Privacy
Judge Rules Against NSA's Anti-Terrorism Surveillance
     A federal court in Michigan ruled this week that the National Security Agency cannot keep monitoring telephone calls and e-mails of Americans without warrants. The ruling by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor thrilled civil libertarians, who said the surveillance program violates constitutional rights to free speech and privacy. American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero told reporters on a conference call that the decision is "another nail in the coffin" of the government's legal strategy in the war on terror. The ACLU filed the case on behalf of journalists, scholars, attorneys and nonprofits who routinely communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East. The Justice Department said the surveillance program is a "critical tool" in detecting and preventing terrorist attacks and asked that the ruling be stayed pending an appeal.

Campaigns
Democrats Get Biggest Cut Of Silicon Valley Cash
     Silicon Valley venture capitalist Andy Rappaport of August Capital and his wife, Deborah, are among the area's leading donors of political capital for candidates in November. They donated a combined $7 million during the 2004 election cycle and have donated more than $400,000 to liberal candidates and political action committees this year. Rappaport also gave $17,350 to the online fundraising site ActBlue and $4,000 to BlogPac, a group started by the authors of leading Democratic Web logs. The top 20 Silicon Valley donors to individuals, party committees and leadership PACs, gave either 100 percent or nearly all their money to Democrats, according to records in opensecrets.org database of the Center for Responsive Politics. "Where have all the elephants gone?" CRP communications director Massie Ritsch asked. He said that in 2000, the Republican share of Silicon Valley donations "was 43 percent; now its 4 percent."

Campaigns
Party Activists Battle For Bucks At Dueling Web Sites
     Online activists are aiming to raise hordes of cash to push candidates to victory in mid-term elections this fall. Democrats are working to perfect an online fundraising model that has served them well for the past two years. One of their tools is the ActBlue clearinghouse, which bundles small contributions from multiple donors and sends them to candidates. ActBlue has been used to raise more than $7.2 million for Democratic candidates since its launch in 2004. A group of conservative bloggers, meanwhile, recently teamed to launch the ActBlue-inspired Rightroots site, which is being sponsored by the ABC political action committee. The site already has inspired some matching funds. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., pledged to donate $14,000 directly to Rightroots-endorsed candidates from his leadership PAC if the project raised $26,000 in its first few days online -- a challenge that donors met.

Campaigns
Innovations Give Candidates New Avenues To Voters
     Political candidates this year have a lot of brand new toys at their disposal to help reach voters. Campaigns have put candidate profiles on online social networks like MySpace. They have uploaded videos to YouTube to broadcast their platforms or engage in a little political mischief. Some candidates have even doctored the online encyclopedia entries of their opponents. But no one knows whether the innovations will help at the ballot box in November. Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 said applications such as YouTube could affect elections because of their broad reach, but it is still uncertain how they can best be exploited to communicate political messages and mobilize voters. "It's kind of hard to get past the fact that we're still in the middle of the Atlantic floating to New America," he said of the new era in political technology.

Campaigns
Online Video Captures Sen. Allen Making Alleged Slur
     Days after reports of an allegedly racist comment by Sen. George Allen at a campaign stop this week, thousands of people are now seeing the video for themselves. At the YouTube video-sharing site, the one-minute video of Allen, R-Va., earned status as the most linked -- more than 13,000 of them -- and was watched 77,786 times just after noon. That is more than the 10,000 people who viewed two YouTube videos of an embrace between Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and President Bush. The clip shows Allen singling out a worker for his opponent, Democrat James Webb, and telling the crowd that "Macaca, or whatever his name is" has been videotaping the Allen campaign for Webb, a common practice. Media reports traced the meaning of the French term macaca to a type of monkey and said it has been used as a racial epithet for blacks in north Africa. Allen later apologized.

Campaigns
Parties Closely Guard Voters' Secrets In Databases
     One of the most closely guarded secrets in American politics is how political parties collect and use individuals' personal information. But as technology improves, more detailed profiles are being built and campaigns are better equipped to reach potential voters. The 2004 presidential race saw the emergence of the GOP's Voter Vault and the Democrats' DataMart. Voter Vault still exists, but DataMart was decommissioned and a new system was launched. The parties collectively amassed about 165 million entries in 2004, and their repositories have deepened since then. A voter's physical address, telephone number, party affiliation, voting history, ethnicity, gender and age are among the factors tracked. Information brokers can add statistics on whether a person owns a home or makes charitable and political contributions. The GOP even knows about peoples' magazine subscriptions, which can be indicators of voting behavior, an official said.

Security
Emergency Communications Called 'Mission Critical'
     The development of communications systems capable of functioning across jurisdictions is a critical component of emergency preparedness, a senior Homeland Security Department official told a group of state lawmakers gathered in Nashville, Tenn., this week. But the deployment of such interoperable communications systems will require funding and coordination among state and local emergency responders, said Tracy Henke, the department's assistant secretary for grants and training. "Interoperability is a mission-critical capability," she said. Henke said it is vital that some emergency responders take the first step of deploying adequate communications networks before they focus on making them work across jurisdictions. "We have areas that don't have basic operability still," she said. Henke also said that the department is re-evaluating its criteria for allocating grants but that she only expects minor changes before next year. At the same National Conference of State Legislatures meeting, experts agreed that state lawmakers need to implement policies to cultivate businesses that will help their economies compete on a global scale.

Lobbying
Techies Divided Over Border-Crossing Technology
     While members of Congress have hit the campaign trail for August, the technology group AeA is campaigning in Washington for the latest legislative initiative to settle a dispute over border-crossing technology. AeA has urged lawmakers to support language specifying that the "smart cards" for the border comply with a standard called ISO 14443. The cards would contain chips readable at a distance of 10 centimeters, something privacy advocates want. The Homeland Security Department favored ultra-high-frequency RFID readable at 30 feet. The language also would delay the program until June 1, 2009, to identify travelers going through Canada, the United States and Mexico. But technology groups are not united. The Information Technology Association of America has expressed concern to congressional leaders about the cards complying with a specific technology when technology changes so rapidly.