E-Government
State Officials Work To Avoid E-Voting Problems
     Election officials are busy making last-minute preparations to their voting systems so that candidates on the ballots, and not voting machines, make the news next week. But voting-rights activists are going to be closely watching the performance of new devices that many of them suspect are unreliable and insecure, especially after eventful primaries this year. According to a report released earlier this month by Electionline.org, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington are the states where problems are most likely to occur Tuesday. All of the states except New York, which uses lever-based machines, have deployed fleets of electronic optical scanners and touch-screen devices to satisfy federal law. Maryland and Ohio have been thrust into the spotlight this fall because of technical glitches and human errors that caused delays in primaries in both states. Technology Daily has more details in a state-by-state e-voting recap.

Lobbying
Google Adds PAC To Growing Washington Presence
     The Google Internet firm is adding more links to its Washington network. Alan Davidson, Google's Washington counsel, said the Google Net Political Action Committee, which started six weeks ago, has contributed $8,000 to candidates this election cycle. Davidson said Google's PAC donations have gone to lawmakers who support network neutrality rules aimed at preventing a two-tiered pricing system for the high-speed Internet. The company gained a Washington presence when it opened its in-house lobbying office in July 2005. Before that, it was represented by an outside lobbying firm, Public Policy Partners, which is now part of Gage. Google has been building its network of bipartisan connections over the past year. Gage continues to work on behalf of Google; last fall, Google hired the Podesta Mattoon lobbying firm; and in May, Google lured Jamie Brown from a legislative affairs post at the White House.

Security
Group Warns Global Travelers About Computer Searches
     The Association of Corporate Travel Executives is warning its members that government agents may seize and search travelers' laptop computers, discs and other electronic devices upon arrival in the United States or when departing for foreign countries. The organization has asked for clarification from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol on "what steps, if any, are being taken to protect confidential business, privileged legal and personal information," Executive Director Susan Gurley said. The group is seeking explicit guidelines on what passengers must consider when traveling with electronic devices and what inspection processes are to be expected. Customs spokeswoman Lynn Hollinger said the government is "focused on preventing any kind of terrorist incidents, but at the same time, facilitating legitimate trade and travel."

Intellectual Property
Software Group Sues Two EBay Users For Piracy
     Suspected peddlers of pirated software on the eBay Internet auction site were smacked with lawsuits by a major high-tech trade group. The Software and Information Industry Association plans on filing more complaints as additional sellers are identified. The suits involve illegitimate McAfee software sold through eBay auctions in January. The action comes six months after SIIA began monitoring sites like eBay to find and help prosecute sellers of pirated goods. In the complaint, SIIA alleged that illegal copies of McAfee Internet security and antivirus products were sold by two defendants and at least 10 other individuals. McAfee anti-piracy chief Peter Beruk added that the lawsuits put eBay sellers on notice that "the industry will not tolerate unauthorized sales of software." EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said eBay firmly backs brand owners in the battle against piracy.

Privacy
Court Revisits Spying Case Against Rep. McDermott
     A nine-member appeals court heard a case involving an unlawfully tapped telephone call between now-House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and House Republican leaders. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., leaked the call to reporters almost a decade ago after receiving a copy from people who used a radio scanner to intercept and record the conversation. They pleaded guilty to violating wiretapping law and were fined $500 each. A three-judge panel of the federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in March that McDermott also violated the law by giving recordings to the journalists. McDermott asked the full appeals court to rehear the case. Much of the questioning focused on whether he had aided and abetted a crime. His attorney said legal precedent calls for punishing only the "underlying wrongdoer." Boehner's attorney told the panel that McDermott knew the call had been illegally intercepted and thus should be penalized.

Courts
Legal Experts Ponder Changes To E-Discovery Process
     Rules that govern civil procedure in U.S. district courts will change in a little more than a month, possibly putting new burdens on company legal and information technology departments as they grapple with the increasingly important electronic discovery process. The change, which takes effect Dec. 1, will require corporate litigants to identify, declare and produce electronic documents earlier in civil litigation. The rules cover everything from e-mails and instant messages to Internet telephone calls and internal document-management tools. They require that e-discovery be done early in a case, e-discovery specialist Mary Mack said. She said the changes could lead to "serious staffing issues" for litigants by demanding more "collaboration between legal and IT to determine what information resources need to be tapped."

Politics
Google Bombs Bear Bitter Fruit For Many Candidates
     Search-engine results show that Google-bombing campaigns by bloggers appear to have been somewhat successful. In an update at MyDD, where the idea originated, Lucas O'Connor called the results "mind-blowing." Internet users who search on the names of the 52 Republican candidates targeted by MyDD now will find negative news articles in the first page of the searches for 36 of the candidates. Some of the races that Technology Daily is following this year were involved. Negative articles now rank higher than they did Oct. 25 for searches on Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Dave Reichert of Washington and Heather Wilson of New Mexico; and Mike McGavick, who is running for Senate in Washington. Right Wing News, which encouraged conservative bloggers to Google bomb 45 Democrats in response to the MyDD-led campaign, also reported success on 35 of 45 articles.

Net Governance
Global Forum Turns Vague Among A Myriad Of Issues
     You can't have a conference in Greece without a nod to great philosophers of yore, and Socrates merited a mention this week at a weeklong technology conference in Athens. But not even the spirit of Socrates could bring clarity to the vague topic at hand: Internet governance. The U.N.-backed forum has been generally seen as a place for a healthy debate among various Internet stakeholders. But after the first day and dozens of views, it remained unclear what that debate will address. "We saw this morning that Internet governance is this completely vague term that means many different things to many different people," said Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller called the discussion "aimless." And Google's Vint Cerf, an Internet creator, said there is a "problem of abstraction."