CONTENTS
[1] Newsletter Highlights
[2] House Electronic Voting Legislation Stalls
[3] ACM Briefs Hill on Electronic Employment Verification Systems
[4] PCAST Report Calls for Focus on IT Workers and Curriculum
[5] About USACM
[An archive of all previous editions of Washington Update is available at
http://www.acm.org/usacm/update/]
[1] NEWSLETTER HIGHLIGHTS
Below are highlights of the top stories from September. For this last month of a fiscal year, appropriations bills attracted a fair amount of attention on the Hill. In other action, the House electronic voting bill we’ve written about repeatedly this year appears stalled. While the immigration bill may be similarly stalled, one component - the electronic employment verification system - continues to attract Congressional interest. And the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued a report calling for more attention on IT workers, both their numbers and training. There is more detail on each item below, as well as on our weblog at http://www.acm.org/usacm/weblog:
* HR 811, the electronic voting bill sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) appears to be stalled, with no clear prospects for passage at the present time.
* As a result of ACM Congressional testimony earlier this year, Public Policy Director Cameron Wilson briefed Hill staff on the challenges of implementing an electronic employment verification system.
* The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued a report on the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program.
[2] ELECTRONIC VOTING LEGISLATION STALLS
At the beginning of September, the U.S. House of Representatives had finally scheduled H.R. 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (which we’ve written quite about in these newsletters), for consideration. By the end of the month, the bill had disappeared from House calendar without any clue whether it will see the floor again. Lingering concerns voiced by state and local officials and disability groups appear to have stalled the bill. This delay comes after the bill’s author made concessions – including more flexible deadlines, additional reviews of technology to determine accessibility and proposed additional federal funding - to address these concerns.
This legislation proposes a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. voting system. It requires voter verified paper ballots for all machines, requires random manual audits of those ballots, reforms the testing and certification system for voting machines and requires the disclosure of the software used by voting machines. Representative Holt’s website has a nice summary of the updated key provisions:
http://holt.house.gov/pdf/Fundamental_Requirements.pdf
The major groups opposed to the legislation fall into two general camps. Disability groups have expressed concern that mandating voter-verified paper ballot undermines accessibility. (As a supporter of independent voter verification, we’ve argued that there are paper-based systems in use today that are accessible to voters with a variety of disabilities, including lack of sight.) The other group, State and local officials, has expressed concern that replacing existing technologies, coupled with the legislation’s auditing requirements will be too costly to implement and tread on their authority to administer elections.
Some concessions were made to address these issues. However, these actions do not appear to have garnered enough votes for House action.
It is unclear when, or even if, the bill may see full House consideration. This also makes action on proposed Senate legislation uncertain, as there was some expectation that the House action would drive the Senate.
[3] ACM BRIEFS HILL ON ELECTRONIC EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION SYSTEMS
While comprehensive immigration legislation faded from legislative attention long ago, certain aspects are still attracting attention. The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its electronic employment verification system to include all Federal agencies and possibly Federal contractors. (The current system is a small pilot program and is voluntary.)
As part of a broader effort to educate policymakers on the complications of such a system, ACM Public Policy Director Cameron Wilson participated in a briefing on the consequences of trying to deploy a mandatory electronic employment verification system. USACM member and noted computing expert Peter Neumann testified on the subject in June before the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. His testimony informed Cameron’s remarks, and you can read Dr. Neumann’s testimony here:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/PDF/EEVS_Testimony_Peter_Neumann_USACM.pdf
In short, implementing any large scale computerized database introduces a number of complications. First, previously unknown problems will present themselves because of the greater scale. If made completely mandatory, a system used by about 19,000 employers will see an increase in size of more than a thousand fold. Such systems also rely heavily on the underlying data - employment and identification documents - and that the data is correctly entered. The current pilot system has an error rate of roughly four percent. At best that will stay the same when scaled up, but will most likely increase. Additionally, in a larger system many more terminals will access the system, increasing the vulnerability to attack or other compromises.
[4] PCAST REPORT CALLS FOR FOCUS ON IT WORKERS AND CURRICULUM
The President’s top advisory council on science and technology issued a report finding that the current supply of U.S. networking and information technology professionals is falling short of what is needed. In addition to an inadequate number of workers, the report states that worker education and training is lacking. To address this, the council recommends refocusing Federal programs intended to deal with IT workforce issues and improving curriculum to be more aligned with industry needs for computer science and other IT fields.
The report, prepared by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, is a review of the entire Federal Networking and Information Technology Program (NITRD). It is actually much more focused on the NITRD research agenda than the workforce issues. This article focuses on the workforce issues, as they resonate with ACM’s globalization work. The report is particularly tough on the training and education for IT workers, stating:
“Finding: Networking and information technology curricula in general, and computer science curricula specifically, do not adequately meet employer and student needs.”
And on issues impacting the pipeline of talent:
“Contributing factors are weak K-12 preparation in science and mathematics, which reduces the size of the qualified applicant pool, and students’ and parents’ unfavorable – and PCAST thinks misguided – views about computer science and engineering, which divert potential qualified applicants to other domains. Prospective students view the dot-com bust and offshoring as having reduced the number of jobs and the salaries for computer science graduates and have been swayed by the stereotype of computer professionals as socially unskilled.”
You can read the full report online at:
http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/NITRD%20Review.pdf
[5] ABOUT USACM
USACM is the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ACM is an educational and scientific society uniting the world’s computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional
networking.
For more information about USACM and ACM, see:
http://www.acm.org/usacm/about.html
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