| PPI Advocates Greater Use
of IT to Fight Terrorism |
1/18. The Progressive
Policy Institute (PPI) released two papers that call on
government to increase the use of information technology to
prevent terrorist attacks, and to facilitate coordination
between local, state, and national law enforcement
authorities. The two papers are Using
Technology to Detect and Prevent Terrrorism [PDF], by
Shane Ham and Robert Atkinson, and The
State and Local Role in Domestic Defense [PDF], by John
Cohen and John Hurson.
Ham and Atkinson argue in their paper that "The
information technology revolution that transformed our economy
has also given us the tools, infrastructure, and commercial
capabilities to make domestic defense easier, less expensive,
and more effective, making all Americans safer."
The Ham Atkinson paper continues that "Technology has
revolutionized the economy with dramatic productivity
improvements and an array of new communications and
information processing tools. We must bring that same
revolution to domestic defense, to gain maximum security and
public confidence with minimum investment. The IT revolution
has given us many tools -- wireless data networks, encryption,
powerful miniature computer chips, the global Internet, data
mining software, and many more -- that weren't available for
domestic security just a few years ago. Now that we have these
tools, it is time to roll them out to make our nation
safer."
Data Sharing. The paper recommends the use of
"improved data sharing, combining criminal records and
intelligence information from a variety of federal, state, and
local agencies that can be accessed wirelessly to identify
wanted criminals and suspected terrorists when they encounter
law enforcement or attempt to enter secure facilities."
Digital Surveillance. The paper also calls for
increased use of "digital surveillance, extending
longstanding principles of law enforcement and surveillance to
the Internet by permitting surveillance of email and other
electronic data while preserving traditional safeguards on
searches by government agents".
The paper continues that "The recent antiterrorism
legislation signed by President Bush extended many of those
surveillance techniques to their Internet counterparts, but
unfortunately there is still a good deal of unjustified
concern about the new technologies developed for law
enforcement over the Internet."
Carnivore. The paper advocates the use of two recently
developed tools, DCS 1000, which is also known as Carnivore,
and Magic Lantern. It describes DCS 1000 as a "device ...
installed, by court order, at Internet service providers to
search email traffic. (Contrary to popular belief, the system
does not search through the email of every customer looking
for suspicious content.) By looking only for certain specific
recipients or keywords in email sent by suspects, DCS 1000
saves time for agents by letting them focus their efforts on
the e-mails that are most relevant, even though they would be
entitled by court order to read all of the email that DCS 1000
searches." (Parentheses in original.)
Magic Lantern. The paper states that "Magic
Lantern and other ``key logging´´ programs allow agents with
search warrants to record every keystroke on a targeted
computer. Reading the keystrokes can give agents passwords,
which are critical when criminals are using strong encryption
for their data and communications."
The Ham Atkinson paper concludes that "Without tools such
as these, the old system of wiretapping is rendered all but
useless -- criminals will simply use Internet chats and
encrypted e-mails rather than telephones."
Shane Ham and the other authors spoke at an event for the
release of the two papers. He stated that "the fight over
the USA PATRIOT Act is not over yet. We are going to be
arguing about that for a long time." Robert Atkinson
stated that "I think that the civil libertarian community
is actively organizing opposition to virtually any sort of
expansion or modernization of our law enforcement and
intelligence system through technology. And, the way they are
doing it is by preying upon fears, by using overblown
rhetoric, like ``smart cards will turn America into a Nazi,
show us your papers, police state´´. ... Privacy is not an
absolute standard. We trade it off every single day when we
have to show our drivers license at the airport ... we can
deploy all of these technologies without really damaging or
hurting privacy."
The Ham Atkinson paper also recommends the use of smart ID
cards "with biometric identifiers, adding chips
containing thumbprint scans or other biometric data to
driver’s licenses, as well as standardized security features
for preventing forgery and fraud". The paper also
recommends the use of smart visas and face recognition
technologies.
Legislative Recommendations. The paper then calls upon
Congress to assist in funding the deployment of these new
technologies. It also states that "Congress should
mandate that any standardization efforts by the state motor
vehicle agencies include upgrading all ID cards to smart
cards. In addition, Congress should provide matching grants to
state agencies to deploy hardware that can read smart cards,
and should fund pilot programs for states that seek to
integrate multiple functions into the smart cards, such as
voter registration. The paper urges passage of S
1749, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform
Act of 2001, a smart visa bill. It also recommends that
Congress boost funding to deploy technology hardware to border
agents.
Atkinson also called for a Chief Information Officer for
Homeland Defense, to see that new technologies are deployed
quickly and efficiently.
Finally, Atkinson argued that there would be economic
benefits. For example, he stated: "Those of you who
followed the digital signatures act a few years ago in
Congress -- it was passed with great whoopla -- that now all
Americans would now be able to sign documents on line
digitally. It hasn't happened. It won't happen. It won't
happen until most Americans have a way to authenticate
themselves on line through some sort of PKI system. If we were
to give every American a smart card, a chip card, biometric,
on their driver's license, overnight we would jump start this
market place."
Cohen and Hurson argue in their paper, The
State and Local Role in Domestic Defense [PDF], that
"we must redefine our concept of national security. We
can no longer afford to think of national security as the sole
province of the military, or even the federal government’s
intelligence, law enforcement, and border control agencies.
Keeping America safe from terrorists and responding when they
elude our defenses is also the urgent task of state and local
law enforcement and response agencies."
They also argue that "our approach to domestic defense
must be national and seamless. To this end, we must improve
information sharing with our front line law enforcement
officers ..."
The PPI is a Washington DC based think tank affiliated with
the Democratic Leadership
Council, which is also known as the New Democrats. Robert
Atkinson is VP of the PPI and Director of the PPI's
Technology & New Economy Project. Shane
Ham is a Senior Policy Analyst at PPI's Technology &
New Economy Project. John
Cohen is the Director of the PPI's
Community Crime Fighting Project. |
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| Eli Lilly Settles with FTC
over Inadvertent E-Mail |
1/18. The Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) initiated an administrative proceeding
against Eli Lilly alleging
violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) in
connection with Eli Lilly's accidental disclosure of of
personal information of subscribers to an e-mail remainder
service. See, administrative
complaint [PDF]. The FTC and Eli Lilly simultaneously
entered into a proposed settlement agreement under which Eli
Lilly agrees to "establish
and maintain an information security program for the
protection of personally identifiable information". See,
Agreement
Containing Consent Order [PDF].
Eli Lilly is a pharmaceutical company. It offered an e-mail
reminder service regarding use of the drug Prozac. On one
occasion it sent an e-mail reminder to 669 subscribers to the
service using the "To:" method of addressing the
e-mail, rather than the "BCC:" method. The ACLU
submitted a letter complaint
to the FTC.
Eli Lilly had published a privacy policy that stated, among
other things, that "Our Web sites have security measures
in place, including the use of industry standard secure socket
layer encryption (SSL), to protect the confidentiality of any
of Your Information that you volunteer".
The complaint alleges that Eli Lilly "has not employed
measures and has not taken steps appropriate under the
circumstances to maintain and protect the privacy and
confidentiality of personal information obtained from or about
consumers through its Prozac.com and Lilly.com Web
sites." The complaint further alleges that this
constituted unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or
affecting commerce in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTCA.
FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle wrote a concurring
statement. He stated that "Lilly's unfortunate and
unintended disclosure of prescription drug users' personal
information has given us all the opportunity to evaluate how
to improve upon security practices for confidential
information."
Eli Lilly did not admit wrongdoing. The consent order contains
no fine. Eli Lilly is represented by Karen Silverman of the
law firm of Latham & Watkins.
There is a thirty day period for public comments on the
proposed consent order, before it is given final approval. See
also, FTC
release and FTC analysis. |
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| FCC Tentatively Fines SBC
$6 Million |
1/18. The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) released a Notice
of Apparent Liability (NAL) proposing that SBC be fined $6 Million for
non-compliance with a competition related condition imposed by
the FCC in approving license transfers in connection with the
1999 merger of SBC and Ameritech. The NAL states that "it
appears that SBC failed to offer shared transport in the
former Ameritech states under terms and conditions
substantially similar to those that it offered in Texas as of
August 27, 1999, in violation of the SBC/Ameritech Merger
Order." See also, FCC
release.
SBC disputes the FCC's NAL. It stated in a release
that "SBC has met our obligations under the SBC/Ameritech
Merger Conditions to provide competitors with shared access to
our networks in the Ameritech region and elsewhere. That's one
reason why CLECs are serving 12 million access lines in our
territory." |
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| Representatives Seek
Stricter Enforcement of Telecom Act |
1/17. Six Members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter
[PDF] to Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell
requesting better enforcement of the provisions of the Telecom
Act of 1996 regarding nondiscriminatory provisioning of
unbundled network elements and special access services.
The six wrote that "We are concerned that the ILECs have
not take all of their obligations under the Telecommunications
Act of 1996 seriously. It appears that American consumers are
suffering as a result. Congress enacted the 1996 Act in order
to bring innovative voice and data services to all Americans
from a multitude of service providers at reasonable prices.
Without better enforcement of the Act, we may soon regress to
the days of monopoly telecommunications."
The letter pertains to two pending Notice of Proposed
Rulemakings (NPRMs), numbered CC Docket No. 01-318 and CC
Docket No. 01-321. The six signatories are Rep. Steve Largent
(R-OK), Rep. Bart
Stupak (D-MI), Rep.
Chris Cannon (R-UT), Rep. Karen McCarthy
(D-MO), Rep. Anna Eshoo
(D-CA), and Rep. Joe
Pitts (R-PA). |
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| AOL TW Reports on Status of
IM Interoperability |
1/17. AOL Time Warner submitted to the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) its second progress
report [PDF] on the interoperability of instant messaging
(IM) systems. These reports are required by the FCC's January
22, 2001, order approving the merger of AOL and Time Warner.
AOL Time Warner wrote that "it has continued to make
progress in this area. ... AOL has completed development and
testing of an initial prototype gateway server designed to
translate basic text based IMs and presence information
between the internal protocol used by AOL Instant Messenger
("AIM") and one that is based on the protocol that
the Internet Engineering Task Force's ("IETF") SIP
for Instant Messaging and Presence Leverage
("SIMPLE") Working Group is designing. Then, AOL
conducted a server to server interoperability trial with Lotus
Development Corporation ("Lotus")."
AOLTW also stated that this trial was conducted under
"tightly controlled circumstances". The gateway
server "was not designed to be scalable in order to
handle large amounts of traffic, nor was it designed to
address security threats such as distributed denial of service
attacks, data hijacking, identity spoofing, namespace
discovery, and spam." It concluded, "There remains,
however, much work to be done." |
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| People and Appointments |
| 1/14. Laurence
Meyer submitted his resignation as a member of the
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, effective
the last day of his term, January 31, 2002. See, FRB
release. |
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| Monday, Jan 21 |
| Martin Luther King Day. The FCC will be closed. The National
Press Club will be closed. |
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| Tuesday, Jan 22 |
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM. The FCC's Office of Engineering and
Technology and Corning Incorporated will host a tutorial
on optical communications. See, FCC
notice. Location: FCC, Commission Meeting Room (TWC-305),
445 12th Street, SW, Washington DC.
12:15 PM. The Federal
Communications Bar Association's Common Carrier Practice
Committee will host a brown bag lunch. The speaker will be Dorothy
Attwood, Bureau Chief of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau. RSVP
to Rhe Brighthaupt at rbrighth@wrf.com.
Location: Wiley Rein & Fielding, 1750 K St., NW, 10th
Floor Conference Room. |
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| Wednesday, Jan 23 |
The House reconvenes at 12:00 NOON. It will then take
up two non tech related bills (HR
700 and HR
2234).
The Senate reconvenes at 12:00 NOON. The Senate will
recess from 12:30 - 2:15 PM, for the weekly party conferences.
9:00 AM - 5:15 PM. There will be a day long conference titled Broadband Outlook
2002 Conference. Location: Four Seasons Hotel, Washington
DC. The scheduled speakers include the following:
• 9:15 - 9:45 AM. Nancy Victory, head of the NTIA.
• 10:45 - 11:45 AM. Robert Pepper, Chief of the
FCC's Office of Plans and
Policy.
• 11:45 AM - 12:00 NOON. Dorothy Atwood, Chief
of the FCC's Common Carrier
Bureau.
• 12:00 NOON - 1:30 PM. Ken Feree, Chief of the
FCC's Cable Services Bureau.
12:15 PM. The Federal
Communications Bar Association's Global Telecommunications
Development Committee will host a brown bag lunch. Doreen
McGirr (Department of State) and John Giusti (FCC
International Bureau) will speak about preparations for the ITU
World Telecommunications Development Conference. RSVP to Kent Bressie.
Location: Wilkinson Barker
Knauer, 2300 N Street, NW, 7th floor, Washington DC. |
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| Thursday, Jan 24 |
The House will meet at 10:00 AM to take up HR 1762, a bill
to amend the Higher Education Act.
9:30 AM. The House
Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations will hold a hearing the destruction of Enron
related documents by Anderson personnel. Location: Room 2322,
Rayburn House Office Building.
11:00 AM. The Cato Institute
will host a panel discussion titled "Eye in the Sky --
and Everywhere Else:
Do Biometric Technologies Violate Our Rights?" The
speakers will be Joseph Atick (Visionics Corp.), Marc
Rotenberg (EPIC),
Dorothy Denning (Georgetown University), and John Woodward
(RAND). A lunch will follow the program. Location: Cato
Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC.
12:15 PM. The Federal
Communications Bar Association's Mass Media Committee will
host a brown bag lunch. The speakers will be David Solomon,
Chief of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, and Linda Blair,
Deputy Chief of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau. RSVP to kdole@npr.org. Location:
National Public Radio, 635 Massachusetts, Ave., NW, 1st Floor,
Washington DC.
2:00 PM. The Senate
Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on judicial
nominations. Sen. Maria
Cantwell (D-WA) will preside. Location: Room 226, Senate
Dirksen Building. |
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| Friday, Jan 25 |
| The House will meet at 10:00 AM in pro forma session only. |
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| FRB Vice Chair Addresses
Affect of Tech on Economy |
1/16. Federal
Reserve Board Vice Chairman Roger
Ferguson gave a speech
in Denver, Colorado, to the Economic Club of Colorado titled
"Developments in the U.S. Economy: Review and
Outlook".
He stated that "Booming investment in the 1990s owed
importantly to steep declines in prices of high-tech
equipment, which largely reflected rapid technical progress.
About half a percentage point of the increase in productivity
growth in the 1995-99 period can be attributed to this
so-called capital deepening. I believe that technological
progress will continue to drive down information technology
costs in the coming years. Moreover, businesses have
reaffirmed their intentions to improve productivity by
substituting cost-saving high-tech capital for labor." |
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