Neutral Tandem seems headed for a victory at the FCC in a long fight with Verizon Wireless over whether the carrier should have to provide direct connection to its network. An order dealing with a Neutral Tandem petition sent the FCC last year (CD Aug 28/06 p4) has been circulated by Chairman Kevin Martin, possibly for a vote at the Oct. 31 agenda meeting.
The more databases the U.S. government keeps on citizens, the more vulnerable personal information, the Electronic Frontier Foundation told House Commerce Committee and Telecom and Oversight subcommittee leaders last week. The committee asked the foundation for input as it reviews the Protect America Act. EFF cited recent Government Accountability Office findings that nearly 800 breaches of federal databases occurred from January 2003 through July 2006. Some national security databases aren’t subject to Privacy Act requirements that they only store information “relevant and necessary” for their stated purpose, the group said. Errors can be hard to fix in networked databases if all sources of an error aren’t traced, such as in the Terrorist Screening Database, it said. Mission creep is another risk of database proliferation, with national security being cited as a reason to use material collected for one purpose for another. EFF also summarized the background on what it said was AT&T’s interception of communications for the NSA at the telco’s San Francisco switching facility. Citing comments of its expert, a former FCC Internet technology adviser, in the Hepting case against the telcos, EFF told the committee that the San Francisco setup probably was repeated elsewhere, given clues in the hardware configuration. EFF also analyzed the use of “exigent letters” to get details of communications from telcos, saying such letters mostly were used out of their statutory context, which reserves them for “emergency” situations. “Generalized fears are not sufficient to support a reasonable belief in an immediate emergency threat to life or limb,” EFF said.
The more databases the U.S. government keeps on citizens, the more vulnerable personal information, the Electronic Frontier Foundation told House Commerce Committee and Telecom and Oversight subcommittee leaders last week. The committee asked the foundation for input as it reviews the Protect America Act. EFF cited recent Government Accountability Office findings that nearly 800 breaches of federal databases occurred from January 2003 through July 2006. Some national security databases aren’t subject to Privacy Act requirements that they only store information “relevant and necessary” for their stated purpose, the group said. Errors can be hard to fix in networked databases if all sources of an error aren’t traced, such as in the Terrorist Screening Database, it said. Mission creep is another risk of database proliferation, with national security being cited as a reason to use material collected for one purpose for another. EFF also summarized the background on what it said was AT&T’s interception of communications for the NSA at the telco’s San Francisco switching facility. Citing comments of its expert, a former FCC Internet technology adviser, in the Hepting case against the telcos, EFF told the committee that the San Francisco setup probably was repeated elsewhere, given clues in the hardware configuration. EFF also analyzed the use of “exigent letters” to get details of communications from telcos, saying such letters mostly were used out of their statutory context, which reserves them for “emergency” situations. “Generalized fears are not sufficient to support a reasonable belief in an immediate emergency threat to life or limb,” EFF said.
eTrucker reports that drivers representing the top Mexican trucking association parked their trucks on October 4th on the Mexican side of the Matamoros-Brownsville border to protest the cross-border trucking program. The drivers demanded equal treatment for Mexican and American truckers, claiming that American truckers get preferential treatment in Mexico, while Mexican truckers on the U.S. side of the border get tickets for no reason at all, etc. (eTrucker, dated 10/05/07, available at http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=63764)
The National Institute of Standards and Technology offers an e-mail notification service which alerts readers to drafts or changes to foreign technical regulations for manufactured products which may be considered technical barriers to trade and are therefore required to be reported to the World Trade Organization, which distributes the information to WTO Member countries.
Expect a White House announcement on cyberthreats “in the very near future,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a DHS advisory board Tuesday. Chertoff wasn’t specific. The National Infrastructure Advisory Council also heard a report that “insider threats” to IT security are mounting, with scant coordination among sectors against them.
GENEVA -- A model cybercrime law that works globally and fits with existing national and regional mandates is a top goal, ITU’s High Level Experts Group on Cyber-security said Friday. The group was meeting to work on tasks assigned it at the World Summit on the Information Society (WID Jan 16 p1), officials said. The group is ITU’s first key step on cybersecurity, said Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the ITU, at a press briefing Friday.
GENEVA -- A model cybercrime law that works globally and fits with existing national and regional mandates is a top goal, ITU’s High Level Experts Group on Cyber-security said Friday. The group was meeting to work on tasks assigned it at the World Summit on the Information Society (CD Jan 16 p 5), officials said. The group is ITU’s first key step on cybersecurity, said Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the ITU, at a press briefing Friday.
The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) wrote to House and Senate appropriators asking that they keep money in a final funding bill. This would let NTIA award grants to public safety answering points to upgrade their technology. The House version of the Commerce, Justice, Science and related agencies appropriations bill provides $5 million for grants. NENA and APCO want the money to be in a final version of the spending bill when it clears a conference committee. “The ENHANCE 911 Act authorized up to $250 million per year for grants to ensure 911 centers have modern technology capable of locating wireless 911 calls,” the letter states. “Yet, to date, none of these monies have been appropriated. We believe that the House-approved $5 million, while only a start, could address the emergency communications concerns in the areas of most dire need, mostly in rural America, where the funding has not been made available at the state or local level.”
GENEVA -- Social networking, mashups and other emerging Internet tools that raise privacy and cross-jurisdictional questions will loom larger than ever before at the upcoming OECD Ministerial Conference on the future of the Internet economy, officials told us. International debate over privacy, network neutrality and the intersection of national legal systems in the virtual world is rising, officials said Wednesday during the OECD-Canada Forum on the Participative Web (WID Aug 28 p1, Aug 27 p1).