Civil Liberties
Adult Entertainment Group Contests Record-Keeping
     Another front in the cultural wars between the nation's pornographers and the Bush administration has opened as attorneys for a trade group representing the adult entertainment industry prepared to ask a federal court to relieve it of new record-keeping rules. Existing law designed to protect minors from sexual exploitation requires the adult entertainment industry to maintain records on the ages, real names, aliases and other kinds of identifying information about the people who appear in the media companies' products. The new rules update the law to reflect the advent of the Internet by requiring producers of sexually explicit material to keep each image they use and retain records of each Internet location where the material was published. The rules define the producers as publishers of any kind of commercial media that depicts actual people engaging in sexually explicit activity. The industry argues that the rules are burdensome and vague to the point of stifling legitimate free speech.

Lobbying
ACLU Says Government Hampers Scientific Inquiry
     The Bush administration is hampering scientific inquiry through an overly restrictive security classification system and curbs on interactions between U.S. and foreign scientists, according to a report released this week. The report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) levels numerous charges, such as overzealous government censorship, suppression of environmental and health information, and restrictions on common scientific materials. The limitations are directly related to administration policies enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the document said. The report concludes that the administration has interfered with the free flow of information by classifying a record number of documents.

Security
White House Crafting One International Traveler Program
     The Bush administration is developing one international program for frequent travelers to and from the United States, Homeland Security Department officials told Congress. "We're going to move towards a global enrollment system," Elaine Dezenski, acting assistant secretary for border and transportation security at the department, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee. She explained that the program could consist of one database for a myriad of current border-crossing programs. The department would model the initiative after a contentious domestic registered-travel system it is currently testing at certain U.S. airports. Expanding the initiative internationally is likely to raise concerns among civil rights and privacy advocates who have had trepidations about a domestic program. Critics are concerned about the program's cost, how Homeland Security officials manage such a program and ensure privacy, how passengers can resolve disputes, and whether the effort will improve security.

Budget
Coast Guard Modernization Plan Gets Panel's Backing
     The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved a bill that would authorize $8.2 billion for the Coast Guard in fiscal 2006, including $1.1 billion for the service's Deepwater modernization program. The committee voted 22-0 for the bill, which would authorize nearly $1 billion more in fiscal 2006 and fiscal 2007 than President Bush requested. The bill calls for $8.8 billion in fiscal 2007. The panel also has unanimously approved a bill aimed at assuring that the United States is able to continuously fly in space while the space shuttle is retired and a new vehicle produced. The committee also voted 22-0 to send to the full Senate a bill governing the activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through 2010. The bill would authorize a 3 percent increase in funding for NASA from fiscal 2006 through fiscal 2010, or a budget of $16.6 billion in fiscal 2006 and growing to $18.5 billon.

Broadband
Networks Owned By Municipalities Stir Heated Debate
     Advocates of municipally owned networks clashed with free-market supporters over the benefits of cities providing citizens with access to high-speed Internet service. "The digital divide is local," Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer, said at a panel discussion on municipal wireless hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "We need to ensure that if our community is not being served, even though we have two primary telecom companies, that we step in to help." Philadelphia tangled with Verizon Communications last year after the city announced plans to provide city-wide wireless access. Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell eventually signed legislation giving private companies like Verizon first dibs on major telecom projects.

Telecom
Sen. Ensign, Rep. Pickering Discuss Their Reform Agendas
     Sen. John Ensign offered more detail on a telecommunications bill he is crafting and said he will seek "as much free-market thinking" in telecom reform as possible. It is imperative that the "patchwork quilt of regulation" in the states is eliminated, the Nevada Republican said at an event sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF). Otherwise, foreign applications like the Internet telephony offered by Skype Technologies "will completely drive customers away from our own domestic carriers." Ensign also criticized the current system for granting local cable franchises. "You cannot continue with a regulatory scheme that has 30,000 franchise authorities across the country" because that scheme was put in place to protect against monopolies that no longer exist, he said. Meanwhile, a PFF working group responsible for drafting model telecom regulation narrowly rejected an Internet-based template and instead is seeking to reshape the FCC along the lines of the antitrust and consumer protection authorities in the FTC.

Telecom
SBC Voices Two Approaches To Web-Based Video
     The Bell companies' entry into the video marketplace has the potential to shake the cable, satellite and broadcasting businesses, and SBC Communications has been aggressive on the policy questions it raises. But SBC has been saying different things about its Internet-protocol television (IPTV) to different audiences. As the company has suffered policy and public-relations setbacks, it has changed its message to suit its needs. Company executives have offered different stances on: whether the company will provide a la carte, or channel-by-channel, programming; whether it must pay franchise fees to local governments; and how much it will build out its high-speed Internet service. The company also is defining itself as a cable provider not under telecommunications law but under copyright law -- further tangling the policy issues surrounding Bell entry into the video marketplace. Some of SBC's divergent messages have been delivered at almost exactly the same time but to different audiences.

Intellectual Property
Up Close, China Piracy Problem Even More Daunting
     Despite Chinese government promises to control music and movie piracy, there remains little will to do so, industry officials working in the region said. With a piracy rate of 85 percent, China remains the world's largest market for bootleg compact discs, according to new figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which battles intellectual property theft globally for the music industry. Content industry officials in Asia said the Chinese government occasionally raids retailers and distributors of illegally copied U.S. products, but the effort is far too small to make any difference. In other industry news, companies that want to offer innovative music services should be allowed to apply for market-negotiated licenses through "music rights organizations," the head of the U.S. Copyright Office said. Congress should repeal the law that lets such companies obtain compulsory licenses with rate ceilings and instead let market players negotiate rates among themselves, Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters said.