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Dude, You're Gettin' A Dell Job
by Bara Vaida
Dell Computer has hired Paul Brownell to join its Washington lobbying office to focus on the congressional Appropriations and Armed Services committees.
Brownell is currently vice president of public policy at the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), where he has worked on various tax and accounting issues of interest to the high-tech sector since 1999. Before joining the NVCA, Brownell was the director of trade regulation at the tech industry group AeA and an associate at R. Wayne Sayer Associates, a small, high-tech consulting firm.
"I wasn't looking for a job ... but then the Dell opportunity came along," said Brownell, who is a Minnesota native and came to D.C. for graduate school in international relations.
Dell's interest in the Appropriations and Armed Services committees stems from its role as a subcontractor to EDS, which won the contract to build the Navy and Marine Corps intranet. The contract was one of the largest government tech contracts in history.
Microsoft Welcomes An Antitrust Foe
Four years ago, Microsoft's lawyers charged that Internet legal expert Lawrence Lessig was biased against the company and successfully filed a motion to remove him as the special master on the Microsoft antitrust case. But in 2002, Microsoft's executives have invited Lessig to visit its headquarters, chair a panel and have lunch.
To Lessig, who is currently a Stanford University law professor, the meetings were nothing out of the ordinary, and he said no one has broached the topic of the antitrust suit. "We've had no conversations about the case," Lessig said. "We didn't sit down and decide what the right answer was" in terms of the case.
Rather, the meetings were about public policy issues upon which both Lessig and Microsoft agree. "Many of Microsoft's policy issues are right ... on what the future [of the Internet] needs to be. That is where we've been talking," he said.
Both Lessig and Microsoft favor encouraging the widespread adoption of the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), a technology that enables consumers to determine the level of privacy they want when it comes to sharing personal information over the Internet. "This is important technology that will enable better control over privacy preferences," Lessig said.
He and Microsoft are also on the same wavelength on Lessig's challenge to Congress' repeated extensions of copyright law, enabling companies like Disney to continue to reap royalties for content beyond the timeframe originally outlined by the founding fathers in 1790. Lessig represents Eric Eldred, who runs a free Internet library and filed the challenge, which the Supreme Court agreed to hear this fall.
FBI Taps IBM Executive For Senior Job
W. Wilson Lowery, a former executive at IBM, has been named executive assistant director for administration at the FBI. He replaces Robert Chiaradio, who is leaving for the private sector.
The position is one of four new senior management positions created by FBI Director Robert Mueller last December to narrow supervisory control and increase efficiency, accountability and oversight. Lowery is expected to fulfill Mueller's directive for the agency to be "more flexible, agile and mobile in its capacity to respond to the array of difficult and challenging national security and criminal efforts facing the U.S."
He is expected to foster "the transformation of the FBI into the law enforcement, counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence organization necessary to be effective in the 21st century."
Dan Case Dies Of Brain Cancer
Dan Case, the brother of AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case, died last week at the age of 44, according to The Mercury News.
Case, who had been ill with brain cancer for about a year, was well known in Silicon Valley as the former head of Hambrecht & Quist, an investment banking firm that funded many high-tech public offerings, including raising money for Apple Computer, Netscape Communications, Amazon.com and the biotechnology firm Genentech.
Case took H&Q public in 1996 and then engineered the firm's acquisition by Chase Manhattan for $1.35 billion. After his diagnosis with brain cancer, Case started a foundation called Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure to provide research for brain-cancer therapies.
Rep. Honda's Vote For Diversity
Silicon Valley is the home of a diverse community -- from corporations to wealthy executives and large numbers of Hispanics and Asians -- and that is one reason Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., decided not to follow the crowd of lawmakers condemning last week's court ruling that the use of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.
Honda was one of the few members to vote against a House resolution stating that the court's ruling was erroneous. "Much of our nation's strength comes from our diversity, including a growing religious diversity, particularly in my district -- Silicon Valley," he said in explaining his vote.
Honda, who was interned in a camp during World War II because of his Asian heritage, noted that the United States fought World War II without God being mentioned in the pledge. The phrase was added in 1954, amid Cold War animosity toward "godless communists."
A Presidential Message For Rep. Morella?
President Bush seemed to needle Rep. Constance Morella, R-Md., on Friday for her opposition to a plan to move a computer-security agency into the proposed Homeland Security Department.
At a luncheon fundraiser for Morella, Bush said: "Connie understands that for the good of the country, some are going to have to give up what they call 'turf.' You know, some people are going to have to say, 'Well, this -- I no longer have oversight on this jurisdiction,' and that's going to be hard and it's going to be difficult for some members of the Senate and the House, and I understand that."
His speech followed a House Science Committee hearing the day before at which Morella announced her opposition to transferring the computer-security component of the National Institute of Standards and Technology to the new department.
White House Anti-Terrorism Chief Resigns
Retired Army General Wayne Downing resigned last week as head of the Office for Combating Terrorism within the National Security Council (NSC). Downing joined the NSC staff in October.
Just before his announced resignation, Downing had convinced the Bush administration to create a data-infusion center to keep 24-hour watch and track all interagency intelligence on terrorist activities, The Washington Post reported. Now that Downing is leaving, it is not clear how such a center would be structured.
Retired Air Force General John Gordon replaces Downing. Gordon joins the NSC staff from the Energy Department, where he served as the undersecretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
In other White House news, Cesar Conde, the vice president of business development at Univision Network, was chosen to be one of 13 White House fellows in 2002-2003 for his work in developing an Internet portal geared toward Hispanics.
WorldCom Executive Dropped As Host
WorldCom's chief operating officer, Ron Beaumont, was supposed to host a July 13 fundraiser for Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, a Republican seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Phil Gramm. Cornyn, however, changed those plans following last week's accounting revelations about WorldCom, The Dallas Morning News reported.
The paper also reported that Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., was listed as a special guest for the fundraiser. Lott has received several WorldCom donations, including $1 million the company gave to the establishment of the Trent Lott Leadership Institute at the University of Mississippi, according to the Center for Responsible Politics.
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