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Editor's note: The following story is part of a series of articles on the technology policy views and technology uses by presidential candidates.
Campaigns
Voting Records, Statements Reveal GOP Tech Views
by Sandra Gonzalez
Republican presidential candidates often are criticized, even by some experts in their own party, for lagging Democratic hopefuls in their use of technology for campaigning. But when it comes to tech issues, some of the GOP candidates have either talked technology or have congressional voting records that talk for them.
Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas has been active in pushing legislation related to "decency" and regulatory controls on various forms of media. Sen. John McCain this year has sponsored a bill aimed at making the moratorium on certain Internet-related taxes permanent. And Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado have voted on tech-related legislation even though they have not sponsored any since 1998 and 2003, respectively.
Voting records aside, new, official positions on tech issues sometimes can be hard to determine for the GOP candidates. Few of the campaigns responded to questions on various tech issues posed by Technology Daily.
David All, a Republican new media consultant, said the candidates' lack of online presence is in part responsible. "They're not hearing from online constituents who are the ones who are largely concerned with technology issues," All said.
The campaign staff of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the current GOP frontrunner, is mum on specific tech issues. It released only a short, general statement.
"Mayor Giuliani believes that the free flow of information on the Internet and the development of new technologies are essential to America's global leadership in the 21st century," a spokesman said. "Open competition should be encouraged, and federal government intervention in these areas should be limited to reasonable regulation and vigilant security against those who want to exploit it for illegal or unethical acts."
The antithesis of the traditional Republican presidential candidate is Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, All said. Paul has been a vocal opponent of Internet regulation of any type, and he is among the few candidates to discuss a forthcoming spectrum auction, for which the FCC recently approved rules.
"One of the many problems with federal government ownership of the spectrum is that it has facilitated the monopolization of telecommunications by a few large companies," Paul said via a spokesman before the FCC hearing on the auction. "While limiting the amount of spectrum that [a] given purchaser can buy may not be the best solution to these problems, I would favor taking action to make sure that government auctions not compound the damage done to free, competitive markets by government ownership of the spectrum."
The two former governors still in the GOP race have no voting records, but each has focused efforts on discussing one or two technology issues.
Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has been vocal about his opposition to Internet pornography and the need for better protections for children surfing the Internet. And Mike Huckabee of Arkansas received praise while in office for brining e-government to his largely rural state.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who most recently served as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, quit the presidential race a few days ago. He had promoted the use of technology to improve healthcare practices. Former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, who ended his campaign earlier this summer, is known for his staunch opposition to Internet taxes, his work on an anti-terrorism commission and his efforts to make Virginia into the "Digital Dominion."
For more detailed looks at tech records and statements of the remaining candidates, see the profiles compiled by Tech Daily.
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Crime
Telemarketers To Pay $1.2 Million For 'Cramming'
by Andrew Noyes
Telemarketers who allegedly charged hundreds of thousands of small businesses and nonprofit organizations for Internet services that they did not want will pay more than $1.2 million to settle an FTC lawsuit against them.
The agency charged a group of defendants in June 2006 with "cramming" unauthorized charges onto victims' telephone bills after allegedly soliciting a purported free, no-obligation, 15-day trial of a Web design product.
But the FTC said sellers concocted "verification recordings" that implied that the consumers agreed to be billed for the offer after the trial, when they did not. When recipients called to dispute the fees, operators told them they had proof of authorizations, the agency said.
Defendants named in the case include WebSource Media, BizSitePro, Eversites, Telsource Solutions and a handful of individuals. A federal court in Houston ordered a halt to the operations and froze the defendants' assets pending trial.
Based on the defendants' inability to pay, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt's ruling did not require them to pay the $24.7 million that the FTC claimed was the full amount of consumer losses. The individuals also were barred from engaging in the unlawful practice and will be monitored by the FTC.
One notable business that claimed to be victimized was the restaurant chain Tony Roma's. In that instance and in many others, it took several years for someone to identify the unauthorized charges in the businesses' phone records, FTC attorney Jim Elliott said.
He said some churches and religious organizations, including the historic Church of St. Thomas More in Manhattan, reportedly fell for the scam. Other victims ranged from bookstores and bail bondsmen to doctor's offices and retirement homes.
These kinds of operations are "artfully contrived to deceive," Elliot said. "They're designed to hide in a phone bill and designed to trick people into giving authorization for the charges." The settlement money will be disbursed among victims of the scam, he said.
The FTC has sued about a half-dozen crammers in recent years, Elliot said. In 2006, a group of Miami-based defendants agreed to a multimillion-dollar payoff, and a Pennsylvania court ordered a firm known as Mercury Marketing to pay millions in ill-gotten gains in 2003. The online business directory provider YP.Net also settled with the agency in a similar case in 2001.
Susan Grant, vice president of the National Consumers League, said "cramming is down but not out." The scheme hit its peak in 1998 and was the No. 1 telemarketing fraud reported to her organization. Now it ranks 14th, she said.
The scam's decreased prevalence is due in part to the FTC's vigilance in bringing cases and a threat from the FCC to regulate unless telephone companies and billing intermediaries tackled the problem, Grant said.
"They have a responsibility to their customers not to bill on behalf of fraudulent companies," she said. "They should monitor complaints that they receive and take quick action to cut someone off from their billing services if they prove to be bad apples."
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Budget
Lawmakers Pursue More Money For IP Protections
by Andrew Noyes
Intellectual property protections for U.S. inventors and businesses would get a modest boost in fiscal 2008 if the House and Senate agree to the funding levels proposed for various programs across several agencies and departments.
The Patent and Trademark Office would receive $1.9 billion -- the full amount requested by the Bush administration -- under the House-passed appropriations bill and the measure awaiting a vote in the Senate. The agency got $1.7 billion in fiscal 2007.
But appropriators in both chambers also offered a stern warning. The committee reports accompanying the bills, S. 1745 and H.R. 3093, indicate that lawmakers are troubled by the growing backlog of patent applications and the time it takes to process them.
"The PTO's operations are not keeping pace with innovation," the Senate report said. The House report requests that PTO submit a study detailing current and planned hiring efforts, the affect that additional staff would have, and the impact of the backlog on American competitiveness.
Mike Kirk, who heads the American Intellectual Property Law Association, lauded PTO's likely full-funding. "It's been a long struggle to convince Congress that this was a priority," he said.
For four years, appropriators have allowed the agency to keep fees collected from patent and trademark applications instead of diverting them to unrelated projects. That benefit should be made permanent, Kirk said. The change would "give the PTO a better opportunity to make long-term plans to address the problems they face," he said.
The bills also would give the multi-agency task force charged with enforcing U.S. intellectual property law the same funding as prescribed by the administration's budget proposal -- $1 million -- amid mounting concerns about the impact of global IP infringement. The figure would be a small increase from the $990,000 the White House requested for the National IP Law Enforcement Coordination Council.
NIPLECC has faced criticism from lawmakers and IP experts in recent years. The Government Accountability Office's Loren Yager told a Senate committee in April that the council has trouble "providing leadership despite enhancements made by Congress." A related presidential directive, the Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP), "could disappear after the current administration leaves office," Yager said.
Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, introduced a bill earlier this year that would preserve much of the program's work.
Under the Senate Appropriations Committee's recommendation, the Justice Department also would get $13 billion to curtail domestic and international IP crime, which would include the creation of an FBI unit dedicated to multi-district and global cases.
The House committee report requests an increase in the number of FBI agents assigned to computer hacking and IP field units, and those at headquarters who support the criminal division's computer crime and IP section.
The same report recommends $48.4 million for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, $4 million more than the administration's request. The boost is intended for an increased focus on intellectual property, among other provisions.
The committee noted that piracy issues strain U.S. relationships with China, Russia and other countries. Lawmakers urged the office to "continue to prioritize such issues in bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations" and write a report on Russia's progress.
Solveig Singleton of the Progress and Freedom Foundation said she is concerned that lawmakers are "throwing money at institutions that aren't well-designed."
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Budget
Interior Spending Bill Tackles Nanotech, Other Topics
by Michael Martinez
The Senate's pending bill to fund Interior Department programs in fiscal 2008 would direct considerable amounts of cash to technology-related programs.
The $27 billion proposal approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee contains provisions for technology initiatives at various government agencies. The Environmental Protection Agency would be the biggest benefactor; it is slated to receive more than $770 million for science and technology programs.
The bill, S. 1696, also would reserve millions of dollars for tech-related state and tribal assistance grants, , including the Environmental Information Exchange Network, that are supported by the EPA. The network is a repository of environmental data. The legislation would direct $10 million for grants to support the project.
The committee report on the measure also noted the EPA's intention to increase its support for nanotechnology research within its base budget. Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of matter at atomic and nuclear levels. The committee recommended that the EPA work with the National Academies of Science to develop a safety roadmap for nano research.
The proposal also would allocate $121 million for the regulation and technology account at Interior's surface mining and enforcement office. The committee recommended $6 million more for that office than the White House requested in February.
More than a $1 billion would be allocated for U.S. Geological Survey, $40 million of which would go toward satellite operations. The survey project allows access to images processed by U.S. spy satellites for environmental research purposes.
The Senate panel also attached a wide range of pet projects to the bill. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the measure includes nearly 450 total earmarks worth roughly $900 million -- almost five times as many as a bill cleared by the House earlier this summer.
Tech-related earmarks include $2 million for a water information-sharing and analysis center requested by Robert Bennett, R-Utah. He also requested $250,000 for an oil-and-gas Internet leasing test in his home state. Washington Democrat Patty Murray also requested $1 million to help the Washington Family Forest Foundation with its landowner management database.
The House passed its Interior appropriations bill, H.R. 2643, in June. That measure includes $119 million in earmarks, including $1.65 million requested by lawmakers in Maryland and Virginia for the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network. The project connects Web sites that contain information about the bay and its surrounding areas.
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Health
Policy Language Is A Hurdle To State E-Health Work
by Aliya Sternstein
The predominant challenge for state governments in wiring a nationwide health information network is not technology but language, according to task force leaders of the National Governors Association's e-health initiative.
At the quarterly conference of the six-month-old State Alliance for e-Health, co-chairs of the alliance's data exchange panel and security panel said states must overcome inconsistencies in the wording of their health policies in order for nationwide health IT adoption to happen. The meeting was webcast Wednesday from Burlington, Vt.
"The technological solutions are there," said Sallie Hunt, co-chair of the health information protection task force and chief privacy officer of the West Virginia Health Care Authority. "It's this policy and legal piece that we have got to sort out" before any technology company can deploy its health IT applications nationwide.
Due to varying rules for releasing health information, an IT system that is allowed in California doctor's offices, for example, may not be allowed in Kansas. So a doctor in California may not be able to share information electronically about his patient in Kansas if the patient suffers a heart attack there.
Beyond variable state privacy policies, there are discrepancies in security protocols for IT systems, said Kentucky Public Health Commissioner William Hacker, another co-chair on the information protection task force.
To patch the gap, two government-sponsored entities -- the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel and the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology -- are drafting standards that will ensure IT systems can easily exchange information among providers, payers and patients, Hacker said.
The task force then presented recommendations to the full alliance on preserving privacy and security while allowing information to flow seamlessly. Priority actions include only purchasing electronic health systems that have been certified by a federally designated body and calling on the federal government to align interstate privacy protections.
Georgia Community Health Department Commissioner Rhonda Medows, co-chair of the health information communication and data exchange task force, said that during her task force's discussions about the structure of a nationwide exchange network, members stressed that "there had to be a common language."
Everyone -- and especially patients -- should understand the difference between an electronic medical record, electronic health record, personal health record and any other kind of data sheet, she said. Medows said the group agreed that "before we could be build, we had to be able to speak the same language."
She also addressed states' financial responsibility for the nationwide health information network. Total ownership by states alone never came up in talks, Medows noted. States should provide a health IT infrastructure in partnership with the private sector, she said.
One alliance member questioned how states are going to give providers incentives to buy technology when they already are abandoning state Medicaid systems daily for financial reasons. Medows answered that it will take dedicated funding and pay-for-performance programs to get providers on board with health IT.
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Civil Liberties
Student's Instant Message Spurs A Speech Debate
by Steve Seidenberg, for Technology Daily
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that schools have the right to punish students for instant messages they send to one another in the privacy of their homes.
The decision in Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District arose from an April 2001 joke gone bad. Aaron Wisniewski, then in eighth grade, sat at his parents' computer and sent an IM to 15 friends. The message contained an icon of a cartoon handgun firing a bullet at a person's head, and below that were the words "kill Mr. VanderMolen," who was Wisniewski's English teacher.
School officials subsequently learned about the IM. The police were called and concluded that Wisniewski intended the icon as a joke; he posed no threat to VanderMolen or anyone. A psychologist concluded the same things.
Nevertheless, the district's education board decided the IM was a threat and suspended Wisniewski for one semester. Wisniewski's parents sued the school board, alleging the suspension violated his speech rights. A district court dismissed the suit, finding that the icon was a threat and thus not protected by the First Amendment.
The appeals court decided July 5 that it was irrelevant whether the icon was a threat. Pursuant to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Morse v. Frederick, school authorities can punish a student for his speech whenever they reasonably conclude that it will "materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school."
The icon posed a risk of substantial disruption at the school, so Wisniewski could be punished, the court concluded.
"It is a ridiculous decision," said Mitchell Rubinstein, an adjunct professor at New York Law School and St. John's University law school in New York City. "It was apparent to everyone this was just a joke that occurred outside of school."
Stephen Ciotoli, an education law attorney in Fayetteville, N.Y., who represents the Wisniewskis, said: "School officials can't just overreact. They have to be able to distinguish between a joke and a true threat."
Attorneys for the school did not respond to requests for comment on the case.
Courts previously have ruled that schools can discipline students who post threats on Internet sites, but they cannot punish those who merely make fun of teachers online.
The Wisniewski case extends schools' authority much further, Ciotoli said. "This [IM] is a private communication," he said. "It's not available for everyone to see. ... At some point, some of the courts will have to see that difference and draw that line" between protections for public and private speech.
The Wisniewskis have asked the appeals court to review the ruling en banc. If necessary, they are prepared to go to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to protect students' speech rights. "There's a greater principle at stake than just what happened to Aaron," Ciotoli said.
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Today's Feature:
International Roundup
The number of patent applications being filed is growing at the fastest rate in North East Asian countries, according to the 2007 edition of the World Intellectual Property Organization's patent report.
Every Wednesday, read the International Roundup by Winter Casey.
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E-briefs
Intellectual Property: A Moscow court dismissed a case against the former head of the music-downloading site AllofMP3.com and rejected the damages claims made by three major recording labels, a music industry official said Wednesday. AP reports that recording companies argued that Mediaservices, which runs the sites, has never had permission to sell their artists' works. EMI Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group sought $587,000 in damages from Mediaservices' former head, Denis Kvasov, according to Igor Pozhitkov of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Pozhitkov said a Russian district judge dismissed the case against Kvasov because a legal loophole that allowed the online distribution of music was only closed in September 2006 and Kvasov ended his involvement in December 2005. Pozhitkov criticized the ruling, saying the judge ignored the prosecutors' argument that Kvasov had illegally reproduced the music in question. Two more cases against AllofMP3 are pending.
Television: A coalition of 28 activist groups on Wednesday asked the FCC to define the public-interest obligations of digital television broadcasters. The groups, which included the Alliance for Community Media, the Benton Foundation, the Center for Digital Democracy and Common Cause, said the FCC has failed to adequately spell out the benefits of the switch from analog to digital TV signals in 2009. Meredith McGehee, the policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, said in a release that broadcasters have treated the spectrum as their "personal property," even though the airwaves are owned by the public. "It is the commission's job to remind broadcasters of that fact and to demand substantive public-interest efforts in return," she said.
E-Government: Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt apparently became the first Cabinet-level blogger on Monday. Leavitt said on his blog that he "is taking time in August to blog as a way to foster public discussion" on health challenges facing the nation, like import safety. He said he caught the blogging bug after "a successful experiment with our pandemic flu blog" before a conference on preparedness two months ago. He will be writing for the next month. "I may continue; I may not." Time will dictate, as he wants to write all entries personally. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 29 mainly flu-oriented reader comments on Leavitt's blog. One response: "Tamiflu should be an over-the-counter medicine. ... As it is, too many Americans and others are buying "Tamiflu" (probably fake) through overseas sources. Please see what you and your staff can do about turning this situation around."
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