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  • joly 9:21 pm on 04/14/2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Digital Due Process Coalition demands reform of ePrivacy statutes 

    Digital Due Process The Digital Due Process Coalition brings to gether such unlikely bedfellows as CDT, Google, AT&T, Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL and the ACLU, along with some lawyers that ISOC-NY webcast viewers will be well familiar with like Susan Crawford, James Grimmelmann, Frank Pasquale, & David Post, united in the purpose of advocating reform of The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986.

    The ECPA is the statute under which the federal government can snoop into your email, and enforce co-operation in its efforts from ISPs. The move to cloud computing has nullified many of the protections in the act, and providers are facing increasing demands for access from law enforcement. The DDPC is demanding an overhaul of the statute, and a return to due process = warrants before they hand over users missives.

     

  • joly 2:43 pm on 03/06/2010 Permalink | Reply
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    FCC transparency / expertise questioned – “quite appalling” 

    A report about an FCC transparency meeting last week:

    As a result of the clubby atmosphere of Washington telecom circles, the FCC is considered by some to be one of the most heavily lobbied agencies in the federal government and has been widely criticized for the revolving door that sees departing commission officials land top policy spots at the cable and telecom companies it regulates.

    “There’s been concern about undue influence at the FCC,” said Matthew Hussey, a telecom advisor to Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). “That really resulted in the erosion of trust with the public with the courts and with Congress.”

    Susan Crawford, a former technology advisor to President Obama who currently teaches law at the University of Michigan, put it a little more bluntly.

    “Like all independent agencies the FCC is subject to political power,” Crawford said. “To an outsider who has no experience in telecom it’s really quite appalling.”

    Schlick and Mary Beth Richards, the special counsel at the FCC who is spearheading the reform effort, noted that the commission recently began a proceeding to reform its ex parte rules, which require disclosures about private meetings or written exchanges with commission staffers. The revised ex parte rules would mandate that anyone who meets with FCC officials disclose the subject of the conversation, rather than simply documenting that the meeting occurred.

    “The record would show what was covered in the meeting, and we think that’s very important to reform,” Schlick said.

    But that’s small solace to outspoken critics of industry pressure on the commission. Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, warned that no amount of ex parte disclosure requirements will curb the outsized influence well-heeled firms and trade associations exert on FCC officials.

    “Ex parte communications are an affront to democracy. They are simply an insult,” Cooper said. “Why this agency needs to have everything explained to it by an army of industry lobbyists is beyond me.”

    The article goes on to note that Olympia Snowe recently introduced a bill to shake up the FCC’s technical staff.

     

  • joly 3:40 pm on 01/21/2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , washington   

    ‘State of the Net’ speaker list published 

    WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — On Wednesday, January 27, 2010, the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, a Washington, D.C.-based organization working to educate the Congress and the public about important Internet-related policy issues, will hold its sixth annual State of the Net Conference. The conference is announcing several new names to its agenda including former Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer; White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin; White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra; Special Advisor for Technology to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney Roberta Katz; Ambassador Philip Verveer; and professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School Susan Crawford, who will moderate a one-on-one debate on the economic impact of net neutrality on innovation and investment.

    (More …)

     

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