Clips July 16, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips July 16, 2003

ARTICLES

Agencies encouraged to make contractors cater to their tech needs 
Fake Goods Support Terrorism, Interpol Official Is to Testify
Linux reaches Afghanistan
Printing détente [Gov. Printing Office]
OMB sets plan for next-generation e-gov efforts 
VA?s health services portal to launch in September 
Panel chair will push for cybersecurity standards in private sector 
Agencies' electronic storage of records lags, archivists say 
Senate Commerce Committee backs spectrum trust fund 
Warning center for cyber attacks is online, official says 
Senate Considers Killing Pentagon Surveillance Bill 
Cyberstalking becoming bigger problem
Farmer offers rental cows on Internet [E-Commerce]
Cadmium Exposure Mimics Estrogen  
FCC Adopts Homeland Security Initiatives
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Government Executive
July 15, 2003 
Agencies encouraged to make contractors cater to their tech needs 
By Amelia Gruber
agruber@xxxxxxxxxxx 

Federal agencies should encourage contractors to design technology that meets their needs, rather than adapting to products already on the market, a former Office of Management and Budget official said Tuesday. 


?We have to begin to shape the commercial marketplace,? said Jerry Williams, deputy chief information officer at the Small Business Administration. Williams, who formerly worked in OMB?s financial services branch, spoke before an audience of managers involved in selecting new financial management software for the Labor Department. 


Labor plans to purchase efficient, user-friendly technology to replace its current financial management system, which dates back to 1989 according to a recent report from the General Accounting Office (03-903R). To facilitate the buying process, the department invited six software companies to showcase their financial management products Tuesday. Four companiesOracle Corp., PeopleSoft, American Management Systems Inc. and SAPparticipated. 


When speaking with software vendors, Labor Department managers should have a clear idea of the capabilities they would like to see in new technology, Williams said. This idea should be based on the department?s needs, rather than on what managers have already seen out in the marketplace, he said. They should not feel limited by the software packages that already exist, Williams added. 


The Labor Department has developed a vision of what the ideal financial management software would help it accomplish, according to Samuel Mok, the department?s chief financial officer. A new system would be user-friendly and would allow managers to easily access up-to-date information about program costs, he said. It would also allow the department to spend less time processing financial transactions. Eventually, Mok hopes that Labor?s financial office will spend 20 percent of its time processing transactions, as opposed to the 60 percent currently allotted to transactions. 


Even though Labor has received clean audits in recent years and been recognized for various achievements in financial management, the department still has plenty of room for improvement, Mok said. Labor earned a yellow light in financial management on the Office of Management and Budget?s latest traffic-light style management scorecard. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0703/071403a1.htm

With new technology in place, Labor Department managers should be able to build on previous progress in implementing the President?s Management Agenda, Mok said. The new system will make it easier for them to send reliable financial data to officials quickly, for example. These officials will in turn be able to use the data to make informed policy decisions. 

Labor hopes to pick a vendor to provide software for its new system within a year, said department spokesman Greg James. Anna Hui, special assistant to the chief financial officer, would not disclose the value of the contract, but said it would be a multi-year agreement. In May, Labor awarded Savantage Solutions, an information technology consulting company, with a contract to help manage the software selection process.
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New York Times
July 16, 2003
Fake Goods Support Terrorism, Interpol Official Is to Testify
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, July 15  Groups like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah have turned to trafficking in counterfeit consumer goods, like fake Nike shoes, Sony stereo equipment and Calvin Klein jeans, says the top official at Interpol, who is scheduled to testify about the issue on Wednesday at a Congressional hearing.

"The link between organized crime groups and counterfeit goods is well established," states the written testimony by Ronald K. Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, to be presented at the House Committee on International Relations. "But Interpol is sounding the alarm that intellectual property crime is becoming the preferred method of funding for a number of terrorist groups."

The booming international trade in phony consumer goods has long been known and its links to terrorist groups often suspected by government agencies. But Congressional officials said that Mr. Noble's testimony was the first by a senior law enforcement official to conclude emphatically, on a global basis, that the trade in counterfeit consumer products financed terrorism.

Mr. Noble's appearance is the first time an Interpol secretary general has testified to a Congressional panel. A former senior official at the Justice and Treasury Departments, Mr. Noble took over in 2000 at Interpol, which coordinates information among police and security services in 181 countries.

Representative Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois and chairman of the International Relations Committee, states in his prepared remarks that intellectual property crimes and terrorism have until recently been thought of as separate issues. 

"Law enforcement and the intelligence community have been telling us that a growing concern is the convergence of different types of illicit activities in order to further the gains of clandestine activities and operations," Mr. Hyde said in his written statement.

In his testimony, Mr. Noble said that the trade in illegal products ranged widely, from counterfeit cigarette trafficking by paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland to ethnic-Albanian extremist groups in Kosovo where Mr. Noble said a "significant proportion" of consumer goods like computer software, shoes and clothes were fakes.

In the United States, investigators have said the trade in counterfeit products flourishes in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Miami, where phony products with well-known brand names are sold in shops and by vendors on the streets. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated in 2002 that the cost to American businesses was $200 billion to $250 billion a year.

"Trafficking in counterfeit goods is a relatively easy criminal activity," Mr. Noble's testimony said. "A terrorist could make profit solely from sales of counterfeit or pirated goods and does not need to be involved in the actual production or fabrication. Thus there are relatively low entry costs and the illicit profit margins are high."

Larry C. Johnson, a consultant on international product counterfeiting, who is also scheduled to testify at the hearing, states in his prepared testimony that over the years traditional financial support from countries in the Middle East and elsewhere had dried up.

"Consequently, terrorist groups turned to a variety of activities, including charitable contributions, narcotics trafficking, cigarette smuggling and I believe selling counterfeit products," Mr. Johnson said.

But Mr. Noble said that law enforcement agencies around the world had generally not aggressively investigated such crimes, which often carry relatively low fines and prison sentences when offenders are convicted. 
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BBC Online
Linux reaches Afghanistan

Afghanistan is being rebuilt with the help of the Linux operating system. 
The United Nations is training civil servants in the intricacies of the software to help them get government computer systems up and running. 

The first civil servants to complete their training in Linux went back to work earlier this month. 

The UN hopes that training government workers to use Linux will help the country close the technology gap that separates it from many other countries. 

Basic skills 

Working with Afghanistan's Ministry of Communications, the UN Development Program has been putting civil servants through classes that familiarise them with the open source Linux operating system. 
 
Broadly free, Linux is becoming a favourite among many organisations who want greater control over what they can do with software. 

In contrast to Microsoft operating systems, Linux gives programmers much greater flexibility to scrutinise the core of the program and to adapt it to their own ends. 

Linux, built upon the venerable Unix operating system, is the creation of Linus Torvalds and its various incarnations have won huge numbers of fans because of this freedom to tinker. 

Initially, the UNDP has targetted technical staff to give them more in-depth skills that will help them end their reliance on external contractors and consultants and let them take charge of their own technology infrastructure. 

Already the Ministry of Communications is thinking about using its Linux experts to train other civil servants in computer use and to set up advanced network services. 

Without such training the UNDP fears that Afghanistan could get left behind by countries that are aggressively adopting computer and network technology. 

Wider and better use of technology would help Afghanistan government workers get more done, foster local initiatives and drive reconstruction of the country. 

The UNDP said that knowledge skills are essential to every nation and a vibrant pool of technically competent staff will help Afghanistan forge links with other countries. 
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Federal Computer Week
Printing détente
Commentary
BY J. Timothy Sprehe 
July 14, 2003

Are the printing wars over? Is it safe to come out? The battle that former Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels Jr. waged to eliminate the Government Printing Office seems to have ended amicably. Daniels and Public Printer Bruce James signed a treaty on Daniels' last day in office, June 6, and each side made substantial concessions.

OMB agreed to cease both the kill-GPO offensive and its campaign to revise the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to free executive agencies from GPO's printing monopoly. OMB also said it would place new limits on agencies' in-house printing operations, long a sore point with GPO.

For its part, GPO agreed to stop acting like a monopolist. The agency will establish a Web portal by 2005 that will permit the executive branch to deal directly with printers, something GPO had long prohibited. Agencies will be able to bargain over prices and negotiate matters of quality and timeliness. They will pay GPO a 3 percent service fee instead of the former 6 percent.

Last year, I denounced OMB for the arrogant and insolent manner in which it was attempting to abolish GPO, even though I agreed with the abolition in principle. Now, the long-running conflict seems resolved, although proof rests with how the agreement is carried out.

As an outsider, I can only make guesses as to the dynamics that led to the compromise. 

I am inclined to assume James took the lead in moving toward the resolution. As I remember, he is the only holder of that office who has been willing to negotiate with the executive branch about the conflict. Previous public printers have stood their ground and taken refuge in the law that many parties, myself included, consider unconstitutional. 

We must not underestimate the role members of Congress might have played in the peacemaking. In the past, some members have taken a simple position: GPO is ours and the executive branch has no business trying to kill it. Possibly, some of those members, perhaps Republicans, told Daniels he would get nowhere if he tried to change the law and that Congress would react punitively if he changed the FAR.

Whatever the dynamics, the negotiated agreement is a good one, with both sides giving up something and emerging with heads held high. 

The surprising part of all this is why Daniels bothered with GPO in the first place. Faced with deficits running into the hundreds of billions, he chose to focus his attention on printing, which costs the executive branch less than $1 billion a year. In terms of government economy and efficiency, the entire GPO hullabaloo was misspent time on Daniels' part, no matter how happy the outcome.

Sprehe is president of Sprehe Information Management Associates Inc. in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at jtsprehe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Government Computer News
07/15/03 
OMB sets plan for next-generation e-gov efforts 
By Jason Miller 

Agencies will submit business cases for a second round of e-government projects by Sept. 8, a senior administration official told lawmakers today. 

The Office of Management and Budget will accept cross-agency e-government proposals for four lines of business: public-health monitoring, criminal investigation, human resources administration and financial management. 

Mark Forman, OMB?s administrator for e-government and IT, detailed the efforts at a hearing of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census. 

The Health and Human Services Department, the Justice Department, the Office of Personnel Management and OMB have been leading teams that are analyzing possible collaborative efforts for the four areas, he said. 

Forman said the four areas cover 281 projects with an estimated value of $2.8 billion for fiscal 2004. OMB estimates the government can save roughly that same amount over the next five years through consolidating these projects under e-government initiatives in the four areas, he told the subcommittee. 

OMB originally identified six areas for cross-agency projects. But based on a recent analysis by Touchstone Consulting Inc. of Washington, OMB decided the four areas offer the largest opportunities for cost savings and efficiencies, Forman said. 

?There are billions of savings potentially possible on the IT and operations sides,? he said. ?We are looking at the convergence between business processes and operations.? 

The administration has not abandoned the other two areasmonetary benefits, and data and statisticsbut sees them as mainly benefiting two agencies. 

The Social Security Administration will submit a business case in September for a citizen payment services system based on the monetary benefits area, and the Census Bureau will establish an enterprise license for data and statistical software. 
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Government Executive
07/15/03 
VA?s health services portal to launch in September 
By Mary Mosquera 

The Veterans Affairs Department is ramping up its HealtheVet services portal for a nationwide release in mid-September. 

Through a contract VA awarded last week for just less than $1 million, HealthGate Data Corp. of Burlington, Mass., and PlanetGov Inc. of Chantilly, Va., will provide health care information and integration services for the system. 

The portal ultimately will give veterans secure access to their health records via an application called eVAult. It will let veterans personalize their accounts with links to information explaining their records and medical conditions. 

When fully interactive in April, veterans will be able to track their medical data and make appointments, refill prescriptions, enter self-taken information such as blood pressure and chart their conditions, said Ginger Price, VA?s acting director for health informatics strategy. 

Under the $921,500, one-year contract, HealthGate will provide up to 80,000 pages of health information on diseases and conditions and suites of health assessment tools. HealtheVet will go live nationally in mid-September as an information site, with clinical content on how to treat certain conditions and self-assessment features. Veterans will also find program offices and benefit information in one place, Price said. Currently, the service is available only to test users at VA medical centers in Bay Pines and Tampa, Fla.; Buffalo and Canandaigua, N.Y.; and Washington. VA will continue to collect data from the test users about the system?s performance as more features come online, Price said. 

Later this year, VA plans to add the prescription refill capability. Early next year, veterans will be able to view their co-pay balances, make appointments and enter self- metrics. In the last phase, the department will implement the health record feature, Price said. 

The Veterans Health Administration developed a HealtheVet pilot, working with EDS Corp. and Microsoft Corp. But when it fields the live portal, VA will switch to a Java platform and Oracle Corp. database and back-end applications.
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Federal Computer Week
July 10, 2003 
Panel chair will push for cybersecurity standards in private sector 
By Ted Leventhal, National Journal's Technology Daily 

A House subcommittee chairman on Thursday called the nation's preparations to defend against an attack on its computer networks "simply not acceptable" and vowed to offer legislation by the end of the year mandating computer-security standards for the private sector. 


Florida Republican Adam Putnam, chairman of the Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology offered that criticism at an e-government conference jointly sponsored by the Business Software Alliance and Center for Strategic and International Studies.


Texas Republican Pete Sessions, vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cyber Security, and Zoe Lofgren, the ranking Democrat on that panel, echoed Putnam's point. They also said key immigration databases are not networked, leaving the nation vulnerable to infiltration by terrorists. 


"We want to begin the [legislative] process before a major disaster happens," Putnam said. The bills on the issue will be "a meaningful approach to securing cyber architecture." 


Putnam said he came to the issue with an open mind and was not predisposed toward "knee-jerk regulation." But he said the consistent failure of businesses to secure their networks warrants congressional action. "It is incumbent on the private sector to get their house in order," he said. 


He also criticized the Bush administration and Congress for not taking the issue seriously. "There's a lack of attention and understanding by Congress and the administration as to the serious nature of the threat," he said. "It's not as sexy or engaging as protecting against the terrorist threat to airplanes or the Brooklyn Bridge." 


He reserved special criticism for the security of federal computer networks, noting that all of them had failed annual security audits. "As much as I place blame on the federal government, much of the blame is due Congress," he said. "We are not exercising the level of oversight that we should have" over the government's technology purchases and security operations. 


Lofgren and Sessions said their committee will hold hearings during the next weeks to take testimony from private-sector computer-security experts. 


"I think many aspects of the government related to security are in the dark ages," Lofgren said. "Until we get technology deployed in the immigration area, we will be highly vulnerable." A "watch list" of potential terrorists has not been deployed, she added, and 100 key immigration databases cannot communicate with each other. 


She noted that confusion about immigration policy has kept out the United States foreign students who otherwise will pursue higher education in Europe.

"Fifty-three percent of the universities in America reported that foreign students missed their first semester due to immigration problems," she said. "We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we allow the best minds in the world to go to Germany or France instead." 


"It was inconceivable to me that 10 weeks after the [Sept. 11, 2001,] attacks the government admitted for citizenship two of the terrorists who were on those planes," Sessions added. That showed that on the issue of security, government was "completely asleep at the wheel."
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Government Executive
July 8, 2003 
Agencies' electronic storage of records lags, archivists say 
By Ted Leventhal, National Journal's Technology Daily 

Federal agencies have fallen behind in efforts to adapt record-keeping to the digital era, senior officials with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told a House Government Reform subcommittee Tuesday.

At Technology Subcommittee hearing, lawmakers questioned government witnesses on how to improve agency efforts to select and prepare electronic documents for archiving. 

"Many agencies have not fulfilled their obligation to confer with NARA about the progress of their records-management plans," said Subcommittee Chairman Adam Putnam, R-Fla. "While NARA has been charged with oversight responsibility regarding these important matters, they have been provided little, if any, authority to enforce compliance."

Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at the General Accounting Office, said rapid changes in information technology are leaving behind electronic records that no longer can be read. "For example, few computers today have disk drives that can read information stored on 8- or 5-1/2-inch diskettes, even if the diskettes remain readable," she said. "Unless these challenges are addressed, valuable government information may be lost forever." 

Koontz said problems stem from the fact that federal agencies create records with different technologies in a decentralized environment and assign a low priority to record-keeping. NARA recently has improved its e-records policy, she added, but needs to start inspecting agency records to ensure that historic data is safely retained. 

"Until NARA fully addresses the need to assess and improve agency records-management programs and develop an implementation plan," she said, "the risk is increased that records-management programs will continue to show the weaknesses that led to the scheduling and disposition problems that we and NARA described in earlier work."

U.S. Archivist John Carlin said the past decade has seen "significant progress" in the creation of software products to manage electronic records. He noted, however, that deploying the systems in the federal government is expensive and time-consuming, so many agencies print electronic files for storage, even though the files cannot be rendered well on paper. 

Carlin singled out the Defense Department for exemplary progress in storing electronic records and endorsed its Standard 5015.2 software for use by all federal agencies.

L. Reynolds Cahoon, NARA's chief information officer, said NARA is still developing technology to store and view e-records independent of the programs that originally created them.

"We have been very conservative with the technologies that we have transferred into the archives," Cahoon said. He noted that until recently, only documents based in the ASCII format and other "flat file" formats were stored. Today, documents in PDF format and other files are allowed, and NARA is gradually accepting more file formats and standards.

"We do believe that NARA is in a very important position to set standards for electronic document storage," he said. 
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Government Executive
June 26, 2003 
Senate Commerce Committee backs spectrum trust fund 
By Teri Rucker, National Journal's Technology Daily 

The Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would create a trust fund to reimburse government spectrum users who are reallocated to new spectrum to make way for commercial services. 


The panel also approved an amendment, over the objections of President Bush and the committee chairman, that would benefit Northpoint Communications and could harm the bill's chances on the Senate floor.

The bill, H.R. 1320, would require the creation of a trust fund to pay for the costs incurred when a government spectrum user, such as the Defense Department, is moved to another swath of spectrum to make way for commercial services. The money for the fund would be derived from the proceeds when spectrum is auctioned. 


The House approved the bill on a 408-10 vote earlier this month. It is based on a proposal crafted by the Bush administration. 


Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said he intends to offer an amendment during floor debate that would require the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to submit to the Senate and House Appropriations and Commerce committees and to the comptroller general a copy of the cost estimates and timelines for reallocating spectrum. Congress and the comptroller would have the ability to approve or reject the proposal. 


Stevens offered the amendment in committee but withdrew it over concerns voiced by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. Stevens noted that he would work with Byrd to resolve the issues. 


The panel approved on a 13-8 vote an amendment offered that would reserve the band of spectrum from 12.2 gigahertz to 12.7 GHz for fixed-terrestrial communications services. The amendment stipulates that the spectrum could not be used for mobile telephone services. 


That band of spectrum and the terrestrial services are well-suited to help rural areas receive high-speed Internet services and broadcast signals, said New Hampshire Republican John Sununu, who offered the language with Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. 


He garnered support from many lawmakers who represent rural areas. Backers of the amendment included: John Breaux, D-La.; Conrad Burns, R-Mont.; Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; Trent Lott, R-Miss.; and Stevens. 


"I strongly oppose this amendment," said committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., noting that the Bush administration, the wireless telephone industry and others also oppose it. Committee ranking Democrat Ernest (Fritz) Hollings of South Carolina also objected, asking that if spectrum is given to one company, "do we have to give everybody free spectrum?" 


Stevens noted that fixed-terrestrial services are the only way that many rural areas will receive the same services as urban areas, but he acknowledged that the proposal was the result of pleas from one company. "We know what it is; it's Northpoint," Stevens said. 


Northpoint Communications brought its proposal to the FCC seeking access to the spectrum without success and then turned its sights on Congress. After the markup, industry sources noted that the amendment could hurt the bill's prospects on the floor. 
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Government Executive
June 25, 2003 
Warning center for cyber attacks is online, official says 
By Bara Vaida, National Journal's Technology Daily 

A national early-warning network and analysis center for cyber attacks is operating in 30 locations, a senior White House official said on Wednesday. 


Paul Kurtz, a special assistant to President Bush and senior director for critical infrastructure protection in the Homeland Security Council, said the Cyber Warning and Information Network (CWIN) has begun operating, and administration officials are working to add state and local officials to the network. 


"It's not a first-responders network," Kurtz said at a cybersecurity conference organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Information Technology Industry Council. "But we've been hearing a lot of questions about how we'll share information ... and CWIN is just the beginning" of that information-sharing effort. 


CWIN was an idea of former White House cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke, who in October 2001 said creating such an early-warning system would be a top priority as part of the government's efforts for bolstering network security. Two information-sharing and analysis centers for various sectors of the economy already have joined the network, with more expected to join by year's end. 


CWIN was to be modeled after the existing National Operations and Intelligence Watch Offices Network, which connects senior officials at the Pentagon, National Security Agency, White House, State Department and CIA by phone within 15 seconds, Clarke said in 2001. 


CWIN "is being used just a little bit ... and we will need greater assistance" from the private sector, Kurtz said. "But there is movement on the ground." 


Kurtz also outlined the role of the White House Homeland Security Council, which is modeled after the National Security Council. He said the Homeland Security Council's main goal is to make sure the Homeland Security Department is successful, as well as to work with all federal agencies to coordinate homeland security efforts. 


He emphasized the importance of the private sector continuing to work with the government to answer ongoing questions, such as "what is the cyber infrastructure, what is the role of the federal government and what is the proper role of state and local officials in protecting computer networks?" He also said the Bush administration philosophy is to let the private sector find market-based solutions to security before seeking "government remedies." 


Other panelists at the event spoke about their companies' efforts to play a role in homeland security. For example, Frank Koester, vice president of technical operations at Eastman Kodak, highlighted a technology standard called JPEG 2000 that enables the sharing of digital imaging to help emergency workers do their jobs.

Tom Richey, director of homeland security at Microsoft, noted that his company's software has met national security standards for intelligence sharing and that his firm is bolstering the security of its current systems and products. And Bill Boni, chief information security officer at Motorola, outlined his firm's efforts to make wireless systems more secure. 
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Washington Post
Senate Considers Killing Pentagon Surveillance Bill 
By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, July 15, 2003; 7:38 PM 
WASHINGTON  Without fanfare, senators debating defense spending for next year have proposed eliminating all money for the Pentagon's development of a vast computerized terrorism surveillance program that has raised privacy concerns.

In the past, Congress has limited the Defense Department's ability to implement the system now known as Terrorism Information Awareness while allowing research to proceed, but the new provision goes further to ban funding outright.

"No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Defense ... or to any other department, agency or element of the federal government, may be obligated or expended on research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness program," the provision says.

Jan Walker, spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where the program is being developed and tested under the supervision of retired Adm. John Poindexter, declined to comment on the provision. But the administration sent Congress an analysis of the proposed defense bill that said the provision would "deny an important potential tool in the war on terrorism."

The overall bill contains $368.6 billion for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

Poindexter's plan is to develop computer software that can scan vast public and private databases of commercial transactions and personal data around the world to provide advance warning of terrorist attacks.

Concerned that the records of millions of law-abiding Americans would be subjected to government scrutiny, Congress earlier this year enacted an amendment offered by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The Wyden amendment, which expires Sept. 30, bans use of any funds, without further specific consent from Congress, to implement the surveillance program domestically against U.S. citizens. The amendment allows continued research and implementation abroad against anyone and in this country against non-U.S. citizens.

Testing of early components of the system has begun at the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command.

The Senate defense spending bill, like the similar one passed by the House last week, also contains language that would extend the Wyden amendment for another year, until Sept. 30, 2004.

The tougher language banning research was backed by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, the ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and had tacit approval from committee Chairman Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, according to an individual familiar with the progress of the legislation who requested anonymity.

Asked about the tougher language, Wyden spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said, "This shows his colleagues share Senator Wyden's concerns about the Terrorism Information Awareness program."

Inouye, Stevens and aides to them who were familiar with the bill were involved in the Senate debate and not immediately available for comment.

If the tougher language passed the Senate, a House-Senate conference committee would have to decide whether the final bill would contain the outright ban, the Wyden amendment or some third alternative.

The quiet emergence of a proposal to ban even research "reflects deep, deep skepticism in Congress of the Pentagon's assurances about this system," said James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates online privacy. "There appears to be some spillover skepticism from Iraq where they voted to go to war and now are questioning whether that was based on clever use of words or selective use of intelligence."

Dempsey said a total ban on the program would affect not only the data-mining that has drawn criticism but also some components of the programs that have raised lesser or even no privacy concerns, including improved computerized translation of foreign documents and broadcasts and efforts to exchange and analyze intelligence data now kept separately in various government agencies.
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USA Today
Cyberstalking becoming bigger problem
July 15, 2003

CHICAGO (AP)  E-mails and instant messages make communicating easier, but they also can breed a new kind of criminal: the Internet stalker. 
While Illinois' cyberstalking law  passed in 2001  gives electronic harassment the same penalties as stalking in person, some say the problem is still budding. 

Just last Saturday Tonny Horne, of South Bend, Ind., was indicted on charges of cyberstalking and criminal trespass for harassing Tamron Hall, a news anchor for Chicago Fox affiliate WFLD, with repeated e-mails, letters and phone calls, said Tom Stanton, spokesman for the Cook County State's Attorney's office. 

"They were mostly obscene in nature," Stanton said. 

That's a classic example of what has led 42 states to write cyberstalking laws, said Jayne Hitchcock, president of Working to Halt Online Abuse, an advocacy and support group for victims. In Illinois, web stalking is a felony punishable by up to three years in prison. 

The state's first conviction for web harassment came this spring, Hitchcock said. Porfirios Liapis, of St. Charles, was sentenced on May 23 to 60 days in the Lake County Jail, 75 hours of public service, and $2,022 in fines and fees for e-mailing death threats to a friend, according to the Lake County Circuit Clerk's office. 

In a separate case, Amy Defay, 23, of Rockford, was charged last month with cyberstalking for threatening a man. Defay sent at least two threatening e-mails that left the man's family with "reasonable apprehension for fear of bodily harm," said James Brun, Winnebago County Assistant State's Attorney. 

"It's really not any different than having a harassing phone conversation," Brun said. "(The law) is just making things consistent as we have new and updated computer technology." 

Hitchcock said e-mail harassment varies only because senders think they can hide behind a Web identity. 

"It's unfortunate that the Internet has become a new tool for not only people who would stalk and harass in the first place, but for most people who feel that they can remain anonymous," she said. 

But some attorneys say Web surfers feel protected and might be loose-lipped  exchanging heated messages in chat rooms and e-mails  while not being outright threatening. 

"People get very agitated in an online discussion, but I don't think any of us would like to see the government step into those situations and prosecute people for what might be very strong language," said David Sobel, attorney for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based civil rights group. 

But chat room arguments can be where stalking problems start, said Hitchcock, pointing to a Massachusetts case that began with a disagreement over a screen identity and ended only after an arrest. 

"He had duck tape in one hand, rope in the other, and he was staggering across the street drunk to her house," Hitchcock said. "It started because he didn't like her user name." 
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USA Today
Farmer offers rental cows on Internet
July 14, 2003

BRIENZ, Switzerland (AP)  Lovers of fine cheeses are being given the chance to hire their own cheesemaker  a brown-and-white cow living on a Swiss mountain. 
Dairy farmer Paul Wyler is offering his cows for rent on the Internet, with all the cheese they produce going to the "owner." 

"We have already had dozens of inquiries from people who want to rent one of our cows," Wyler told Monday's edition of the Lausanne daily Le Matin. 

Cows cost 380 Swiss francs (US$276) for the summer, and Wyler looks after the animals and makes cheese from their milk. 

Each cow produces 70-120 kilograms (154-264 pounds) of cheese  soft and hard varieties  which the renter of the cow can collect in September and either sell or use as gifts for family and friends. 

Until now, prospective renters have had to go to the pastures to choose their cow, but Wyler is taking photographs of his animals so people can choose them directly from the Internet. 

Wyler himself owns 15 cows  hybrids of holstein and simmenthal  but his plan has been so popular that other farmers are now joining in. 

Wyler's cows graze on the Alp Tschingelfeld, 30 minutes' walk from the road, and the "owners" are obliged by contract to visit them at least once and spend four hours working in the fields. 

Like many mountain farmers, Wyler has no electricity  light comes from solar energy. His cheese is made over a wood fire, with the wood delivered by helicopter. 

Wyler came up with the idea because he could not sell as much cheese as he produced every year. He already rents some of his cows to restaurants. 
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Wired News
Cadmium Exposure Mimics Estrogen  
By Kristen Philipkoski
02:00 AM Jul. 13, 2003 PT

Cadmium, a metal used in rechargeable batteries, is known to cause kidney damage and bone disease. A new study shows it might also cause early puberty and possibly breast cancer. 

Researchers at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., found that the equivalent of the highest amount of cadmium exposure allowed by the World Health Organization caused estrogen-like effects in rats.

The researchers looked at two animal models. In the first, they removed female rats' ovaries, leaving them with no ability to produce estrogen. When exposed to cadmium, the rats experienced changes normally induced by estrogen, such as enlarged uterus, thickening of the endometrial lining and thickening of the mammary gland lining. Genes normally activated by the presence of estrogen were activated in the rats without ovaries. 

"In a second model, we took pregnant animals and gave them low doses of cadmium," said Mary Beth Martin, a researcher who worked on the study. The researchers examined the offspring of the animals exposed to cadmium. "They had an earlier onset of puberty," she said. 

Studies are underway to determine whether early onset of puberty might be the cause of some breast or uterine cancers. Further studies must also be done to determine whether the same effects would be seen in humans, Martin said. 

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Licorice may whip SARS: Licorice may be researchers' best lead on a treatment for SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. 

An extract of the plant's root stopped the virus from growing in a dish of infected monkey cells, according to researchers at Frankfurt University Medical School. SARS has killed more than 800 people, and researchers have not yet found a reliable treatment or cure. Caregivers typically administer ribavirin and steroids, but results are unpredictable. 

The licorice extract, called glycyrrhizin, prevents the virus from inserting itself into cells, the researchers said in their study published in the June 14 issue of The Lancet. 

Out of the 200,000 compounds that researchers have tested against SARS in the past two months, glycyrrhizin, which is also responsible for licorice's unique taste, seems to be the most promising so far. 

Researchers say this is only a beginning. Such large amounts of the licorice extract would be necessary to get a similar effect in humans that a pill would be prohibitively large. The solution would be to find something similar to glycyrrhizin but more concentrated. 

"I think that most antivirals will take quite a bit of work and time," said Henry Niman, a Harvard researcher who has been studying SARS. "There are quite a few approaches, but all are at early stages of development." 

- - - 

Gene therapy tackles epilepsy: A new study shows that one day the toughest cases of epilepsy might be treatable with gene therapy. 

Thirty percent of epilepsy patients continue to have seizures even while on medication. The new study, published in the July 13 issue of Nature Medicine, showed that gene therapy could produce seizure-repressing compounds in the brains of rats. 

Researchers at the University of North Carolina Gene Therapy Center delivered a gene to the rats' brains that caused them to produce extra galanin, a type of protein that can prevent seizures, in specific nerve cells. 

The procedure worked in rats with disorders similar to focal epilepsy, which starts in one part of the brain and spreads. It affects the majority of epilepsy patients. 

The researchers also tried the procedure on rats that experienced seizures that last at least 30 minutes and often cause brain damage. The treatment didn't prevent the seizures, but it reduced injury. 

Gene therapy has not been proven to work in humans, and researchers estimate it could be 10 years before treatments are available.
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Wired News
IT Sweatshops Breaking Indians
By Manu Joseph
02:00 AM Jul. 11, 2003 PT

MUMBAI, India -- Outsourcing tech jobs to India has caused turmoil for workers in the United States and Europe. But it seems it's causing turmoil for Indians, as well. 

An estimated 50,000 young English-speaking Indians who work in call centers here are exposed to a host of health problems. They are usually in their early 20s, just out of college and up all night answering tech calls.

Because of the time difference between India and the United States, the work day for these workers starts late in the evening and extends until dawn. Such odd work hours have brought on a host of health problems including digestive diseases, hair loss, back pain and stress. 

"Two call center workers have suffered miscarriages," said Gurvinder Singh Bindra, a senior-level manager at Indus Teleservices, which employs about 250 workers earning $160 to $300 per month. "Some girls develop menstrual problems. Orthopedic problems and sharp increase in smoking are common features. I would also attribute extramarital affairs in call centers to the odd working hours, though it's my personal observation. When the husband comes home the wife is asleep. When the wife comes home the husband is asleep." 

Some even claim assuming a foreign accent for long periods causes sore throats. 

"We do try to make life better for the workers by buying specially designed chairs and improving the overall work environment," said Nirupama Hukku, who used to work at Indus Teleservices as a training consultant. "But there is no alternative to a good night's sleep. 

"I don't feel fresh even after eight to 10 hours of sleep in the day. It makes you some kind of recluse at times, creating issues in relationships. You are never awake when others are, so no one can talk to you." 

Laxmikant Purohit, a 34-year-old services manager at SoftTel Information Services who works from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., says he suffers from constipation and acid stomach. In the past eight months he has put on 29 pounds, he said. 

"It's difficult to have a positive outlook toward life because everything seems dark and gloomy when you work at ungodly hours," he said. "It's the first month that is the most terrible. One or two weeks after joining, new recruits throw up in the middle of work." 

At Infowavz, absenteeism on some days is as high as 8 percent. "On an average it is 5 percent," said the call center facility's President Vineet Mittal. Infowavz has introduced concepts like a "fun officer," whose job is to spot employees who look a bit down and try to entertain them with jokes. 

"I believe call centers should do all they can to improve the lives of those who work there," Mittal said. That's why even though 10 out of 12 Infowavz clients are American, the firm never demanded that its workers perfect their American accents. 

"Some call centers ask their agents, as the floor workers are called, to practice speaking English with a marble placed below the tongue to imitate the American accent better," Mittal said. 

Apart from the health hazards, there is a minor social embarrassment attached to a distinct American accent slipping out of an Indian mouth. Some call center workers are so consumed by the accent they employ at work that they accidentally take it home, only to be ridiculed by their near and dear. Manish Raut, 26, who works at Transworks, said he takes great care to return to his normal Indian English accent with friends. 

"But I cannot do anything about the fact that I fall ill for one or two days on a regular basis. Since I work from 10:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., my whole biological system has gone for a toss. I have a proper meal just once a day. If I eat well at night I feel sleepy. And in the day I am fast asleep." 

Not surprisingly, the attrition rate is high in the call center business. Thirty to 40 percent of the workers quit in a year. But they are quickly replaced because there are enough English-speaking youngsters in India available for jobs that pay $160 to $300 per month. 

They will learn not to call it easy money.
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Broadband Neworking News
FCC Adopts Homeland Security Initiatives
July 10, 2003
 
The FCC has established an Office of Homeland Security within its Enforcement Bureau to focus on the nation's emergency preparedness issues. The Office of Homeland Security will also be responsible for rules relating to the Emergency Alert System and will oversee operation of the FCC's 24-hour Communications and Crisis Management Center and its Emergency Operations Center, functions that are currently handled in the Enforcement Bureau?s Technical and Public Safety Division. James A. Dailey, a 31-year FCC veteran, has been named Director of the Office.

The two main objectives of the FCC's Homeland Security Action Plan are: 

to strengthen measures for protecting the nation's communications infrastructure and facilitate rapid service restoration after disruption. This includes promoting the best practices of the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC).
to promote access to effective communications services by public safety, public health, and other emergency personnel. This includes further work on the E911 initiative, resolving interference issues for public safety systems in the 800 MHz band, permitting dedicated short-range communications at 5.9 GHz for intelligent transportation systems, and other work on Cognitive Radio Technologies.