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California Addresses Online Hunting, RFID
by Chloe Albanesius
Efforts in California to ban remote hunting over the Internet and curtail the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags cleared legislatives hurdles this week, but a bill to strengthen the state's data-security law did not fare as well.
The Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure, S.B. 1028, that would ban people from hunting wildlife from their computers. The technique allows Web users to manipulate guns in the wild using their computers.
"Pay-per-view shooting doesn't meet any definition of 'sporting' that I've ever heard because there's nothing 'sporting' about sitting at your computer in your pajamas," state Sen. Debra Bowen, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.
The legislation, which the Senate passed April 21, now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Another bill introduced by Bowen that would require e-voting machines to print receipts before people finalize their votes rather than after, S.B. 370, cleared the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee last week and also goes to the Appropriations Committee.
Bowen's data-security bill, however, was not as successful. The Assembly Business and Professions Committee on Tuesday killed the measure, S.B. 852, which would have amended a state law to require notification of all security breaches, not just computer-based problems. The committee's vote is "stunning," Bowen said, given that "identity theft is still the fastest-growing white-collar crime in the country."
California's notification law requires that companies alert consumers in the event of security breaches so they can protect themselves against identity theft. In the wake of recent brokerage-firm breaches, a number of states are weighing legislation modeled on the law, with Illinois having enacted a law last week.
California's Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday also approved a bill, S.B. 682, that would ban the use of RFID tags on driver's licenses and other state-issued identification. Sen. Joe Simitian, the Democrat who authored the legislation, introduced the bill after a northern California school was considering equipping students with RFID-based tags. The legislation now moves to the Assembly floor.
Michigan Panel Opposes Direct Wine Shipments
Michigan's House Regulatory Reform Committee on Tuesday approved a complete ban on wine shipments for personal consumption. Some of those wine purchases are made online.
The move comes after the Supreme Court in May ruled that Michigan and New York laws allowing intrastate shipments but not interstate ones violated the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause. The court allowed state legislatures to decide whether to allow both kinds of shipments or to ban the practice altogether.
Bill sponsor Chris Ward, a Republican, said he opted for the total ban in his bill, H.B. 4959, because he feared that teenagers would use the Internet to order alcohol, AP reports. "The shipping industry will not be strident enough to check IDs," he told the committee.
Prosecutors Demand Information On Data Breach
The attorneys general of 44 states on Tuesday penned a letter to the senior vice president and legal counsel of a credit-card company recently embroiled in a data-security breach, demanding that it inform all customers about the incident.
"We call upon your company to do the responsible thing and notify all affected customers immediately," the officials wrote to Linda Ford of CardSystems Solutions.
The letter comes after media reports said credit-card companies affected by the breach would only notify customers if they are seen as being vulnerable to ID theft. Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna disagreed with that tactic. "Consumers have a right to know if their information has been compromised so they can take the appropriate steps to protect themselves," he said in a statement.
In addition to the notification, the attorneys general requested that CardSystems, by July 25, provide the National Association of Attorneys General with information on: a state-by-state breakout of the total number of card members affected by the breach; an explanation of how the breach occurred and what the company is doing to curb the abuse of affected customer information; and how CardSystems is preventing such a breach in the future.
Kansas Commission Splits On Telecom
The Kansas Corporation Commission on Monday issued a split decision on telephone deregulation.
It denied a request to deregulate basic phone service for residential and business lines in Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita but allowed it for residential and business-line bundles in Kansas City and Wichita. The commission found that the level of competition for bundled services in those areas is such that deregulation will not give SBC Communications, the area's dominant provider, an edge over other companies.
SBC still will face price regulations on services like caller ID, call-waiting and three-way calling for all types of phone lines.
In other news, the Wyoming Public Service Commission on Wednesday announced that Chairman Rob Hurless will leave the organization to become Gov. Dave Freudenthal's energy and telecommunications adviser. Hurless has served as commission chairman since last year, after nearly two decades as the publisher of the Casper Star-Tribune. He will report for work at the Democratic governor's office July 1.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, the Michigan House passed a bill, S.B. 551, that would eliminate a July 1 expiration of the Public Service Commission's ability to regulate telecom services. The Senate passed the measure June 9.
And in Massachusetts, The Boston Globe reports that Verizon Communications on Tuesday warned legislators that a pending tax bill could force the company to increase its local phone rates by 15 percent.
Maine, Vermont Secure Federal Tech Grants
Vermont's information-technology training initiative was awarded a $1.6 million grant from the Labor Department on Tuesday.
The state's IT sector "needs skilled workers," Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in a statement. The funds will help workers with "mentoring, internships, apprenticeships and other supportive services," she said.
Also on Tuesday, Chao announced that the Maine Department of Economic Development was awarded nearly $3 million to help train workers for careers in advanced manufacturing. The money will "be a boost to small and medium-sized manufacturers in the region by connecting them with workers who possess the relevant skill sets," she said.
Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner on Friday recommended that the Appalachian Regional Commission allocate $240,350 for business and technology initiatives. That includes funds for the commission's telecommunications initiative and the asset-based development initiative, which are intended to increase access to technology, support technology-based education and training programs, increase e-commerce practices, and create technology sector jobs.
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