Privacy
AT&T Data Stays Sealed As Part Of Spying Suit
     A U.S. district judge in San Francisco this week denied AT&T's request that a group of privacy advocates return sealed company documents with information on surveillance activities of the U.S. government. Judge Vaughn Walker also ruled that the documents will remain under seal for now. The judge did not grant the Electronic Frontier Foundation the preliminary injunction it was seeking against AT&T, and he did not prevent AT&T from continuing to cooperate with the government surveillance program. The hearing stemmed from a suit filed by EFF against AT&T. The privacy group alleged that AT&T illegally gave the National Security Agency access to customer telephone and Internet communications without a warrant. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., asked the FCC chairman to consider whether companies that gave consumer information to the NSA violated the law.

Intellectual Property
Patent Ruling Favors EBay Over MercExchange
     The Supreme Court ordered a lower court to reconsider a ruling that would have blocked the eBay online auctioneer from using its "Buy It Now" feature. In a unanimous opinion, the justices wrote that courts should consider several factors before automatically imposing injunctions after juries find patent violations. The case pits eBay against MercExchange, a firm that claims ownership of the technology behind the "Buy It Now" feature. A district court jury had agreed that the eBay feature was a patent infringement and awarded MercExchange $35 million. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said the district judge also should have given MercExchange an injunction to stop eBay from using the patented feature. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the district court took too broad a view and the appeals court took too harsh a view. Those lobbying for patent reform are waiting to see what the ruling will mean for pending legislation.

Intellectual Property
Senate Panel Far From Offering Patent Reforms
     A Senate subcommittee is agonizing over how to overhaul the patent system and has a substantial amount of work to do before it releases a measure. The Judiciary Intellectual Property Subcommittee has been working on a bill for several months. The panel's peers on the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee have been struggling with the issue for more than a year. At a hearing tentatively scheduled for May 23, the Senate panel plans on exploring efficient ways to challenge patents at the Patent and Trademark Office, aides said. Many industry players who have testified on the issue will speak again. "We don't want it to be so that if you get sued, you can just run to the patent office for a post-grant proceeding, which essentially delays the lawsuit," one aide said. "[The proceeding] should have value -- productive, constructive value to the determination of validity to a patent."

Budget
Security Spending Approved After Partisan Debate
     The House Appropriations Committee voted unanimously for a bill that would give the Homeland Security Department about $32 billion in fiscal 2007. The panel also approved a Democratic amendment that would require minimum security standards for chemical facilities. The committee debate featured partisan outbreaks regarding congressional oversight. Republicans and Democrats were divided over how far appropriators should go in mandating changes at the department. Panel ranking Democrat David Obey of Wisconsin said the House has been "spectacularly negligent" in providing oversight. But Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., objected to such criticisms. "We take our jobs very seriously and we do serious work," he said. The amendment on chemical facilities also divided the committee, but it was approved by voice vote along party lines. In other news, two House committees passed competing bills to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Telecom
Senate Hearing Covers Three Flashpoints Of Debate
     Three flashpoints of telecommunications debate -- network neutrality, video franchising and the universal service fund -- surfaced during the first Senate Commerce Committee hearing on legislation drafted by the panel's chairman, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens. Stevens said the passage of a telecom bill will happen this year, but some members said its fate may rest on the inclusion of stronger language on net neutrality. The bill calls for the FCC to conduct annual studies of how market conditions impact the free flow of information on high-speed Internet networks, language that proponents of net neutrality see as too weak. "This thing could die over net neutrality," said Gordon Smith, R-Ore. "Is there any middle ground?" On the House side, members of the Judiciary Committee drafted a bill on net neutrality after being denied the right to review a measure approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Broadband
Lawmakers Eye Faster Web Growth In Rural Areas
     Members of the Senate Agriculture Committee expressed frustration at the slow pace of the Rural Utilities Service in delivering high-speed Internet service to rural America. But RUS Administrator Jim Andrews said that simplifying and speeding the application process for loans and grants under the program have proven difficult because the companies that offer the service are so different from each other. The committee held a hearing that Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., described as the beginning of a "dialogue" with Agriculture Department officials and the industry about problems in the program. Panel ranking Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa said the department has been imposing "excessive hurdles" on small towns and main-street businesses in their broadband applications. A day later, a Bush administration official fiercely defended the growth of the American high-speed Internet marketplace. John Kneuer, the nominee to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, argued that statistics that suggest the United States is not gaining ground in the global broadband race are misleading.

E-Government
Department Reverses Itself On Chinese Computers
     The chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee highlighted the recent retreat by the State Department from a decision to use Chinese-made computers as part of its global classified network. "I was deeply troubled to learn that the new computers were purchased from a China-based company and that at least 900 of these computers were planned to be used as part of the classified network deployed in the United States and around the world in embassies and consulates," said Virginia Republican Frank Wolf, who chairs the panel that oversees State's budget. Wolf decried China for efforts to spy on the United States, as well as its human rights record. He said State's plan to use the 900 computers as part of its classified network posed a security risk. A State official told Wolf in a letter that its Bureau of Diplomatic Security is "recommending that the computers purchased last fall be utilized on unclassified systems only."