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House Panel's Investigator Takes Policy Post
by Ted Leventhal
Tom DiLenge, currently the deputy chief counsel for oversight and investigations at the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is moving to the Homeland Security Committee to become its new chief counsel and policy director.
DiLenge has been with Energy and Commerce for six years, most recently as the chief policy adviser on national and homeland security issues for committee Chairman W.J. (Billy) Tauzin, R-La. DiLenge also led investigations into Arthur Andersen's auditing of the Enron energy firm and played a key role in passing legislation that created the Homeland Security Department.
In a statement, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., praised DiLenge as "a smart lawyer who gets hard jobs done."
Cox also has promoted Steve DeVine, the committee's senior adviser for intelligence and information sharing, to deputy staff director and general counsel. DeVine has been acting chief counsel since Uttam Dhillon left the committee last month for a senior Justice Department job.
DeVine has extensive experience with the CIA, most recently as special counsel to the associate director of intelligence for homeland security and earlier as deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council.
In other news, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Tuesday afternoon was scheduled to host a swearing-in ceremony at the Navy Chapel in Washington for General Counsel Joe Whitley, Chief Privacy Officer Nuala O'Connor Kelly and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer Daniel Sutherland.
AeA's Tax Specialist To Leave Job
Caroline Graves Hurley, the tax counsel and director of tax policy for AeA, has decided to leave after five years with the technology trade association.
"About six months ago, I informed AeA management that after five years, it was time for me to start pursuing my next professional position," she wrote in a farewell e-mail to colleagues. "I have decided to devote the last few weeks of the year to full-time job hunting and enjoying the holidays with my friends and family."
Meanwhile, the Telecommunications Industry Association's board of directors elected three new members at a board meeting last week: Kathy Paladino, Cisco Systems' vice president of sales for cable, telecom and emerging providers; J. Daniel Pigott, Henkels and McCoy's vice president of corporate engineering and alliance and business development; and Robert Switz, president and CEO of the high-speed Internet firm ADC.
Lobbying For Companies And Creditors
With the controversy over moving high-tech and traditional manufacturing overseas likely to remain a hot topic next year, the Indian government and a trade association of Indian software companies have retained a lobbying team to represent their interests in Congress and state legislatures, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld will receive $600,000 per year for political advice and congressional lobbying, with former House Speaker Thomas Foley leading the campaign. International adviser Edward von Kloberg also is under a $240,000 annual retainer.
India's National Association of Software and Service Companies also paid Hill & Knowlton $100,000 for public relations and lobbying for the first half of this year.
In other lobbying news, former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., now with Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, has registered to lobby the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. on behalf of the Global Crossing telecommunications firm's creditors, who are seeking approval for the sale of 61 percent of Global Crossing to Singapore Technologies Telemedia.
Douglas Lobel has been picked to lead the new litigation group in Arnold & Porter's McLean, Va. office. Lobel frequently represents telecom carriers and before entering private practice was a trial attorney in the fraud section of the Justice Department from 1987 to 1990.
E-Voting Firms Catch Heat For Practices
The business practices of vendors for e-voting systems were attacked on two fronts last week.
The Los Angeles Times reported on the companies' decisions to hire former California officials who led the drive to modernize the state's voting systems. The paper particularly took aim at former Secretary of State Bill Jones, who last year backed a bond measure to raise $200 million for new machines.
"Now, the former elections chief is a paid consultant to one of the major voting-machine firms vying for that business," the Times wrote. "One of his former top aides has become a vice president for business development with the same company, Sequoia Voting Systems. Another former employee is working on Sequoia business strategies."
In related news, ZDNet UK reported that author and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore last week attacked executives of the e-voting vendor Diebold Election Systems for contributing to the Bush administration and reportedly committing "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
"In Canada they mark an X in a box, and then people sit and count the votes by hand with representatives of the various parties watching everything," Moore said while on a book tour in London. "There are hardly any roads north of Toronto, but the Canadians manage to get all their votes in four hours after the ballots close."
Moore then asked members of the audience to explain to him "how exactly to put a cross in a box" so he could convey the intricacies of the system to U.S. authorities.
EBay Founder Offers His Talents To Meetup
Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of online auction house and retailer eBay, has joined the board of privately held Meetup and has made a significant investment in the company, according to a MeetUp statement. "Meetup is using the Internet for something that couldn't exist before, while taking the application of the Internet a significant leap forward," said Omidyar. "I strongly believe that Meetup will have an eBay-like impact on how people perceive the Internet and what it's good for."
The Dirt On Drudge's 'K Street' Appearance
While politicians and pundits have craved an appearance on the HBO drama "K Street," Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report was far from pleased to see himself featured in a recent episode.
FindLaw reports that Drudge is threatening to sue "K Street" for using his name, the name of his Web site and images from it in an episode on the real-life outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. The program also featured a page from The Drudge Report with the headline "Who Leaked the Name?" and a picture of co-star Mary Matalin. While it showed a page from the actual Web site, Drudge complained that "K Street" violated his copyright and he may seek a cease-and-desist order against HBO.
FindLaw quotes K Street co-producer George Clooney as saying that the charges are baseless.
Former AT&T Chief Honored After His Death
Telecom executives worldwide last week paid tribute to Charles Brown, the former chairman of AT&T who presided over its historic divestiture on Jan. 1, 1984, leading to the birth of the regional Baby Bell firms. Brown passed away Wednesday in Richmond, Va. after a lengthy illness. He was 82.
He joined AT&T after serving in World War II and gradually rose through the management ranks, becoming CEO of Illinois Bell in 1969, executive vice president of AT&T in 1974, president in 1977, and chairman of the board in 1979.
Before his retirement in 1986, Brown told AP that divestiture was "an exceptionally traumatic experience both physically and emotionally" for himself and AT&T employees. "I have said, and I still believe, that it was not necessary to break up the Bell system," he said. "Most people now think it was a bad error."
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