With last week's revelation that the National Security Agency |
has collected data from tens of millions of telephone records, |
lawmakers this week introduced legislation aimed at maintaining |
Americans' privacy rights. |
"We need to consider the effects of intelligence and information |
gathering now that new government powers threaten to erode our |
most cherished freedoms, and technological advances appear to |
outpace our ability to protect personal information," Sen. |
Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, said of his bill, S. 2827. |
The measure would give the chief privacy officer of the Homeland |
Security Department authority to ensure that new technologies |
and information-gathering methods do not erode privacy. |
Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., also filed a nonbinding resolution, |
H. Res. 819, that seeks detailed information on what calling |
records have been collected by the NSA and other agencies |
without warrants. "While all Americans support taking legal |
measures to fight terrorism, it is clear that they do not |
support whitewashing laws put in place to ensure that their |
civil liberties are not trampled," Wexler said. |
On the telecommunications front, House Judiciary Committee |
leaders introduced a bill on network neutrality to compete with |
language approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee. |
Judiciary was denied a referral of that bill this week. |
The new measure, H.R. 5417, would require high-speed Internet |
operators to provide services "on reasonable and |
nondiscriminatory terms." It further would stipulate that |
providers interconnect their facilities with other entities and |
not block or impair Internet customers. |
Concerns about U.S. competitiveness also proved popular among |
lawmakers. According to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the U.S. share |
of technology exports has dropped dramatically over two decades. |
He authored a bill, S. 2802, that aims to increase research |
investment, advance science and technology talent, and develop |
an innovation infrastructure. |
The Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved the |
legislation Thursday. |
Two Senate and House bills, meanwhile, aim to ease the |
regulatory burden on small businesses. The measures, S. 2824 and |
H.R. 5405, are a reaction to a 2002 accounting law. |
The Senate bill would allow small businesses to voluntarily |
comply with standards that are better suited to their size while |
still maintaining investor protections. |
On the intellectual property front, Rep. Darrell Issa introduced |
a bill, H.R. 5418, that would establish a test project in at |
least five U.S. district courts to increase expertise on the |
technical issues facing patent law. |
"Roughly 40 percent of all patent cases in federal district |
courts are reversed and ultimately decided by the Federal |
Circuit Court of Appeals," the California Republican said. "This |
legislation is designed to help courts reduce errors that lead |
to appeals." |
Two other tech-related measures were introduced this week. The |
first, S. 2831, would create a legal "shield" to ensure that |
journalists typically do not have to reveal their sources, but |
the measure would not offer that same protection to the authors |
of most Web logs. |
The other bill, H.R. 5422, is related to the moratorium on |
taxing Internet access. |
- by Brittany R. Ballenstedt |