retailers and Defense are using the technology and requiring their suppliers to embed RFID tags into their products to better track inventory. At a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, representatives of the retail and technology industries outlined their privacy policies for RFID tags. They said that for the most part, the technology is for business-to-business relationships, with minimal uses for consumer products.

Health
Officials Call For Standards To Improve E-Health Initiative
     Agencies are working to comply with President Bush's call to implement electronic health records over the next 10 years, but the process would be simpler if there were a government standard for the organization of information, officials told a House subcommittee. "The consensus across the healthcare industry is that the time is right to establish universal clinical vocabulary and messaging standards to enable technology development which better supports exchange and sharing in a secure environment," Florida Republican Adam Putnam, chairman of the House Government Reform Technology Subcommittee, said at a hearing on the progress of e-health initiatives. Putnam warned against collecting data in a "format and vocabulary that suits the individual data collector without consideration for the possibility of subsequent data sharing." That practice could result in redundancies and a reduced ability to provide critical healthcare functions, he said.

Science
White House Notes Movement Of Research Centers Overseas
     The chief science adviser to President Bush is closely eyeing the establishment of research centers in foreign countries as part of the larger trend of U.S. companies moving jobs and facilities overseas. "I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing," John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute. Nevertheless, he said it is a trend worth watching. He noted that some research developments, such as the creation of blue LED screens in Japan, occurred overseas and triggered further innovations in the United States. "It's entirely possible that what we're doing is taking advantage of opportunities that will make our innovation ecology even more productive, so I don't want to pass judgment on whether this is good or bad."