April 2010

Senators ramp up cyberwar rhetoric

Warnings about cyberwar, especially in the wake of the China-based attacks against Google and more than 30 other high-tech companies, is unnecessary overhyping of what's going on, some experts say.

One of them is noted security researcher Marcus Ranum, chief security officer at Tenable Network Security Inc. In an opinion piece in U.S. News and World Report earlier this week, Ranum warned that the cyberwar rhetoric is scarier than actual war. "Suddenly, the steady drumbeat of computer/network security has been pushed to center stage, and now our government is talking about 'cyberwar' and pointing a finger at China," Ranum wrote. "Unless you've been asleep for a decade, you ought to be worried when our government starts using the rhetoric of warfare -- especially vocabulary like 'preemptive' and 'deterrence.'" Ranum said that concerns about catastrophic economic losses and social havoc stemming from a cyberwar are misplaced. "When some cyberwar pundit starts talking hellfire and damnation, you need to ask them whether their scenario is going to have the physical and psychological impact of a New Orleans flood or a 9/11," Ranum said in e-mailed comments to ComputerWorld. The types of disruptions that some people claim cyberwar will cause, such as large-scale power blackouts, are unlikely to result in the kind of mayhem that is being assumed, he said. Many "experience power failures sometimes lasting days -- because of winter weather -- and we don't dissolve into chaos," he said.

Federal Judge Finds NSA Wiretaps Were Illegal

A federal judge ruled March 31 that the National Security Agency's program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration's effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush. Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance when it intercepted phone calls of Al Haramain, a now-defunct Islamic charity in Oregon, and of two lawyers representing it in 2004.

Declaring that the plaintiffs had been "subjected to unlawful surveillance," the judge said the government was liable to pay them damages. The ruling delivered a blow to the Bush administration's claims that its surveillance program, which Mr. Bush secretly authorized shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was lawful. Under the program, the National Security Agency monitored Americans' international e-mail messages and phone calls without court approval, even though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, required warrants. The Justice Department said it was reviewing the decision and had made no decision about whether to appeal.

Court Ruling on Wiretap Is a Challenge for Obama

As a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) declared that it was "unconstitutional and illegal" for the Bush administration to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans. Many of his supporters said likewise. But since President Obama won the election, administration officials have avoided repeating that position. They have sidestepped questions about the legality of the program in Congressional testimony. And in lawsuits over the program, they followed a strategy intended to avoid ever answering the question by asking courts to dismiss the lawsuits because the litigation could reveal national security secrets. But the ruling on March 31 by a federal judge that one instance of such spying had been "unlawful electronic surveillance" may force onto the table a discussion of how aggressively the Obama administration should continue to defend from judicial review the contentious Bush-era counterterrorism policy.

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said the ruling had highlighted the "awkwardness" of the Obama administration's ambivalent stance toward its predecessor's surveillance program. "They have a lot of discomfort with the legal arguments the Bush administration made, but they've tried to avoid having to acknowledge too publicly those differences or to air them in court," he said.

We Can't Tell You

[Commentary] For more than 20 years, it was settled law, born of bitter experience, that the government may not eavesdrop on people in the United States without a warrant. Until, that is, after the 9/11 attacks, when President George W. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to ignore the law.

When The Times disclosed the spying in late 2005, President Bush argued that the attacks changed everything: Due process and privacy were luxuries the country could no longer afford. Far too many members of Congress bought this argument. Others, afraid of being painted as soft on terror, refused to push back. In 2008, at the White House's insistence, they expanded the government's ability to eavesdrop without warrants. Even that was not enough for the Bush administration, which insisted that targets of the earlier, illegal spying could not sue the government because what happened was "too secret" even to be discussed in court. The Obama administration has embraced the secrecy argument and has used it to block several cases. Fortunately, it has not completely succeeded. Senator Obama promised repeatedly in the 2008 campaign to reverse Mr. Bush's many abuses of power. This was one of them. President Obama should read this court ruling with chagrin and eliminate warrantless spying. It is also far past time to stop hiding behind spurious, often ludicrous, claims of national security.

Six Items on FCC's April Agenda to Implement National Broadband Plan

Like you, we spent much of our Spring Break wondering what would be considered at the Federal Communications Commission's April 21 open meeting. Fret no more; the tentative agenda is:

USF Reform NPRM and NOI: A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes common-sense reforms to the existing high-cost support mechanisms to identify funds that can be refocused toward broadband, and a Notice of Inquiry that seeks comment on the use of a model to determine efficient and targeted support levels for broadband deployment in high-cost areas.
Mobile Roaming Order and FNPRM: An Order implementing rules to ensure the availability of reasonable automatic roaming arrangements for voice service and a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on roaming arrangements for mobile broadband services.
Network Gateway NOI: A Notice of Inquiry seeking comment on best approaches to assure the commercial availability of smart video devices and other equipment used to access the services of multi-channel video programming distributors.
CableCARD NPRM: A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes changes to the CableCARD rules for set-top boxes used with cable services, to improve the operation of that framework pending the development of a successor framework.
Survivability NOI: A Notice of Inquiry seeking comment on the present state of survivability in broadband networks and potential measures to reduce vulnerability to network failures.
Cybersecurity Certification NOI: A Notice of Inquiry seeking comment on whether the Commission should establish a voluntary program under which participating communications service providers would be certified by the FCC or a third party for adherence to cybersecurity objectives and/or practices.

FCC Schedules Workshop on Public and Other Noncommercial Media in the Digital Era

As part of its project on the Future of Media and the Information Needs of Communities, the Federal Communications Commission will hold a workshop on April 30, 2010 on noncommercial media entitled "Public and Other Noncommercial Media in the Digital Era."

The workshop will focus on:

The current structures and activities of public and other noncommercial media entities, as well as relevant government policies;
The ways in which public and other noncommercial media entities do and could contribute to the information needs of communities across multiple platforms, focusing in particular on journalism, cultural, and educational content;
The possibilities for greater collaboration among noncommercial media entities such as public broadcasters, PEG channels, noncommercial web-based outlets, and other new media entities;
The role of public and other noncommercial media in serving the information needs of the underserved, including language minorities, ethnic minorities, children, the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged;
The infrastructure needs and assets of public and other noncommercial media in delivering information to communities;
Innovative uses of social media, gaming, Internet applications, citizen journalism, mobile technologies, and other technological and organizational innovations; and
The possibilities for new kinds of noncommercial media networks and associated funding models.

Guam and Northern Mariana Islands Share BTOP Grant

On April 1, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act investment to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, create jobs, and improve education and healthcare in the Territory of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The $8 million grant will increase broadband access and adoption by upgrading the existing telecommunications network serving these remote and underserved areas. The project is expected to directly connect more than 400 community institutions to the broadband network, including community colleges, K-12 schools, libraries, healthcare facilities, and public-safety organizations.

With this grant, Island Telephone and Engineering (IT&E) plans to bring the first high-capacity broadband services to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. In addition to upgrading existing network infrastructure, IT&E plans to replace the existing inter-island transmission system using fiber, 3G wireless, and WiMax technology. The speed of the planned network will enable government agencies, schools, and businesses in these remote island locations to benefit from videoconferencing and other advanced broadband capabilities.

RUS Closes First Round of Broadband Stimulus Grants

Last week, the Department of Agriculture announced the selection of the Reservation Telephone Cooperative infrastructure broadband project to give rural residents of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation and the surrounding area access to improved economic and educational opportunities. The service area includes parts of Montana and North Dakota. The award provides a $10.95 million loan and a $10.95 million grant to the Reservation Telephone Cooperative to provide service in the remote and rural areas in and around the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The project will bring broadband service to homes, businesses, schools and libraries. In addition, service will be provided to tribal government facilities which provide tribal child support, education assistance, employment assistance, health care and public safety services on the reservation. The area has experienced poverty rates as high as 28 percent and a 40 percent unemployment rate.

The announcement concluded the Department of Agriculture's first round of broadband funding announcements through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act). Applications filed under the second and final round are under review and will be announced before the end of the 2010 fiscal year. To date, $1.067 billion has been invested by USDA through the Recovery Act for 68 broadband projects. Together, the projects will make high speed Internet available to an estimated 529,000 households and 96,000 rural business and public facilities across 31 states, one territory and 17 tribal lands and predominantly Alaska Native regions.

HHS Grants for Health IT Training and Research

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has enlisted the talent and resources of some of the nation's leading universities, community colleges, and major research centers to advance the widespread adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (health IT).

Awards totaling $84 million to 16 universities and junior colleges will support training and development of more than 50,000 new health IT professionals. Additionally Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) awards totaling $60 million were provided to four advanced research institutions ($15 million each) to focus on solving current and future challenges that represent barriers to adoption and meaningful use of health IT. Both sets of awards are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Today's awards are part of the $2 billion effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and provide for the use of an electronic health record (EHR) for each person in the United States by 2014.

Universal Service Fund: now with less incompetence!

The Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund is cleaning up its act. And not only that, it looks like we've been a tad unkind to the benighted program in the past.

Turns out that what seemed like a pretty devastating audit of one of the USF's main programs was way off in its calculations. Here's the short version of that story. The USF, paid for by small tithes on your phone bill, runs four programs: a fund that subsidizes the phone bills of the poor; a program that subsidizes the computer/network needs of schools and libraries; another that underwrites broadband for rural health care facilities; and a division that offers financial support to rural carriers. That last program is called the "high cost" fund. It helps with the challenges that rural carriers face in trying to provide service to relatively few consumers in spread out areas. Unfortunately, past audits of the fund have concluded that its high cost title has a second, less desirable meaning -- a scarily huge error rate in payouts to carrier recipients: 16.6 percent, according to a review that the FCC's Inspector General released three years ago. A subsequent assessment warned that the program overpaid carriers by almost a billion dollars from July 2006 through June 2007. But the Universal Service Administrative Company's new Annual Report includes a re-check of those numbers that calls them way too high. Not 16.6 percent for that first assessment, USAC says, just 2.7 percent. "USAC anticipates similar results in the final reports on the second and third rounds of the FCC OIG USF audit program," the Annual Report also notes.

Benton

Search