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House Science Veteran Joins Computing Group
by Sarah Lai Stirland
After 10 years working in the House, Cameron Wilson has left Capitol Hill to join the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) as director of the group's public policy office.
Wilson most recently served as deputy chief of staff and legislative director for Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., and worked on transportation and telecommunications issues. Wilson also has worked on various technology and standards issues on the House Science Environment, Technology and Standards Subcommittee, which Ehlers chairs.
Matthew Reiffer is succeeding Wilson as Ehlers' legislative director.
Wilson said he took the new job because of a longtime fascination with technology and his growing interest in the impact of Web logs, or blogs, on the media. The new position will allow him to spend more time focusing on core issues important to the world of technology, he said.
"In a [lawmaker's] office, you always just had five minutes to focus on something," he said. "This job will give me a better opportunity to focus on how policy affects technology and vice versa."
ACM is an organization of about 80,000 technology professionals and students, and its focus is computer science. The organization sees itself as an educational body rather than a force for lobbying. The New York-based group publishes computing literature and magazines and organizes conferences. It also has a policy office in Washington.
Wilson said he expects to work on a broad range of tech issues, including intellectual property and anti-piracy issues, privacy, e-voting standards, and Internet governance.
He first became familiar with ACM through his work on the House Science Committee during consideration of a 2002 law to modernize voting systems. Wilson worked to add guidelines on technical standards to the law. He began working on Capitol Hill in 1995 for then-Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., who retired last year.
Wilson will work with David Padgham, ACM's policy coordinator in Washington. The two work with ACM's policy committee. They will consult the expertise of committee members when ACM is called before Congress to testify on tech issues.
ACM also recently announced that it has made Eugene Spafford the sole chairman of its policy committee. He previously shared the position with Barbara Simons, a former ACM president and founder of the committee.
Spafford is the executive director of Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) and is serving a two-year term as a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC.) PITAC issued a draft cyber-security report in January.
ACM also announced that cryptographer Emil Volcheck has joined the committee. Volcheck is an analyst in the Cryptographic Evaluations Center at the National Security Agency and is chairman of an ACM group on symbolic algebraic manipulation.
British Internet Experts Visit Capitol Hill
The Congressional Internet Caucus last week included in its first all-day conference on Internet policy a group of European politicians who had flown over for the event.
The group included Erika Mann, a member of the European Union Parliament, and British members of Parliament Ian Stewart, Ian Taylor and Derek Wyatt. The three British MPs are all part of the All Party Internet Group, the British counterpart to the Congressional Internet Caucus.
The British MPs were well-feted during their brief visit. The caucus threw them a party the evening before the conference in the newly renovated Thornton Room at the top of the Hyatt Regency, which has a beautiful night-time view of the Capitol. After that, the technology public-relations startup 463 Communications whisked the MPs and Clare Hobson, the United Kingdom telecom policy chief in the Trade and Industry Department, off to dinner with the firm's founders -- Sean Garrett, Tom Galvin and Jim Hock -- at the posh 701 Pennsylvania Avenue Restaurant.
The British delegation talked shop and relaxed over dinner with U.S. tech lobbyists such as Mark Blafkin, communications director of Americans for Competitive Technology (ACT); Brian Cute, VeriSign's vice president of government affairs; Adam Golodner, Cisco Systems' director of global security policy; Abigail Phillips, ACT's director of government affairs; and Jonathan Potter, executive president of the Digital Media Association.
In addition to the dinner, the founders of 463 Communications also are working to raise their profile online with a new group blog, The 463: Inside Tech Policy. The founders of the company are blogging about daily tech policy news.
Garrett, one of the firm's San Francisco-based partners, said the blog is a way to experiment with a new communications medium, and the firm expects to invite others from the tech policy community to contribute to the blog. Asked whether opinions the company officials offer on the blog might come back to haunt them, Garrett said he is confident that both he and his partners are able to communicate professionally and stay "on message."
"We're not going to go mad and start spouting off Kaczynski style," he said, referring to convicted mail bomber Theodore Kaczynski, who wrote an anti-technology manifesto.
Sen. Corzine Hires Blogger
On Capitol Hill, New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine, a Democrat who is running for governor in his state, has hired online communications strategy consultant Matt Stoller. In his new job, which he was expected to start this week, Stoller will commute between Washington and Newark, N.J., and will help Corzine in his campaign with blogging and online outreach strategy.
Before joining Corzine's staff, Stoller wrote a blog full time for New Democrat Network President Simon Rosenberg in his campaign to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Rosenberg ended his campaign in early February, and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was elected to the post Saturday.
"Matt is working for us, and we think he'll be a big help to our efforts here to change New Jersey," Corzine spokesman Steve Adamske said.
Stoller, a prominent online blogger for the Democrats, caused a stir at the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) last summer when he posted a critical comment about Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. At the time, Stoller was a volunteer blog coordinator for the Democrats. After the comments, the Democrats asked him to stop posting on the official DNCC blog.
"It's been a bumpy ride," Stoller said. "You saw what happened at the convention." Nevertheless, he said he still believes that blogging is a powerful communications tool for politicians who want to have "real conversations" with "real people."
ITI Hires New Spokesman
The Information Technology Industry Council last week announced that Adam Kovacevich has joined the group as its communications director.
Kovacevich previously worked as a spokesman for Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and former Rep. Calvin Dooley, D-Calif. In those jobs, he worked on issues important to the technology industry, such as establishing permanent normal trade relations with China and addressing the accounting rules for employee stock options.
Kovacevich most recently worked as communications director to Democrat Inez Tenenbaum in her unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate from South Carolina.
And after four years, Christine Pelosi is leaving her job as chief of staff to Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., to develop an Internet-based leadership training institute. In a farewell note, Pelosi said she plans to "pursue private-sector opportunities with a variety of progressive causes," in addition to developing the training institute.
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