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IP: ACM Washington Update v. 2.3
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1998 10:53:08 -0500
____________________________________________________________ +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ACM WASHINGTON UPDATE U.S. Office of Public Policy of the Association for Computing Machinery __________________________________________ +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ April 3, 1998 Volume 2.3 _____________________________________________________ +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ CONTENTS =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ INTRODUCTION ACM POLICY 98 CONFERENCE POLICY BRIEFS Intellectual Property Legislation President Speaks on Internet Taxes Novel Data-Scrambling Method Proposed Senate Committee Approves Two Net Censorship Bills Hearing on Scientific Partnerships Information Technology Partnering Act Policy Articles in Communications of the ACM Upcoming Hearings _________________________________________________________ +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ACM 1998 CONFERENCE =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ACM POLICY '98 "Shaping Policy in the Information Age" May 10-12, 1998 Washington Renaissance Hotel Washington, DC The leading professional society in computing will hold its 1998 conference in Washington, DC and focus on public policy issues affecting future applications of computing. Our goal is to promote ongoing engagement between computing professionals and policy makers to further the productive use of computing and information processing innovations. Computing professionals can become more influential if they are more informed about political processes and issues. Policy makers can be more effective if they have access to technical experts who can provide thoughtful testimony and offer a wide range of options. Attendees at ACM Policy 98 will exchange ideas with prominent leaders from academia, industry, Congress, and Executive agencies. Join us on May 10, 1998 to explore the ethical and social issues related to computer technology, participate in the debate between Esther Dyson and Gary Chapman, and honor computing professionals at the ACM Awards Banquet. Then on May 11-12, 1998 listen as national leaders present their reports: Speakers include: * Senator Orrin Hatch (invited): Future of Intellectual Property * Special Advisor to the President Ira Magaziner: White House Report * Representative Vern Ehlers: Reformulating US Science Policy * Representative Constance Morella: The Role of the Federal Government in Computing * Federal Trade Commissioner Mozelle Thompson * Robert E. Kahn, President, CNRI: Technology Keynote * Assistant Director Juris Hartmanis: The Role of the National Science Foundation in Computing Policy * Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information: Larry Irving * Debate: Esther Dyson and Gary Chapman * ACM Presidential Award for founding NetDay: John Gage, Sun Microsystems * Making Science Policy: Roundtable with NPR Correspondent Dan Charles Policy Panels: + Electronic Commerce + Intellectual Property + Learning Online + Universal Service Ethics and Social Impact Sessions: +Kids Online: Home, School, and the Web +Privacy: Lost in Cyberspace? +Point and Counterpoint: Media Views of the Future of Computing For Conference and Registration information see: http://www.acm.org/usacm/events/policy98/ __________________________________________________________ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ POLICY BRIEFS =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEGISLATION On March 31, 1998, the House Judiciary Committee marked up H.R. 2281, the "WIPO Copyright Treaties Implementation Act." Introduced by Representative Henry Hyde (R-IL), H.R. 2281 makes the use, manufacture or sale of any technology that can be used to circumvent copyright protections illegal. Rather than providing protection and legal against the act of unlawful circumvention itself, H.R. 2881 focuses instead on the technologies used to enable the circumvention. The Act which is backed by the Clinton Administration has the stated purpose of enacting the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) copyright treaties passed in Geneva in December of 1996. However, the Act would actually go much farther than the treaties require, disrupting the balance between owners, creators and users of copyrighted information. The anti-circumvention provisions of H.R. 2281 would give content owners the unprecedented power to bar consumers (including value-added innovators) from making copies of material that is being distributed commercially to the public, effectively gutting the fair use doctrine of copyright law. USACM criticized this approach which was ultimately rejected in the WIPO treaties. USACM wrote, "This could adversely effect a company which legitimately develops a product that people use for different purposes than that for which it was developed. Since it is likely to be extremely difficult for a developer to collect data about the primary use of the product, it may be impossible to refute a claim made by copyright holders who argues that the primary effect of a particular device is copyright infringement. As a result, the Article could have the undesired effect of dissuading manufacturers or software producers from investing in a new technology with substantial non-infringing purposes for fear that an anxious copyright holder might pursue litigation using the "primary effect" standard. USACM concluded, "We believe that the Article should address the intent of the individual or company, not the effect of its actions or product. Furthermore, this bill would impede encryption research that helps ensure secure networks, prevent legitimate reverse engineering in the development of new software, and effectively overrule the Supreme Court's decision in Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984), which permitted the home taping of television broadcasts. A much better WIPO implementation bill, which punishes the "act" of unlawful infringement and maintains fair use protections, is H.R. 3048, the "Digital Era Copyright Enhancement Act." H.R. 3048 would encourage the development of new technologies and markets for copyrighted works in digital form, while giving intellectual property holders the strong tools they need to go after infringing conduct. H.R. 2281: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281: H.R. 3048: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.3048: USACM letter: http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/wipo_copyright_letter.html =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ PRESIDENT SPEAKS ON INTERNET TAXES On March 19, 1998, The President released a brief statement rescinding his call for a short-term moratorium on new and discriminatory taxes that would "slow down the growth of the Internet, and a search for long-term solutions to the tax issues raised by electronic commerce." Instead he stated, "We cannot allow 30,000 state and local tax jurisdictions to stifle the Internet, but neither can we allow the erosion of the revenue that state and local governments need to fight crime and invest in education." The President continued by praising the agreement reached by groups representing state and local elected officials as "an important and constructive step towards a long-term solution." http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/urires/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1998/3/19/ 10.text.1 =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ NOVEL DATA-SCRAMBLING METHOD PROPOSED Ronald Rivest, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the inventors RSA described a new approach to data scrambling, in a short technical paper posted at his web site. He describes the process as "chaffing and winnowing" digital information instead of encrypting it. Rivest's paper explains that it is possible to hide a message by breaking it into packets that are secretly identified as good information, or ``wheat,'' and gibberish, or ``chaff,'' in such a way that an eavesdropper cannot distinguish the two. According to Rivest, because the individual packets would not be encrypted, such a system would circumvent current export restrictions. His paper concludes, "As a consequence of the existence of chaffing and winnowing, one can argue that attempts by law enforcement to regulate confidentiality by regulating encryption must fail, as confidentiality can be obtained effectively without encryption and even sometimes without the desire for confidentiality by the two communicants. Law enforcement would have to seek access to all authentication keys as well, a truly frightening prospect. Mandating government access to all communications is not a viable alternative. The cryptography debate should proceed by mutual education and voluntary actions only." http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/chaffing.txt =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES TWO NET CENSORSHIP BILLS The Senate Commerce Committee approved two bills on March 12 designed to limit access to material on the Internet. S. 1619, introduced by Senator John McCain (R-AZ), requires that schools and libraries must "select a system for computers with Internet access to filter or block matter deemed to be inappropriate for minors" before they can receive money under the E-Rate Universal Service fund to provide net access from the Federal Communications Commission. The Committee also discussed amendments introduced by Senator Burns and Breaux that would limit the scope of the bill. The amendments will be considered before the legislation is sent to the Senate floor. The other bill, S. 1482, introduced by Senator Dan Coates (R-IN), criminalizes the distribution of commercial material that is "harmful to minors." The penalty is a $50,000 fine and six months jail time. In additional, the bill also says that violators " shall be subject to a civil fine of not more than $50,000 for each violation. For purposes of this paragraph, each day of violation shall constitute a separate violation." In the House, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced H.R. 3442, E-Rate Policy and child Protection Act of 1998 on March 11. The bill would only require that "an elementary or secondary school or library that obtains services or preferential rates or treatment under this section shall establish a policy with respect to access to material that is inappropriate for children." More information is available on the bills from the Internet Free Expression Alliance at: http://www.ifea.net =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ HEARING ON SCIENTIFIC PARTNERSHIPS Pursuant to the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, the House Science Committee held two hearings on March 11 and 25 in order to provide input for Rep. Vern Ehlers' National Science Policy Study. The first hearing focused on successful scientific partnerships and the second on reviewing the benefits to the U.S. from international scientific cooperation. On March 11, flexibility in policy was the key element stressed by witnesses at the hearing. The national labs' CRADA process was criticized for both its lack of adaptability and its over-emphasis of intellectual property rights, which "sometimes turned out to be an impediment", according to professor David Mowery, of Univesity of California at Berkeley. Other elements of successful parterships were also cited, including an understanding of each others' goals, cultures, and time scales, as well as effective, understanding management. On March 25, the witnesses agreed that because of constrained science funding in the U.S. and the increasing quality of research done in other countries, in many cases the U.S. can effectively leverage its resources by partnering. This, said Ehlers, enables American researchers to "reap the full benefits of that research at a fraction of the cost of performing the research ourselves." However, the witnesses echoed Ranking Minority Member George Brown (D-CA) when he called the U.S. approach to international collaborations "disjointed, to say the least." In closing, Ehlers said he hoped his policy study would develop a more effective process for bringing all the players on board at the beginning of a large international collaboration. He added that while many see risks of failure in committing to large projects, such as ITER, current policies and technologies are not always sufficient for the future. "We can fail by not going forward, too," he declared. Ehlers will be discussing the science policy study at the ACM Policy 98 conference on May 12 at 8:30 AM. http://www.house.gov/science/science_policy_study.htm =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PARTNERING ACT On March 18, 1998 Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) introduced H. R. 3496, known as the Information Technology Partnership Act. The bill would "develop a demonstration project through the National Science Foundation to encourage interest in the fields of mathematics, science and information technology," according to Ms. Johnson. The bill, if passed, would allocate funds for teacher training in math and the sciences and private sector participation in the form of computer donations and student mentoring. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.3496.IH: =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ POLICY ARTICLES IN COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM The April issue of Communications of the ACM is dedicated to "Digital Libraries: Global Scope, Unlimited Access." USACM member Pamela Samuelson's article "Encoding the Law Into Digital Libraries" appears in the Legally Speaking column. In it she discusses the tensions between the technologists who build the digital library systems, the users, and the policymakers. http://www.acm.org/pubs/citations/journals/cacm/1998-41-4/p13-samuelson/ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ UPCOMING HEARINGS April 28, 1998. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee YEAR 2000 COMPUTER PROBLEM www.senate.gov/committee/commerce/html. ________________________________________________________________________ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Washington Update is a biweekly publication of the U.S. Public Policy Office of the Association for Computing http://www.acm.org/usacm 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 302B, Washington, DC 20003. 202/544-4859 (tel), 202/547-5482 (fax). ________________________________________________________________________ /\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Association for Computing, + http://www.acm.org/usacm/ Office of U.S. Public Policy * +1 202 544 4859 (tel) 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Suite 302 B * +1 202 547 5482 (fax) Washington, DC 20003 USA + gelman () acm org To subscribe to the ACM Washington Update, send e-mail to: listserv () acm org with "subscribe WASHINGTON-UPDATE name" (no quotes) in the body of the message.
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