Clips December 19, 2002

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips December 19, 2002

ARTICLES


267 Rules Up for Review [Federal]
EU Parliament OKs New Recycling Laws
Web activists keep constant eye on Pentagon's data-mining point man
Free Speech -- Virtually
Mississippi Students Build Their Own PC's
Study Seeks Technology Safeguards for Privacy
Balutis in talks to leave FGIPC
Navy XML policy signed
Homeland Security Department surfaces on Web
Group forms to study tax-related XML standards
FCC survey finds broadband use on the rise
Judge May Exclude J.P. Morgan E-Mails

********************************
Washington Post
267 Rules Up for Review
Referendum Names Environmental, Auto Standards
By Cindy Skrzycki
Thursday, December 19, 2002; Page E01

The Bush administration yesterday released the results of a public 
referendum that it sought to identify federal regulations that should be 
revised, eliminated or expanded -- including rules that cover natural 
resources, auto safety, timber sales and nursing homes.

The catchall list was included in an annual report issued by the Office of 
Management and Budget that estimates how much regulation costs and benefits 
society. This year, much of the emphasis was on 267 regulations that are 
likely to be reviewed and then, possibly, changed or rescinded.

The administration already has rescinded numerous rules issued in the 
Clinton administration and supported a congressional initiative to kill a 
Labor Department rule that would have regulated how employers handle 
repetitive-motion injuries in the workplace. The administration also has 
modified several important environmental rules, such as how industries must 
comply with emissions standards when they modify their plants.

The OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) said in its 
report that it received 316 nominations to add, modify or rescind rules at 
26 agencies. Among those it will send to agencies for possible change are 
standards for salmonella, energy-conservation standards for clothes 
washers, the labeling of genetically modified food, installation of 
electronic crash recorders for trucks, special uses of the national forests 
and minimum staffing standards for nursing homes. Almost two-thirds of the 
nominations targeted rules at the departments of Health and Human Services, 
Labor, and Transportation; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the 
Federal Communications Commission.

"This is a vehicle for changing or eliminating existing regulatory 
protections. It's a free-for-all for the corporate community to get what 
they want," said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a public 
interest group that monitors regulation. "It's a radical approach for 
eliminating regulation."

The government's effort to solicit candidates for rule changes or 
elimination expanded this year. The first time the OMB agency asked for 
nominees, it received 71, and half of those came from the Mercatus 
Institute at George Mason University, a market-based think tank. 
Twenty-three were categorized as "high-priority," and action was taken on 
many. For example, one was a Clinton administration rule to make air 
conditioners more energy-efficient. The Energy Department replaced that 
rule with a less stringent one.

Another nominee last year was the Clinton administration's ban on 
snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park. The Bush administration 
recently signaled it would not honor the ban and would allow limited use of 
snowmobiles in the park.

This year's crop of nominees is so large that John Graham, administrator of 
OIRA, has decided to send high-priority rules to agencies for further 
review. The report noted that such reviews can be burdensome and construed 
as an attempt to roll back regulation, but "the difficulties and concerns 
surrounding this task do not mean it should be abandoned." OIRA said in its 
proposal to review the nominations that those who suggest change should 
focus on rules that can be "revised to be more efficient."

OIRA also solicited nominations on "problematic agency guidance documents." 
Guidance from federal agencies is often an interpretation of existing rules 
or laws. The report said guidance becomes questionable when agencies use 
the documents to extend their "real rules." Forty-nine guidance documents 
were nominated for change or elimination. They included guidance issued on 
pesticide registration notices, the indirect costs of Superfund and credit 
unions.

The agency received 1,700 comments from businesses, trade associations, 
academics, nonprofits and government agencies. About half of the 
nominations asked for modifications to existing or proposed rules, and 
almost 8 percent recommended eliminating existing rules. Twenty-five 
percent asked for new or more stringent rules.

The report said that "process improvements" that have been instituted by 
OIRA, which reviews federal rulemaking produced by the agencies, will "have 
a powerful, positive long-term effect on the quality of federal regulation."

Far less prominent in this year's OMB report was an analysis of the costs 
and benefits of regulation. Instead of totaling the estimated costs and 
benefits of all rules on the books, OIRA limited its analysis to 67 major 
rules issued between April 1995 and September 2001.

It determined the cost of that group of rules was $50 billion to $53 
billion while the benefits ranged from $48 billion to $102 billion. The 
agency said the costs and benefits of all federal rules now in effect 
"could easily be a factor of 10 or more larger" than those it reported on.

The report also noted that as of Jan. 20, 15 rules that were held up under 
the "Card Memo" still had not been issued. The Card Memo called for the 
review of rules put out by the Clinton administration shortly before it 
left office. Some of these rules are being challenged in court.
********************************
Associated Press
EU Parliament OKs New Recycling Laws
Wed Dec 18, 2:48 PM ET
By PAUL AMES, Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Parliament adopted laws Wednesday 
requiring manufacturers to pay for the recycling of electrical goods 
ranging from shavers to refrigerators and laptop computers.


The European Union (news - web sites)'s assembly, meeting in Strasbourg, 
France, voted by an overwhelming show of hands to approve the 
"electroscrap" laws after more than three years of debate.


Under the new rules, the EU hopes 75 percent of such goods can be recycled. 
The law is due to come into force in September, 2005.


The EU estimates old appliances account now for some 6 million tons of 
waste across Europe, most of which goes into landfills.


Karl-Heinz Florenz, the German conservative who steered the bill through 
Parliament, said it would "meet the needs of consumers, environmentalists 
and industry."


Manufacturers estimated the rules could cause them to spend $7.7 billion a 
year to collect and dispose of the waste.


They warn the costs could be passed on to consumers, ranging from 50 cents 
for a small appliance such as a coffee maker to up to $20 for a fridge.


However, companies generally welcomed the new rules as a pragmatic solution 
to the environmental problems caused by electroscrap.


They were pleased that each manufacturer will pay for recycling its own 
waste once the plan is fully operational, instead of sharing costs across 
the industry.


"A level playing field is vital. Manufacturers should never be forced to 
pay for other than their own waste," said Luigi Meli, director general of 
the European Committee of Electric Equipment Manufacturers.

Producers will, however, have to share the costs of disposing of equipment 
sold before the law comes into force.


Four leading electrical manufactures  Electrolux, Hewlett-Packard, Sony and 
Braun  met in Brussels this week to consider how best to gather and dispose 
of old goods.


"Our aim is to identify high-quality recycling services on the best terms 
for the European market to minimize the costs passed onto consumers," Hans 
Korfmacher of Germany's Braun said Monday.


The law also told EU governments to "take appropriate measures" against 
companies that design equipment specifically to prevent reuse, forcing 
customers into buying new goods.


Officials said the measure was aimed at producers of computer printer ink 
cartridges who introduced design features to thwart refilling.


The new laws will also ban the use of toxic substances such as lead, 
mercury and cadmium in household appliances by 2006.
*****************************
Mercury News
Web activists keep constant eye on Pentagon's data-mining point man
By Jim Puzzanghera
Mercury News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Internet activists have a message for John Poindexter, the 
head of a controversial Pentagon research project to find terrorists by 
searching the everyday transactions of Americans: Threaten to invade our 
privacy, we'll invade yours.

They've plastered Poindexter's e-mail address and home phone number on 
dozens of Web sites, forcing him to block all incoming calls. They've 
posted satellite images of his suburban Washington house and maps showing 
how to get there. And they've created online forms to collect even more 
personal data on him.

``If you are a store clerk, study the photos above. Learn this face. If you 
are a shipping clerk, study this name,'' reads a site titled ``The John 
Poindexter Awareness Office,'' a play on Poindexter's Information Awareness 
Office at the Pentagon. ``When and if you see Mr. Poindexter purchase 
something, travel somewhere or do, well, anything -- send us a tip 
describing your observations. We will display the information received 
right here on this Web site.''

It's all an attempt to turn the tables on Poindexter, who is trying to 
create a vast database of information, from credit-card purchases to 
medical files, and develop software to search it for signs of terrorist 
activity. The project, called Total Information Awareness, has outraged 
civil libertarians since it became widely known last month -- and spurred 
some people to do a little database surfing of their own.

``This is sort of a way of making him feel watched in the same way other 
people would feel watched,'' said Stephen DeVoy, 40, a computer scientist 
who created the John Poindexter Awareness Office site last month.

Calls to Poindexter's house are now greeted by a phone company ``do not 
disturb'' message that says the person is not available. The Pentagon also 
has removed the résumés of Poindexter and other Information Awareness 
Office officials from its Web site.

Jan Walker, a news officer for the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency, which oversees Poindexter's office, said the Web site is 
periodically revised and would not comment when asked if Poindexter or 
others have been harassed.

DeVoy said he's not trying to harm Poindexter or other Information 
Awareness Office officials whose personal information is listed on his 
site, adding that he has obtained Poindexter's Social Security number but 
has not posted it because he doesn't want to help identity thieves. DeVoy 
was employed by a private contractor doing information-technology work for 
the Pentagon until being fired in June, he believes, for other Web writings 
critical of U.S. policies.

``My goal is to simply let them know what they are doing affects other 
people and they should think about the consequences'' of Total Information 
Awareness, DeVoy said.

He's not alone.

Matt Smith, a columnist with SF Weekly, facetiously published Poindexter's 
phone number last month and encouraged readers to call. The column quickly 
circulated around the Internet and sparked a flood of responses. John 
Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San 
Francisco-based electronic-privacy group, has published not only 
Poindexter's home phone number but those of some of his neighbors as well 
in a column that has been posted on several Web sites.

``Some people are suspicious that the . . . Total Information Awareness 
system will be used to harass and track the activities of people who some 
significant fraction of society don't agree with,'' wrote Gilmore. ``It 
would be good to have an early public demonstration of just how bad life 
could become for such targeted citizens.''

Poindexter makes an inviting target for such a demonstration, said Declan 
McCullagh, editor of the Politech mailing list, which focuses on politics 
and technology.

Poindexter was national security adviser to former President Reagan from 
1985 to 1986 and was a key figure in the covert plan known as Iran-Contra 
to trade weapons for Americans held hostage by Iran. He was convicted of 
five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and 
obstructing the congressional inquiry into the affair. His convictions were 
overturned on appeal, because testimony given by Poindexter to Congress 
under a grant of immunity was unfairly used against him at trial.

McCullagh said the Total Information Awareness project has sparked far more 
outrage than previous projects with privacy implications, such as the FBI's 
``Carnivore'' Internet surveillance software.

``This anger is manifesting itself in this strange sort of Internet 
activism,'' McCullagh said. ``I think there's a sense of, if you want to 
watch us, then be prepared to be watched yourself.''

The Poindexter Awareness Office can be found at 
www.breakyourchains.org/jpao.htm.
**********************************
Washington Post
Free Speech -- Virtually
Legal Constraints on Web Journals Surprise Many 'Bloggers'
By Jennifer Balderama
Thursday, December 19, 2002; Page E01

Late last year, John Stanforth posted to his personal Web site a 
reminiscence about software he had developed for internal use by a former 
employer. It was a minor project, he said, one he never thought would 
warrant any secrecy.

So he was bewildered when, about two months later, he received a 
cease-and-desist letter in an e-mail from his old company. It said that by 
mentioning the project, he had violated the nondisclosure agreement he 
signed when he joined the firm in June 1997.

Stanforth conferred with his lawyers, who told him that as far as they 
could tell, he hadn't compromised any trade secrets. But he removed the 
references to the project and the company because he didn't want to contend 
with the headache of potential litigation. The company never took further 
action.

The exchange, though, gave Stanforth, vice president of strategy at venture 
development firm JSL Dragonfly Ltd., a new appreciation for the hazards of 
publishing on the Web, particularly when it comes to the workplace. "Every 
time I read someone's Web log I wonder how many of these companies know 
what their employees are talking about," Stanforth said.

Web logs, or "blogs," are online journals usually consisting of dated 
entries, or "posts," arranged in reverse chronological order. Some are 
work-related, with topics such as software development, sports or the news 
media. Others simply chronicle life -- the glory of landing a job, the 
sorrow of losing a parent, the thrill of teaching a child to spell. 
Stanforth publishes his thoughts on technology, along with his 
"pseudo-random musings."

In the past couple of years, hundreds of thousands of people have been 
drawn to this burgeoning realm of digital publishing. Free Web-based 
software has made it so easy to publish a blog that even the code-phobic 
can thrive in a world once dominated by HTML wizards. All newcomers have to 
do is choose a tool, select a Web page template, write a few words and 
click a button.

But since many bloggers have no background in publishing, they often come 
to the medium unaware of the rules that apply, and complaints are becoming 
more common. Many people publish as if they were untouchable, assuming that 
because what they write appears in a virtual world, it won't come back to 
burn them in the "real" world. Many overlook the fact that their rants can 
potentially reach millions of people when posted on the Internet.

The same law that relates to publishing in the offline world, generally 
speaking, applies to material posted publicly on a Web log, legal and human 
resources experts said. Posting information or opinions on the Internet is 
not much different from publishing in a newspaper, and if the information 
is defamatory, compromises trade secrets, or violates copyright or 
trademark regulations, the publisher could face legal claims and monetary 
damages.

Authors generally are obligated to publish as facts only what they believe 
to be true. But stating opinions can be tricky, especially when those views 
relate to workplace issues, said Bret Fausett, a Los Angeles-based lawyer.

Fausett keeps a Web log that chronicles the goings-on at the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit organization in 
charge of managing the system of Internet addresses. It's one thing for 
people to use their personal Web sites to write reviews of, say, the hit TV 
show "The Sopranos," he said. "As long as you don't work for HBO, that's 
great."

But "it's another thing to say, 'Our server crashed today, and the idiot IT 
person at our company couldn't get the thing running.' "

Evan Williams, co-founder of Pyra Labs, the San Francisco company behind 
the Blogger.com publishing software, said the people at Pyra do not monitor 
content, though they do investigate complaints.

"If something is clearly illegal, we will remove it. But that's pretty 
rare," Williams wrote in response to an e-mail query.

More common, Williams said, is that an "employee/blogger will contact us 
(in a panic) when he or she has gotten in trouble for blogging and needs to 
know how to take something down before they get sued."

Experts on Web publishing warned that anyone digging for details about a 
person or company via Google or other search engines can unearth reams of 
archived Web log material.

The most flippant of remarks published two years ago could broadcast 
something a company doesn't want competitors or potential clients to know.

Even with supposedly anonymous Web logs, clues can tip off readers to 
people's identities, whether it's jargon the writers use, references to 
conversations between cubicle-mates or stories about personal experiences.

"The Internet creates a veil of separation between you and other people," 
said Gregory Alan Rutchik, managing partner at the Arts and Technology 
Group, a San Francisco firm specializing in copyright and publishing law. 
"Don't be misled by the fact that you're sitting in a room, behind a locked 
door, at your computer. There's ways to find out who you are."

For instance, those aggrieved by a posting have occasionally gone to court 
to force Internet service providers to identify customers or cut off access 
to offending sites.

One woman, a Web designer who asked that her name not be used, said she 
lost her job because of what she wrote on her Web log.

She was summoned to her supervisor's office to discuss the narratives -- 
often derogatory -- that she'd written about her company and co-workers. 
Although it doesn't say so on her Web site, the blog is mostly fiction, 
consisting of veiled references and often composites of people, she said.

After the meeting, she thought she'd succeeded in escaping with merely a 
slap on the wrist. "We talked about it and resolved things, and I was never 
going to talk about work on my Web site again," she said. "I was under the 
impression everything was okay."

Two days later, she was fired. "I was shocked that they would take it 
seriously," she said, "and that little old me with this little old Web site 
would cause such a stir."

Pam Farr, president of Cabot Advisory Group LLC, a human resources 
consulting firm in New Jersey, said such a scenario is not unusual. "Many a 
career has been ruined by blasting off an angry diatribe whether in person 
or in cyberspace," she said.

Many large companies have a policy that says only authorized workers, such 
as those in the public relations department, are allowed to reveal certain 
types of information, Farr said. Employees may assert that they have a 
right to express their opinions. But even then, she said, there needs to be 
a statement clearly marked on the Web site saying "this in no way 
represents a position of my company."

"With the advent of cyberspace, we've had to evolve these policies," Farr 
said. "Somewhere between First Amendment rights and total repression there 
is a practical middle ground."

She advises companies to craft an "information policy" that defines what is 
considered proprietary information, describes where that information 
resides and details who owns it.

Groove Networks Inc., a software firm in Beverly, Mass., has a number of 
bloggers on its staff. Most are software developers "interested in engaging 
with the wider community of developers and carrying on a conversation about 
their area of expertise," said Jeff Seul, general counsel and vice 
president at Groove.

When an employee approached company officials to inquire about Groove's 
perspective on Web logs, executives decided to compose some guidelines.

The firm advises its workers to remember that "although you and we view 
your website or weblog as a personal project and a medium of personal 
expression, some readers may nonetheless view you as a de facto 
spokesperson for the company."

Groove also notes that at times employees may be asked to "temporarily 
confine" their commentary to topics unrelated to the company or to 
"temporarily suspend" publishing to comply with securities or other 
regulations.

"We tried to strike a respectful balance that would encourage people to 
exercise their right to free expression while observing their 
responsibility to protect confidential information and be respectful [of 
companies] with whom we did business," Seul said.

So far, Groove has been largely hands-off in monitoring the blogs. "That's 
not to say that we wouldn't react to it if something awful happened or we 
had an employee who was badly disparaging people on their blog," Seul said.

Ultimately, it comes down to "learning to be street smart on the Internet," 
said Dan Bricklin, chief technology officer and founder of Trellix Corp., a 
Concord, Mass., firm that makes Web site authoring and blogging tools.

He compared un-savvy bloggers with tourists visiting New York who don't 
know how to navigate and end up in trouble in some dark alley: They had 
better be careful, because they can't know who might be lurking.
*******************************
New York Times
December 19, 2002
Mississippi Students Build Their Own PC's
By MICHEL MARRIOTT

JACKSON, Miss. -- NOT long ago, TiAndrea Beasley would no sooner have 
plunged her hands into the electronic guts of a personal computer than she 
would have stuck her head under a car's hood to change the spark plugs. But 
that was before TiAndrea, a 17-year-old high school senior, enrolled in a 
computer engineering technology class at her school in Port Gibson, Miss., 
a small rural town about 50 miles southwest of Jackson.

Now TiAndrea, a B-plus student who plans to study business and accounting 
after she graduates next year, can install the operating system on any 
computer she builds in less than a half-hour.

"You know it's a man's thing, but women are doing it," she said as her 
computer beeped in the background. Then, grinning half in jest toward her 
computer construction partner, Sarah Reynolds, another 17-year-old senior, 
she added, "Building computers is easy."

TiAndrea and Sarah were among about a dozen students busy in the school's 
computer instruction classroom, which for at least three hours a day, 
Monday through Friday, has of late been a homespun computer assembly plant. 
And while every eye and hand in the room appeared sure with microprocessors 
and motherboards, all the students, including the boys, confessed that 
before taking the course they had never imagined themselves building 
computers with less sweat than it takes to build a fire.

Add another 39 senior high schools across the state that are similarly 
training students to build computers, and the scope of an unparalleled 
statewide plan begins to emerge. TiAndrea and Sarah said they couldn't be 
more proud to be a part of the mission: building about 6,000 computers so 
that every Mississippi classroom will have an online computer by the end of 
2002.

"It is a joyful thing," said Lee A. Howard, 52, the instructor of the Port 
Gibson computer class and a former shop teacher, as he watched his students 
cranking out computers so that others could use them. "I was going to 
retire before this came around. This really rejuvenated me."

The statewide effort had its climax on Dec. 11, when 125 Mississippi high 
school students, some of whom had ridden for hours from tiny towns in 
minibuses, arrived in Jackson for what organizers called a Blitz Build: a 
single day in which scores of computers are built from scratch at a single 
location. The day's labors at Jackson State University produced the last 
275 computers needed to fulfill the state's classroom needs.

Among those who gathered to mark the occasion was Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who 
shortly after his election two years ago set a goal of having an 
Internet-connected computer in every public-school classroom in the state 
by the end of 2002. That accomplishment would be a first for any state, 
according to the National Governors Association in Washington - and an 
uncommon distinction for Mississippi, whose public education system has for 
years ranked near or at the bottom in most national assessments.

Wiring of all 30,000 classrooms for the Internet should be complete by the 
governor's deadline, educators said. The larger hurdle at the outset was 
obtaining computers for the 6,000 classrooms that still lacked them. 
Officials said the state could not afford to buy that many through 
conventional means.

Through a combination of luck, timing and the determination of a few 
technology activists, Governor Musgrove became acquainted with ExplorNet, a 
nonprofit educational organization based in North Carolina that trains 
teachers to instruct students in building personal computers. In May, 
Governor Musgrove enlisted ExplorNet as a major component of his Computers 
in the Classroom initiative.

With the help of a $4.4 million grant administered by the Mississippi 
Development Authority that was used mostly to buy components, teams of 
students began building computers in July, with many working through the 
summer for $8 an hour.

The students spent the first nine weeks of the course studying computer 
terminology, how computers function and how best to work with them, said 
Andrew L. Smith, director of ExplorNet in Mississippi. Each student was 
given a basic tool kit, but a standard screwdriver is what most of them 
used. Much of the work involved correctly connecting and inserting 10 major 
components, including the main circuit board, into a computer case.

The kits, which include fully assembled 15-inch monitors, cost the 
organizers $685 a piece, roughly half what the state was paying its 
vendors, Mr. Smith said. Each computer has a 1,000-megahertz 
microprocessor, a 40-gigabyte hard drive, a high-speed CD-ROM drive and a 
network card, and uses the Microsoft Windows 98 operating system.

In class, many students took as long as 90 minutes to complete their first 
computers, Mr. Smith said. "But after they put 20 to 30 of them together, 
they get an 'I know how to do this' confidence," he added. And with that, 
he said, assembly times usually shrink to 15 to 20 minutes.

"This is something that needs to be done," said Mr. Smith, a Mississippi 
native. "It provides an opportunity for teachers to open up their 
classrooms to the world. No longer will they be confined to the chalkboard 
and four walls of their room."

Now that the computers have been assembled, students will focus on 
repairing, maintaining and upgrading computers in their schools and 
communities, said Dave Boliek, ExplorNet's co-founder and chief executive.

While Mississippi's black students, particularly those in the poorest rural 
areas, are less likely to have access to Internet-linked computers than the 
state's white students, Mr. Smith said that ExplorNet's purpose in 
Mississippi was not specifically to close a racial gap - the so-called 
digital divide - in technology. He said the program's focus was rather to 
give computer access to all of the state's students, whoever or wherever 
they are.

At the Blitz Build held at Jackson State, Governor Musgrove spoke as the 
final batch of computers were being built and readied for delivery. "I 
think it sends a great message to our people here,'' he said. "One, that 
our people are tremendously talented and capable, and then, number two, the 
message outside the borders of our state is that education is a priority."

As the governor talked, the students laid down their screwdrivers and froze 
in respectful attention.

"He seems like a good dude," said A. J. Harris, a 16-year-old junior who 
had traveled three hours by bus, as Mr. Musgrove toured the work stations 
in a red sweater, an open-collared shirt and khakis. "I'm just glad to be 
here. Making computers is something I just like to do."

A. J. estimated that he had made 20 computers since he started the class 
this year. As a result, he said, he can no longer look at computers the way 
he used to. "When we had problems with a couple of desktops we have at 
school, we used to have to call tech people," he said. "Now we can fix our 
own problems."

Chase Caldwell, a junior at Durant High School, 50 miles north of Jackson, 
said his computer-building experience there had turned him into a "tech." 
His teacher, Sharon Mullen, said the class had helped transform Chase from 
a quiet, withdrawn student into a more confident, capable one. His prowess 
with chips and circuits earned him a job at the local Radio Shack, she 
said. She also noted that he even joined the governor at the lectern to 
speak about the program.

At her school, Ms. Mullen said, the computer class is not limited to the 
academically gifted but is oriented toward students who are likely to 
benefit from its hands-on approach. In the past, hands-on tasks have been 
seen as the stuff of vocational training. But with the computer course, 
"this is a hands-on academic program," she said. For many students, it was 
an irresistible combination.

The only thing that Cliff Shackleford, a 17-year-old senior who is a 
hulking left guard for his school's football team, loves more than football 
is building computers. He said he was so inspired by building computers at 
Hernando High School, in the northwest corner of the state, that he was 
forming a computer repair company with two school friends.

Such ambitions are now commonplace, said Robin Costa, president of the 
Maddox Foundation, a philanthropic organization that has supported 
ExplorNet. She said she became involved with the governor's initiative to 
get computers into Mississippi classrooms after moving to the state from 
Nashville and noticing that her daughter had no computer in her elementary 
school classroom.

One of the most exciting results, she said, is not only that computers are 
being placed in classrooms, but that the students who built them are 
learning marketable skills. Preparing students for certification as 
computer technicians is an important goal of the program.

Alan Moore, who graduated last year from Durant High School, said that 
studying and building computers in school gave him enough practical 
experience to land a job as a sales associate and computer technician at an 
electronics store.

"Before the class I was reading a lot out of books," said Mr. Moore, 20. 
Now, he said, he is preparing for his A-plus certification as a computer 
technician while pursuing a degree in computer science at Holmes Community 
College. The background he acquired in high school also helped him set up a 
small computer assembly and repair business that he operates from his home, 
he said.

Such testimonials are not lost on Tawane Burks, 17. At Port Gibson High 
School, where he is a senior, Tawane is generally seen as the resident 
computer guru, geek and gadfly. After building at least 100 computers in 
class and during the six-week summer effort, he acknowledges that he has 
acquired a sort of circuit-board green thumb.

"People come and ask me things," he said, as he hovered over several open 
computers at the Blitz Build. "Most of the time it's teachers asking. It 
makes me feel good."

When he is not building computers and going to school, he works with his 
father and brother for his uncle's construction company, building houses 
and putting on roofs. Until the computer course came along, he said, he was 
content with the prospect of joining the family business when he finished 
high school and perhaps one day starting his own construction company.

But now, Tawane said, nodding at a newly assembled computer, "this is what 
I want to do."
*********************************
New York Times
December 19, 2002
Study Seeks Technology Safeguards for Privacy
By JOHN MARKOFF

The Pentagon has released a study that recommends the government pursue 
specific technologies as potential safeguards against the misuse of 
data-mining systems similar to those now being considered by the government 
to track civilian activities electronically in the United States and abroad.

The study, "Security and Privacy," was commissioned in late 2001 before the 
advent of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness system, which is under 
the leadership of Dr. John M. Poindexter, national security adviser in the 
Reagan administration. The study was conducted by a group of civilian and 
military researchers, the Information Sciences and Technologies Study 
Group, or ISAT, which meets annually to review technology problems.

A Washington privacy group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, 
filed a Freedom of Information request last month with the Pentagon's 
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, and made the report 
available yesterday.

The privacy group had asked the military to release documents relating to 
any review of the privacy implications of the Total Information Awareness 
system. Yesterday a group official said the study did not appear to be a 
complete response to its request. "They seem to be saying they have made no 
assessment of the privacy issues raised by the Total Information Awareness 
system," said David Sobel, general counsel for the group. "It's disturbing."

The study concludes that technologies can be adapted to permit surveillance 
while minimizing exposure of individual information. Those technologies 
include automated tracing of access to database records; the ability to 
hide individual identification while conducting searches of databases with 
millions of records; and the ability to segregate databases and to block 
access to people without authorization.

"Perhaps the strongest protection against abuse of information systems is 
Strong Audit mechanisms," the authors wrote. "We need to watch the watchers."

But several study participants said there was also widespread skepticism 
within the group about whether technological safeguards would protect privacy.

"It's laughable they gave our report in response" to the privacy group's 
request, said Barbara Simons, an ISAT member who is the former president of 
the Association of Computing Machinery. "We weren't looking at Total 
Information Awareness, and we weren't looking at policy issues."

The study was commissioned in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. It drew 
together 41 computer scientists and policy and civil liberties experts at 
several meetings this year.

The report specifically notes that it is not a review of the Total 
Information Awareness system or any other program. The authors also note 
that they intentionally focused only on technology, not on policy issues.

A Darpa spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Dr. Poindexter took over in February as director of the Information 
Awareness Office, one of two Darpa agencies created after Sept. 11 to 
combat new kinds of warfare.

The Information Awareness Office is developing a prototype of a system that 
might cast a vast electronic net to detect suspicious patterns of 
behavior  possibly alerting the authorities to terrorist attacks. But the 
prototype system has drawn angry reactions from privacy advocates and 
others because it could lead to elaborate monitoring of civilians.

The Information Awareness Office was a sponsor of the study, and Dr. 
Poindexter was a participant in one meeting, several participants said. Dr. 
Poindexter has said publicly that he has begun discussions with the 
National Academy of Science to finance a long-range study of the privacy 
implications of new surveillance technologies.
********************************
Federal Computer Week
Balutis in talks to leave FGIPC
BY Judi Hasson
Dec. 18, 2002

Top officials of two information technology associations will meet with 
Alan Balutis on Dec. 19 to negotiate his departure as the executive 
director of the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils 
(FGIPC), a collection of professional groups that fosters communication 
among federal IT managers and users and industry.

In recent months, Balutis has come under fire from the corporate members of 
the Industry Advisory Council (IAC), one of the largest FGIPC councils, for 
accepting consulting work from several companies that are members of the 
organization he heads. IAC represents more than 400 IT contractors, which 
compete for billions of dollars' worth of business with the federal government.

Many corporate members raised the concern that Balutis' consulting work 
presented a conflict of interest. They were concerned that he may favor 
those companies he works with by choosing those members to run important 
committees, meetings or other organization functions.

FCW Media Group, parent company of Federal Computer Week, FCW.com and the 
E-Gov conferences, is a member of IAC and hired Balutis as a consultant to 
help develop content over the past two years for the company's conferences 
and events.

In November, the IAC and FGIPC boards sent Balutis a letter informing him 
that he must discontinue all his consulting work if he wanted to remain 
FGIPC director. Last week, Balutis responded, saying he would depart 
effective Jan. 31, but he seeks an exit package from his 
$138,000-a-year-plus-bonuses job as part of the deal, according to two 
sources who declined to be identified for this article.

Balutis plans to meet Dec. 19 with John Ortego, president of FGIPC and the 
director of the Agriculture Department's National Finance Center in New 
Orleans, and Bob Woods, chairman of the IAC Executive Committee and 
president of education services at Affiliated Computer Services Inc., to 
negotiate his departure, according to sources. Ortego declined to comment.

James Buckner, the former president of FGIPC and chief information officer 
at the Army Materiel Command who helped hire Balutis, said in an interview 
that Balutis was hired with the understanding that he could have outside 
work as long as it did not conflict with FGIPC and IAC activities.

"It is not in his signed contract. I went back and looked. That was a final 
negotiating process that we handled face to face verbally with a 
handshake," Buckner said.

Balutis declined to comment.

Sources close to the former Commerce Department deputy chief information 
officer said this week that he had informed his small staff at FGIPC 
headquarters that he planned to leave.

Other sources said Balutis has never provided the FGIPC board with a list 
of his consulting work. However, he has done work for Computer Sciences 
Corp., Accenture, Aquilent Inc. and webMethods Inc., according to one 
source. He also served on the federal advisory board of Sigaba Corp., 
according to Joanne Connelly, vice president of Sigaba's public-sector unit.

Robert Guerra, Balutis' close friend and a partner in the recently formed 
federal IT consulting firm Guerra, Kiviat & Flyzik, compared Balutis to 
basketball great Michael Jordan. "By analogy, the Chicago Bulls, when they 
had Michael Jordan, won three national championships," he said. "When 
Michael Jordan went to play [baseball], the Chicago Bulls became a mediocre 
team."

Guerra, who characterized Balutis' imminent departure as heartbreaking, 
added that the IAC and FGIPC boards have made a mistake in losing Balutis. 
"If I were running the IAC right now, I would be doing every single thing I 
could to keep Alan with us," he said. "I think he's an incredibly talented 
guy. I think he's done an incredible job in building IAC back to what it 
ought to be."
*****************************
Federal Computer Week
Navy XML policy signed
BY Matthew French
Dec. 18, 2002

Navy chief information officer David Wennergren has signed the Navy's 
Extensible Markup Language policy, setting the standard for how XML will be 
used within the service. XML facilitates information exchange among 
applications and systems because it enables agencies to tag data and documents.

"Interoperability is a cornerstone of [the Navy Department's] efforts to 
strengthen its independent operations and, subsequently, improve the 
warfighter's ability to find, retrieve, process and exchange information," 
Wennergren said in a Dec. 13 statement to Navy commanders. "The department, 
like many government and private-sector organizations, has increasingly 
looked to XML technology to meet its data-sharing needs." The policy's 
overall goals are to promote XML as a technology to help achieve 
interoperability throughout the Navy and serve as a guideline to support 
interoperability among the Navy and other DOD components.

Michael Jacobs, chairman of the Navy's XML Working Group, said five teams 
each would have a different responsibility in determining the best way to 
begin implementing the policy. However, a timeline has yet to be 
established for when XML deployment across the Navy would be completed.

The Navy's XML standard, which also applies to the Marine Corps, already 
has received high marks from other government XML leaders.

"I read their policy document and found it to be excellent and 
comprehensive  the best I have seen in the federal government, or anywhere 
for that matter," said Brand Niemann, a computer scientist and XML Web 
services solutions architect with the Environmental Protection Agency. 
Niemann also heads the XML Web Services Working Group established by the 
CIO Council.

"Successful XML implementation requires a firm commitment to coordination," 
Wennergren said. "I strongly encourage [the commanders] to review and 
adhere to the policy, which is crucial to our work to foster XML 
coordination among DON programs and commands."
*******************************
Government Computer News
12/18/02
Homeland Security Department surfaces on Web
By Wilson P. Dizard III

The White House's Homeland Security Office and the Office of Personnel 
Management have been rallying prospective federal homeland security workers 
via a Web site intended to answer their questions about the new department 
and transition matters, a senior transition official said.

The site at www.dhs.gov/employees features a collection of documents and 
official announcements about the Homeland Security Department. It also 
gives employees a way to supply feedback to the administration.

"In the weeks ahead we're looking at launching a weekly electronic 
newsletter for employees and, as I said, other roundtables and things like 
that with employees, given our focus on employee communications," the 
official said at a background briefing yesterday.

The administration's concern for creating a unified corporate mission and 
culture via the Web site and employee communications also was reflected in 
Homeland Security secretary-designate Tom Ridge's meeting with prospective 
department employees yesterday, during which he took questions about the 
transition. The Web site includes a webcast of the HSD town hall meeting, 
which had about 600 attendees from the 22 agencies that will be merged into 
the new department.

Administration officials expect Ridge to be confirmed quickly by the Senate 
and for the administration to hold a swearing-in ceremony Jan. 24. March 1 
is set as the first "real day of the new department," according to the 
official, when the department's public Web site, www.dhs.gov, will go live.

The administration's transition team for the department has about 140 
employees, the official said.

The employee homeland security Web site went live July 10 but was somewhat 
static during the autumn while Congress debated homeland security 
legislation. The senior transition official said the site now would be 
updated routinely as a communications vehicle for the department.
********************************
Government Computer News
Group forms to study tax-related XML standards
By Patricia Daukantas
GCN Staff

The IRS and tax officials from other countries have formed a technical 
committee to devise an international open standard for exchanging tax data 
via Extensible Markup Language.

The Tax XML Technical Committee sprang from growing requests to improve 
methods for countries to exchange tax data electronically, said Gregory 
Carson, director of electronic tax administration modernization for the 
IRS' Wage and Investment Operating Division. Carson is serving as interim 
chairman of the fledgling group.

The technical committee was formed under the auspices of an 
electronic-business standards consortium, the Organization for the 
Advancement of Structured Information Standards of Billerica, Mass. As 
interest in XML and related Web-services standards has grown, OASIS has 
been organizing new committees to meet the demand, including one on 
e-government standards.

For several years IRS officials have worked with the Federation of Tax 
Administrators, a group representing revenue officials in the 50 states and 
several other jurisdictions, and with the electronic data interchange group 
of the American National Standards Institute, Carson said.

Much of the data IRS exchanges with its foreign counterparts still gets 
shipped on paper or magnetic media, instead of over networks. In response 
to that, the IRS invited about 30 participants to a three-day meeting last 
spring in Williamsburg, Va., Carson said. The meeting encouraged attendees 
to work toward establishing a formal organization to study data-exchange 
standards for tax agencies.

The Tax XML Technical Committee attracted about 50 participants, both in 
person and via teleconference, to its first meeting last week at the XML 
2002 conference in Baltimore, Carson said.

The next committee meeting is scheduled for Feb. 12. Members hope to start 
soliciting comments on a draft schema sometime next spring.

Carson said it's too early to say when the group would be ready to submit 
formal draft specifications to OASIS. "It's one of those things where the 
journey is more important than the destination," Carson said.

Carson said that he volunteered as the interim chairman mainly because the 
committee's first meeting was held in Baltimore. He said that he hopes 
someone from the European Union will become the group's permanent head so 
that the group is not perceived as a U.S.-dominated effort.
******************************
Government Computer News
FCC survey finds broadband use on the rise
By Lloyd Batzler

The number of businesses and homes with high-speed connections to the 
Internet grew 27 percent in the first six months of the year, to 16.2 
million lines, the Federal Communications Commission reports.

In its semiannual survey of broadband services released Tuesday, the FCC 
found that 10.4 million of those lines provided "advanced services," 
defined as speeds exceeding 200 Kbps in both directions.

Cable modem connections grew 30 percent, reaching 9.2 million lines. 
Asymmetric digital subscriber lines were up 29 percent, to 5.1 million 
lines, the FCC said.

Predictably, high-speed connections were more prevalent in wealthier 
neighborhoods. California has the highest number of broadband connections, 
followed by New York, Florida and Texas, the FCC said.

Compared with a year earlier, the pace of connections slowed. In the same 
six months of 2001, the number of subscribers increased 33 percent.

The FCC collects the statistics to monitor and analyze broadband deployment.

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/hspd1202.pdf
****************************
Los Angeles Times
Judge May Exclude J.P. Morgan E-Mails
By David Voreacos
Bloomberg News

December 19 2002

E-mails from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s vice chairman describing 
transactions as "disguised loans" are so "explosive," a federal judge said, 
that he might exclude them at a fraud trial involving 11 insurers.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff is weighing whether to let jurors review 
e-mails from Donald Layton in a lawsuit filed by J.P. Morgan against 
insurers seeking to force them to pay $1 billion on surety bonds backing 
gas and oil transactions involving Enron Corp. The insurers refused to pay 
after Enron's collapse, saying the bank masked loans to Enron as oil and 
gas trades involving an offshore entity.

Rakoff said Tuesday that he was leaning against admitting the e-mails 
because Layton didn't write them about transactions at issue in the trial. 
Rather, the e-mails described Layton's 1999 review of internal accounting 
when the bank advanced cash in certain commodities or equities derivative 
transactions.

"What makes this a close call is that the use of the term 'disguised loans' 
is an explosive one in the context of this case," Rakoff said.

Layton testified at the hearing, where the contents of several of the 
e-mails were revealed. He said he began reviewing how the bank recorded 
certain transactions after learning about a complicated equities derivative 
in Hong Kong that he thought was handled improperly.

"We are making disguised loans, usually buried in commodities or equities 
derivatives," Layton wrote in an e-mail. "They are understood to be 
disguised loans and approved as such. But I am queasy about the process."

In another e-mail, Layton said the phrase "disguised loans" was "a 
pejorative phrase even if generally accurate." He suggested that a more 
accurate phrase would be "derivatives-based fundings."

At the hearing, Layton said none of the 1999 e-mails referred to 
transactions involving Enron, which sold oil and gas to a bank-sponsored 
entity, Mahonia Ltd. He said he used the phrase "disguised loans" as a 
colloquial expression to refer to cash disbursed upfront in certain 
commodities transactions.

He said he got e-mails from a bank employee in late 1998 describing the 
Enron transactions, although he didn't recall them when he wrote his 
e-mails six months later. He said he learned of the Enron-Mahonia 
transactions only around the time of the energy trader's bankruptcy filing 
in December 2001.
******************************

Lillie Coney
Public Policy Coordinator
U.S. Association for Computing Machinery
Suite 510
2120 L Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20037
202-478-6124
lillie.coney@xxxxxxx


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Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

Welcome to the December 9, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 432
Date: December 9, 2002

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Top Stories for Monday, December 9, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Communications Executives Endorse Security Regulations"
"E-Mail Overload Is a Myth, Study Says"
"Wanted: a Few Good Hackers"
"Wireless Research Senses the Future"
"Digital Copyright Law Up for Challenge"
"Lawmaker Reviving Failed E-Waste Bill"
"I.B.M. Plans to Announce Tiny Transistor"
"ICANN At-Large Reps Can Keep Jobs"
"Robot Space Cowboys"
"Software Giants 'Trample Freedoms'"
"New Year to Bring Nastier Viruses Yet"
"Clothes Make the Network"
"Is Big Brother Our Only Hope Against Bin Laden?"
"When the Web Starts Thinking for Itself"
"Feds Spark High-End Computing Resurgence"
"Took a Licking, Kept on Ticking"
"England Tests E-Voting"

******************* News Stories ***********************

"Communications Executives Endorse Security Regulations"
A 300-item to-do list released on Friday by the Network
Reliability and Interoperability Council recommends what the
communications sector should do to ensure network security
against terrorist attacks.  The panel said that these suggestions ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item1

"E-Mail Overload Is a Myth, Study Says"
The Pew Internet & American Life Project says not as many U.S.
workers feel overwhelmed by email as is widely thought.  In all,
around 60% of 1,003 workers surveyed by telephone reported
getting 10 or fewer email messages per day.  Just 4% of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item2

"Wanted: a Few Good Hackers"
The federal government is eyeing hacking as a way to solve some
of its computer security problems, including helping it find
critical software vulnerabilities and stopping the trade of
pirated digital content.  White House cybersecurity advisor ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item3

"Wireless Research Senses the Future"
Deborah Estrin, director of UCLA's Center for Embedded Network
Sensing, foresees future applications of wireless technology that
will dramatically change the way people handle resource
management, transportation, and medicine, to name a few areas.  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item4

"Digital Copyright Law Up for Challenge"
With the deadline for submitting public comments on the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to the Copyright Office coming up
in less than a week's time, experts are advising people on how to
best present their case for exemptions.  Computer programmer Seth ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item5

"Lawmaker Reviving Failed E-Waste Bill"
California Sen. Byron Sher (D-San Jose) intends to reintroduce a
bill that would attach a $10 fee to the purchase of new computers
monitors and TVs in order to fund national e-waste recycling
programs.  This comes on the heels of Hewlett-Packard's change of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item6

"I.B.M. Plans to Announce Tiny Transistor"
IBM researchers this week will report on a transistor that
measures just nine nanometers long; a typical human hair is at
least 3,000 times wider than a nanometer.  The researchers, led
by Meikel Leong, will present their work at the annual ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item7

"ICANN At-Large Reps Can Keep Jobs"
ICANN will extend the terms of its elected board members into
early 2003 as part of the ICANN reform transition process.  ICANN
board member Karl Auerbach says that ICANN is doing so for
appearances only, and he predicts that elected board members will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item8

"Robot Space Cowboys"
Wei-Min Shen and Peter Will of the University of Southern
California's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) have proposed a
project in which robots using "hormonal" software would assemble
a space station without human intervention.  Under the aegis of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item9

"Software Giants 'Trample Freedoms' "
Richard Stallman continues to call for an end to proprietary
software, and as president of the Free Software Foundation he is
also leading an effort to develop the Gnu operating system that
can be used without restriction.  The open source movement has ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item10

"New Year to Bring Nastier Viruses Yet"
Virus expert Daniel Zatz, a consultant at Sydney-based Computer
Associates, predicts that next year's viruses are likely to be
more dangerous than ever.  Some 250 viruses have emerged every
month in 2002, while 400 per month were released in 2001, but the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item11

"Clothes Make the Network"
Wireless wearable technology could spur the formation of what
Lancaster University's Gerd Kortuem calls "ad hoc communities" in
which people with similar interests and tastes can network and
participate in social activities--resource sharing, gaming, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item12

"Is Big Brother Our Only Hope Against Bin Laden?"
The U.S. Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA)
program is an ambitious effort to collate all personal
data--business transactions, relationships, registrations,
etc.--on foreigners and citizens in an effort to spot suspicious ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item13

"When the Web Starts Thinking for Itself"
The semantic Web of Tim Berners-Lee is viewed as a way to
fundamentally improve searching and data exchange on the Web.
Using technologies such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML),
Resource Description Framework (RDF), ontologies, and intelligent ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item14

"Feds Spark High-End Computing Resurgence"
Speakers at ACM's recent Supercomputer 2002 conference said that
federal agencies are focusing and investing in projects that
could lead to renewed demand for supercomputers. Moreover, National
Science Foundation (NSF) Director Rita Colwell emphasized that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item15

"Took a Licking, Kept on Ticking"
On Oct. 21, the Internet's 13 root servers received a flood of
useless information that was intended to crash the servers by
boosting traffic levels to about 1000% above normal
traffic.  The four U.S.-based root servers--some of which are ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item16

"England Tests E-Voting"
Nine jurisdictions in the United Kingdom tested remote electronic
voting systems in May, and the results were generally
satisfactory, according to Thomas Barry of the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister.  The technologies used included ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.html#item17


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