ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE
U.S. Office of Public Policy of the Association for Computing Machinery

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July 5, 2000 Volume 4.4

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CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION

POLICY BRIEFS:
Federal Computer Science Funding Slows
Copyright Office Request for Comments on DMCA
ICANN Update
Topical Legislation
Child Online Protection Act Found Unconstitutional
UCITA Update
First Presidential Internet Address
ICANN Sued
ACM Presidency Changes

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INTRODUCTION
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The Association for Computing Machinery is an international
professional society whose 80,000 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 reports 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 Machinery,
see: http://www.acm.org/membership/join.html

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POLICY BRIEFS
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FEDERAL COMPUTER SCIENCE FUNDING SLOWS

The House Appropriations Committee approved a 2001 appropriation bill
for the National Science Foundation includes a 3.4 percent budget
increase, as compared to the 17 percent request. The bill also
eliminates the Terrascale Computing Systems program. The bill moves to
the Senate Appropriations Committee, which will produce its own version
within two weeks.

In related news, the NSF has released its "Science and Engineering
Indicators -- 2000," a comprehensive report on the development of
science-based education and science achievements in the U.S.

The NSF report is available at:
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind00/start.htm

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COPYRIGHT OFFICE REQUEST FOR COMMENTS ON DMCA

The Copyright Office and the National Technology and Information
Administration (under the Department of Commerce) has requested
interested parties to comment on the applicability of the Digital
Millenium Copyright Act to U.S. Code, Title 17, Sections 109 and 117.
Section 109 is the codification of the traditional "first sale"
doctrine that limits the control of copyright owners over how users
use and dispose of individual copies of a work that have been legally
purchased. Section 117 exempts the creation of backup copies of
software and copies of software necessary to the software's function
from copright infringement. The DMCA prohibits the circumvention of
technological controls that effectively prevent access to a work or
control a copyright owner's rights with respect to a work.

Comments must be received by August 4th, 2000. Reply comments are due
September 5, 2000.

NTIA's RFC is available at:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/occ/dmca2000/dmca2000rfc.txt

USACM Co-Chair Barbara Simons submitted comments to the U.S. Copyright
Office urging the exemption of certain classes of works from the
prohibition of circumvention in the DMCA."
See: http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/dmca.exemption.htm

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ICANN UPDATE

The Interet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names has posted the
agenda for the upcoming meeting in Yokohama July 13-17.
Issues to be considered include:
 -introduction of new Top Level Domains
 -the at-large membership and elections
 -definitions of geographic regions
 -revision of ICANN bylaws on meeting minutes

At-large Director Elections will be conducted on a regional basis with
at-large members voting for candidates in their region; North America,
Asia/Australia/Pacific, Latin America/Caribbean, and Africa. The five
at-large Directors will form the corpus of ICANN's decision making
quorom. The nomination and election of at-large directors has been
criticized previously.

ICANN's materials for the Yokohama meeting are available here:
http://www.icann.org/yokohama/agenda.htm

ACM's Internet Governance page is available here:
http://www.acm.org/serving/IG.html.

A civil society forum, organized by the Internet Democracy Project,
will be held the morning of July 13 to discuss principles of
governance, representation, and accountability in ICANN
proceedings. A link is available at:
http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/

Any individual over the age of 16 with a valid e-mail and postal
address can register for ICANN's At-Large Membership free of charge
at:
http://members.icann.org/

The Non-Commercial Constituency (in which ACM is very active) web page
is available at:
http://www.dnso.org/constituency/ncdnh/ncdnh.html

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TOPICAL LEGISLATION

The Internet Integrity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act of
2000 (S. 2448) was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on April
13, 2000. Recently, ACM Public Policy Committee Chair Eugene Spafford
wrote a letter to the sponsors of the bill, explaining reservations
with the bill's criminalization of the use of security tools designed
to test system operability.

A copy of S. 2448 is available at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:s.02448:

Dr. Spafford's letter is available at:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/S.2448_letter.htm

The Cyber Security Information Act of 2000 (H.R. 4246) was referred to
the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology
on May 8th. H.R. 4246 provides another FOIA exemption and would prevent
information that was shared on government request from being used in
any civil lawsuits against the provider of the information. This law
would shield software manufacturers from plaintiff attempts to use
provided information provided to the government as evidence in a
lawsuit. At the Subcommittee's hearing on the bill, Electronixc Privacy
Information Center General Counsel David Sobel criticized the bill's
potential to serve as a shield against public scrutiny of critical
infrastructure security practices.

A copy of H.R. 4246 is available at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.04246:

Mr. Sobel's comments are available at:
http://www.epic.org/security/cip/hr4246_testimony.html

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CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION ACT FOUND UNCONSTITUTIONAL

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's
holding that Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is unconstitutional.
COPA mandated the measures that prevented children from viewing
pornography. A great deal of the decision is devoted to the problems
created by translating community standards (of physical communities)
into Internet contexts.

The court's decision is available at:
http://pacer.ca3.uscourts.gov/recentop/week/991324.txt

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UCITA UPDATE
Under the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), all
shrinkwrap and clickwrap licenses are enforceable. One power software
publishers gain under the law is remotely disabling a customers'
software in the event of a perceived license violation. Washington,
D.C. and Hawaii legislatures have introduced the bill. The state
legislatures of Illinois, Oklahoma, Maine, and Delaware passed measures
postponing consideration of the measure for at least another year. Iowa
has passed anti-UCITA laws (preventing the application of UCITA in
their courts). Virginia and Maryland have already passed UCITA.

For UCITA-related news, see:
http://www.ucitanews.com/

The ACM President and USACM Chair's letter to state legislators
against the passage of UCITA is available at:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/ucita.states.htm

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FIRST PRESIDENTIAL INTERNET ADDRESS

President Clinton made the first presidential address via streaming
audio media on June 24, 2000. President Clinton's address announced
several government technological initiatives, including firstgov.gov,
a government search engine designed to ease navigating through the
federal government's  voluminous material on the Internet.

The text of President Clinton's address is available at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/internet2000-06-24-text.html

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ICANN SUED

Afternic.com has sued ICANN in federal court in the Southern
District of New York for preventing Afternic.com froming becoming a
primary domain name registrar. ICANN refused to accredit
Afternic.com, citing the company's practice of reselling domain
names. However, Network Solutions, Inc. and Register.com have begun
offering resale domain name service like Afternic.com's. Indeed, NSI
recently announced a policy of auctioning off domain names whose
contracts are in default. Afternic.com is suing ICANN for failure to
abide by its California corporation bylaws.

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ACM PRESIDENCY CHANGES

Barbara Simons's successful tenure as ACM President ended on July 1,
2000. Dr. Simons served as president from 1998 to 2000. The incoming
ACM President is Steve Bourne, the author of the Bourne shell. Steve
Bourne has reappointed Eugene Spafford as chair of the USACM and
appointed Dr. Simons as co-chair. In addition, Maria Klawe succeeds
A. Joseph Turner as Vice-President, and David Wise succeeds Clause
Unger as ACM Secretary/Treasurer.

More information about the June 2000 elections is available at:
http://www.acm.org/announcements/election_2000.html

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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.