COPA Sponsor Addresses Supreme Court
Decision |
6/29. Rep. Mike Oxley (R-OH)
released a
statement
regarding the Supreme Court's June
29, 2004
opinion
[41 pages in PDF] in Ashcroft v. ACLU, in which the
Court affirmed the issuance of a preliminary injunction of the
Child
Online Protection Act (COPA). Rep. Oxley, who sponsored the bill in 1998,
said that he "can't forecast what the next step after COPA might be, but the
feeling that we have to clean up this dirt is going to continue".
The COPA bans sending to minors over the web material that is harmful to
minors. The Supreme Court held that the COPA is a content
based restriction of speech, and that the government has not met is
burden of showing that the COPA is the least restrictive
alternative available to accomplish the goals of the Congress in
protecting minors from web based material that is harmful to minors.
The bill was passed as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act for FY 1999.
President Clinton signed this bill on October 21, 1998. However, the final language
was that of HR 3783 (105th Congress), sponsored by Rep. Oxley. See,
story
titled "Internet and Tech Bills Become Law", October 22, 1998.
The ACLU and other interest groups promptly filed a complaint in
U.S. District Court (EDPenn)
challenging the constitutionality of the COPA. See,
TLJ story titled
"ACLU Files Suit Challenging the Child Online Protection Act", October 23, 1998.
Rep. Oxley is now the Chairman of the
House Financial Services Committee
(HFSC), and spends less time on internet related matters. The COPA amended the
Communications Act. It is now codified at
47 U.S.C. § 231.
Hence, it lies within the jurisdiction of the
House Commerce Committee.
He had this to say about the Supreme Court's opinion. "The fight for COPA
and our children is not over. I will contact the
Department of Justice and ask it to mount an aggressive case to show the court
that there is technology to make COPA work as Congress intended."
He continued that "I don't think that pormographers have any more right to shove
their smut into the faces of children in cyberspace than they do at the corner newsstand.
Larry Flynt can't set up in front of a news store handing out free copies of Hustler
to minors, and the operators of pormographic websites shouldn't be allowed to
entice a kid with a teaser page. I'm tired that the flesh merchants keep hiding
behind this fig leaf of artistic expression. What they peddle is porm, plain
and simple." (Editor's Note: TLJ intentionally misspells words that cause the
mail servers of some subscribers to block delivery of the TLJ Daily E-Mail
Alert.)
Rep. Oxley (at right) said that "We are seeing
our society rebel against indecency in the media. Families are
fed up with being saturated by images that are bad for their kids and corrosive
for our culture. I can't forecast what the next step after COPA might be, but
the feeling that we have to clean up this dirt is going to continue."
He concluded that "I think that if this law had not been held up by the
American Civil Liberties
Union for six years now, we could already have had an unobtrusive system in
place protecting our children without censoring the Internet. Parents wouldn't
be afraid to leave their kids alone in the room with the computer on. The
pervasiveness of pormography on the Internet is going to be a barrier to its
development. Congress worked very hard on COPA to strike a reasonable balance
between protecting our children and not infringing on freedom of expression.
The Supreme Court found this so important that it heard arguments on the case
not once, but twice, and it is now sending the case back to a lower court for a
third time."
Mark Corallo, Director of Public Affairs for the
Department of Justice (DOJ),
stated in a
release that "Our society has reached a broad consensus that child obscenity
is harmful to our youngest generation and must be stopped. Congress has
repeatedly attempted to address this serious need and the Court yet again
opposed these common-sense measures to protect America's children. The
Department will continue to work to defend children from the dangerous predators
who lurk in the dark shadows of the World Wide Web."
Opponents of the COPA are pleased with the Supreme Court decision. John Morris said
in a release that "Congress should stop wasting government
time and money on unconstitutional censorship laws". Morris, who is unlikely to
be invited to testify before the HFSC, is a Staff Counsel with the
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT),
Ann Beeson, who argued the case for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
was more diplomatic. She stated in a
release
that "Today's ruling from the Court demonstrates that there are many less
restrictive ways to protect children without sacrificing communication intended
for adults". She added that "By preventing Attorney General Ashcroft from
enforcing this questionable federal law, the Court has made it safe for artists,
sex educators, and web publishers to communicate with adults about sexuality
without risking jail time."
She accused John Ashcroft,
the Attorney General, of "wasting taxpayer dollars in defending this
unconstitutional law".
This was the second time that the Supreme Court issued an opinion in this
case. On May 13, 2002, the Supreme Court issued its
opinion [54 pages in PDF] upholding the constitutionality of the community
standards component of the COPA.
Then, on March 6, 2003 the
U.S. Court of Appeals (3rdCir) issued
its opinion [59
pages in PDF] holding the COPA unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.
On October 14, 2003, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to review this
opinion. See also, story
titled "Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in COPA Case" in
TLJ
Daily E-Mail Alert No. 758, October 15, 2003.
On December 16, 2003, the DOJ's Office of
the Solicitor General (OSG) filed its
brief on the merits arguing that the COPA does not violate the First
Amendment. See, story titled "Solicitor General Files Brief in COPA Case" in
TLJ Daily E-Mail
Alert No. 805, December 23, 2003.
See also, story
titled "ACLU Files Suit Challenging the Child Online Protection Act", October
23, 1998. This article contains a collection of hyperlinks to earlier TLJ
stories regarding the drafting, debate, and enactment of the COPA.
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NTIA Releases Reports on Spectrum Management |
6/24. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released two reports pertaining to
government management of the use of spectrum. See, NTIA
release.
The
first report is titled "Spectrum Policy for the 21st Century -- The
President's Spectrum Policy Initiative: Report 1". It is
subtitled "Recommendations of the Federal Government Spectrum Task Force". It
contains the views of the administration's task force.
The
second report is titled "Spectrum Policy for the 21st Century -- The
President's Spectrum Policy Initiative: Report 2". It is
subtitled "Recommendations from State and Local Governments and Private Sector
Responders".
The first report, which represents the administration's task force's views,
contains numerous recommendations. These recommendations address actions to be
taken by the NTIA and other government agencies. That is, this report addresses
continued government control of, and management of, the use of spectrum
resources. There are no recommendations in this report that users obtain rights
in spectrum, or that markets for spectrum be developed.
The second report, which is based in part upon views of "the private sector
developed through the public meetings and written comments submitted to the
Department of Commerce", does reference limited rights and markets.
It recommends first that "The Administration should continue to encourage
Congress to enact legislation that provides the FCC with permanent authority to
conduct spectrum auctions for licenses and to collect fees for spectrum use.
This proposed legislation would support incentives for efficient use of the
spectrum. The Administration should also continue to support legislation that
would establish a spectrum relocation fund that would streamline the process for
reimbursing government spectrum users to facilitate their relocation to
comparable spectrum." This is recommendation 5(a).
This is a reference to
HR 1320.
The House passed its version of HR 1320 on June 11, 2003. See, stories titled
"House Subcommittee Holds Hearing On Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act" in
TLJ Daily E-Mail
Alert No. 631, March 26, 2003; "House Subcommittee Approves Spectrum
Relocation Fund Bill" in
TLJ Daily E-Mail
Alert No. 641, April 10, 2003; "House Commerce Committee Passes Spectrum
Relocation Bill" in
TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 653, May 1, 2003; and "House Passes Commercial
Spectrum Enhancement Act" in
TLJ Daily E-Mail
Alert No. 679, June 12, 2003. The Senate Commerce Committee
passed its version of HR 1320 on June 26, 2003. However, the full Senate has yet
to pass a bill. See, story titled "Senate Commerce Committee Approves Commercial
Spectrum Enhancement Act" in
TLJ Daily E-Mail
Alert No. 689, June 27, 2003.
The second report continues that "Once enacted into law, the
FCC and NTIA should use the statutory authorities described in
(a) to develop increased economic incentives for efficient
spectrum use. In addition to market-based incentives, like
auctions and lease fees, the FCC should consider expanding the
application of secondary markets across services."
Finally, the second report recommends that "NTIA, in
conjunction with the FCC should, through appropriate rulemaking
processes, examine the possibility of modifying spectrum rights
as a means to encourage the deployment of spectrally efficient
technologies. These rulemakings should consider, among other
things: (i) granting access to new bands of spectrum to users
deploying demonstrably non-interfering technology; and (ii)
limiting the interference protection afforded to incumbents
using inefficient technologies."
The Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) has already been moving towards the establishment of
limited markets in certain contexts. For example, FCC Chairman
Michael
Powell formed a Spectrum
Policy Task Force (SPTF) in June of 2002. See, story titled
"Powell Creates Task Force to Conduct Spectrum Inquiry" in
TLJ
Daily E-Mail Alert No. 446, June 7, 2002.
The FCC announced the report of its SPTF on November 7, 2002.
See, story titled "FCC Announces Report on Spectrum Policy" in
TLJ
Daily E-Mail Alert No. 545, November 8, 2002. The SPTF
released its
Report [73 pages in PDF] on November 15, 2002. One of the
many topics addressed by the report is moving towards markets.
The report recommends that "spectrum policy must evolve towards
more flexible and market oriented regulatory models."
The FCC has also released papers on this subject, and conducted rule making
proceedings on this subject.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell praised the
NTIA reports in vague terms. He wrote in a
statement [PDF] that "I applaud the Administration for undertaking a review of these timely
spectrum issues. I look forward to analyzing the recommendations contained in
these reports and working together with NTIA to improve spectrum management in
the United States." He added that "At the FCC, we have worked hard over the last two years to identify and
implement significant spectrum management reforms and to make our policies more
flexible and market driven. Together we can craft spectrum policies that deliver
wireless broadband for the American people."
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Washington Tech Calendar
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Wednesday, June 30 |
The House and Senate will not meet the week of June 28 through July 5.
12:15 PM. The Federal
Communications Bar Association's (FCBA) Mass Media Practice Committee will host a
brown bag lunch. The speaker will be Ken Ferree, Chief of the Federal
Communications Commission's (FCC) Media
Bureau. Location: 8th Floor Conference Room,
Dow Lohnes & Albertson, 1200 New Hampshire
Ave., NW.
2:00 PM. The Japan International
Transport Institute and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will host
a conference titled "Aviation Security of Tomorrow". There will be a technology
demonstration from 1:00 - 7:00 PM that will feature an IPv6-based secure peer-to-peer
communication service platform, information secrecy management solutions using a
multi-purpose smartcard, and radio frequency tags. The speakers will include
Asa
Hutchinson, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Masayuki Nomura (NTT
Communications Corporation) will give a technology demonstration. There will
be a reception from 5:30 - 7:00 PM. See,
notice and
registration
page. Registration is required by June 25. Location: Grand Hyatt
Washington, 1000 H Street, NW.
Deadline to submit comments to the Financial
Accounting Standards Board (FASB) regarding its
document
titled "Exposure Draft, Share-Based Payment, an Amendment of FASB Statements No.
123 and 95", in which it proposes to that companies must expense employee stock
option plans.
Deadline to submit applications to the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for
grants for homeland security related information technology demonstration
projects. See, DHS
release.
The research and development tax credit provision of the Internal
Revenue Code expires. Both the House and Senate bills to repeal the ETI tax regime
would extend the R&D credit through December 31, 2005. The House has passed its bill,
HR 4520,
the "American Jobs Creation Act of 2004". The Senate has passed its bill,
S 1637,
the "Jumpstart Our Business Strength (JOBS) Act". However, the two bills have
not been reconciled.
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Thursday, July 1 |
10:30 AM. The
Heritage Foundation will host a panel
discussion titled "Homeland Security Office
for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: A One-Year Review". The speakers
will be Daniel Sutherland (Department of Homeland Security), Daniel Edgar
(ACLU), and Paul Rosenzweig (Heritage). See,
notice. For
more information, contact Clayton Callen at 202 608-6052. Location: Heritage,
214 Massachusetts Ave., NE.
Deadline to submit to the
Copyright Office (CO) updated notices
of intent to use the statutory licenses under
17 U.S.C. §§ 112
and 114. On March
11, 2004, the CO published a
notice in the Federal Register regarding its "interim regulations
specifying notice and recordkeeping requirements for use of sound recordings
under two statutory licenses under the Copyright Act." The CO further
announced that "Electronic data format and delivery requirements for records
of use as well as regulations governing prior records of use shall be
announced in future Federal Register documents." The interim notice and
recordkeeping regulations took effect on April 12, 2004. See, Federal
Register, March 11, 2004, Vol. 69, No. 48, at Page 11515-11531.
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Sunday, July 4 |
Independence Day.
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Tuesday, July 6 |
The House will return from its Independence Day recess at 2:00 PM.
The Senate will return from its Independence Day recess. at 9:45 AM it
will consider the nomination of Leon Holmes to be a U.S. District Judge
for the Eastern District of Arkansas. It will then begin consideration of
S 2062,
the Class Action Fairness bill.
10:00 AM. The U.S.
Court of Appeals (FedCir) will hear oral argument in Sony Electronics v.
Soundview Technologies. Location: Courtroom 402, 717 Madison Place, NW.
10:00 AM. The
Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on judicial nominees. Press
contact: Margarita Tapia (Hatch) at 202 224-5225 or David Carle (Leahy)
at 202 224-4242. Location: Room 226, Dirksen Building.
10:00 AM. The
House Ways and Means Committee will
hold a hearing titled "Implementation of the United States-Morocco
Free Trade Agreement". Location: Room 1100, Longworth Building.
12:15 - 1:45 PM. The
New America Foundation (NAF) will
host a brown bag lunch titled "Cyberterrorism: How Modern Terrorism
Uses the Internet". The speakers be
Gabriel
Weimann (Haifa University) and James Fallows (Atlantic Monthly). RSVP to Jennifer Buntman at 202 986-4901 or
buntman@newamerica.net. Location:
NAF, 1630 Connecticut Ave, NW, 7th Floor.
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Thursday, July 8 |
9:30 AM. The Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) will hold a meeting. The event will be webcast. Location:
FCC, 445 12th Street, SW, Room TW-C05 (Commission Meeting Room).
9:30 AM. The
Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an executive business meeting. Press
contact: Margarita Tapia (Hatch) at 202 224-5225 or David Carle (Leahy)
at 202 224-4242. Location: Room 226, Dirksen Building.
10:00 AM. The U.S. Court of Appeals
(FedCir) will hear oral argument in Business Objects v. MicroStrategy,
No. 04-1009. Location: Courtroom 203, 717 Madison Place, NW.
The Department of Commerce's (DOC) Bureau
of Industry and Security will hold a seminar titled "Essentials of Export
Controls". The price to attend is $75. For more information, contact Yvette
Springer at 202 482-6031. Location: Ronald Reagan Trade
Center, Washington DC.
Deadline to submit comments to the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) in response to its notice
of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) regarding a national one call notification
system. The FCC adopted this NPRM on May 13, 2004, and released the
text [34 pages in PDF] on May 14, 2004. See, story titled "FCC Adopts NPRM
Regarding One Call Notification System" in
TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 899, May
17, 2004. This NPRM is FCC 04-111 in CC Docket No. 92-105. See,
notice in the Federal Register, June 8, 2004, Vol. 69, No. 110, at Pages
31930 - 31939.
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DC Circuit Denies Petition for Review in
NASUCA v. FCC |
6/29. The U.S. Court of Appeals (DCCir) issued its
opinion [12 pages in PDF] in NASUCA v. FCC.
The National Association of State Utility Consumer
Advocates (NASUCA) filed a petition for review of an order of the
Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) adjusting the manner in which local exchange carriers (LECs) may recover the
fixed costs they incur in providing service to residential and single line
business customers.
The NASUCA argued that the FCC order
violated the universal service provisions of the Telecommunications Act of
1996, that it results in rates that are unjust and unreasonable, and it is
arbitrary and capricious. The Appeals Court denied the petition.
This case is National
Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, petitioner v. FCC and USA,
respondents, and BellSouth, et al., intervenors, App. Ct. No. 02-1261, a
petition for review of a final order of the FCC.
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More News |
6/29. The U.S. Court of Appeals
(6thCir) issued its opinion
in AutoZone v. Tandy, a case involving claims of
trademark infringement, tradename infringement,
unfair competition, breach of contract, and trademark dilution. The Appeals Court affirmed the District Court's
judgment for Tandy (Radio Shack). This case is AutoZone, Inc. and Speedbar, Inc.
v. Tandy Corp., No. 01-6571, an appeal from the U.S. District Court for the
Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville, D.C. No. 99-00884, Judge Thomas
Wiseman presiding.
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