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Privacy
Gonzales Grilled Over Domestic Spying Changes
by Andrew Noyes
The Bush administration's top lawyer took heat from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about the federal government's domestic electronic eavesdropping program and the Pentagon's use of an anti-terrorism law to collect financial records of U.S. citizens.
The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it would change how the National Security Agency's spying initiative operates by getting permission from a secret court that fields requests for surveillance warrants on U.S. soil.
It also was revealed over the weekend that the CIA and Defense Department have been utilizing a special subpoena power built into the USA PATRIOT Act to scour bank and credit-card records in espionage and international terrorism investigations.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales remained guarded throughout the hearing and refused to answer a number of questions asked by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and others.
Specter said he wanted to know "why it took so long" for the administration to agree to let the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court review electronic spying requests. The Justice Department said it had been negotiating a review process with the court since summer 2005.
The NSA initiative was implemented shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but was not publicly disclosed until December 2005.
There are "far too many unanswered questions to say this issue has been resolved," added Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. He worried aloud that the administration could "turn [court review] off at will, particularly if you got a decision that you didn't want."
Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said he was pleased that the administration decided to "return to the law" after more than five years of what he described as illegal wiretapping. The turnabout was a "stunning" and "long overdue change in direction," Feingold said.
On the issue of collecting bank and credit-card data, Specter said "there's a very basic, distinct role" of the FBI, which pursues domestic matters, and for the CIA, whose role is international. "I'm at a loss to see what the CIA is doing on domestic investigations," Specter said, noting that the Defense Department "has no authority to investigate American citizens."
"There is not a constitutional issue here," Gonzales insisted. He said Congress authorized law enforcement agencies to collect business records but not for criminal investigations or domestic terrorism cases. The files can only be used in espionage and overseas incidents, he said.
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office, said in a statement that the hearing was the "first real test to see if the new Congress will conduct meaningful oversight on the administration."
Government lawyers are slated to appear before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in two weeks to challenge a lawsuit filed by the ACLU over the NSA program. The ACLU said a ruling remains important because the president still believes in his "inherent authority to engage in wiretapping without the oversight of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court."
Absent more details about what the secret FISA court has authorized, there is no way to determine whether the NSA's current activities are lawful, the ACLU said. "The legality of this unprecedented surveillance program should not be decided by a secret court in one-sided proceedings," ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson said.
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Porn
Sen. Hatch Revives Calls For Study On Internet Porn
by Andrew Noyes
Senate Judiciary Committee member Orrin Hatch has revived calls made by fellow Utah Republican Bob Bennett in the 109th Congress for the Justice Department to consider conducting a study of the state of pornography and child obscenity in the Internet age.
Hatch, who asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the issue at an oversight hearing Thursday, said it had been 21 years since a commission led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese had issued its 1,960-page report on pornography. At that time, the Internet was still in its infancy.
Gonzales told Hatch he was happy to discuss such a commission but said, "I think we are doing a lot already." The agency unveiled an obscenity prosecution task force in May 2005, and 52 obscenity convictions have been made since then, he said.
A broad child-protection law enacted in July went a long way toward increasing safeguards, Gonzales said. The legislation tightened rules for punishing and tracking sex offenders.
Nevertheless, Gonzales said he is "still concerned about this issue and the threat to our children." He added that more resources are needed and that "if we need the commission, that's something I'm happy to sit down and talk with you about."
In his opening remarks, the government's top lawyer addressed other Internet issues, including the proliferation of illicit Web sites that sell prescription drugs. The sites require "little more than a cursory online questionnaire" and charge double the normal price, he said.
Gonzales said he wants to work with lawmakers this year to "preserve legitimate access to medications over the Internet while preventing online drug dealers from using cyberspace as a haven for drug-trafficking."
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called the existence of Internet pharmacies a "major loophole" in the law. He and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced a bill in August that would enact new criminal penalties for unlawfully dispensing prescription drugs and would require Web-based pharmacies to meet registration requirements with the government.
Gonzales also said he looks forward to collaborating with Congress on ways to protect children from pedophiles and sexual predators. A series of House and Senate hearings last year examined the issue and included testimony from the law enforcement community, advocacy groups and the high-tech and financial services sectors.
"It is a shame that the Internet -- the greatest invention of our time -- has provided pedophiles and child pornographers with new opportunities to harm our children," Gonzales said. "This is a new and evolving criminal law enforcement challenge that we are addressing aggressively."
Additionally, Gonzales spoke about proposed government-mandated data retention by Internet service providers. Investigations into child pornography and sexual exploitation could benefit from a common timeframe for ISPs to preserve certain information on Internet activity, he said.
Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is expected to introduce a data-retention bill this year. She considered similar legislation, though never introduced it, in the 109th Congress to require ISPs to preserve data for a year.
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On The Hill
Harman To Chair Top Homeland Security Subcommittee
by Chris Strohm
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee picked their subcommittee chairmen Thursday, giving Jane Harman one of the top slots.
In a bitter fight that lasted for weeks after Democrats won control of Congress in the November election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to let Harman, D-Calif., chair the Intelligence Committee, even though Harman previously had served as the ranking Democrat.
Now Harman has been picked to chair the Homeland Security Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment Subcommittee, which oversees domestic intelligence issues, government information-sharing, threat and vulnerability assessments, and the Secret Service. Harman served on Homeland Security Committee during the last Congress.
"I'm delighted to be chairing a subcommittee that is so vital to securing the homeland," Harman said. "As we have seen in Britain, Spain and elsewhere, homegrown terror is increasing, not diminishing. Understanding and disrupting threats from homegrown terrorists and embedded cells will be central to the subcommittee's agenda."
She said another one of her priorities will be strengthening information-sharing between the Homeland Security Department and state and local agencies.
In addition to Harman, the other subcommittee chairmen include: Christopher Carney of Pennsylvania for Management, Investigations and Oversight; Henry Cuellar of Texas for Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response; James Langevin of Rhode Island for Emerging Threats, Cyber Security and Science and Technology; Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas for Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection; and Loretta Sanchez of California for Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism.
Langevin, Lee and Sanchez all served on the committee during the last Congress. Cuellar is new to the committee and was first elected to Congress in 2004. He said on his Web site he was honored to serve on the Homeland Security Committee and identified border security as one of his top priorities.
"As a lifelong resident of the border, I'm ready for this assignment, and I will work to improve the safety of all Americans regardless of where they may live," he said. "I look forward to working with my new committee colleagues on legislation that balances security concerns with both trade and civil rights."
Carney is a freshman, but he brings experience to the committee as a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve and a former Pentagon senior adviser on intelligence and counter terrorism.
"As someone who has been deeply involved in the war on terror, Chris knows the danger our nation faces," Carney's Web site said. "Therefore, he is utterly committed to the ongoing support of police, fire and medical emergency personnel who are on the real front line. In addition, we must allocate further resources for the protection of power plants, ports, harbors and refineries from terrorist attacks."
Under House rules, the selection of each chairman is subject to approval by the House Democratic Caucus.
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Lobbying
Lobbying Provision Called A Threat To Grassroots
by Heather Greenfield
A coalition of conservative and liberal groups is lobbying against a provision in lobbying and ethics legislation that could face a vote to limit Senate debate late Thursday afternoon.
Lobbyists from the American Civil Liberties Union, American Conservative Union, National Right to Life, Traditional Values, GrassrootsFreedom.com and the Free Speech Coalition urged senators to vote for an amendment to S. 1 that would cut Section 220 from the bill. The language would require disclosure of paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying.
The measure would require anyone who, on behalf of a client, addresses more than 500 people who are not members of the particular group and spends $25,000 on the campaign during a quarter of the year to register as a lobbyist and disclose the source of finances.
Douglas Johnson of National Right to Life said people might not become citizen activists if they must register as lobbyists. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition agreed, saying that it "would put a real chill on communications."
Sheldon, whose group represents 43,000 churches, said the communications covered by the provision could include everything from weekly newsletters to e-mails if they also go to non-church members or urge people to ask lawmakers to support or vote against a particular issue.
"This is certainly the most expansive intrusion of First Amendment rights ever introduced into the Senate," said Mark Fitzgibbons, the president of corporate and legal affairs for Grassroots.com, which works with groups to help them use the Internet to expand support for their cause. "This is not liberal versus conservative but Washington versus the people."
Fitzgibbons argued that the definition of the rule is written so broadly that some paid bloggers would have to register.
Bill Lauderbach of the American Conservative Union said the goal of the legislation -- curtailing so called "astroturf" campaigns disguised as grassroots campaigns -- is "meritorious," but the provision is poorly written.
In August, Common Cause issued a report about five purported grassroots consumer groups linked to telephone and cable industries that opposed network neutrality legislation, which would stop dominant network owners from charging preferred content providers more for faster traffic.
The groups named included The Future ... Faster, Hands Off the Internet, NetCompetition, TV4US and the Video Access Alliance. The report said the groups claimed to represent huge numbers of citizens but in reality were front groups for telecom and cable corporations.
Craig Aaron, a spokesman for the grassroots group Save the Internet Coalition that supported a net neutrality mandate, said he is not familiar with all the details of S. 1, but he said curtailing astroturf campaigns would be a good thing.
"In general, we support all the disclosure we can get," Aaron said. "If it requires more paperwork for us, that's a price worth paying for [these groups] to come clean on what they're doing."
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Privacy
Official Discusses EU, U.S. Approaches To Privacy
by Winter Casey
The United States and the European Union have fundamentally different cultural attitudes toward protecting privacy and the role the government and private sector play in supporting that goal, a top U.S. privacy official said Thursday.
There are many competing international visions of privacy, said Hugo Teufel III, the chief privacy officer at the Department of Homeland Security. And as the world becomes increasingly interconnected, privacy has become a global issue, he said.
"We are actively engaged at DHS to protect privacy," Teufel said during a speech at a homeland security event sponsored by the American Bar Association. He added that "in a war, compromises are made" but some things cannot be compromised.
In 1970, a German state became the first region to implement privacy regulations, Teufel said. It was natural that there would be a strong interest in privacy then in Germany and other parts of Europe, given how personal data had been used in the past and how issues related to privacy would be affected by computers, he said.
Most European countries now have data-protection authorities who report to their parliaments, are independent and have set terms, Teufel said.
He acknowledged that many people believe the United States should have the same system as the Europeans in part because some argue that the European Union has the best approach and that Americans do not sufficiently protect privacy. The United States also has been criticized for how it handles the data of foreign citizens.
In most cases, however, Teufel said U.S. efforts to protect privacy are truly global in scope.
At the same time, the European Union has implemented initiatives that raise privacy concerns, he noted. A number of EU countries have massive video surveillance, he said, and customers often are asked to provide passports when checking in to many European hotels.
The European Union also has been criticized for adopting a data-retention directive that requires communications service providers and network operators to retain traffic and location data -- such as e-mails and text messages -- for minimum and maximum periods to prevent and counter crime.
Since World War II, Europeans have come to trust their governments to protect their privacy, but they do not extend that faith to the private sector, Teufel noted. In the United States, he added, "we have a fundamental distrust of government," which can be found in the U.S. Constitution and "how we operate our country."
In the United States, privacy is not a right but an implied liberty issue, Teufel said, but in the European Union, privacy is considered a fundamental human right.
The U.S. privacy regime is more complex and ad hoc, he said. An effort between the United States and European Union to share passenger data in a way that is acceptable to both entities has proved a challenge and has been the "biggest state of tension," he added.
Before personal data is moved out of the European Union, it must be determined that the destination country has adequate privacy protections, Teufel said.
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E-Government
Echoing ITunes, Government Vendors Work On Demand
by Aliya Sternstein
Business software vendors are now borrowing from the business model of the iTunes online music service in delivering products on demand to government agencies.
The concept, dubbed "software as a service" or "hosted software," involves buying access to Internet-based software that is managed by the vendor. Companies have been using on-demand software for customer relationship management for a while, but now local governments are starting to discover its cost savings, security and ease of use.
The approach was showcased Thursday at a conference sponsored by Input, a consulting firm that works with government contractors, and the Software and Information Industry Association.
With limited budgets, "one of our mantras is collaborate or die," said Chris David, the chief technology officer for Arlington County, Va. He added that online software, which he called a "weapon of mass collaboration," allows multiple Arlington agencies to share the same database system and personalize it for individual needs and confidentiality policies, all without installing hardware, downloading software or undergoing sophisticated training.
David said he depends on the Salesforce.com application for tracking the status of critical communication lines throughout the county.
Advocates of hosted software say the applications work better for budget-constrained governments than enterprise software products from Oracle, SAP and others because hosted software is easier to learn and does not require physical information technology systems.
Mike Goodrich, the director of administration for Arlington County, said the tool improves information-sharing because it resides on the Internet.
"The next person hired can pick up exactly where the old person left off," he said, noting that succession planning is a major concern for the rapidly retiring Arlington workforce.
Each time the software is upgraded, the changes are made automatically and for free, when the user logs on to the Web site.
Salesforce.com Chief Strategy Officer Tien Tzuo said, "We're more like an Amazon [or] a Yahoo. ... Our goal is to create a complementary role [to consumer Web services] called business Web."
He noted that case workers from the Chicago Housing Authority are using the Salesforce.com platform to coordinate the relocation of tenants from ailing housing projects, as Chicago embarks on a multi-year urban renewal project. The software tracks the status of families, including child care, drug-testing and home visits.
"The information needs to be secure," Tzuo said. Chicago Housing Authority employees can adjust the settings to control who can see the residents' histories. "You don't have to be a coder," he said.
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Today's Feature:
State Roundup
Utah lawmakers this week advanced legislation to make it a first-degree felony to solicit sex from minors over the Internet.
Every Thursday, read the State Roundup by Michael Martinez.
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E-briefs
Intelligence: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes outlined his game plan for the 110th Congress on Thursday. The Texas Democrat's plan includes a thorough review of the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program. The Bush administration's decision to end the practice of wiretaps without warrants and instead to seek court orders from a secret panel of judges was overdue, he said at the committee's annual threat-assessment hearing. Reyes wants to learn more about the court orders and the legal memoranda provided to the court by the Justice Department. Reyes also said the committee would focus on improving intelligence "by insisting on caveats, dissents, alternative views and the use of open source material, so that we never again allow policy to be based on -- or justified with -- flawed and unchallenged analysis." Witnesses at the hearing included John Negroponte, the outgoing national intelligence director, and CIA Director Michael Hayden.
Executive Branch: FCC member Robert McDowell told reporters Thursday that the agency is examining whether to waive a restriction preventing the two satellite radio giants from combining. The issue arose Wednesday when FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said the licenses for Sirius Satellite and XM Satellite bar them from merging. Both regulators are Republicans. Meanwhile, Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps gave a far-reaching speech to the Federal Communications Bar Association on Thursday, complaining that the agency missed an opportunity to secure more public-safety funding after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He also asserted that industrialized nations in Asia and elsewhere are "cleaning our clock" with faster Internet services that reach a far higher percentage of citizens. Regarding media ownership, Copps predicted that an FCC review will not result in the dramatic loosening of the rules that occurred in 2003. A federal court subsequently asked the FCC to revisit most of the changes.
E-Government: New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has rewritten the state's standard for communicating with citizens by requiring that all public meetings subject to the Open Meetings Law be streamed over the Internet. Spitzer issued an executive order that said the decision is necessary for the people to remain informed and retain control over their public servants and because the majority of New Yorkers are unable to attend public meetings. The order requires every agency and public authority to submit a plan for airing such meetings online by March 1. Except when exempted for approved reasons, they will have to webcast all applicable meetings no later than July 1.
E-Government: Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday announced plans to move the state's government to an Internet-based hiring system in order to make its process more transparent. Under his plan, all state agencies will post information about job openings and new hires online. The Web site also will give job seekers data about the status of their applications. Blagojevich's administration is currently under federal investigation for hiring fraud. "The state's hiring system has gone significantly unchanged for the past 20 years, despite revolutionary advances in technology," Blagojevich said. "And while we've taken steps in recent years to improve the system, what we're announcing today will finally bring our hiring system into the computer-age. That means thousands more people will be able to find out about and apply for state jobs. They'll be able to go online and check the status of their application."
Courts: A Democratic blogger in Kentucky who grabbed national headlines this past year for his attacks on Gov. Ernie Fletcher was indicted by a county grand jury Wednesday on three counts of willfully failing to file state income-tax returns. The Lexington Herald Leader reports that Mark Nickolas, founder of the Web log BluegrassReport, was indicted for allegedly failing to file returns in 2003, 2004 and 2005. In an e-mail, Nickolas denied the charges and said the returns were filed and all state taxes paid on them last year. He faces up to five years in prison for each charge. Nickolas, the former campaign manager of now-Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky., has accused Fletcher's Republican administration of blocking state employees from reading his blog for political reasons. He said the state halted employee access to his blog the day after he was quoted in a story about Fletcher's indictment on misdemeanor conspiracy charges.
E-Government: The Defense Department is now offering mobile news feeds on the war and other military activities. The new format is condensed and customized for cellular telephones, BlackBerries and other portable devices. "Offering [content via] dod.mil/mobile is another way we are trying to better serve our globally based audiences," said Allison Barber, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. Top news on the DOD mobile browser for Jan. 18 included developments in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as on new policies to relieve military stress and promote unit cohesion.
Health: SureScripts announced the first electronic transmission of a prescription from physician to pharmacist in the nation's capital. Less than one month after the District of Columbia adopted new rules making e-prescriptions legal, a District Rite Aid pharmacy became the first to receive and process a new prescription electronically from a physician in the city. "E-prescribing improves accuracy, eliminates unnecessary phone calls and faxes to physician offices" while freeing pharmacists to spend more time with patients, said Phil Keough, senior vice president of pharmacy operations for Rite Aid. The District joins 48 states that already permit e-prescriptions, according to SureScripts. Separately this week, an alliance between technology companies and healthcare groups announced that it is donating to all U.S. physicians a free, Internet-based e-prescription tool called eRx Now.
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