Clips February 5, 2004

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips February 5,
2004

ARTICLES

N.Y. City Council Passes Anti-Patriot Act Measure 
Geeks Put the Unsavvy on Alert: Learn or Log Off
Trade laws short-circuit Aussies
U.S. lawmakers: L-1 visa program needs changes
Davis reiterates Reform agenda
Bush requests Social Security IT cut
Army engineers to merge tech contracts
US lawmakers push penalties for false Web records

*******************************
New York Times
N.Y. City Council Passes Anti-Patriot Act Measure 
By Michelle Garcia
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, February 5, 2004; Page A11 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13970-2004Feb4.html

NEW YORK, Feb.
4 -- New York City, site of the country's most horrific terrorist attack,
Wednesday became the latest in a long list of cities and towns that have
formally opposed the expanded investigatory powers granted to law
enforcement agencies under the USA Patriot Act. 

The New York City Council approved a resolution condemning the law,
enacted by Congress six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with a
voice vote in its chambers a few blocks from the gaping hole at Ground
Zero. 

"The Patriot Act is really unpatriotic, it undermines our civil
rights and civil liberties," said council member Bill Perkins
(D-Manhattan), the bill's sponsor. "We never give up our rights
that's what makes us Americans."

The resolution criticized the Patriot Act for allowing infringements on
privacy rights. Among other provisions, the Patriot Act allows
investigators to see citizens' library records and eases requirements for
search warrants. The council requested that Congress deliver periodic
reports accounting for the information and records on New Yorkers the
federal government has culled under the Patriot Act, but the measure has
no means to enforce that request. 

The vote follows months of negotiations between resolution supporters and
New York City Council leadership. A major sticking point in the original
proposal of the resolution centered on language prohibiting the New York
Police Department from enforcing immigration laws, collecting information
on activist groups and businesses, and refraining from establishing an
anti-terrorism reporting database.

After Wednesday's vote, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (D) said the
measure in its final version "strikes the right
balance."

"The resolution has evolved to focus on what's really needed:
amendments to the law to protect civil liberties particularly, at a time
of war," he said.

New York joins 246 municipalities and counties and three states that have
passed legislation in opposition to the Patriot Act, according to the
Bill of Rights Defense Committee, an organization that helps local
governments craft anti-Patriot Act legislation.

"So much is being done in the name of New York, we are saying don't
use our name to infringe on people's rights," said Glenn C. Devitt,
an organizer with the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

Local governments in Virginia and Maryland have approved similar
measures, including Montgomery County, Prince George's County and
Alexandria. 

Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, dismissed the local
governments' resolutions, saying the majority were passed in locales with
left-leaning constituencies and based on "erroneous"
information about the Patriot Act.

Corallo said the act has been "one of the most important tools
Congress has given the government to fight terrorism and prevent
terrorist acts."

A handful of New York council members, both Democrats and Republicans,
agreed and voted against the resolution. 

Dennis Gallagher, a Republican from Queens, called the resolution a
vehicle for attacking the Bush administration. New York suffered a great
loss on Sept. 11, 2001, he said. The Patriot Act "is one step in
ensuring this never happens again."

But at a rally of supporters, Monica Tarazi, New York director of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the Patriot Act and
other tactics to fight terrorism has sowed fear within New York's ethnic
communities and activists. 

"This country is not about registering [people] and ethnic
profiling," she said. "We need this [resolution]. We need this
as Americans."
*******************************
New York Times
February 5, 2004
Geeks Put the Unsavvy on Alert: Learn or Log Off
By AMY HARMON
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/technology/05VIRU.html

When Scott
Granneman, a technology instructor, heard that one of his former students
had clicked on a strange e-mail attachment and infected her computer with
the MyDoom Internet virus last week, empathy did not figure anywhere in
his immediate response.

"You actually got infected by the virus?" he wrote in an e-mail
message to the former student, Robin Woltman, a university grant
administrator. "You, Robin? For shame!"

As MyDoom, the fastest-spreading virus ever, continues to clog e-mail
in-boxes and disrupt business, the computer-savvy are becoming openly
hostile toward the not-so-savvy who unwittingly play into the hands of
virus writers.

The tension over the MyDoom virus underscores a growing friction between
technophiles and what they see as a breed of technophobes who want to
enjoy the benefits of digital technology without making the effort to use
it responsibly.

The virus spreads when Internet users ignore a basic rule of Internet
life: never click on an unknown e-mail attachment. Once someone does,
MyDoom begins to send itself to the names in that person's e-mail address
book. If no one opened the attachment, the virus's destructive power
would never be unleashed.

"It takes affirmative action on the part of the clueless user to
become infected," wrote Scott Bowling, president of the World Wide
Web Artists Consortium, expressing frustration on the group's discussion
forum. "How to beat this into these people's heads?"

Many of the million or so people who have so far infected their computers
with MyDoom say it is not their fault. The virus often comes in a message
that appears to be from someone they know, with an innocuous subject line
like "test" or "error." It is human nature, they say,
to open the mail and attachments.

But computer sophisticates say it reflects a willful ignorance of basic
computer skills that goes well beyond virus etiquette. At a time when
more than two-thirds of American adults use the Internet, they say, such
carelessness is no longer excusable, particularly when it messes things
up for everyone else.

For years, many self-described computer geeks seemed eager to usher
outsiders onto their electronic frontier. Everyone, it seemed, had a
friend or family member in the geek elite who could be summoned 
often frequently  in times of computer crisis.

But as those same friends and family members are called upon again and
again to save the computer incompetents from themselves, the geeks'
patience is growing thin. As it does, a new kind of digital divide is
opening up between populations of computer users who must coexist in the
same digital world. 

"Viruses are just the tip of the iceberg," said Bill Melcher,
who runs his own technical support business in San Francisco. "When
it comes to computers, a lot of intelligent people and fast learners just
decide that they don't know."

Many of the computationally confused say they suffer from genuine
intimidation and even panic over how to handle the mysterious machines
they have come to rely on for so much of daily life. Virus writers,
spammers and scammers, they say, are the ones who should be held
accountable for the chaos they cause. 

But as the same people equip themselves with fancy computers and take
advantage of the Internet for things like shopping and banking, critics
say that their perpetual state of confusion has begun to get tiresome.
And while the Internet's traditional villains remain elusive, those
inadvertently helping them tend to be friends and neighbors. 

Some in the technocamp imagine requiring a license to operate a computer,
just like the one required to drive a car. Others are calling for a
punishment that fits a careless crime. People who click on virus
attachments, for instance, could be cut off by their Internet service
providers until they proved that their machines had been
disinfected.

And some, tired of being treated like free help lines, are beginning to
rebel. They are telling friends, relatives and random acquaintances to
figure it out on their own.

"Go out, get a book," suggests Zack Rubenstein, 28, who has for
years provided free technical support for his extended social network.
"You went to college and you got a degree, you obviously can learn
something. Play around with it; it's not going to kill
you."

Mr. Rubenstein, a member of the technical support staff at a New York
City law school he thought it best not to identify, is not at liberty to
dispense such advice at work. Instead, he answers endless calls about
malfunctioning monitors that turn out not to be plugged in, and broken
printers that start working again as soon as he removes the single piece
of paper obviously jamming them. 

"Especially dealing with academics," Mr. Rubenstein added,
"you'd think they'd have some ability to deduce or think problems
through for a minute."

Not so long ago, he took pleasure in showing people around the brave new
digital world that he moved in with such ease. Now that everyone has a
technical question, he says, being a tour guide has lost its
charm.

But his girlfriend, Miriam Tauber, 24, makes no apologies for her lack of
computer knowledge. To her, computers are like "moody people"
who behave illogically. If people like Mr. Rubenstein expect her to
understand them, she suggests, perhaps they should learn to speak in a
language she can understand, rather than ridiculous acronyms and
suffixes.

"There are these MP3's and PDF's and a million other things that you
don't even know what they are," Ms. Tauber said. "I don't feel
like I need to figure out computers, because my instinct is there's just
no way." 

Still, if there is any evidence that the antagonism of the technical
elite is having an effect, it may be in the mounting degree of shame
among those who make obvious mistakes, or ask obvious questions too
often.

When Julie Dillon, 33, had trouble installing a wireless card in her
Macintosh laptop last weekend, for instance, she stopped herself from
calling a friend three blocks away who works for Apple Computer because
she knows he is besieged.

"There's this whole complicated interchange  are you calling
them as a friend or are you calling them as tech support  and I
definitely feel a little bit guilty," said Ms. Dillon, a musician in
San Francisco. "It's a fine line that has changed because I remember
a few years ago it was no big deal."

Instead, Ms. Dillon called Mr. Melcher, who has built his technical
support business in part on referrals from friends who no longer wanted
to handle the demands of other friends. 

Ms. Dillon, who considers her laptop "a blessing" that helps
her promote her music, said she was happy to pay for the help. She has
also frequently received technical support in exchange for dinner, and,
once, for a song.

Even parents are being left to fend for themselves as their children tire
of dispensing advice.

David Hale, 25, a lawyer in St. Louis, said he had rebuilt his parents'
virus-ridden computer from scratch several times in recent months before
he learned that his father, Dale, was replying to every piece of his spam
e-mail, asking to be taken off the spammers' mailing lists. Dale Hale,
47, also frequently clicked on pop-up ads that appeared to be messages
from Microsoft telling him to upgrade his computer.

"It would cause fights between my parents because they would argue
about whether a particular one was legitimate and I'm like, `It is NEVER
legitimate,' " said Mr. Hale, who explained as patiently as he could
that answering spam and clicking on pop-ups only invite more of the same.

After that, Dale Hale said, his son would sometimes become frustrated by
his and his wife's questions. They in turn would get frustrated with
their son's instructions, especially over the phone. Eventually they
bought antivirus software.

"We've learned by the lumps and bumps," the father
said.

(People who had installed the major antivirus software programs from
companies like McAfee were largely protected from the MyDoom virus after
downloading updates available a few hours after the virus's appearance on
Jan. 26.) 

Perhaps the one thing that technophobes and technophiles can agree on is
that software companies like Microsoft should make things easier and more
secure for all kinds of computer users. But Microsoft, whose Web site has
so far withstood a continuing attack by the MyDoom virus, had a reminder
for users, too.

"Responsibility is shared," said Scott Charney, Microsoft's
chief security strategist. "With some of these viruses that require
user action, people have a responsibility to be careful and protect
themselves."
*******************************
Australian IT
Trade laws short-circuit Aussies
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8584809%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
James
Riley
FEBRUARY 05, 2004  
 
US authorities have put up new trade barriers which could cost Australia
tens of millions of dollars in service exports.

The US IT market represents a huge opportunity for Australian companies.
In 2005, the total US federal budgets for hardware, software and services
will grow 1 per cent to $US59.7 billion ($78 billion). 
So sweeping are the new restrictions on foreign IT services companies
working on US federal government projects that the Australian Information
Industry Association (AIIA) has threatened to withdraw its support for
the free trade agreement. 

Under revisions to the A-76 Procurement Bill signed into law by President
George W Bush on January 23 this year, companies that win tenders for US
federal government business are prevented from sending work offshore.

Though the Bill is considered a backlash against the growing number of US
IT jobs shipped offshore to India - a strategy mimicked by Australian
companies - AIIA executive director Rob Durie said its potential effect
on Australian IT interests was immense. 

Australian firms, including the local subsidiaries of multinationals,
have become increasingly attractive as low-cost development partners for
projects from offshore. 

Last financial year Australian IT exports grew more than 18 per cent to
nearly $2.6 billion - making the sector one of the industry's best hopes
for reducing the annual IT trade deficit of $14.4 billion. 

Mr Durie called on Australian trade representatives to protest against
the US moves, although he stopped short of suggesting Australia's own
retaliatory trade laws. "But we need to send a very clear message
here," Mr Durie said. "It seems almost ridiculous that our
trade minister is over there right now negotiating a free trade
agreement." 

"When the AIIA said we'd support (the FTA), we said if we can get
equal access to the US government market, that would be a good
thing," he said. 

"But if this is an indication of the level of access that we can
expect, then there is no way we can support it." 

Opposition IT spokeswoman Kate Lundy railed at the US hoisting new
barriers to trade, and questioned the US commitment to equal access to IT
markets given its protectionist Buy America Act. 

"How ironic is it that the US Congress is passing Bills restricting
(offshoring) right in the middle of a negotiation for a free trade
agreement," Senator Lundy said. 

"And how compromised does that leave the (FTA) negotiations?"

IT and Communications Minister Daryl Williams' office said the Bill would
have little effect on the Australian industry because there were few
local companies that at present received any work covered under the terms
of the Bill. 

Australian companies had been successful in selling software and services
to the US government by establishing a US subsidiary or forming a local
partnership, and the Australian Government was working to improve that
access, a spokeswoman for the minister said.
*******************************
Computerworld
U.S. lawmakers: L-1 visa program needs changes
But the head of the ITAA said the program 'is not broken in any
fundamental way' 
Story by Grant Gross
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,89884,00.html

FEBRUARY 05,
2004 ( IDG NEWS SERVICE ) - Two laid-off U.S. workers testified before a
U.S. House of Representatives committee yesterday that they were fired by
IT companies and replaced with cheaper labor brought to the U.S. under a
worker visa program designed to fill jobs needing special skills. 
Patricia Fluno, a programmer from Orlando, said she and about 14 other
employees of Siemens Information and Communications Networks Inc. were
laid off in mid-2002 and forced to train their replacements from India.
"We lost our jobs, and we had to train our replacements so there
would be little interruption to Siemens," Fluno told the House
International Relations Committee. "This was the most humiliating
experience of my life." 

A Siemens representative didn't return a phone call seeking comment on
Fluno's testimony. 

Republican and Democratic House members beat up on the L-1 visa program,
which allows companies to transfer to the U.S. their foreign employees
with special knowledge of the company or managerial or executive skills.
Lawmakers called for limits on the number of L-1 visas granted each year
and new rules that would allow enforcement against abuses of the L-1
program, which is often used to fill technology jobs. 

The L-1 visa program is making it easy for U.S. companies to move jobs
overseas, lawmakers argued. "America is in danger of losing that
level of prosperity which allows us to work as an agent for positive
change in the rest of the world," said committee Chairman Henry Hyde
(R-Ill.). "... Are we being lax in the offshoring of American jobs,
often facilitated by 'in-shore' training first given to L visa holders
right here in the United States, so they can take new skills -- and
American jobs -- home with them?"

The lone voice defending the current L-1 visa program during the hearing
said no evidence exists of widespread program abuse. Harris Miller,
president of the Information Technology Association of America, said
abusers of the program should be prosecuted, but he feared changes to L-1
rules would trigger a trade war that would hurt U.S. IT companies, which
export more IT products than are imported into the U.S. 

Miller called the L-1 program a "critical tool" for U.S. IT
companies needing to fill key jobs. U.S. IT companies often prosper by
bringing in specialists, resulting in more jobs for U.S. workers, he
said. 

The ITAA opposes limits on L-1 visas and most new rules designed to
reform the program. Instead, Miller called for a better definition of the
"specialized knowledge" needed by L-1 applicants, because some
companies may have too broadly defined the category. An applicant is
supposed to have specialized knowledge of the company's products,
service, research, equipment or other functions, or advanced knowledge of
the company's processes and procedures. 

"The L program is not broken in any fundamental way," he said.
"However, it can be improved." 

Under the L-1 visa program, employees with specialized skills can stay in
the U.S. for five years, and executives can stay seven. But unlike its
cousin, the H-1B visa program, Congress hasn't limited the number of L-1
visas allowed each year, and the number has grown from just over 75,000
in 1992 to more than 328,000 in 2001, according to the Federation for
American Immigration Reform. The ITAA's estimates are lower; it estimates
that about 121,000 new L-1 visa holders entered the U.S. in
2001.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) agreed that the definition of
"specialized knowledge" is too broad and called for additional
changes. He said the House should support the L-1 Nonimmigrant Reform
Act, which would require L-1 workers to be paid the prevailing wage and
would prohibit L-1 workers from displacing U.S. workers. The bill, one of
at least three pieces of legislation before Congress that are intended to
reform the program, would also allow fines of up to $1,000 for each
violation of L-1 rules. 

Lantos accused some U.S. companies of using the L-1 visa to drastically
lower wages. "What we are dealing with is high-tech indentured
servitude," Lantos said. "We are dealing not only with a
loophole of gigantic proportions, but also a scandal of gigantic
proportions. It's up to the Congress to rectify the situation, and I
fully anticipate we shall." 

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) also called for a tax of $2,000 to $3,000
per month paid by companies for each L-1 worker employed. The money could
pay for investigations into L-1 misuse, Sherman said. 

Programmer Sona Shah, a former employee of outsourcing service provider
ADP Wilco, agreed with Lantos that abuses in the L-1 program exist. She
accused her former employer of hiring Indian workers for a fraction of
U.S. wages while declining to give work to U.S. employees in its New York
office. Shah, fired in April 1998, and a former co-worker from India are
now involved in a lawsuit against ADP Wilco, a subsidiary of Automatic
Data Processing Inc. 

A representative of ADP Wilco declined to comment on Shah's testimony.

U.S. workers weren't the only victims. Indian workers were paid about
half the prevailing wage of U.S. workers doing similar jobs, according to
information Shah provided the committee. "This is not an issue of
Indians vs. Americans," said Shah, who was born in India but is a
U.S. citizen. "This is not about being anti-Indian or
anti-immigration. This is about reforming corporate abuse of unregulated
visa programs that are out of control." 

The ITAA's Harris called the stories from Shah and Fluno "isolated
cases." 

"We believe the program is fundamentally sound," he said.
"If [companies] have violated the law ... then they should have the
book thrown at them."
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Davis reiterates Reform agenda
BY Michael Hardy 
Feb. 4, 2004
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0202/web-davis-02-04-04.asp

Rep. Tom Davis
(R-Va.) took another opportunity to address the priorities for the
Government Reform Committee he chairs as Congress gets underway
again.

Speaking Feb. 3 to a Washington D.C. conference hosted by the nonprofit
Information Technology Service Management Forum, Davis touched on
share-in-savings contracting, information security, workforce issues,
competitive sourcing and even foreign trade issues in a keynote
address.

"We have an aggressive agenda this time," he said.

Davis reiterated his support for the Federal Information Security
Management Act of 2002, which agencies have complained about having to
add to their growing pile of mandates. Despite that reluctance, FISMA
forces them to enact needed security measures, and also raises awareness
about the risks, he said.

"You can get a Ph.D. in computer science and never take a course in
computer security," he said. Davis' committee will work on bringing
federal contracting practices into compliance with the security law, he
said.

Congressman Davis touched on the need to attract and keep talented young
IT workers in the government. "If you're young and in government and
you're good at it, you're going to get offers in the private
sector," he said. "Offers with things like stock options that
the federal government doesn't have."

Davis plans to revisit the portions of his Services Acquisition Reform
Act that didn't pass in 2003, including extended authority for
share-in-savings contracts. Although both agencies and federal employee
unions are hesitant to embrace the practice, in which companies that help
agencies save money get to keep some of the savings as payment, Davis saw
it work when he was county executive in Fairfax County, Va., where it
allowed the county to modernize an IT infrastructure that would have
remained outmoded if the county had had to pay up front. 

Finally, he acknowledged that the practice of competitive sourcing,
governed by Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, has both
benefits and drawbacks. On the downside, it drives some talented
employees out of government, resentful that they may have to compete to
keep their job every five years, he said.

Ultimately, though, he defended the practice, saying that when government
employees have to examine how they deliver services and look for ways to
become more efficient, they usually win competitions and the government
gets a more efficient organization in the bargain.

The process of examining how employees do their jobs can cut out a great
deal of inefficiency out of agency costs, he said. 

"Waste, fraud and abuse doesn't come in neatly tied packages,"
he said. "It's not a line-item in a budget. It's layered through the
way we do business."
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Bush requests Social Security IT cut
BY Florence Olsen 
Feb. 4, 2004
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0202/web-ssa-02-04-04.asp

President Bush
would cut almost 9 percent from the Social Security Administration's
information technology modernization funds. 

The administration's budget request released this week asks for $808
million for SSA's various systems modernization projects. The request is
almost 9 percent less than the $887 million the Bush administration
sought last year.

One IT project facing the prospect of reduced funding is the Accelerated
Electronic Disability System, a complex redesign of SSA's disability
claims process that will create an electronic folder for each case under
review. The project's $103.2 million budget would be reduced to $73.5
million in fiscal 2005.

Also slated for cuts is a digital recording system for administrative law
judge hearings. The budget for that project would be cut from $13.1
million to $3.5 million.

The agency does request funding increases for some key programs. SSA's
Title II Redesign, a multiyear project to digitize and speed up the
processing of Social Security retirement and survivors insurance claims,
would get $20.7 million -- a $900,000 increase. And for expansion of
services based on its electronic wage reporting system, the agency could
get $10.4 million -- a $500,000 increase.

The 2005 budget earmarks $4 million -- a $2.9 million increase -- for an
electronic query system would let SSA officials check the records of
financial institutions to determine a person's eligibility for
Supplemental Security Income benefits.

The agency's e-Vital project to expedite the exchange of vital records
between federal and state agencies would get $900,000 -- a $200,000
increase.

The budget also provides more money for improving the agency's financial
accounting and management systems. For its new financial accounting
system, SSA would get $15.4 million -- a $4.8 million increase. Another
$20.1 million, up from $19.3 million, is included in the budget for two
management systems: the Social Security Unified Measurement System and
the Managerial Cost Accountability System.
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Army engineers to merge tech contracts
BY Frank Tiboni 
Feb. 4, 2004
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0202/web-usace-02-04-04.asp

The Army Corps
of Engineers expects to compete 75 percent of its information technology
jobs as it moves toward an enterprise network that would replace 972
separate contracts with a single contract, the agency's chief information
officer said. Following in the steps of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet,
the corps in upcoming years will streamline the buying of IT and
administration of IT services. 

The corps, with 75 percent of its technology workforce eligible for
retirement in three years and 85 percent in five years, plans to push IT
management from local to regional levels, said Will Berrios, its CIO,
speaking today during a briefing held by Federal Sources Inc., a
government IT research firm in McLean, Va.

The corps last November released "USACE 2012: Aligning the Corps for
Success in the 21st Century." The report identified missions and
announced plans to make the eight regional districts the group's primary
business centers, Berrios said.

The organization this year will start moving toward IT regionalization.
But it will likely wait until after a competitive sourcing study is
completed before releasing requests for information and proposals for its
IT consolidation contract, Berrios said.

Business opportunities will center on networks, not personal computers
and local area networks, Berrios said. "There is a network that
connects you locally.? It's all about networks and how to manage
them," he said.
*******************************
USA Today
US lawmakers push penalties for false Web records
By Andy Sullivan, Reuters
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-02-05-id-bill_x.htm

WASHINGTON 
U.S. lawmakers touted a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would increase
jail time and fines for identity thieves, cybersquatters and other online
fraudsters who register Web sites under false identities.
Reps. Lamar Smith and Howard Berman, who introduced the bill Tuesday,
said it would improve the accuracy of Web-site registration records that
investigators use to track down those suspected of breaking the
law.

"The government must play a greater role in punishing those who
conceal their identities online, particularly when they do so in
furtherance of a serious federal criminal offense or in violation of a
federally protected intellectual-property right," said Smith, a
Texas Republican.

Berman, a California Democrat, said domain-name sellers should also be
held liable.

As many as 10% of the Internet's 30 million domain names may be
registered under false identities, according to a study released last
year.

Investigators checking Web-site registration records frequently find that
suspects have filled out the registration records with clearly fraudulent
information  providing "555-555-5555" as a phone number or
"Small Wok Way, Chopstick Town, WI" as a street address,
witnesses told the House Internet and intellectual-property subcommittee.

The bill would not directly outlaw the use of fraudulent registration
information. Instead, it would increase civil and criminal penalties for
those who used false identities to set up Web sites used in other illegal
activity.

Fines in copyright and trademark-violation cases could be tripled, while
those convicted of felonies could have an additional seven years tacked
onto their sentences.

Berman originally advocated a more direct approach that would make false
registrations a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. But he
changed his tack after privacy advocates said that his initial plan could
hurt those who had legitimate reasons to protect their
anonymity.

Berman said the new bill should be expanded to require domain-name
sellers, or registrars, to ensure that their records are
accurate.

"I think we haven't gone far enough. The only complete solution
would hold the registrars accountable," he said.

That would bypass efforts already underway by the international body that
oversees the domain-name system, said a lawyer involved in the
process.

Kathryn Kleiman, who serves on a task force for the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, said the bill could also discourage
people from posting controversial views online if they had no way protect
their identity.

"This is absolutely a chilling of speech," Kleiman said.
*******************************