Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, likes to fashion himself as a cutting-edge "cybersenator," having long opposed the ill-fated Communications Decency Act, and supported strong encryption. More recently, he signed on to the Congressional Openness Act of Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, a measure designed to force the Congressional Research Service — and other government agencies — to post their documents on the Web. But even Leahy knows his limits. At a press conference calling the bill a "good government measure" and further demanding the release of the "10 Most Wanted" government documents on the Internet, he said he made no attempt to bring a greater receptiveness to computers in the Senate itself. "I know where the power is in the Senate," Leahy said." We can do a space program, a war in Kosovo, a tax bill, but getting laptops in the Senate — that is going after the powers that be."

     The Information Technology Industry Council has hired Matt Tanielian, who formerly worked in the office of Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-NJ, handling broadband issues, as their new director of government relations. Tanielian will be joined by Brian Adkins who was recently promoted to the joint position. E-commerce and bandwidth related issues will be divided between the two, with Tanielian focusing on telecommunications issues and Adkins addressing intellectual property matters. Prior to these appointments, the position did not exist — Fiona Branton, vice president of government relations, handled these issues. "It's just a bigger focus," said ITI Director of Communications Connie Correll on the restructuring of the position. "There's a lot more going on now than there was a few years ago."

     The Computer and Communications Industry Association appointed Mary Hewitt as director of communication and industry relations. The position requires Hewitt to manage member recruitment and outreach, "keeping members appraised and in the loop as to any kind of topics or issues that will impact their businesses whether that be through Web site or newsletters," she said. Before taking the position at CCIA, Hewitt was press secretary for the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. Prior to working for the committee, she was the public affairs specialist on technology and other matters at the Department of Treasury. When asked about the importance of industry outreach Hewitt said, "I think it's so fluid. What took five years to develop, now takes a week and its changing so quickly you need to have this outlet for this to get out there. You need someone to boil it down for you and tell you what it means in a succinct matter... Government tends to be on top of things when it impacts government instead of consumers." AT&T, Oracle, Netscape and Yahoo are among the members of the association, which promotes open competition by offering computer and communications products and services. CCIA will be hosting a technology symposium addressing broadband issues in late September.

     When Electronic Privacy Information Center senior fellow David Banisar assembled some facts and figures in Criminal Justice Weekly showing that computer crime is far less prosecuted than current hysteria over the subject would indicate, one of the first people to spot the study was one of those few hackers who has done time behind bars. Writing in ZDNet Tech News, Kevin Poulson, a columnist for ZDTV's Cybercrime television show, reported on Banisar's study demonstrating that the Department of Justice prosecuted less than one in five of computer crime cases referred to it in recent years. What Poulson didn't say was that he himself holds the record for the longest sentence service served for computer fraud — having served 5 years and 11 months for rigging the phone system in such a way that he or his friends would always end up ringing at a radio station on the precise call needed to win a new car. On the second page of his article, Banisar wrote that Poulson "was held without bail for five years. In his case, the prosecution initially charged him with obtaining classified information as a justification for denying bail and then dropped the charge before trial."

     Representatives from the technology, political and music arenas gathered to discuss the cutting edge technology being used to promote and broadcast on the Internet, NetAid, an initiative to end extreme poverty through the power of the Internet paired with other media. NetAid, which is a partnership between Cisco Systems and the United Nations Development Programme, plugs in October 9, with concerts in New York, London and Geneva and continues with an ongoing Web site that allows people to get involved by making donations. Cisco Senior Vice President Larry Lang, Rod McGeary, vice chairman of KPMG Consulting, David Goodtree, vice president of marketing for Akamai Technologies, Don Mischer, president of Don Mischer Productions, and Djibril Daillo from UNDP discussed the social and technological objectives of the event. "We're looking at how we might leverage the Internet in the effort to relieve poverty… We're recommending people go on to the Net and interact in various ways. We are going to have to create the largest scale Web presence on the Internet." Since NetAid is expected to generate 1 billion hits, Akamai faced the challenge of designing technology to accommodate the expected 60 million hits per hour by installing 1,200 servers. "The Internet event comes first which makes this different with other events," Mischer said. "We are going to be telling people please leave your TV and go to the Web sites. But when they go to the Web they will have the option of streaming video." Bush, The Corrs, Counting Crows, Celine Dion and Jewel are among the artists performing.

     Microsoft's former Internet tools and development director, Greg Carpenter, has been appointed chief technology officer of Digital Entertainment Network, an Internet entertainment site for teens and young adults. Spending the last six years developing imaging and graphics software at Microsoft and having what Digital considers expert knowledge in broadband and digital distribution of music made Carpenter the best-suited candidate for the job. But 1999 has not been to kind to Microsoft's employee roster, which has lost a number of high-level executives including John Ludwig, Sam Jadallah and Steve Perlman.

     In an effort to put an end to a series of computer failures, eBay has hired Gateway's chief information officer Maynard Webb, to be its new technology executive. As eBay's Technologies president, Webb will lead other newcomers: chief technology officer Mark Ryan, formerly of IBM, and chief information officer Bob Quinn, formerly of Sun Microsystems. Webb will report directly to President and chief operating officer Meg Whitman. "We are confident that he possesses the vision and hands-on experience to help ensure eBay's site stability moving forward and to help scale eBay's system for the future," Whitman announced.

     Ron Benza, former executive vice president and general manager of McCann-Erickson Worldwide, will be staying in San Francisco to work as vice president of Brodia, an e-commerce company that organizes online shopping for consumers. "Brodia is using the power of the Web to put marketing in the hands of the consumer for the first time, and that proposition is very attractive to a marketer," said Benza in a statement. Brodia is best known for its important innovations in e-commerce and online privacy and security, including the creation of the Java programming language and the formation of TRUSTe, a privacy initiative created to build users' trust and confidence on the Internet. Brodia also played a key role in the development of Electronic Commerce Modeling Language, an open standard designed to streamline online merchant forms.

     The Dalai Lama has been to just about every corner of the globe since he was driven from his homeland 40 years ago. But last Friday he entered a new realm — cyberspace — in what is being touted as his first universal online chat. With the Dalai Lama on a controversial American visit, America Online members had the opportunity to chat with the Tibetan Buddhist leader and AOL also had the event Webcam-enhanced with real time technology. "AOL will take care of the tech side of the chat, leaving his holiness entirely free to enlighten our members," AOL spokeswoman Caroline Teasdale said prior to the chat.

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