Clips October 31, 2003

[Lillie Coney <lillie.coney@xxxxxxx>]

Clips October 31,
2003

ARTICLES

Critical Study Minus Criticism of Justice Dept.
Growing use of private police network raises concerns
Groups question voting machines' accuracy
Lawyers call for data mining guidelines
Courts must invest in IT, judge says
Congress keeps government open another week 
DISA opens center to increase bandwidth 
Security official touts department's science initiatives
Internet-based system helps California manage wildfire fight
ICANN to Adopt New Domain Process 

*******************************
New York Times
October 31, 2003
Critical Study Minus Criticism of Justice Dept.
By DAVID JOHNSTON and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 An internal report that harshly criticized the
Justice Department's diversity efforts was edited so heavily when it was
posted on the department's Web site two weeks ago that half of its 186
pages, including the summary, were blacked out. 

The deleted passages, electronically recovered by a self-described
"information archaeologist" in Tucson, portrayed the
department's record on diversity as seriously flawed, specifically in the
hiring, promotion and retention of minority lawyers.

The unedited report, completed in June 2002 by the consulting firm KPMG,
found that minority employees at the department, which is responsible for
enforcing the country's civil rights laws, perceive their own workplace
as biased and unfair. 

"The department does face significant diversity issues," the
report said. "Whites and minorities as well as men and women
perceive differences in many aspects of the work climate. For example,
minorities are significantly more likely than whites to cite
stereotyping, harassment and racial tension as characteristics of the
work climate. Many of these differences are also present between men and
women, although to a lesser extent." 

Another deleted part said efforts to promote diversity "will take
extraordinarily strong leadership" from the attorney general's
office and other Justice Department offices.

Even complimentary conclusions were deleted, like one that said
"attorneys across demographic groups believe that the Department is
a good place to work" and another that said "private industry
cites DOJ as a trend-setter for diversity." Beyond that, a
recommendation that the department should "increase public
visibility of diversity issues," was kept out of the public
report.

The edited version gave a much narrower view of the department's
diversity problems.

Private lawyers who have sued federal agencies for racial discrimination
expressed dismay at the heavy editing of the report and at its
conclusions that discrimination was perceived by the minority lawyers who
make up about 15 percent of the Justice Department's 9,200
lawyers.

"The Justice Department has sought to hide from the public
statistically significant findings of discrimination against minorities
within its ranks," said David J. Shaffer, a lawyer who has
represented agents from federal agencies in class-action discrimination
lawsuits. "These cases challenge the same type of discriminatory
practices found to exist at the Justice Department."

After the unedited document began circulating in computer circles, and
articles began appearing earlier this month in publications like Computer
World and newspapers like Newsday, the Justice Department pulled the
edited report from its Web site, later posting a different version
thought to be more resistant to electronic manipulation.

The complaints about the Justice Department come as it has shifted many
resources to fighting terrorism and critics have said it has allowed the
enforcement of civil rights to languish and failed to aggressively pursue
some accusations of discrimination in housing, the workplace and other
critical areas.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the
department's handling of the report called into question its commitment
to diversity in its own workplace.

At a Senate hearing this week, Mr. Kennedy told James B. Comey, nominated
by President Bush to succeed Larry Thompson as deputy attorney general,
that the episode "gives the distinct impression that the department
commissioned the report, then left it on the shelf, ignoring the
recommendations."

Mr. Comey, however, said the report and the policy that grew out of it
were "a point of pride" for the Justice Department.

Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, said that portions of the
report, and even its conclusions, were "deliberative and
predecisional" and so could be excluded from the public report under
provisions in the Freedom of Information Act. Mr. Corallo said some of
the consultants' findings were inaccurate, but he said he could not
discuss deleted passages.

Mr. Corallo said career lawyers who routinely decide how to censor
material before public release made the recommendations about what to
delete from the diversity report. He said their recommendations were sent
to the office of the deputy attorney general, where it was reviewed by
political appointees who made no further changes.

By the time the department posted the theoretically more secure version
of the report on its Web site, it was too late. Russ Kick, a writer and
editor in Tucson, who operates a Web site, thememoryhole.org, had had
already electronically stripped the edited version of the black lines
that hid the full text. Mr. Kick then posted the unedited version of the
report on his Web site, where it has been copied more than 32,000 times,
a near record for the site. Justice Department officials said it was
unlikely that any action would be taken against Mr. Kick.

Some Justice Department lawyers said the editing of the report had
overshadowed the purpose of the study. Stacey Plaskett Duffy, a senior
counsel to the deputy attorney general, said the study, a
self-evaluation, was part of a program to improve the department's
diversity programs.

"This was a study that we commissioned of our own volition to get a
look at what our work force looked like," Ms. Duffy said. "We
didn't have to let people know we were doing this."

She said the department had undertaken a number of significant steps to
improve the work environment for minority members. Department officials
have begun a pilot $300,000 program to help new lawyers pay off student
loans, she said, and have also started a mentoring program, begun posting
all job openings and are assessing how to more fairly assign cases within
each unit.
*******************************
USA Today
Growing use of private police network raises concerns
By Patrick Howe, Associated Press
Posted 10/30/2003 7:00 PM     Updated 10/30/2003 7:15
PM

ST. PAUL  Some see it as the sort of tool that just might give a cop
a break the next time someone abducts a child. 
Some see it as an assault on personal privacy, a Big Brother of a network
operating outside the bounds of state regulation. 

Most, though, have no way of knowing about it at all. 

Since 2001, the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association has been quietly
linking the case files of law enforcement agencies around the state to
build a searchable system police can use to share information on people
that their officers have had contact with. 

More than 175 agencies that collectively police two-thirds of the state's
population are now participating in the Multiple Jurisdictional Network
Organization, sharing nearly 8 million records. Though still owned by the
chiefs, in March the state took over running it. 

For police, the system's appeal is in the depth of information. 

Unlike a database run by the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the
MJNO network doesn't just tell police if a person has been convicted of a
crime. It also tells whether they've ever been arrested or if they appear
in police files as a victim, a suspect, a complainant or a witness. It
has juvenile files. 

Agencies in neighboring states have begun to join the network and some
officers have access to it from their squad cars. 

Now, spurred by citizens who've found themselves scrutinized because of
the system, the network is facing questions. Questions about the state's
involvement. Questions about what authority a private group had to build
it. Questions about whether people can get access to information shown
about them. And questions about whether the system is accurate and
secure. 

At least one lawmaker is planning hearings and an attorney is exploring a
lawsuit with the hope of shutting MJNO down. 

How it began

The basic concept of the system began in 1992, when police in Crystal
asked to view the records of their Minneapolis counterparts. In 1997,
some 22 police agencies banded together to win a federal grant to build a
prototype. Eventually, it was turned over to the nonprofit chiefs
association to run and administer. 

So far, the network has been paid for through federal grants and
subscribing agencies paying fees of between $50 and $500. In March, the
state took on a more significant role, leasing rights to use it for 18
months in exchange for the state investing up to $150,000 to upgrade the
system. It's housed on a state Web server 
www.mjno.state.mn.us 
and state employees run it. Before Thursday, when the site was down,
members of the public could get to the home page, but queries required
authorization. 

The state is exploring absorbing MJNO permanently after the lease is up,
said Bob Johnson, director of CriMNet, the state's broad effort to link
public information for law enforcement use. Before that can happen, he
said, plenty of thorny legal and practical questions must be answered.

How it works

When an officer gets a hit on a name searched in the MJNO network, the
screen they call up shows them the person's name, date of birth, the
number and type of case that brought them to police attention and the
person's role in the matter; whether they were a victim, caller, suspect
or witness, for example. 

Click on a hypertext link offering additional details and it also gives a
limited physical description of the person and a broader description of
the case. 

Dennis Delmont, executive director of the chiefs association, stressed
that only police have access to the system. He said agencies that use the
information are warned it is up to them to verify its accuracy. 

And he said the association doesn't own or alter the data. The MJNO, he
says, is merely a pipe linking one agency's data to another. 

"(Critics are) concerned why the Chiefs of Police Association
collects all this information on them. The answer is, we don't," he
said. "We facilitate the collection by pointing to the data."

Testimonials on MJNO's Web site laud its ease of use. One investigator
says it helped him do in four hours what would have taken his full staff
a week. Another boasts that "tools like MJNO are changing the way we
do business." 

Indeed, police at cash-strapped agencies say joining the system has been
the equivalent of adding an extra investigator to their staff. 

Discovery

Scott Chapman may have been one of the first people outside of law
enforcement to become aware of the reach of MJNO. 

He said the experience left him feeling violated. 

Last March, Chapman, a computer systems administrator, was at a political
rally outside U.S. Rep. John Kline's office. He was carrying a sign
reading "Freedom is not free," to balance people protesting the
war in Iraq, he said. 

As the rally neared an end, a Burnsville police sergeant stopped Chapman
and asked to search his fanny pack. Chapman protested but eventually
handed it over. Finding nothing unusual, the officer allowed him to
leave. 

Chapman said the experience left him shaken and curious why he'd been
singled out. 

The answer came from a friendly file clerk and the police report on the
incident. Chapman learned that the officer was suspicious in part because
he'd searched the MJNO and found that Chapman had requested but been
denied permission to carry a concealed carry permit. (Chapman had since
been granted a permit, though that wasn't in the records) 

"Here I've done nothing wrong. I've done everything right. I applied
for a legal permit and followed the process," Chapman said.
"Now I find out that my name is commingled with all of the felons
and arrestees and everyone else? It just seems wrong." 

In an e-mail to Chapman, a Burnsville commander defended the use of the
system as a normal course of police business. 

His attorney, gun-rights activist David Gross, says he is exploring a
possible lawsuit over the incident. 

Gross questions the accuracy of the information and the security of the
system. He believes the system should be shut down because it was never
authorized by the Legislature and doesn't comply with parts of the
state's records law, the Data Practices Act. 

"There's all sorts of philosophical questions," he said.
"What is it? Why did they need to create it? Is it lawful to create
it? Why in the hell, if they needed it and wanted it to exist, didn't
they go through the state government to create it?" 

He said he believes state law demands that citizens have access to any
data collected on them, provided they aren't the suspect of an
investigation. Delmont said those questions should be taken to the
agencies that hold the actual records, not MJNO. 

Gross also says Chapman's experience shows MJNO is easily misused, too
convenient and tempting for police not to use it to short-circuit
traditional investigations. 

"I'm a white guy from the 'burbs and I was stopped and illegally
searched," Chapman said. "Can you imagine what it must be like
for a guy who's not a white guy from the 'burbs?" 

Lawmakers step in

Largely thanks to Chapman's efforts to bring the system to their
attention, lawmakers are beginning to question the system. 

Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, a Republican from Lakeville, recently went into
the office of the Chiefs of Police Association and demanded a copy of the
records the MJNO has on her. 

She wasn't satisfied with what she learned. 

Charging her $15, the group printed out a summary sheet that showed that
one agency in the system has her name in their records. To find out more,
she was told to contact that police department directly. 

"I want to see what the cops see on their screens," Holberg
said. "I don't understand why the MJNO screen on me is not
accessible to me." 

As a lawmaker who has served on key police and law committees, Holberg
said she initially dismissed talk about a secret, privately run database,
assuming she'd have heard about it if it existed. "I didn't key into
it, because I thought it sounded so bizarre it couldn't be true."

Holberg said she can see the benefits of the system to police, but she's
grown concerned enough to plan hearings on MJNO for the next legislative
session. 

"There needs to be major big time discussion from a public policy
standpoint before we get much further down the road." 

Powerful system

Gary Ritari can understand the concerns. As a director of technology at
the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Ritari is helping explore whether
and how to merge MJNO into CriMNet. 

He says he understands that MJNO has probably grown large enough that
it's time for the Legislature to weigh in on issues about public records.

But he also wants people to understand the power of the system. 

He tells this story: 

When he was a Minneapolis police officer more than 20 years ago, a fellow
officer was shot. They had a suspect, and it was Ritari's job to try to
gather all the information from law enforcement agencies across the state
on the suspect. 

He started working the phones. 

It took him eight days to finish. 

Today, the bulk of the work could be done in seconds, the rest in hours.

"I love to see bad guys get caught and put away," he said.
"This helps it happen." 
*******************************
Associated Press
China Detains Internet Essayist for Subversion
Fri Oct 31, 2:20 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have detained a civil servant,
whose essays are banned by Beijing on the Internet, on charges of
subversion, sources said on Friday, part of an intensified government
crackdown on online dissent.


Plainclothes state security agents took Du Daobin, who turns 40 next
month, into custody on Tuesday while he was on his way home from work in
Yingcheng city in the central province of Hubei province, his wife Xia
Chunrong said. 


Two days later, seven plainclothesmen searched Du's home, seized his
computer and presented his wife with a warrant certifying Du's detention
for "subverting state power," she said. 


"The state security told me he was held at Xiaogan police detention
center, but when my sister went there to give him some clothes and a
blanket, they denied he was there," she said. 


"I'm really worried for him as well as our 12-year-old son if I'm
also arrested," the 33-year-old nurse told Reuters. 


Du, who works for the municipal medical reform office, signed an online
petition calling for the release of fellow "cyber-dissident"
Liu Di, a female psychology student from Beijing Normal University who
was detained in the capital in November 2002. 


Du's essays are banned in China, but have been published on overseas
portals (news - web sites), the New York-based rights group China Labour
Watch said in a statement. 


The London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International said 40
cyber-dissidents were currently detained on imprisoned for
Internet-related offences. 


They include students, political dissidents and practitioners of Falun
Gong (news - web sites), a spiritual movement banned by Beijing as an
"evil cult" in 1999. Those jailed got up to 11 years. 


In addition to jailing Internet dissidents, China has created a special
Internet police force, blocked some foreign sites and shut down domestic
sites posting politically incorrect fare.
*******************************
Australian IT
Man charged over anti-war email
OCTOBER 31, 2003  
 
AN Auckland peace activist who sent an email to the US Embassy objecting
to the war on Iraq has been charged with misuse of a telephone.

Police went to the Epsom home of 38-year-old university student Bruce
Hubbard yesterday afternoon and took him to Takapuna police station for
questioning. 
Mr Hubbard last night said he has been charged under the
Telecommunications Act and has been told by police they'll seize
information from his computer under the Counter-Terrorism Act. 

Friends such as fellow activist John Minto were alerted to Hubbard's
plight when he sent an email before being taken to the police station.

A spokeswoman for Takapuna police has confirmed Hubbard has been charged
and is on bail, but was unable to confirm the charge. 

Mr Minto says Hubbard sent the embassy an email in about March. 
*******************************
USA Today
Groups question voting machines' accuracy
By Robert Tanner, Associated Press
Posted 10/30/2003 6:51 PM

Doubts about the trustworthiness of electronic voting machines are
growing among election officials and computer scientists, complicating
efforts to safeguard elections after the presidential stalemate of 2000.

With just over a year to go before the next presidential race,
touchscreen voting machines don't seem like the cure-all some thought
they would be. Skeptics fear they'll only produce more problems, from
making recounts less reliable to giving computer hackers a chance to
sabotage results. 

"I'm deeply concerned about this whole idea of election
integrity," said Warren Slocum, chief election officer in
California's San Mateo County. His doubts were so grave that he delayed
purchasing new voting machines and is sticking with the old ones for now.

He's not alone. While the Florida recount created momentum for revamping
the way Americans vote, slow progress on funding and federal oversight
means few people will see changes when they cast ballots next week. And
new doubts could further slow things. 

In Florida's Broward County  scene of a Bush-Gore recount of
punch-card ballots  officials spent $17.2 million on new touchscreen
equipment. Lately, they've expressed doubts about the machines' accuracy,
and have discussed purchasing an older technology for 1,000 more machines
they need. 

The concerns focus on: 

Voter confidence. Since most touchscreen machines don't create a separate
paper receipt, or ballot, voters can't be sure the machine accurately
recorded their choice. 

Recounts. Without a separate receipt, election officials can't conduct a
reliable recount but can only return to the computer's tally. 

Election fraud. Some worry the touchscreen machines aren't secure enough
and allow hackers to potentially get in and manipulate results. 

"The computer science community has pretty much rallied against
electronic voting," said Stephen Ansolabahere, a voting expert at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "A disproportionate
number of computer scientists who have weighed in on this issue are
opposed to it." 

Other doubters say the solution would be "voter verifiable paper
trails"  a paper receipt that voters can see to be confident of
their choice, that can then be securely stored, and that election
officials can rely on for recounts. 

Federal election-reform legislation passed in 2002 aims to upgrade voting
systems that rely on punch-card ballots or lever machines, and to improve
voter registration, voter education and poll worker training. 

States upgrading their equipment are looking at two systems: electronic
machines, with voters making their choice by touchscreens similar to
ATMs; and older optical scan machines, with voters using pen and paper to
darken ovals, similar to standardized tests. 

Still, Georgia announced it would re-examine the security of its $54
million-worth of computerized machines. North Dakota changed its plan to
give officials the flexibility to go with touchscreens or optical scan
machines. And the National Association of Secretaries of State held off
from embracing touchscreens at its summer meeting, pending further
studies. 

"This is too important to just sort of slam through," said
William Gardner, New Hampshire's secretary of state. In Congress, Rep.
Rush Holt (D-N.J.) has introduced a bill that would require that all
voting machines create a paper trail. 

Computer manufacturers and many election officials say the critics are
mistaken. They insist that security is solid and machines records are
examinable. They also say the sought-after improvements will create other
problems, such as malfunctioning machines and violating the integrity of
a voters' privacy. 

Slocum figures that only about a half-dozen of California's county
election commissioners share his concerns. 

The complaints echo those that came up when lever machines were
introduced in the 1920s, and again when punch cards came on the scene,
said Doug Lewis, an expert at The Election Center in Houston, Texas.

"We were going to find that elections were manipulated wildly and
regularly. Yet there was never any proof that that happened anywhere in
America," Lewis said. 

David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, one of the larger
voting machine makers, said "the fact of the matter is, there's
empirical data to show that not only is electronic voting secure and
accurate, but voters embrace it and enjoy the experience of voting that
way." 

This week, a federal appeals court in California threw out a lawsuit that
challenged computerized voting without paper trails, finding that no
voting system can eliminate all electoral fraud. 

That didn't satisfy doubters. 

John Rodstrom Jr., a Broward County (Fla.) commissioner said local
officials there wanted to upgrade to optical scan machines, but were
pressured into buying more than 5,000 touchscreens. 

"We were forced by the Legislature to be a trailblazer," he
said. "The vendors ... they're going to tell you it's perfect and
wonderful. (But) there are a lot of issues out there that haven't been
answered. It's a scary thing."
*******************************
Federal Computer Week
Lawyers call for data mining guidelines
BY Diane Frank 
Oct. 30, 2003  

Data mining can be an important tool as the government collects vast
quantities of intelligence for homeland security, but there needs to be
guidelines and policies, experts told the House Permanent Select
Intelligence Committee Thursday.

Technology makes possible many analyses functions, but agencies should
not be allowed to simply use them however they see fit, said Judith
Miller, a partner at the law firm of Williams and Connelly LLC, and
former general counsel at the Defense Department.

"Although these technologies are probably important for our national
security to pursue, we have not been going about it so far in the right
way," said Miller, a member of the Markle Foundation Task
Force.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), ranking member on the committee, voiced
concern that the Bush administration has "not yet adequately
developed a proper policy framework for data mining." Right now the
government is still functioning on an "emergency" approach with
homeland security rather than developing long-term policies, she
said.

That type of framework is necessary for the executive branch -- and
Congress -- as data-mining issues increasingly appear in federal
agencies, Miller argued. It should include a governmentwide review
process, consistent implementation guidelines, and oversight from
Congress and the administration through a clearly established audit
trail, she said.

The most controversial data-mining project under the homeland security
mission so far has been the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program at
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. TIA would search through
open source, third party information -- a type of search that is not
prohibited by any regulation or legislation, pointed out William Barr,
executive vice president and general counsel at Verizon, and former U.S.
attorney general.

However, given the civil liberties concerns around projects such as TIA,
technology will not be the answer, said Philip Heymann, a professor at
Harvard University School of Law and former deputy attorney general.
Significant legal, ethical and cultural decisions will need to be made
every time agencies develop a new homeland security data mining program,
and "I think only human beings can do it," he said.
 *******************************
Federal Computer Week
Courts must invest in IT, judge says
BY Dibya Sarkar 
Oct. 29, 2003

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Courts and technology go hand-in-hand, as far as
South Carolina's top judge is concerned. 

"Technology in the courtroom should be as much of a fixture as the
American flag," said Jean Hoefer Toal, chief justice of the South
Carolina Supreme Court.

E-mail and the Web will be as fundamental to modern life as running water
and electricity, Toal told an audience at the National Center for State
Courts' eighth annual Court Technology Conference. Technology, she said,
will improve service, save money and level the playing field among
courts, which will have equal access to electronic resources. And the
laptop will be the work environment for all judicial personnel, saving
hardware costs, she said.

But none of it can work, Toal said, without collaboration among agencies,
a cultural change of how people view technology and sufficient
funding.

Leadership is also essential, she said. That means having the right
attitude, vision, open-mindedness, focus, planning, knowledge of industry
best practices, active involvement and a can-do work ethic, she added.

Toal has firsthand experience with upgrading a court's infrastructure.
Technology in the South Carolina Supreme Court amounted to little more
than a fax machine and some rudimentary automated systems when she was
sworn in as chief justice three years ago. 

Since then, the court has embarked on a long-term modernization project.
Toal selected an information technology director and the court system
hired BearingPoint Inc. to help create a strategic plan  for network
connectivity, a case management system, document imaging technology, Web
portals and a call center  for courts statewide.

Since 2000, every court clerk in the state's 46 counties was given four
personal computers, one laptop, a network printer and a Web presence. The
Supreme Court introduced a portal  which now gets more than 3
million hits monthly  that provides a court calendar and other
information saving the state thousands of dollars in publishing and other
costs. The court installed an imaging system and is piloting a hosted
case management system with three counties.

By the end of the year, every court in the state will have high-speed
connectivity, Toal said. She expects that in the future, all judicial
facilities will have network connectivity, the case management system
will be deployed in all counties with a real-time interface with the
criminal justice information system and e-filing will be available.
*******************************
Government Computer News
10/31/03 
Congress keeps government open another week 
By Jason Miller 

The federal government can keep operating until Nov. 7 under a continuing
resolution passed in the House yesterday, 406 to 13, with the Senate?s
unanimous consent. President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law
today to avoid a shutdown. 

The bill lets agencies continue to spend at fiscal 2003 levels. This is
the second continuing resolution since the new fiscal year began Oct. 1;
the first kept the government running through today. 
Only three of 13 appropriations bills have become lawthose for the
Defense and Homeland Security departments and the legislative branch. The
Senate has yet to vote on spending bills for the Agriculture, Commerce,
Housing and Urban Development, Justice, State and Veterans Affairs
departments and the District of Columbia. 

The Interior Department?s appropriations bill is closest to going to the
White House. The House passed a conference report yesterday and the
Senate likely will vote on it next week. 

Susan Irving, director of federal budget analysis at the General
Accounting Office, said earlier this week that she doesn?t expect
Congress will get many spending bills done by the end of November.

?I think Congress will put a chunk of the government on a continuing
resolution until January,? Irving said at the Coalition for Government
Procurement conference in Arlington, Va. ?It will be tough on those
agencies working under the continuing resolution. It didn?t work very
well last year.? 

Irving added that funding will remain tight over the next several years
as the administration focuses on homeland security and military
issues.
*******************************
10/31/03 
Government Computer News
Congress keeps government open another week 
By Jason Miller 

The federal government can keep operating until Nov. 7 under a continuing
resolution passed in the House yesterday, 406 to 13, with the Senate?s
unanimous consent. President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law
today to avoid a shutdown. 

The bill lets agencies continue to spend at fiscal 2003 levels. This is
the second continuing resolution since the new fiscal year began Oct. 1;
the first kept the government running through today. 

Only three of 13 appropriations bills have become lawthose for the
Defense and Homeland Security departments and the legislative branch. The
Senate has yet to vote on spending bills for the Agriculture, Commerce,
Housing and Urban Development, Justice, State and Veterans Affairs
departments and the District of Columbia. 

The Interior Department?s appropriations bill is closest to going to the
White House. The House passed a conference report yesterday and the
Senate likely will vote on it next week. 

Susan Irving, director of federal budget analysis at the General
Accounting Office, said earlier this week that she doesn?t expect
Congress will get many spending bills done by the end of November.

?I think Congress will put a chunk of the government on a continuing
resolution until January,? Irving said at the Coalition for Government
Procurement conference in Arlington, Va. ?It will be tough on those
agencies working under the continuing resolution. It didn?t work very
well last year.? 

Irving added that funding will remain tight over the next several years
as the administration focuses on homeland security and military
issues.
*******************************
Government Computer News
10/30/03 
DISA opens center to increase bandwidth 
By Dawn S. Onley 

The Defense Information Systems Agency yesterday opened a station to
increase the bandwidth available to networked users, DOD
Teleport-Northwest, at the Naval Support Activity, Northwest Annex, in
Norfolk, Va. 

DISA created the Teleport program to increase military bandwidth to
enhance information sharing. 

The program is intended to provide integrated satellite communications
and Defense Information System Network services entry points, giving
deployed users access to unclassified and classified Internet protocols,
and telephone, videoconferencing and data transfer services. 

The military?s need for bandwidth was a common topic of discussion among
Defense Department IT officials during operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan, when information needs exceeded the bandwidth available from
Military Satellite Communications, according to DISA officials. DOD users
were forced to rely more heavily on commercial satellite services.

Last month, DOD unveiled a new Teleport Testbed at the Communications
Electronics Research and Development Center at Fort Monmouth, N.J. The
telecommunications collection and distribution point, located at the
center?s Space and Terrestrial Communications Directorate, will test new
technologies and implement upgrades of satellite systems, CECOM said in
an announcement. 

The DOD Teleport stations are strategically located in the United States,
Germany, Italy and Japan, permitting global access via military and
commercial satellites.
*******************************
Government Executive
October 30, 2003 
Security official touts department's science initiatives
By Greta Wodele, National Journal's Technology Daily 



A Homeland Security Department official on Thursday briefed lawmakers on
progress made at the department to implement new technologies for
combating terrorist threats. 


"We are shaping the [science and technology division] to serve as
the department's hub for research and development for exposing and
countering chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high-explosive
and cyber threats," Penrose (Parney) Albright, an assistant
secretary at the department, said in prepared testimony before a House
Homeland Security subcommittee.

Albright said that within his division are "portfolios" to
focus on the different directorates at the department, including border
and transportation security, intelligence analysis and critical
infrastructure, and emergency preparedness and response. The department
also is focused on developing standards for technologies used by local,
state and federal officials, he said. 


"The staff of each portfolio is charged with being an expert in
their particular area," he said before the cyber security
subcommittee. 


Albright outlined in his testimony recent steps taken in each area and
said the department plans to use 55 percent of its funding for
"contracting activities" with the private sector: 23 percent
for biological countermeasures, 6 percent for chemical countermeasures
and 10 percent for "revolutionary, long-range research for
breakthrough technologies and systems." 


On cybersecurity, Albright said the department is "very aware that
our critical cyber infrastructure is an attractive target for our
adversaries." He said the new cyber-security division works
"around the clock" analyzing cyber threats, issuing alerts and
warnings, and improving information sharing with the private sector.


To protect the nation's physical infrastructure, he said his division has
built and delivered a prototype digital-mapping system to assess threats
to the oil and gas infrastructures in the Southwest. It also is
delivering "cutting-edge visualization, data searching, data
correlation and all-source analytic aids" to analyze vulnerability
information, he said. 


At the nation's borders, Albright said an experiment is underway to
create an infrastructure in the Southwest for federal, state and local
officials to share data about "individuals who have already entered
our country, either legally or not, and who engage in hostile behavior
after crossing the border." It would track people who attempt to
change their identities or borrow others' identities. 


Albright also said the department is taking steps to enhance the
abilities of wireless communications so officials at all levels can
communicate effectively with each other during emergencies. "The
goal is to enable public-safety agencies to talk across disciplines and
jurisdictions via radio communications systems, exchanging voice or data
with one another on demand and in real time," he said. 


On maritime security, Albright said the division has joined with the U.S.
Coast Guard to build a prototype surveillance facility for three ports in
Florida. The $3.7 million, 24-month program will "integrate existing
facilities and upgrade equipment to detect, track and identify vessel
traffic" around the ports, he said. 


Albright said the division also is working to develop standards for the
new technologies. Initial guidelines for radiation- and
biological-detection technology are underway, and formal standards for
communications systems that work together have been published.
*******************************
Computerworld
Internet-based system helps California manage wildfire fight
The homegrown system was developed by the state in 1995 
Story by Linda Rosencrance 

OCTOBER 31, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - As wildfires in California this week
consumed more than 1,800 homes and ravaged southern sections of the
state, Los Angeles and Ventura counties needed more aerial support in the
form of National Guard C130 air tankers to help firefighters on the
ground. 

So officials in those two counties turned to an Internet-based system,
dubbed RIMS (Response Information Management System), for help. RIMS
helps the state coordinate and manage its response to disasters and other
emergencies. 

To get the equipment, the counties used an online form that is part of
RIMS to detail specific information: the nature of the threat (i.e.,
potential loss of homes and property); the area needing the C130s; when
the equipment would be needed; where it should be delivered; how long it
would be used (if that information was available); and even the name of a
contact person. 

By filling out the form and sending it up the chain of command, local
officials can cut the time needed to get equipment to the scene -- a
crucial part of being able to successfully beat back the flames. The
system is also designed to help state and local officials keep track of
what equipment has gone where, a critical element in coordinating the
massive response needed to fight the wildfires. 

The homegrown system was first developed by the state's Office of
Emergency Services (OES) in 1995, and it was updated to a Web-based
system in 1999. 

James Watkins, CIO of the OES, said the procedures for using the system
follow a particular chain of command. He said cities and towns must log
onto the system via an ID and password to submit their reports and are
allowed to make requests only to county officials. As part of the system,
counties are called operational areas. 

Each operational area then tracks its resources using RIMS and sends out
the necessary manpower and/or equipment. If the operational area can't
help, it passes the request along to one of the state's three regional
offices, which in turn either provides the resources or sends the request
off to the OES, at the state level. 

Because the C130 air tankers needed by Los Angeles and Ventura counties
belonged to the National Guard, the OES in Sacramento had to approve the
request before the aircraft could be sent out. 

"In the RIMS system, when we forward a request to the National
Guard, we have adjusted the system so that it automatically populates the
National Guard forms that they use and when they are meeting the request,
and they send the information back to us," Watkins said.
"[RIMS] automatically extracts the information out of their standard
forms and puts it back into ours." 

By midweek, the C130s were delivered to the counties. And they arrived
with all the necessary support equipment and personnel -- and even their
food. In most cases, the crews bring their suitcases if they know they're
going to stay awhile, according to an OES spokeswoman.
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Washington Post
ICANN to Adopt New Domain Process 
By David McGuire
Friday, October 31, 2003; 1:13 PM 

Existing Internet domains like "dot-com" and
"dot-net" could get some new company as early as 2005 under a
policy adopted by the the group that oversees the Internet's addressing
system.

The board of directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) voted today in favor of creating a streamlined
domain-name creation process, the major policy decision to emerge from
the group's week-long meeting in Tunisia.

"The expectation is that we would be moving to some regime that is a
more open process -- a more continuous process," said ICANN
President Paul Twomey in a conference call with reporters. "This
will not be a question of people being told you can't have a
[domain]."

When ICANN last approved new domains in November 2000, critics accused
the organization of making arbitrary decisions and playing favorites
among the pool of nearly 50 applicants. ICANN approved seven new domains
-- dot-aero, dot-biz, dot-coop, dot-info, dot-museum, dot-name and
dot-pro -- while rejecting applications for dozens of others, including
dot-web and dot-xxx.

Many of the companies that applied to operate the rejected domains
complained that they had little opportunity to pitch their ideas to
ICANN, despite paying $50,000 to apply.

The new process will be a "contrast to the idea of a beauty
contest," Twomey said, creating a more objective set of criteria for
creating new domains.

Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor and a critic of
ICANN's approach to creating Internet domains, said it's too soon to
judge whether the new policy will benefit Internet users.

"The devil's always in the details. It could be great and it could
not be great," Froomkin said. "I feel a little bit like Charlie
brown with Lucy. Every time they tell me something good is coming they
pull away the football."

Froomkin applauded Twomey's call for a less subjective way of choosing
new domains. "It clearly should be mechanized," he said.
"The process should be something anyone can look at and say 'do I
qualify?'"

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) supports the ICANN
idea, despite its history of opposing many new domains.

Intellectual property owners once feared that the creation of new domains
would make it difficult to protect trademarks and copyrights online,
requiring companies to patrol dozens of new Internet neighborhoods
looking for infringing Web addresses. So-called cybersquatters often use
new domains to register the names of celebrities and well known companies
like Madonna or Microsoft, then would try to sell them at exorbitant
prices.

ICANN's creation of a dispute resolution process and policies that allow
trademark owners to pre-register in new Internet domains have helped to
allay those concerns.

WIPO will continue to urge ICANN to add new domains at a relatively slow
rate, according to Francis Gurry, the organization's assistant director
general.

"It is important that the introduction be controlled," Gurry
said. "I wouldn't go from seven to 500 overnight."

Twomey said that ICANN would continue trying to address trademark and
copyright concerns.

ICANN also will develop a way for people to create Internet domains that
use non-English characters. Under the current system, even Internet
domains written in Chinese or Arabic must end with English extensions
like dot-com or dot-info.
*******************************
Washington Post
Anti-Spam Law Goes Into Force in Europe 
The Associated Press
Friday, October 31, 2003; 10:02 AM 
BRUSSELS, Belgium  European Union digital privacy rules came into
force Friday requiring companies to get consent before sending e-mail,
tracking personal data on Web sites or pinpointing callers' locations via
satellite-linked mobile phones.

The law steps up the global war on spam and "is a key tool to
strengthen consumer confidence in the Internet and electronic
communications," said EU Enterprise Commissioner Erkki
Liikanen.

But how the enforce the new rules are left to the 15 EU nations. Fines
vary among the countries, and unlike the strictest laws in Virginia and
other U.S. states, European Union rules don't call for jail
time.

And although the EU rules cover spam sent from the United States and
elsewhere, member countries lack both the resources  and the
authority  to pursue violators abroad.

Most spam comes from the United States, where the Senate recently
approved a do-not-spam list and a ban on sending unsolicited commercial
e-mail using a false return address or misleading subject line. Several
states also have anti-spam laws.

Nonetheless, Europe has been more aggressive at adopting measures
protecting peoples' right to be left alone.

The new European rules also limit companies' ability to use
"cookie" files and other devices that let them obtain
information about users who visit their Web sites. Companies will now be
required to ask users' permission before taking such data and retaining
or selling it.

"Spyware" that burrows invisibly onto computer hard drives and
snoops on users also becomes illegal.

Europe will allow only police and emergency services to locate people
from their satellite-linked mobile phones.

"The directive is technology neutral and gives consumer and citizens
a variety of tools to protect their privacy and personal data," the
European Commission said in a statement.
*******************************