Sen. Bennett (R-Utah) wants to bring back Morning in America -- or at least a Reagan Administration commission at the time derided for diverting DoJ resources. Bennett grilled Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales at a hearing Tues. on why “very little has been done” for 20 years to study mainstream porn consumption and its possible link to child porn. The Senate Banking Committee hearing, on financial institutions’ role in fighting commercial child pornography, featured many members saying “mainstream” and “child porn” in the same breath.
With the Hill schedule packed with higher priority items, a copyright bill by House Judiciary Chmn. Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) probably won’t see action this year, U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials said in a briefing with reporters Mon. But “you'll see next year this bill will be taken up in earnest,” Senior Coordinator-Intellectual Property Enforcement Brad Huther said. Sensenbrenner’s Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal Enforcement Act (HR- 5921), written by DoJ, circulated in draft as the Intellectual Property Protection Act until late July (WID July 27 p4). The Chamber’s other priority, anti- counterfeiting bill HR-32, was signed earlier this year by President Bush.
The U.S. Senate ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime late Thurs., ending years of pressure from U.S. business and the DoJ after the U.S. signed in Nov. 2001. The treaty, negotiated in the Clinton Administration, requires global enforcement cooperation to investigate computer network crimes and extradition for certain crimes. Lauded by trade groups, the treaty was savaged by civil liberties activists, who said it would require U.S. law enforcement to go after legal Internet activities stateside at the request of foreign govts., chill free speech and require ISPs to spy on customers.
The Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP) program won’t work long-term without coordinated assistance, GAO Dir. International Affairs & Trade Loren Yager said Wed. in a Senate Homeland Security Oversight Subcommittee hearing. STOP lacks the “permanence or the accountability mechanisms that would facilitate oversight by Congress,” GAO said in a report. Pilferage at U.S. borders needs “sustained attention,” Yager said.
The House Thurs. passed an appropriations bill that funds several agencies in communications and technology policy. The Science-State-Justice-Commerce bill (HR-5672), which passed 393-23, contains: $294 million in funding for the FCC; $213 million for the Federal Trade Commission; $18 million for NTIA; $1.77 billion for the Patent & Trademark Office -- should offsetting fee collections not be sufficient; $467 million for scientific and technical research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology; $4.7 billion for research at the National Science Foundation; and $651 million to the State Dept.’s Bcstg. Board of Governors. Also, Rep. DeGette (D-Colo.) secured $3 million through an amendment to the bill for local investigators nationwide to track Internet crimes against children. Funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces, operated by the FBI Innocent Images Unit, more than doubled to $14 million in fiscal 2006, according to DoJ. In fiscal year 2005, the Task Forces received 198,883 crime reports, up from 3,741 reports in fiscal year 2003.
An industry-wide standard is needed for ISPs that sets terms for govt. data retention requests, Rep. DeGette (D- Colo.) said Tues. A much-discussed surge in online exploitation of children was the subject of a lengthy House Commerce Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee hearing. DeGette is working on a draft measure under which companies would have to keep data on users for a year. In meetings with ISPs, DoJ and the FBI floated a 2-year retention mandate (WID June 2 p3).
A data retention mandate for ISPs, while unpopular in the high-tech community and among civil libertarians, could help fight cyber crooks, the incoming National Assn. of Attorneys Gen. (NAAG) pres. said Tues. “It is a sensitive issue [and] a very complex issue,” Ga. Attorney Gen. Thurbert Baker (D) at a conference in Atlanta. A minimum 2-year retention mandate would apply to AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and other companies under a recent proposal by U.S. Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales and DoJ staffers. Gonzales and DoJ staffers have met recently with Internet and privacy experts, but details on specific data the Bush Administration wants ISPs to keep are unclear.
Phone companies will be summoned before the Senate Judiciary Committee to provide information on reports that they're supplying the National Security Agency phone records of ordinary people in the U.S., Senate Judiciary Committee Chmn. Specter (R-Pa.) said Thurs. A USA Today story citing unidentified sources said AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth are secretly providing the records -- a report that provoked demands for hearings on Capitol Hill.
A virtual land deal gone awry has led to a real world court battle pitting a Web-savvy attorney against Second Life, a 3-dimensional Internet world game created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab. The lawsuit, perhaps the first of its kind, was filed in W. Chester, Pa., small claims court. It seeks $8,000 in financial damages, in part for a breach of a virtual land auction contract and for violation of the state’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.
DoJ has quietly cleared a new proposal that would strengthen a statute that already allows the govt. to prosecute ISPs for failing to report child porn on their networks, a top agency official told lawmakers late Wed. Penalties exist for Internet firms that willfully and knowingly fail to report incidents to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). The new plan would allow civil penalties to be imposed on those that negligently fail to report evidence of an online crime, Asst. Attorney Gen. Alice Fisher told a House Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations hearing.