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ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE
U.S. Office of Public Policy of the
Association for Computing
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December 2, 1997
Volume 1.8
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CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION
USACM ACTIVITIES
USACM Urges Clinton To Veto No Electronic Theft Act
USACM To Sponsor ACM Policy '98 Conference
POLICY BRIEFS
Legislation Introduced to Establish Commission on Women in Science
ACM Conference: Digital Libraries '98
Congress Grants NAS Exemption from FACA
Internet Online Summit: Focus on Children
Nominations and New Appointments
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INTRODUCTION
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The Association for Computing is an international professional society
whose 75,000 members (60,000 in the U.S.) represent a critical mass of
computer scientists in education, industry, and government. The USACM
provides a means for promoting dialogue on technology policy issues with
United States policy makers and the general public. The WASHINGTON UPDATE
will report on activities in Washington which may be of interest to those
in the computing and information policy communities and will highlight
USACM's involvement in many of these issues.
To subscribe to the ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE send an e-mail to
listserv@acm.org with "subscribe WASHINGTON-UPDATE" (no quotes) in the body
of the message. Back issues are available at http:// www.acm.org/usacm
For information about joining the Association for Computing, see:
http://www.acm.org/membership/join.html
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ACM POLICY 98 CONFERENCE
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ACM POLICY '98
"Shaping Policy in the Information Age"
May 10-12, 1998
Washington Renaissance Hotel
Washington, DC
+ Electronic Commerce
+ Intellectual Property
+ Learning Online
+ Universal Service
Sponsored by USACM in cooperation with
SIGCAS, SIGGRAPH, and SIGCHI.
For Conference and Registration information see:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/events/policy98/
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USACM ACTIVITIES
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USACM Urges Clinton To Veto No Electronic Theft Act
USACM sent a letter to President Clinton on November 25 urging him to veto
the No Electronic Theft Act (H.R. 2265). The letter indicated that the
legislation which was rushed through in the closing days of Congress may
inadvertently criminalize many scientific publications that are freely
available on the Internet today. The letter also said that the legislation
could lead to criminal prosecutions against scientists, educators and
others who do nothing more than share their own articles on the Internet
with students and colleagues. According to USACM Chair Dr. Barbara Simons,
"This legislation was hurried through Congress, was poorly drafted, and is
likely to have many unintended consequences."
The letter explains that an essential element of research is that papers be
reviewed by others. Scientists submit papers describing their research to
scientific journals which facilitate the peer-review process. The journals
then print the reviewed papers and thus own their copyrights. Since the
Internet's development, researchers have used it to make their research
widely available to others in their field. According to the letter, "Under
the No Electronic Theft Act, an author who posts their research on the
Internet, and whose documents are frequently read on-line, could be subject
to criminal prosecution."
USACM also argued that the No Electronic Theft Act will have a chilling
effect upon the free speech of scientists and professionals in universities
and research labs. Universities may forbid scientists from publishing
their research on- line, or reading and reviewing other scientist's
research on-line, to avoid the potential of massive copyright litigation.
For more information on the No Electronic Theft Act and for a copy a the
USACM letter, please see http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/
USACM TO SPONSOR ACM POLICY '98 CONFERENCE
USACM is sponsoring the ACM Policy '98 Conference to be held May 10-12 in
Washington DC. The co-chairs of the conference are Ben Shneiderman, USACM
and C. Dianne Martin, SIGCAS and the conference is being held in
cooperation with SIGCAS, SIGGRAPH, and SIGCHI. The conference will
feature discussions on Universal Access, Electronic Commerce, Intellectual
Property, and Learning Online. The panel coordinators are USACM members
David Farber, Jim Horning, Pam Samuelson, and Chuck Brownstein.
http://www.acm.org/usacm/events/policy98/description.html
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POLICY BRIEFS
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LEGISLATION INTRODUCED TO ESTABLISH COMMISSION ON WOMEN IN SCIENCE
On November 9, Rep. Connie Morella introduced H.R.3007, a Bill "To
establish the Commission on the Advancement of Women in Science,
Engineering, and Technology Development." The legislation is based on
Congress's findings that "despite a consistently high presence of women in
the professional and total work forces of the United States, women continue
to be underrepresented in the fields of science, engineering, and
technology." Also, that the "initiatives of the White House Task Force on
Women, Minorities, and the Handicapped in Science and Technology and of the
Federal Coordinating Council on Science, Engineering, and Technology have
been instrumental in raising public awareness of the underrepresentation of
women in the fields of science, engineering, and technology."
The section which outlines the eight duties of the Commission includes:
"The Commission shall conduct a study to identify the number of women in
the United States in the fields of science, engineering, and technology,
and the specific types of occupations in such fields in which women
scientists, engineers, and technology specialists are underrepresented" and
"compile a synthesis of available research on practices, policies, and
programs that have successfully led to the recruitment, retention, and
advancement of women in the fields of science, engineering, and technology,
including training programs, rotational assignments, developmental
programs, reward programs, employee benefit structures, and family leave
policies." At the conclusion of the study, the Commission will "issue
recommendations that government (including Congress and appropriate Federal
agencies), academia, and private industry can follow to assist in the
recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in science, engineering,
and technology."
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.3007.IH:
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ACM CONFERENCE: DIGITAL LIBRARIES '98
The Third ACM Conference on Digital Libraries, "Digital Libraries
'98" will be held in Pittsburgh, PA, June 23-26, 1998 and is sponsored by
ACM through SIGIR and SIGLINK. According to the program committee, Digital
Libraries '98 "will provide a common setting for researchers and practicing
professionals to share experiences and to compare notes about authoring,
publishing, system construction, human-computer interaction, copyright,
digital libraries, and electronic journals, evaluation, and many other
topics Attendees come with backgrounds in computing, library science,
psychology, literature, sociology, engineering, law, medicine -- many
different fields. Digital Libraries '98 will provide a forum for
presentation and discussion of exciting and original developments in
digital libraries through several formats: papers, panels, short papers,
demonstrations, posters, tutorials, and workshops."
Topics for the conference include any topic relevant to the field of
Digital Libraries. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: DL
projects, user experience, DL technologies, search engines, name spaces,
indexing, collection development and management, user support, digital
librarianship, requirements for DLs, economics of DLs, lessons learned,
collaborative libraries, multimedia collections and many others.
For More information, contact Conference Chair Robert M. Akscyn at rma@ks.com.
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CONGRESS GRANTS NAS EXEMPTION FROM FACA
Congress has passed legislation exempting the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) from the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The legislation,
which is currently awaiting the President's signature, requires NAS to post
the names of prospective panel members and reviewers, invite the public to
data-gathering meetings and provide brief summaries of closed meetings. The
Academy has already been doing many of these things, but it must now do so
as a matter of law.
The legislation is the result of a May 1997 federal appeals court decision
which refused to reconsider a ruling requiring studies conducted for the
government by the National Research Council (NRC) to abide by the 1972
FACA. The Academy argued that the loss of independence under FACA rules
would compromise the credibility of Academy studies. Meetings would have to
be announced in advance in the Federal Register and open to the public.
Additionally, since each draft of a committee report would be public, every
change could lead to a public controversy. Earlier this month, the Supreme
Court refused to hear the Academy's appeal.
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INTERNET ONLINE SUMMIT: FOCUS ON CHILDREN
A three day summit is taking place December 1-3, to discuss ways to
enhance the safety and education of children in cyberspace. The Summit,
which will focus on content and safety, is the first in a series of
discussions on issues affecting children in cyberspace, including
advertising, access, privacy, and marketing and content. It will include
speakers, panels, announcements of initiatives taken by the Summit and its
participants, and a small exhibition of technological tools and educational
resources available to help parents manage children's time on-line.
Panelists were announced prior to the Summit.
For more information see http://www.kidsonline.org.
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NOMINATIONS AND NEW APPOINTMENTS
* Dr. John H. Gibbons, Assistant to the President for Science and
Technology, announced his intention to appoint Ms. Kay Howell as Director
of the National Coordination Office for Computing, Information, and
Communications. The National Coordination Office, established under the
White House Office of Science and Technology's National Science and
Technology Council, is responsible for coordinating Federal interagency
high performance computing and communications research and development
programs. As part of this effort, the National Coordination Office helps
formulate a unique crosscutting budget designed to assure that the overall
Federal high performance computing and communications research is properly
focused on helping Federal agencies successfully accomplish their mission
priorities.
* The President announced his intent to appoint Dr. Vera C. Rubin as
Chair and Dr. Alfred Y. Cho, Dr. Arthur M. Jaffe, Dr. Susan L. Graham, and
Dr. Mario J. Molina as Members of the President's Committee on the National
Medal of Science. The President's Committee on The National Medal of
Science was created to recognize individuals who have made outstanding
contributions to science and engineering.
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Washington Update is a biweekly publication of the U.S. Public Policy
Office of the Association for Computing http://www.acm.org/usacm 666
Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 302B, Washington, DC 20003. 202/298-0842
(tel), 202/547-5482 (fax).
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