Security
Negotiators On Anti-Terrorism Law Still Seeking Deal
     The negotiators appointed to reconcile the House and Senate versions of legislation reauthorizing parts of the USA PATRIOT Act continued talks this week after a bipartisan group of senators threatened to block the legislation's passage. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and the panel's ranking Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, led the effort. Negotiators reunited after receiving a warning from a bipartisan group of six senators who criticized the current deal as "unacceptable." The six lawmakers want the conferees to rewrite four key provisions to reflect changes offered in the Senate version of the legislation. The reworked provisions would require FBI agents to meet higher legal standards when trying to secretly obtain business or library records on individuals, for example. It also would mean establishing a shorter, four-year lifespan for that provision and other more controversial ones.

Campaigns
Election Panel OKs Media Exemption For Some Blogs
     The Federal Election Commission unanimously voted to give a publisher of political Web logs a media exemption from the law on reporting campaign finance activity. The decision for Fired Up -- a Missouri-based company that runs pro-Democratic Web sites in Maryland, Missouri and Washington -- is a major victory for bloggers and puts the commission firmly in favor of a broad media exemption for online news sites. FEC Chairman Scott Thomas said his review of Fired Up found that its Web sites "fall within the legitimate press function." His only concern is whether such sites could change in the future to become political committees. "Where would a group like this cross the major-purpose line?" Thomas asked. "This is not a totally clean bill of health that anything that appears on a blog is exempt."

Net Governance
House Adopts Measure On Net Oversight Despite Deal
     Lawmakers and technology industry officials reacted with both hope and skepticism to the news of an agreement on Internet governance. The House adopted a resolution on the issue despite the deal. In advance of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia, world leaders agreed to keep the oversight of the Internet in the hands of a U.S.-based nonprofit group. The leaders also agreed to create a U.N. Internet forum, but it will not focus on the "day-to-day technical and operational matters" of the Internet. "The outcome in Tunis reflects the sound governance that has been provided by ICANN," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. But Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., remains skeptical. "This sounds [like] more of the same from heavy-handed U.N. bureaucrats," he said. The House adopted a Doolittle-authored measure, H. Con. Res. 268, that would endorse the current Internet governance structure.

Telecom
Federal Court Orders 911 Capability For Internet Phones
     A federal appeals court ruled that Internet telephone companies must comply with an FCC order barring new phone service unless the firms also can offer technology to pinpoint the locations of callers when they dial 911. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an effort by Nuvio to halt enforcement of the emergency-dialing requirement. The FCC order, which is binding on all such companies that connect to traditional phone lines, takes effect Nov. 28. The court's decision was made on procedural grounds. Issued in May, the order could have required Internet phone providers to disconnect many customers this month, but last week the FCC said they could service existing customers without the location-based technology; they just cannot market to new ones. The FCC guidance may have undercut Nuvio's arguments that it would suffer the "irreparable damage" required to justify stopping government action.

Intellectual Property
Lawmakers Clash Over Codifying 'Fair Use' Principle
     Members of a House Energy and Commerce panel criticized a bill that aims to codify the principle of "fair use" of copyrighted works by consumers. "I'm a staunch opponent of this bill," Mary Bono, R-Calif., said at a Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing. "I hope we can slow the movement of this bill, if not stop it altogether." The measure, H.R. 1201, would let consumers bypass anti-piracy mechanisms on digital videodiscs and compact discs for personal, non-commercial uses. Google, whose Google Print for Libraries program to put copyrighted books online has come under fire, had a representative at the hearing. Full Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, vigorously defended the measure, which he co-sponsored. "According to the most radical opponents of the bill, you can't make a copy of anything -- there's no fair use," he said. "That just flies in the face of reality."

Budget
FBI's Cyber Division Finds Key Friends In Congress
     An FBI squad charged with catching computer hackers and designing gadgets found financial backing this year from Senate appropriators, who won support to restore $20 million in fiscal 2006 funding for the agents. "Cyber investigations have been deemed an FBI top priority mission by the FBI and by this committee," the Senate Appropriations panel wrote in its report on the measure to fund the Justice Department, among others. "As such, the committee was surprised to learn the FBI imposed funding decreases on the cyber division." The section engineers support hundreds of counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence and criminal investigations involving digital or electronic information. The FBI director has slashed $35 million from the squad over five years. This year, Senate appropriators decided to stop the gouging, directing the agency to restore the money. In negotiations with the House, lawmakers ultimately settled on $20 million.

On The Hill
House Democrats Win Praise For New Tech Agenda
     House Democrats unveiled a technology agenda, and numerous industry groups lauded the initiative. The plan calls for improving science and math education, boosting federal investment in basic research, guaranteeing Americans affordable access to high-speed Internet access through rural telecommunications tax credits, and making permanent the research and development tax credit. The strategy includes an appeal to double the funding of the National Science Foundation and basic research in physical sciences across all agencies. It also calls for educating 100,000 new scientists, engineers and mathematicians in four years through a scholarship program. And the plan favors a doubling in funding for the Advanced Technology Program and Manufacturing Extension Partnerships -- two programs frequently targeted for budget cuts by President Bush. "We are impressed with both the content and the nonpartisan tone of this initiative," AeA President Bill Archey said in statement.

Lobbying
P2P Disunited: File-Sharing Groups Take Two Paths
     In a post-Grokster world, Washington's two lobbying groups for file-sharing companies have taken strikingly different approaches. One has gone fallow and the other is busy promoting companies that offer legal, peer-to-peer computing services. P2P United is apparently all but shuttered. The site's last posting occurred before the March 29 Supreme Court oral arguments in MGM v. Grokster, which ultimately led to a unanimous decision that the Grokster file-sharing service could be found liable for copyright infringement by its users. Sources familiar with the group said after the Supreme Court's June decision, funding lagged from its members, which included Grokster, BearShare, Blubster, eDonkey and Morpheus. The Distributed Computing Industry Association, meanwhile, has many of the same members but is pushing ahead to create a legal commercial space for P2P services. "Not all open P2P companies need to go out of business," CEO Mary Lafferty said.