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REPUBLICANS TARGET SOCIAL NETWORK SITES
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh]
MySpace and other social-networking sites like LiveJournal.com and Facebook are facing a new threat: a proposed federal law that would effectively require most schools and libraries to render those Web sites inaccessible to minors, an age group that includes some of the category's most ardent users. "When children leave the home and go to school or the public library and have access to social-networking sites, we have reason to be concerned," Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, said. Rep Fitzpatrick and fellow Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, on Wednesday endorsed new legislation that would cordon off access to commercial Web sites that let users create public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion board, chat room, or e-mail service. That's a broad category that covers far more than social-networking sites such as Friendster and Google's Orkut.com. It would also sweep in a wide range of interactive Web sites and services, including Blogger.com, AOL and Yahoo's instant-messaging features, and Microsoft's Xbox 360, which permits in-game chat. Fitzpatrick's bill, called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA, is part of a new, poll-driven effort by Republicans to address topics that they view as important to suburban voters. Republican pollster John McLaughlin polled 22 suburban districts and presented his research at a retreat earlier this year. Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, is co-sponsoring the measure. The group, which is calling itself the "Suburban Caucus," convened a press conference on Wednesday to announce new legislation it hopes will rally conservative supporters -- and prevent the Democrats from retaking the House of Representatives during the November mid-term election.
http://news.com.com/Congress+targets+social+network+sites/2100-1028_3-60...
Republicans target social network sites
A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
[SOURCE: Evansville Courier, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] The Department of Homeland Security might just as well have been named the Department of Scary Talk, and this week its secretary, Michael Chertoff, had some for the public. Because of turf wars and inertia, first responders -- police, firefighters, emergency medical services -- are still largely unable to talk to one another and thus coordinate rescue efforts in the event of a large-scale crisis, despite the billions the federal government has spent post-9/11. Homeland Security has spent $2.1 billion to remedy communications deficiencies, without satisfactory results, according to Sec Chertoff. He is backed by a report card of the former 9/11 Commission that found it "scandalous" that big-city first responders "still cannot communicate reliably in a major crisis."
http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/editorials/article/0,1626,ECP_768_468565...
A Failure To Communicate
NSA HAS MASSIVE DATABASE OF AMERICANS' PHONE CALLS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Leslie Cauley]
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans -- most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity. For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made -- across town or across the country -- to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060511/1a_secretstory11_dom....
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
FRACTURED PHONE SYSTEM CONSOLIDATING ONCE AGAIN
[SOURCE: USAToday]
AT&T's relationship with the federal government has been a century in the making. The company was founded in 1885 and over the next century became the nation's de facto phone monopoly. At its peak in the early 1980s, it employed 1 million people. In 1984, the Bell Telephone System was broken up by a court decree. AT&T's local operating companies -- there were 22 in all -- were grouped into seven “Baby Bells†and spun off as separate companies. Each had monopoly control over local phone service in a specific region of the country. Since then, Ma Bell has been largely reconstituted. Today's AT&T is an amalgam of three Bells: Ameritech, Southwestern Bell and Pacific Telesis, plus AT&T, which is essentially the long-distance arm of the company. The carrier recently announced plans to buy BellSouth, another of the original seven Baby Bells, for $67 billion. Once the BellSouth deal closes, AT&T will cement its position as the nation's biggest communications company. It will also assume control of Cingular, the nation's biggest cellphone carrier with more than 45 million customers.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060511/a_history11.art.htm
Fractured phone system consolidating once again
HOUSE PANEL CHALLENGES SMITHSONIAN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Edward Wyatt]
Bluntly rejecting the Smithsonian Institution's defense of its recent television deal with Showtime Networks, the House Appropriations Committee yesterday demanded further information on the contract, which members of the committee have said limits access and "may be incompatible with the trust placed in the Smithsonian." The committee also cut $15 million from the Smithsonian's proposed budget and sought a cap on salaries. The committee's actions came one day after the Smithsonian's governing board asserted, in a letter to the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees its finances, that the deal did not restrict access to its collections, as claimed by critics. The letter also rebuffed the subcommittee's suggestion that it conduct public hearings on business ventures that affect access to its collections.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/arts/11smit.html
(requires registration)
* Smithsonian Salary Cap Passes Panel
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/10/AR200605...
House Panel Challenges Smithsonian
TIME WARNER CABLE, PARTNERS CONSIDER WIRELESS BID
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Yinka Adegoke]
Time Warner Cable on Wednesday said its mobile partnership with other cable operators and cellular company Sprint Nextel may bid in a U.S. wireless license auction, a move that would put leading cable companies squarely on cellular operators' turf. The four cable companies -- Time Warner Cable, Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc. and Advance/Newhouse Communications -- linked up with Sprint Nextel in a $200 million venture in November. A bid in a planned June auction by the Federal Communications Commission would open that venture considerably, with the total sale of wireless licenses expected to bring in $8 billion to $15 billion, according to analysts.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID...
* Cable Operators Plan to Apply for Wireless Airwaves
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=9964
Comcast and other cable companies have urged caution because decisions to allow network owners to operate in a deregulated market have produced enormous consumer benefits. Waz noted that cable critics for years have inaccurately predicted that only regulation -- such rules allowing third-party Internet-service providers to buy cable bandwidth wholesale -- can safeguard competition. "To push their agenda, the proponents of network neutrality have constructed a parade of horribles. But this parade marches right down the boulevard of the hypothetical," Waz said. Even the term 'network neutrality' is misleading, he added, because many business relationships on the Web can’t be called neutral in their design or effect.
http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/2290
PICKERING OPTIMISTIC ABOUT FATE OF TELECOM MEASURE
[SOURCE: Technology Daily, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
Despite the fact that the 109th Congress is in its waning days, a bill overhauling the nation's telecommunications laws still has a chance of passage -- because Republicans want legislative victories going into the 2006 election in November, Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-Miss) said Tuesday. "The Republicans in the House and the Senate, we are operating under survival instinct," said Rep Pickering, and want "to have accomplishments so that we can continue in the majority." During a speech keynoting a Pike and Fischer conference on high speed Internet access, Rep Pickering -- vice chairman of the House Commerce Committee -- said that final passage of the legislation by this fall would require prompt House passage, Senate passage in June or July, and a conference committee over the August congressional recess. He asserted that the issue would not be decided in a post-election "lameduck" session considered a near certainty by many on Capitol Hill. Rep Pickering said three key ingredients in a final legislative package must be 1) a national video franchises, 2) interconnection between telecom companies and others, and 3) changes to the universal service fund that provides low-cost communications services to all Americans. The pending House bill, sponsored by House Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) and co-sponsored by Rep Pickering, includes a national video franchise and rights for cable operators and Internet telephone companies to connect to traditional telephones -- but no language on universal service.
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-YPEI1147288884910.html
Pickering Optimistic About Fate Of Telecom Measure
COMCAST ON NET NEUTRALITY: COOL OFF
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
The political battle over network neutrality deserves a “cooling-off period†to give federal regulators time to study business relationships between cable broadband-access providers and Web-based content and communications providers, a senior Comcast Corp. official said Wednesday. Comcast external affairs vice president Joe Waz said that before Congress takes any steps to regulate broadband-access providers in ways it might regret, the Federal Communications Commission should be given time to collect and analyze market developments in an effort to allow facts to triumph over fiction. “I propose that we start with a cooling-off period,†Waz said. A House bill (H.R. 5252) would allow the FCC to fine cable companies up to $500,000 per offense for violating the agency’s network-neutrality principles. While cable is troubled by the bill, network-neutrality proponents consider it weak and want more regulatory power given to the FCC. Senate legislation (S. 2686) sponsored by Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) would offer a different approach. It would require the FCC to monitor the market, file annual reports and make recommendations to address problems it had uncovered.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6333710.html?display=Breaking+News
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6333710.html?display=Breaking%20News
HOUSE VOTE WILL BE CRUCIAL TO FUTURE OF THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Kansas City Infozine]
[Commentary] Within the next two weeks, and with very little media attention, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act, also known as the COPE bill. The bill will have an impact on every American family, but the only agenda that will be promoted and enhanced by this bill will be that of the country's largest telephone and cable companies. As the House prepares to vote soon, the House leadership wants this bill to be rushed through before the public gets a chance to voice its opposition. But that opposition already is being heard. Common Cause alone has generated more than 80,000 e-mails and calls to Congress and telecommunications executives calling for 'net neutrality:" As one Member of Congress put it: "There's a prairie fire going on out there."
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/14914/
House Vote Will be Crucial to Future of Your Internet