Clips February 13, 2004

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips February 13,
2004

ARTICLES

Touchscreen ballots don't have to be recounted, official claims
Senators Break With Activists on Computer Hacking Case 
Website for Canadian Drugs Urged
Google Bans Environmental Group's Ads
FTC, international coalition crack down on misleading Web sites
Federal patch service to stop
DHS to pare state security requests
*******************************
USA Today
Posted 2/12/2004 8:32 PM     Updated 2/12/2004 10:16
PM
Touchscreen ballots don't have to be recounted, official claims
By Brendan Farrington, Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-02-12-florida-counts-good-enough_x.htm

TALLAHASSEE,
Fla  .The Department of State has notified elections supervisors
that touchscreen ballots don't have to be included during manual recounts
because there is no question about how voters intended to vote. 

While touchscreen ballot images can be printed, there is no need and
elections supervisors aren't authorized to do so, Division of Elections
Director Ed Kast wrote in a letter to Pasco County Supervisor of
Elections Kurt Browning. 

Florida law requires a manual recount of overvotes where too many
candidates were chosen, and undervotes where no candidate was chosen in
elections where the margin of victory is one-quarter of one percent of
the vote. 

But because the law states that the purpose of a recount is to determine
whether there was a "clear indication on the ballot that the voter
has made a definite choice," there is no need to review touchscreen
ballots, Ed Kast, director of the Division of Elections. 

It is impossible to vote for too many candidates on a touchscreen ballot,
and Kast said a "review of undervotes cannot result in a
determination of voter intent as required by" Florida law. 

Browning asked for the opinion after a Broward County Republican Ellyn
Bogdanoff won a seat in the state House by 12 votes, a margin that
triggered an automatic recount. 

He said the election raised the question of whether paper images needed
to be produced for the 134 undervotes in that race. He also said he
supports Kast's opinion. 

"There are no ballots to count, there are no ballots to
recount," Browning said. 

The opinion was issued the day after a Palm Beach County judge threw out
a lawsuit filed by Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler that sought to
require electronic voting machines produce a paper record of ballots
cast. Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has filed legislation that would
require a paper record of touchscreen ballots. 

And the Florida Democratic Party called for paper records for electronic
ballots during their convention last November. (Related story: More
e-voting systems to be used this fall)

Secretary of State Glenda Hood said there are no certified methods of
printing records of touchscreen votes, but she stressed that the machines
are reliable and accurate and can't be tampered. 

"We're working very hard to educate the voters, to build the comfort
level and to get rid of some of the myths out there," Hood said.
"I think these things are raised for political purposes and
distractions. Any effort to undermine that public confidence is a tactic
that is wrong and I believe it weakens our democracy by causing voters to
doubt if their vote has been counted." 

Hood said she would not object to paper records being created if a
machine were developed, tested and was able to pass the state
certification process, but she said it's highly unlikely that would
happen before the November presidential election. 

"Technology is going to continue to develop and if we can find ways
to improve Florida's elections and process with new equipment, then we're
going to do that," she said.
*******************************
Washington Post
Judiciary GOP Supports Probe 
Senators Break With Activists on Computer Hacking Case 
By Helen Dewar
Friday, February 13, 2004; Page A05 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37707-2004Feb12.html

Breaking ranks
with conservative activists, several Senate Judiciary Committee
Republicans joined Democrats yesterday in supporting an investigation
into the infiltration of Democratic files on judicial nominations by GOP
committee staffers.

Despite some expectations that the normally quarrelsome committee's first
public discussion of the investigation could set off political fireworks,
the session was unusually harmonious, marked by bipartisan expressions of
outrage over computer snooping.

"Conservatives who offer justification for this based on politics
have missed the boat," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).
"As a conservative, it runs against my philosophy of what the law is
all about." 

The investigation, conducted by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William H.
Pickle, should proceed "wherever it goes, and let the chips fall
where they may," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "No senator can
permit unethical behavior."

"I don't want my confidential files looked at by anyone else,"
said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

 From 2001 to 2003, committee sources said, two Republican committee
staffers exploited a computer flaw to access thousands of Democratic
strategy memos and leaked their contents to sympathetic publications.
Both staffers have since left their congressional jobs.

In a joint statement, Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch
(R-Utah) and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat, said:
"While it is premature to judge whether any crime has been
committed, it is clear that unethical conduct has occurred." Hatch
said he had personally expressed regrets to Democratic senators and to
staffers whose files were improperly accessed. 

Others, including Cornyn, suggested a further investigation by law
enforcement authorities.

Although not all Republicans spoke up, it appeared that Hatch had strong
bipartisan support on the panel for pursuing the probe, despite criticism
from some conservatives for his role in triggering the
investigation.

Hatch told reporters after the meeting that his computer files also had
been accessed but declined to say who was responsible. He repeated an
earlier statement, which infuriated some conservatives, that he was
"mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable
breach of confidential files occurred on my watch." 

Some conservative advocacy groups say any investigation should focus on
the contents of the Democratic memos -- which they describe as proof of
Democrats' collusion with liberal interest groups on judicial nominations
-- instead of dwelling on GOP staffers accessing the files.

While some Republican senators have said more attention should be focused
on the Democratic memos, none mentioned this issue yesterday. But they
did suggest that partisan hostilities on the committee may have
encouraged young staffers to cut corners. "We are part of the
problem because an atmosphere of politics has crept into our
deliberations, especially on judges," Kyl said.

Democrats thanked Hatch, welcomed comments from other Republicans and
continued to speak of the computer snooping as a major scandal. Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) compared it to Watergate. "In those
days, break-ins required physical presence, burglar's tools, lookouts and
getaway cars. Today, theft may only require a computer and the skills to
use it," he said. But, he added, "a break-in is still a
break-in."
*******************************
Washington Post
Mystery E-Mail Causes Uproar In GOP Primary 
By Lori Montgomery and Christian Davenport
Thursday, February 12, 2004; Page B01 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34587-2004Feb11.html

A Maryland
state senator yesterday accused U.S. Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest's reelection
campaign of appropriating his name to open a phony e-mail account and to
spread allegations of sexual harassment against Gilchrest's opponent in
the March 2 Republican primary.

Sen. Andrew P. Harris (R-Baltimore County) said he sent letters yesterday
to the FBI and the U.S. House ethics committee calling for an
investigation into an e-mail that bears Harris's name but contains
information suggesting that it was composed on a computer in a
congressional district office.

The e-mail accuses Gilchrest's challenger, state Sen. Richard F. Colburn
(R-Dorchester), of having "a long history of sexual harassment of
interns in the Maryland General Assembly" -- allegations that
Colburn has denied. The e-mail was received last week at Colburn's
campaign headquarters, where it was opened by his wife, Alma, according
to Colburn aides.

"I would not be surprised, when all is said and done, that someone
connected with the congressman and his campaign is behind this,"
said Harris, one of three Republican lawmakers in Annapolis who have
endorsed Colburn's long-shot bid to unseat Gilchrest, who is seeking his
eighth term in Congress. 

"Someone in that campaign is worried," Harris said. "But
this time, they've stepped over the line."

Gilchrest called the allegations "absurd, patently absurd."

"I don't have time for petty, immature, elementary school games and
tactics," Gilchrest said in a telephone interview. "We're so
far ahead, in a hard-and-fast race like this, it would be ridiculous.
There would be no motivation for us to do that."

Gilchrest's chief of staff, Tony Caligiuri, said he is familiar with the
allegations against Colburn and has looked at e-mails detailing the
allegations with staff members in Gilchrest's congressional and campaign
offices. But Caligiuri denied that anyone associated with Gilchrest might
have concocted a fake address and sent the e-mail to Colburn.

"We're not disseminating this information to the press or to
voters," Caligiuri said. "We cannot verify any of this kind of
stuff."

Sending a political e-mail from a congressional computer could violate
federal laws against the use of government property for political
purposes. It also could violate House ethics rules that prohibit the use
of congressional resources for campaign work. And using someone else's
name to create a fake e-mail account could violate a new federal law that
bars e-mailers from disguising their identities. 

In less than three weeks, Republican voters will head to the polls in the
1st Congressional District, which was redrawn two years ago to cover
parts of Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties, as well as the Eastern
Shore. In an increasingly nasty campaign, Colburn, a conservative who has
served more than 20 years in Annapolis, is challenging Gilchrest, a
moderate. Maryland Republican Party officials are supporting the
incumbent.

In the latest campaign finance reports, Gilchrest had $186,000 in the
bank, while Colburn's campaign was running a deficit of $27,000. Colburn
said yesterday that he now has $10,000 in his campaign treasury.

In an interview yesterday in his Senate office, Colburn denied sexually
harassing legislative interns and said he will continue the campaign.
"I certainly realize that 95 percent of incumbent congressmen are
reelected," Colburn said. "But no matter what threats are made,
we're going to stay the course. And on March 2, the voters are going to
have a choice between a conservative Republican and a liberal
Republican."

In a written statement, Colburn alleged an attempt by "Congressman
Gilchrest and his staff to illegally use taxpayer resources to falsely
appropriate the name of a member of the Maryland State Senate and attach
it to emails designed to threaten my family and damage my
reputation."

The e-mail at issue was sent Feb. 2 to Colburn's account from
"Andrew Harris," whose e-mail address appears as
"mdpoliticalnews@xxxxxxxxxx" The subject line reads: "from
today's wire," and what follows appears in the form of a news story.

"Colburn Plagued by Repeated Charges of Sexual Harassment,"
says the headline. "MD Colleges, Senate Intern Office Have
Prohibition Against Intern Placements."

In interviews, college officials and Senate President Thomas V. Mike
Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) have said there are no prohibitions on interns
serving in Colburn's office. 

Greg Dukes, a registered nurse who works as a volunteer for the Colburn
campaign, said Colburn's wife opened the e-mail on the morning of Feb. 3.
She immediately called Colburn at his desk on the Senate floor. 

Harris told Colburn that he hadn't written the missive, and Dukes, a
computer enthusiast, began probing the e-mail's "header," which
contains information about its origins, including an Internet address.
Using that information, Dukes said, he traced the e-mail to a computer
network within the U.S. House. 

A technician who manages the congressional computer system confirmed that
the address matches a router on Capitol Hill that handles communications
with congressional district offices. The technician, who declined to give
his name, said it would be impossible to trace the e-mail
further.

Even if it were possible, computer security experts said, the trace would
offer no guarantee that the e-mail originated in a congressional office.
Internet addresses are easy to fake, they said, noting that computer
worms and viruses steal such information on a daily basis.

"As an attacker, all I have to do is determine what the Capitol Hill
addresses are and modify the header so it appears to have come from
Capitol Hill," said Adam Powers, a senior security engineer with
Lancope Inc., a network security company based in Atlanta.
"Concretely tracking an e-mail back to a specific sender is nearly
impossible."
*******************************
Los Angeles Times
Website for Canadian Drugs Urged
An Assembly bill would establish a state Internet site to compare prices
and link Californians to pharmacies certified as legitimate and
safe.
By Nancy Vogel
February 13, 2004
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-drugs13feb13,1,2926123.story?coll=la-headlines-technology

SACRAMENTO 
Californians could go to a state-sponsored website to shop for cheaper
prescription drugs from Canada under a bill introduced Thursday in the
state Assembly.

The bill is one of several recently drafted by Democratic lawmakers to
check the upward spiral of prescription drug costs, both for sick
Californians and for taxpayers who pay billions of dollars to buy drugs
for poor people, prisoners and retirees.

"Obviously we're hearing from constituents," said Assemblyman
Dario Frommer (D-Los Feliz). "They're upset, they want some relief.
We're hearing from employers. They're concerned about their healthcare
premiums, which have gone up at twice the rate of inflation. And now
we're hearing it in terms of budget writing, when we look at what costs
we need to get our arms around and control."

In a Capitol news conference, Frommer and four other lawmakers unveiled a
package of seven bills, the most controversial of which is likely to be
AB 1957. That bill would require the state Board of Pharmacy to create a
website that compares prices between American and Canadian pharmacies.
The website also would link consumers to Canadian pharmacies that the
board has certified as legitimate and safe.

Federal law prohibits individual Americans from importing prescription
drugs from other countries, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has
yet to prosecute anyone for ignoring the ban. Experts estimate that more
than 1 million Americans have purchased Canadian drugs, either in person,
over the Internet or through the mail. 

Prescription drugs in Canada generally cost less  sometimes as much
as 70% less  because the government there controls prices, experts
say. The imbalance has prompted a growing number of American cities and
states to urge the federal government to either give them waivers to
import drugs or set up a program to screen and sanction Canadian drugs
for sale in the U.S.

Frommer said his bill would not violate federal law.

"We have the power under current state law to certify mail-order
pharmacies through our Board of Pharmacy," he said.

"The FDA hasn't prosecuted anybody, but people are doing it,"
said Frommer. "We want to make sure they're getting those drugs
safely."

FDA officials warn that although Canadian drug standards are probably not
much different from those in the U.S., some drug makers in other
countries such as Romania and Pakistan funnel their wares through Canada
without regard to those safety standards.

Frommer also is sponsoring a bill, AB 1958, that would allow state
agencies, businesses and health maintenance organizations to pool their
drug purchases.

Large purchases should give the state better leverage to negotiate
prices, he said.

Other bills introduced Thursday include AB 1959 by Assemblywoman Judy Chu
(D-Monterey Park), which would allow certain lawmakers, under an oath of
secrecy, to review the prescription drug contracts signed by state
agencies.

A federal report last year found that California had failed to take
advantage of $1.34 billion in rebates from drug manufacturers.

Last year, as lawmakers struggled to close a $35-billion budget gap, Chu
said, they could rely only on the promises of state department heads that
they were getting the best deals on prescription drug prices.

"The departments always claim that disclosure of the contracts would
jeopardize proprietary information," she said.
*******************************
Associated Press
Google Bans Environmental Group's Ads
Thu Feb 12, 9:19 PM ET
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1212&e=7&u=/ap/20040213/ap_on_hi_te/google_ban&sid=95573501
By MICHAEL
LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer 

SAN FRANCISCO - Online search engine leader Google has banned the ads of
an environmental group protesting a major cruise line's sewage treatment
methods, casting a spotlight on the policies  and power  of the
popular Web site's lucrative marketing program. 

Oceana, a 2 1/2-year-old nonprofit group, said Google dropped the
text-based ads displayed in shaded boxes along the right side of its Web
page because they were critical of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

Washington D.C.-based Oceana believes Royal Caribbean pollutes the oceans
by improperly treating the sewage on its ships. It hoped to publicize its
complaints by paying to have its ads appear when terms like "cruise
vacation" and "cruise ship" were entered into Google's
search engine. 

The ad, which said "Help us protect the world's oceans,"
appeared for two days last week before Google pulled it from its page.

When Oceana challenged the ban, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google
responded with an e-mail advising the group that it doesn't accept ads
with "language that advocates against Royal Caribbean."

Oceana's ad didn't mention Royal Caribbean directly, but the link
directed Google visitors to a Web page critical of the Miami-based cruise
line. 

The decision stunned Oceana because it reeked of censorship and
favoritism, said Andrew Sharpless, the group's chief executive. 

"We were surprised because the answer they gave certainly raises the
question whether they got a phone call from Royal Caribbean,"
Sharpless said Thursday. "We can't prove that, but it certainly
smells that way." 

Both Google and Royal Caribbean denied there was any pressure applied to
remove the Oceana ad. 

Google's policy prohibits ads criticizing other groups or companies, said
spokeswoman Cindy McCaffrey. "We do reserve the right to exercise
editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our
site," she said. 

Google's ad policies don't affect the noncommercial results that the
search engine delivers using a closely guarded formula. 

Oceana's ad probably would be accepted by Yahoo!, which operates a
similar online marketing program through its Overture subsidiary.
Overture accepts critical ads, as long as they aren't obscene or
libelous, said company spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens. "We see it as
a freedom of speech issue," she said. 

The ads have become a big moneymaker for Google, providing the company
with hundreds of millions of dollars to expand its operations and
technology. 

As a privately held company, Google doesn't disclose its financial
results, but its revenue last year is believed to have ranged between
$700 million and $1 billion. The company is expected to go public later
this year. 

Google's ad rates have been steadily rising as advertisers have
discovered the value of having their Web links prominently displayed
under search terms related to their businesses. 


The marketing program, which Google calls "AdWords," also has
caused headaches for the company. 

American Blind and Wallpaper Factory recently filed a trademark
infringement lawsuit against Google because the search engine allows
rival merchants to display their ads alongside the terms "American
wallpaper" and "American blind."
*******************************
USA Today
Software bug blamed for blackout-alarm failure
By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-02-12-blackout-bug_x.htm
Posted
2/12/2004 7:56 PM     Updated 2/12/2004 8:08
PM

NEW YORK  A programming error has been identified as the cause of
alarm failures that might have contributed to the scope of last summer's
Northeast blackout, industry officials said Thursday. 

Ralph DiNicola, spokesman for FirstEnergy, said the utility has since
applied fixes developed by the system's vendor, General Electric, and has
accelerated plans to replace GE's XA/21 with a system from French nuclear
engineers Areva SA. 

A U.S.-Canadian task force investigating the blackout said in November
that FirstEnergy employees failed to take steps that could have isolated
utility failures because its data-monitoring and alarm computers weren't
working. 

Without a functioning emergency management system or the knowledge that
it had failed, the company's system operators "remained unaware that
their electrical system condition was beginning to degrade," the
report said. 

At the time, task force members said it remained unclear whether the
software malfunctioned or if FirstEnergy's computers had difficulty
running it that day. 

DiNicola said Thursday that the company, working with GE and energy
consultants from Kema, had pinned the trouble on a software glitch by
late October and completed its fix by Nov. 19, coincidentally the same
day the task force issued its report. 

GE Energy spokesman Dennis Murphy said the company distributed a warning
and a fix to its more than 100 other customers the following day.

DiNicola said FirstEnergy had informed the task force at the time; the
company went public with it this week in a report on the Web site
SecurityFocus. On Tuesday, the industry-sponsored North American
Electricity Reliability Council alluded to troubles with FirstEnergy's
XA/21 system. 

The discovery of the programming error took "weeks of going through
millions of lines of data," DiNicola said. 

The failures occurred when multiple systems trying to access the same
information at once got the equivalent of busy signals, he said. The
software should have given one system precedent. 

With the software not functioning properly at that point, data that
should have been deleted were instead retained, slowing performance, he
said. Similar troubles affected the backup systems. 

Joseph Bucciero, senior vice president for transmission services at Kema,
said the public should not lose confidence in utilities. 

"There are a lot of systems out there and they are running for many
years already, and this is the first time a problem like this has
arisen," he said. 

Bucciero said the software bug surfaced because of the number of unusual
events occurring simultaneously  by that time, three FirstEnergy
power lines had already short-circuited. 

The GE system at FirstEnergy was a 1996 model, DiNicola said. The newer
Esca system from Areva will be installed at two locations, Akron, Ohio,
and Reading, Pa., for redundancy, he said.
*******************************
Computerworld
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/cybercrime/story/0,10801,90162,00.html
FTC,
international coalition crack down on misleading Web sites
The sweep is being coordinated by the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission 
Story by Linda Rosencrance 

FEBRUARY 12, 2004 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - The Federal Trade Commission and
more than two dozen consumer protection agencies around the world are
participating in a three-day sweep to identify and crack down on Web
sites that mislead consumers. 
The International Internet Sweep, which began Tuesday, is being
coordinated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The sweep is focusing on what the agencies call ?too-good-to-be-true? Web
sites that prey on consumers by offering them bogus get-rich-quick
schemes, work-at-home schemes, and free offers that are anything but.

?The lure of quick, easy money and opportunities to work from home entice
consumers into such schemes,? the ACCC said in a statement. 

Common pitfalls include hidden start-up fees, added costs and grossly
exaggerated earning potential, according to the ACCC. Consumers often
lose thousands of dollars to such schemes, the agency said. 

?The ACCC received an increasing number of complaints and inquiries about
Internet scams throughout the year of 2003,? said ACCC Chairman Graeme
Samuel in the statement. ?The internet is prime territory for scammers
around the globe who seek to take advantage of international boundaries
to avoid detection. Scammers are increasingly using the Internet to try
and make a fast dollar and take advantage of vulnerable consumers.?

FTC spokesman Pablo Zylberglait said the sweep is part of an ongoing
effort by members of the International Consumer Protection and
Enforcement Network (ICPEN), a network of consumer protection agencies
from 31 countries. 

?Cross border cooperation is essential to combat these types of scams,?
the ACCC said. ?Enforcement agencies are increasingly working together to
combat Internet fraud, where scammers exploit the international nature of
the Internet.? 

After the Internet sweep, the ICPEN will turn over whatever information
it has gathered about suspect Web sites to the affected countries. It
will be up to officials in those countries to decide what, if anything,
to do with the information. Zylberglait said a country could decide to
take legal action against a site's owner, or just warn the owner about
possible violations. In addition, a country could just decide to alert
the public about any suspect Web sites. 

Zylberglait said the agencies will likely release a statement about the
outcome of the sweep after an ICPEN meeting at the end of March. 
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Federal patch service to stop
BY Florence Olsen 
Feb. 11, 2004  
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0209/web-patch-02-11-04.asp

After a year
spent helping federal agencies patch their insecure operating systems,
government officials say they plan to leave that role to others.

This week, DHS officials said that the department will get out of the
business of distributing security patches because the private sector is
better at it than the federal government. Lawrence Hale, deputy director
of the United States Computer Emergency Response Team, could not say
exactly when the department would stop offering a service called Patch
Authentication and Dissemination Capability (PADC). But he suggested that
agencies would soon have to find commercial alternatives to the
government's free service. Forty-seven federal agencies now use
it.

When the federal government began planning the patch distribution service
more than three years ago, Hale said that the idea of offering patch
management assistance was ahead of its time. But by the time the
government had awarded a contract to a company that could provide the
service, other commercial alternatives had surpassed the limited offering
that the government had contracted.

Many companies now sell patch management as part of an integrated
configuration management service that includes vulnerability scanning,
patch installation and asset management. The PADC service is for patch
installation only. Agencies that use the free service buy the other
services separately if they want them, but at prices that are often
higher than those of the integrated commercial packages, Hale
said.

General Dynamics Corp. and its Veridian Corp. subsidiary provide the
government's patch management service under a $10 million contract.
*******************************
Government Computer News
DHS to pare state security requests 
By Wilson P. Dizard III 
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24935-1.html

The Homeland
Security Department likely won't grant states all the money requested in
security plans they recently submitted. 

In testimony before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, DHS
secretary Tom Ridge today said the state plans amount largely to
"wish lists" for the funding states seek from the department.

?We need to work with state and local governments to develop a standard
list of facilities the loss of which would cause massive destruction of
human life or economic loss,? Ridge said. ?We need to pare down the wish
lists." 

State and local governments likely will use much of the funding they
receive from DHS to purchase systems and electronic equipment to prepare
for, cope with and recover from terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

The administration's fiscal 2005 DHS budget request includes $3.6 billion
for first-responder terrorism preparedness grants. 

DHS plans to double funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative to
$1.45 billion. That program targets funds especially to large citiesa
plan that appeared to irk representatives from rural areas and smaller
cities. 

Grant allocation methods and the speed of grant distributions concerned
several lawmakers, who criticized delays in the process. Ridge said DHS
is working to develop a standard way for delivering funds to states, to
speed the process. 

Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) said the top concern of first responders
he has talked to is the lack of interoperable communications equipment.
"I was concerned that funding for that was zeroed out" in the
administration's fiscal 2005 budget proposal, he said. 

Ridge said DHS would let state and local agencies use grant funds for
interoperable communications gear "not only this year but in future
years," adding that the release of an interoperability standard is
"imminent."
*******************************