Update: The Committee has posted the video archive of the hearing (RealPlayer required) – skip ahead approx. 17 minutes to get to the start of the hearing.

Original post (7/28/2005): The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing today on implications of the Supreme Court’s MGM vs. Grokster decision. The witnesses were (their testimony is linked to the names):

• Mr. Adam Eisgrau, Executive Director, P2P United
• Mr. Gregory G. Kerber, Chairman & CEO, Wurld Media, Inc.
• Mr. Mark G. Heesen, President, National Venture Capital Association
• Mr. Dave Baker, Vice President Law & Public Policy, Earthlink
• Mr. Mitch Bainwol, Chairman & CEO, Recording Industry Association of America
• Mr. Fritz Attaway, Executive Vice President, Motion Picture Industry of America

We haven’t had time to read through all the testimony, but that wasn’t the interesting part of the hearing. During the question and answer session, Senators came down hard on the technology industry – ISPs and P2P software providers. Mr. Eisgrau had floated the idea of a conference of all intersted parties to work out their issues – including a collective licensing system. That idea flopped with the Senators. Instead of a conference, they wanted action.

At one point, Senator Stevens, critical here because he is the Chairman of the Committee, seemed stunned when the ISPs asserted that they couldn’t identify specific copyrighted music files flowing over their networks (presumably to filter it). He analogized that it was similar to a piano player at a house of disrepute saying he didn’t know what was going on upstairs.

Senator after Senator (including Senator Boxer from California) were incredulous that the tech industry wasn’t doing more with the technology to curb infringement. The tech witnesses tried to make it clear what the technology could or couldn’t do and about active inducement vs. how the technology was designed, but across the board the Senators didn’t seem to care about that degree of nuance – they just wanted more done. Chairman Stevens concluded the hearing by saying that rarely do he and Senator Boxer agree, but on this point it was clear the technology industry must do more to curb piracy, and they will be watching.

We are hoping that the webcast will be archived, but if it isn’t we will post the transcript. It is going to be well worth a read to see where USACM needs to clarify the capabilities of technology. This clearly wasn’t a good “messaging” hearing for the technology industry.

Update (7/29/05): Here is the final text of the math/science amendment that was adopted. The larger bill passed the House Education and Workforce Committee by a 27-20 vote. This provision will probably be somewhat contentious as the bill moves forward, not because of substance but because of the program it replaces. We would be curious what the community thinks about this provision and whether or not it will address the computer science education issues that are currently being debated (feel free to e-mail us comments). Ed Felten did a good post capturing the two pieces of this debate at a high level.
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Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf (who, along with Robert Kahn, won ACM’s 2004 Turing Award) and Information Technology Association of America President Harris Miller join the chorus of leaders expressing concern about the federal R&D enterprise in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required). They frame the argument very similar to those laid out by the joint information technology R&D coalition that the Computing Research Association (CRA) is leading (and USACM is part of):

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Not to be outdone by other Congressional committees working to address the current data security and privacy crisis illustrated by this year’s numerous data breach disclosures and controversies, the Senate Commerce committee has decided to wade into the debate and is set to markup S. 1408 on Thursday. The bill, dubbed the Identity Theft Protection Act of 2005, is sponsored by Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) and enjoys the support of the committee leadership. Briefly, the bill includes – among other things – the following provisions:

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A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education [subscription req’d] points us to proposed rule changes from the Department of Defense that would create new restrictions on foreign researchers’ access to export-controlled technology:

USACM recently filed comments with the Department of Commerce (DOC) on its proposed rule changes regarding deemed export controls. USACM’s primary concern is that the proposed changes could endanger innovation: (more…)

Earlier this week, the Congressional Internet Caucus held a good panel discussion about the implications of the MGM v. Grokster decision. (Here is the video – real, windows.) While the debate wades quite deep into the legal weeds at times, it is well worth a review. I’ve summarized a couple of the key points below.

As mentioned in our previous post, the Court created an active inducement standard for determining whether or not a company is liable for users using its product for copyright infringement. Panelists staked out their interpretation of what the Supreme Court said, and each one was clearly laying the groundwork for arguments in future litigation.
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In part one, we took a look at some of the bill’s basic characteristics, its political context, and its likely prospects. In this part, we’ll address what we see as some areas of concern with the bill:

Complexity, Imprecision – The bill sets forth a very dense, complex regulatory framework for data security and protecting consumer’s privacy, both for data brokers (Title III) and for most organizations that maintain customer databases (Title IV) – however, the bill contains specific exemptions for the financial services and healthcare industries which are already covered by, respectively, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Indeed, many organizations that do not now employ full-time staffers to look after data security and privacy will need to devote new resources and personnel in this area to manage the program requirements spelled out in Title IV – if nothing else, (and if enacted) the bill would also no doubt be a great boon to privacy and security consultants.
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Business Week has an interesting article about South Korea’s efforts to remain an IT leader in the global marketplace. Most people think of South Korea’s aggressive investments in broadband, but it looks like they are articulating a strategy for leveraging those investments into new technology in the consumer market – the term “ubiquitous computing” is used quite a bit.

While the technologies outlined in the article aren’t particularly new, what is interesting is the government/industry partnership. It is clear that the Korean government plans to continue a very active role both on the planning and investment side of this strategy. In fact, the article details part of the government’s effort that sounds roughly similar to what the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) does:

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Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) recently added his support to the “Personal Data Privacy and Security Act” (S. 1332), an important bill from Senators Specter and Leahy that we described briefly in a recent post.

At over 90 pages, the bill is a comprehensive (and complex) attempt to address the privacy and security issues that have recently come to light following a number of large scale security breaches. We’ve broken our inspection of the bill into two parts. This part will cover some of the overarching aspects of the bill and its political context; the second part will dig a little deeper into two of the bill’s more complex (and potentially troubling) sections.

As we mentioned earlier, the bill is broken into six major parts (or titles):

• Title I involves increasing the penalties for ID theft;
• Title II provides assistance (in the form of a grant program) for state and local law enforcement as they address ID theft;
• Title III is a formal regulatory framework for data brokers with respect to data-privacy and security;
• Title IV calls for the creation of detailed privacy programs for business entities doing interstate commerce and includes a national data breach notification requirement;
• Title V imposes limits on the use of Social Security numbers; and
• Title VI provides guidance on the federal government’s use of commercial data.

However, of all the bill’s provisions, those contained in Title III and Title IV are arguably the most deserving of a closer look:
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CONTENTS

[1] Newsletter Highlights
[2] Supreme Court Rules Against Grokster, Preserves Sony Safe Harbor
[3] Proposed Export Rules Could Stifle Innovation
[4] Powerful Senators Introduce Privacy and Security Bill
[5] USACM Urges Reconsideration of Real ID Provisions
[6] PITAC Issues Computational Science Report, Then Expires
[7] Cerf and Kahn Presented with ACM’s 2004 A.M. Turing Award
[8] Events to Watch In July
[9] About USACM

[An archive of all previous editions of Washington Update is available here.]
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