1998 ANNUAL REPORT

| Media | Technical | Organizational and Planning |

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 1998 the USACM expanded its efforts to establish a Washington DC presence for the Association for Computing. It did this by working toward several goals.

USACM's primary goal was to facilitate a dialog between policy makers and scientists by holding the ACM Policy 98 conference in Washington DC. Hundreds gathered at the Washington Hotel to discuss Electronic Commerce, Universal Service, Intellectual Property, and Education Online. Featured speakers included Senior White House Advisor Ira Magaziner, Congressman Ehlers, Congresswoman Morella, and Robert Kahn. The conference was both well attended and well covered by the media.

The second goal was to increase the breadth of the policy issues covered. USACM submitted seven "Principles for Science Policy Making" as part of a Congressional effort to rethink the future of US science policy. USACM also wrote comments to policy makers on issues including copyright, cryptography, bandwidth, legal citations on-line, and privacy. We submitted comments to leading decision makers in Congress, the White House, various Agencies, and the Judiciary.

Our third goal was to participate in more coalition efforts so as to become more proactive in legislative activities. USACM joined the Internet Privacy Coalition, coordinated a letter to the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees from leading scientific society presidents, participated in weekly meetings of the Digital Future Coalition, and was an active member on the AAAS Database Experts Panel.

Our final goal was to increase USACM's recognition both inside and outside Washington DC by promoting increased publicity on our activities. USACM wrote articles for ACM publications including CACM, Membernet, and Computers and Society, and distributed the USACM biweekly electronic newsletter. It also issued press releases on activities and briefed the press on issues.

USACM was mentioned in over a hundred articles in both print and on-line publications this year. Editorials and articles on USACM activities appeared in national newspapers and on national wire services, in professional journals, local newspapers, and in international publications.

USACM 1998 ACHIEVEMENTS

1. POLICY98

USACM organized and ran the first ACM policy conference in Washington D.C. Speakers included Congressman, heads of Agencies, and Administration officials. It was well attended and received by ACM members and was well covered by the press.

2. POLICY COMMENTARY

USACM played an important role in key policy issues affecting the ACM. It organized coalition letters, submitted comments to federal agencies, testified at hearings, and wrote to the President and members of Congress. These activities covered the following areas:

SCIENCE POLICY

USACM proposed a series of guidelines for the development of science policy in the United States. "Principles for Science Policy" were presented at the ACM's Policy 98 conference in Washington, DC during Congress's Hi-Tech week. At the conference Congressman Ehlers reported on the future of Science Policy and responded to the ACM proposed principles. Representative Ehlers is Vice Chair of the House Science Committee and head of a congressional review of science policy. He asked the ACM and other scientific societies to participate in the study.

October 7- USACM sent letters to Carlyle C. Ring, Jr., the Chairman of the NCCUSL Article 2B Drafting Committee, and Professor Geoffrey Hazard, Jr., the Director, American Law Institute urging them to table the re-drafting of the commercial law project known as proposed Article 2B of the Uniform Commercial Code.
September 29- USACM sent letters to ten Senators, who had sent letters to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) supporting further open debate on the database provision of new copyright legislation, thanking them for their support.
September 29- USACM sent a letter to the members of the joint conference committee responsible for drafting the copyright bill's final language. The letter focused on both the database provision and the impacts of other provisions on encryption research and security testing.
September 14- USACM President Barbara Simons led the presidents of eight major scientific societies in sending a letter on the impact of H.R. 2281 "WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act of 1998."
July 31- USACM member Gene Spafford coordinated a letter from 50 cryptographers on problems with H.R. 2281. USACM staff assisted in this effort.
June 4- USACM sent a letter to the House Commerce Committee explaining the potential effects of the "anti-circumvention provision" in H.R. 2281, the "WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act" on encryption research and computer security.
March 5- USACM sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property expressing concern about H.R. 2652, the "Collections of Information Antipiracy Act."

CRYPTOGRAPHY:

USACM Chair Barbara Simons was appointed to the President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption. The Subcommittee serves as a senior level advisory committee to the Department of Commerce, specifically the Bureau of Export Administration. The inaugural meeting was held Feb. 23 in Washington.

Y2K:

ACM President Barbara Simons was appointed to the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. ACM participated in Y2K Action week sponsored by the Small Business Association.

FEDERAL PROGRAM FUNDING:

July 14- USACM wrote a letter to the House Appropriations Committee and House Leadership urging members to fully fund the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP) of the Department of Commerce. The Program received substantial funding and USACM was commended by the Administration for its work on this issue.

K-12 EDUCATION:

USACM Summer Fellow Dan Lin drafted a Preliminary Report identifying key issues for ACM involvement in K-12 education.

PRIVACY:

USACM Chair Barbara Simons testified on medical privacy before the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics.

3. CONFERENCES/MEETINGS

USACM attended both weekly coalition meetings and larger DC conferences to continue to establish ACM's Washington presence. USACM members met with Congressional staff and other policy makers.

USACM met with staffers from Senators Hatch, Boxer and Feinstein's offices, and from Representative Campbell and Eshoo's offices and from the House Science Committee to discuss copyright and cryptography issues.
Associate Director Lauren Gelman attended weekly meetings on the Digital Future Coalition, which focuses on intellectual property policy issues.
USACM Associate Director Lauren Gelman attended the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference (CFP98) in Austin, Texas.
USACM Associate Director Lauren Gelman briefed the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) on proposed new legal protections for databases.

4. COALITION BUILDING

USACM both coordinated short-term issue-oriented coalitions and joined existing, long-term coalitions.

Internet Privacy Coalition: USACM is a member of the Internet Privacy Coalition, a group of organizations dedicated to eliminating US export restrictions on cryptography and preventing US domestic controls on cryptography.
Scientific Societies: USACM generated and coordinated a letter to the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee from leading scientific society presidents, protesting the effects of new copyright legislation on science.
AAAS Database Experts Panel: USACM Associate Director Lauren Gelman has been an active member on the AAAS Database Experts Panel organized to coordinate the scientific communities' response to efforts to privatize scientific data.

5. PUBLICATIONS

One of the most important goals was to make a greater effort to publicize USACM's activities to the computing community. To this end, articles were publishing articles in ACM publications and a USACM biweekly electronic newsletter was inaugurated.

Washington Update: USACM publishes an electronic newsletter, the ACM Washington Update, which reports on activities in Washington that may be of interest to those in the computing and information policy communities, and highlights USACM's involvement in many of these issues. Currently there are over 600 subscribers to the Update listserv. The Updates are also circulated on numerous lists and to a number of newsgroups.
Computers and Society: USACM Associate Director Lauren Gelman wrote a regular column in Computers and Society, the ACM SIGCAS publication.
Membernet: USACM Associate Director Lauren Gelman wrote a regular column in the ACM Membernet publication.
CACM: USACM activities were publicized this year in CACM editorial columns and by USACM members who write columns for CACM.

7. MEDIA

USACM expanded the media coverage of its activities. Editorials and articles on USACM activities appeared in national newspapers and on national wire services. They also appeared in professional journals, local newspapers, and in international publications. USACM was mentioned in over a hundred articles both in print and on-line during 1998. Articles mentioning USACM appeared in: The Boston Globe, TechWeb News, LA Weekly, Computergram International, the New Scientist, Newsday (New York, NY), Computerworld, and the Electronic Engineering Times. Reuters, Newsbytes, and the Associated Press also wrote numerous articles mentioning USACM. A select number of the URLs follows:

USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/ news/comment/nceditf.htm

CNET: http://www.news.com/News/Item /0,4,17443,00.html

New York Times: http://www .nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/121797copyright.html

Wired: http://www.wired. com/news/news/politics/story/9236.html

Los Angeles Times: http://www.lati mes.com/HOME/NEWS/BUSINESS/t000106460.html

San Jose Mercury News: http://www.sjme rcury.com/acm97/stories/copyright0302.htm

BBC: http: //news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_40000/40460.stm

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/128 253.asp#survey

8. TECHNICAL

USACM revamped and expanded the USACM web site, adding many additional materials on areas of interest such as intellectual property. USACM also set up a listserv for disseminating the USACM Washington Update. The list now has over 500 subscribers.

USACM staff and members participated in monthly conference calls.

9. ORGANIZATIONAL and PLANNING

Charles Brownstein replaced Barbara Simons as Chair. David Farber joined the Executive Committee. An ambitious agenda for future activity was developed, which includes the following:

expanding the number of issues to track
creating a data base on issues (consisting of clippings, legislation in progress, member comments, draft positions)
organizing USACM issue oriented subcommittees
producing educational and new materials for ACM members
expanded interaction with SIGS, other societies and opinion leaders
planning ACM Policy 2000 in DC
increased participation in federal agency initiative development
initiation of international public affairs program: correspondents, international public affairs agenda
holding a major congressional briefing on technology and policy
exploring program funding opportunities with industry, governmental bodies, and relevant professional groups
leading the planning for a broader public affairs agenda for ACM.