11/17. Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) introduced S 1873, the "Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act", a bill requiring call centers outside of the U.S. to disclose their location at the beginning of every telephone call or internet communication to or from the U.S. However, the bill does not prohibit the use of call centers outside of the U.S.

The bill provides that "A United States corporation or its subsidiaries that utilizes a call center to initiate telephone calls to, or receive telephone calls from, individuals located in the United States, shall require each employee in the call center to disclose the physical location of such employee at the beginning of each telephone call so initiated or received."

The bill defines "call center" as "a location that provides customer-based service and sales assistance or technical assistance and expertise to individuals located in the United States via telephone, the Internet, or other telecommunications and information technology."

Sen. Kerry (at right) stated that "This legislation is in response to the mounting evidence showing that U.S. corporations are rapidly shifting hundreds of thousands high-tech and service sector jobs abroad. Labor officials, business leaders, economists, elected officials and ordinary Americans are concerned that this bleeding of American jobs will further slow our economy." See, Congressional Record, November 17, 2003, at pages S14965-6

He added that "These jobs are not specific to one sector or a select few companies, but span a broad array of services, including customer call service centers, payroll and other back-office related activities, stock market research for financial firms, medical transcription services, legal online database research and data analysis for consulting firms. In addition, firms involved with software services and business process outsourcing are rapidly expanding to a host of different countries, including India, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, Russia, Israel, and Ireland."

11/18. Mark McClellan, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Diane Gorman, Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Products and Food Branch, of Health Canada, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding drug sales. The MOU provides for information sharing only.

McClellan also gave a long speech to the Drug Information Association in Ottawa, Canada in which he addressed many issues, including internet drug sales. Gorman then issued a statement disputing key points of McClellan's speech.

McClellan said that "We're seeing international counterfeit drug operations that are increasingly sophisticated and criminal networks that are better organized than ever before. And we're being called upon to police a growing illegal trade in dangerous drugs including controlled substances and unsafe knockoffs dispensed without proper medical oversight, all just an Internet click away from anyone in the world."

He continued that "These criminal problems, illegal in every developed country, simply cannot be solved by countries acting alone. In fact, the criminals are increasingly taking their operations across borders, because they are counting on our not working together internationally with the same vigor we work to enforce the laws within our own countries. We also cannot afford an ``every country for itself ´´ policy when it comes to improving the health of our citizens through access to new and better medicines."

He also stated that "we've also seen an increasing number of websites based in Canada that promote the uncontrolled use of controlled substances for profit. It's clearly illegal to get a prescription for a controlled substance under these circumstances, we've taken aggressive steps to shut down these sites when they operate in the United States, and we are taking more steps at the border as well. Not quite as disturbing, but still unsafe, are sites that purport to be Canadian pharmacies but may only have Canadian Internet Service Providers, and are actually providing drugs from elsewhere in the world. We've turned over information on some of these sites to Health Canada, and we stand ready to help them take action. And we're also worried about the increasing number of truly unscrupulous Internet peddlers from all over the world, who are trying to catch a free ride on the flow of drugs moving though Canada to the United States."

See also, Health Canada release and FDA web page titled "Prescription Drugs from Foreign Sources".

11/18. The House passed the conference report on HR 6, the "Energy Policy Act of 2003", by a vote of 246-180. See, Roll Call No. 630 and House Report No. 108-375. The Senate has yet to pass the conference report; although, it may pass it on November 19.

This bill includes the language of HR 238, the "Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Commercial Application Act of 2003", which was unanimously approved by the House Science Committee on April 2, 2003. This bill authorizes funding for energy related research. However, several sections are technology related.

One section provides for nanotech R&D. It provides, in part, that "The Secretary, acting through the Office of Science, shall implement a Nanotechnology Research and Development Program to promote nanotechnology research, development, demonstration, education, technology transfer, and commercial application activities as necessary to ensure continued United States leadership in nanotechnology across scientific and engineering disciplines."

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) stated in a release that "This compromise will help ensure that the President's nanotechnology initiative is well funded, focused, interdisciplinary and coordinated ... The bill also ensures that the potential societal consequences of nanotechnology are studied as the technology moves forward. The nanotechnology program will be a model of how government, universities and industry can work together to advance science and bolster our nation's economy."

Another section of the bill addresses computing. It provides, in part, that "The Secretary, acting through the Office of Science, shall support a program to advance the Nation's computing capability across a diverse set of grand challenge computationally based science problems related to departmental missions."

11/18. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it will hold "a series of public meetings designed to gather information from the private sector and state and local governments about better ways to manage the nation's airwaves". See, NTIA release.

The NTIA shares spectrum management responsibilities with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The NTIA has authority with respect to government users. The NTIA also advocates the administration's position on telecommunications issues.

The first meeting will be held at the DOC on December 9. It will address "incentives encouraging spectrum efficiency" and "deployment of new and expanded services and technologies ".

The NTIA will co-sponsor another meeting on February 12 or 13 with the National Academy of Sciences that will address "critical spectrum needs, improving spectrum management, incentives to spur spectrum efficiency, and policies to streamline development of new technologies and expanded services".

The NTIA will cosponsor another meeting in January or February with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Project SAFECOM that will address "state and local public safety issues". The NTIA may schedule further hearings.

The NTIA invites public comments. The NTIA further stated that the hearing participants "may include spectrum users, equipment vendors, financial and industry analysts, consumer groups and others". However, it did not state how interested parties should make requests to testify or make presentations at these hearings. For more information, contact Clyde Ensslin at censslin@ntia.doc.gov or 202 482-7002.

11/18. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a Washington DC based interest group that focuses on technology issues, released a report [14 pages in PDF] titled "Ghosts in Our Machines: Background and Policy Proposals on the ``Spyware´´ Problem".

The report states that "Computer users are increasingly finding programs on their computers that they did not know were installed and that they cannot uninstall, that create privacy problems and open security holes, that can hurt the performance and stability of their systems, and that can lead them to mistakenly believe that these problems are the fault of another application or their Internet provider."

Much of the report is devoted to a listing and description of the various technologies that are sometimes referred to as spyware. It states that the term "has been applied to everything from keystroke loggers, to advertising applications that track users' web browsing, to web cookies, to programs designed to help provide security patches directly to users. More recently, there has been particular attention paid to a variety of applications that piggyback on peer-to-peer file-sharing software and other free downloads as a way to gain access to people's computers." However, this report focuses primarily on what it labels "adware" applications.

The report also summarizes existing laws that may pertain to the use of various spyware applications, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA).

The report also reviews pending legislation, including HR 2929, the "Safeguard Against Privacy Invasions Act" introduced on July 25, 2003 by Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA) and Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY). This bill would prohibit the distribution of certain spyware programs over the internet without notice and consent. See, story titled "Rep. Bono Introduces Spyware Bill" in TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert No. 706, July 29, 2003.

The report also addresses S 197 (107th Congress), the "Spyware Control and Privacy Protection Act of 2000", introduced in the last Congress by Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC).

The report concludes that "Combating the most invasive of these technologies will require a combination of legislation, anti-spyware tools, and self-regulatory policies. However, it will be very difficult if not impossible to draft legislation that defines the spyware problem with sufficient specificity to tackle the problem in isolation from the issue of online privacy generally. We believe that it would be best to recognize this explicitly and address at least the privacy dimension of spyware as part of baseline Internet privacy legislation. At the same time, pending bills, because they focus on applications that take information from a user’s computer, do not address the larger problem of control."

11/17. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) made the following statement in the Senate regarding the nomination of James Comey. "I rise today to state that I object to proceeding to the consideration of executive nominee James Comey to be Deputy Attorney General at the Justice Department. I have placed a hold on this person because I have been unable to resolve outstanding issues with the Justice Department. I have been working with the Justice Department to get a satisfactory promise to ensure there are no reprisals against certain Justice Department employees in connection with testimony before the Senate Finance Committee. Although I support Mr. Comey's nomination, I intend to reserve my right to object to the Senate proceeding with this nominee of this legislation at this time." See, Congressional Record, November 17, 2003, at page S14961. Sen. Grassley has also held up other Department of Justice nominees this year.

11/18. The Senate Commerce Committee approved the nomination of Michael Gallagher to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Information and Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

11/18. The Senate Commerce Committee approved the nomination of Jeffrey Rosen to be General Counsel of the Department of Transportation.

The House will meet at 10:00 AM for legislative business. The House may take up HR 3140, the "Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act", a bill that would facilitate the sale of contact lenses in electronic commerce. See, Republican Whip notice.

The Senate will meet at 9:30 AM. It may consider the conference report on HR 6, the Energy Policy Act.

8:00 AM - 5:30 PM. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST), Judges Panel of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award will hold the second day of a four day closed meeting. See, notice in the Federal Register, October 27, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 207, at Pages 61189 - 61190. Location: NIST, Building 222, Red Training Room, Gaithersburg, MD.

9:00 AM. Day one of a two day meeting of the Department of Commerce's (DOC) Bureau of Industry and Security's (BIS) Information Systems Technical Advisory Committee. This meeting will be partially closed. The agenda of the open portion of the meeting on November 19 includes a discussion of field programmable gate arrays. See, notice in the Federal Register, November 3, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 212, at Pages 62279. Location: DOC, Hoover Building, 14th Street Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues, Room 3884.

TIME? The Senate Judiciary Committee may hold a hearing on pending judicial nominations. The agenda includes William Haynes, who has been nominated to be a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. See, notice. Press contact: Margarita Tapia (Hatch) at 202 224-5225 or David Carle (Leahy) at 202 224-4242. Location: Room 226, Dirsksen Building.

10:00 AM. The House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing titled "Saving the Savings Clause: Congressional Intent, the Trinko Case, and the Role of the Antitrust Laws in Promoting Competition in the Telecom Sector". See, TLJ story titled "Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in Verizon v. Trinko", March 10, 2003. The Supreme Court has heard oral argument, but not released its opinion, in this case. The hearing will be webcast. Press contact: Jeff Lungren or Terry Shawn at 202 225-2492. Location: Room 2141 Rayburn Building.

10:00 AM. The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection will hold a hearing titled "Cybersecurity & Consumer Data: What's at Risk for the Consumer?". The witnesses will include FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle, Howard Schmidt (Chief Information Security Officer, eBay), Scott Charney (Chief Trustworthy Computing Strategist, Microsoft), David Morrow (EDS), Mary Ann Davidson (Oracle), Joseph Ansanelli (Vent, Inc.), Daniel Burton (Entrust Technologies), and Roger Thompson (PestPatrol, Inc.). The hearing will be webcast. See, notice. Press contact: Ken Johnson or Jon Tripp at 202 225-5735. Location: Room 2123, Rayburn Building.

10:30 AM. The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet will hold a hearing titled "Digital Dividends and Other Proposals to Leverage Investment in Technology". The hearing will be webcast by the Committee. Press contact: Ken Johnson or Jon Tripp at 202 225-5735. See, notice. Location: Room 2322, Rayburn Building.

11:30 AM. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell will hold a press conference regarding the FCC's number portability rules. Location: Room S-211, Capitol Building.

12:00 NOON. The Federal Communications Bar Association's (FCBA) Transactional Practice Committee will host a brown bag lunch. For more information, contact Laurie Sherman laurabsherman@hotmail.com. Location: Latham & Watkins, 555 11th Street, NW.

12:15 PM. The Federal Communications Bar Association's (FCBA) Online Communications Committee will host a brown bag lunch. The topic will be "FCC's Cable Broadband Access Order". The speakers will be Mike Schooler (NCTA), Cheryl Leanza (Media Access Project), and Geoff Cook (Cole Raywid). RSVP to Evelyn Opany at 202 689-7163. Location: Piper Rudnick, 1200 19th Street, NW.

2:00 PM. The Republican leadership of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security will hold a press conference to announce a legislative proposal that would set milestones and metrics to be met by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The participants will include Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) (Chairman of the Committee), and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) (Chairman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, Research, and Development). Location: Room HC-6, Capitol Building.

The House will meet at 10:00 AM for legislative business. The House may take up HR 3140, the "Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act", a bill that would facilitate the sale of contact lenses in electronic commerce. See, Republican Whip notice.

8:00 AM - 5:30 PM. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST), Judges Panel of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award will hold the third day of a four day closed meeting. See, notice in the Federal Register, October 27, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 207, at Pages 61189 - 61190. Location: NIST, Building 222, Red Training Room, Gaithersburg, MD.

8:30 AM - 4:00 PM. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC) will hold a meeting. See, notice and agenda [4 pages in PDF] and notice in the Federal Register, October 31, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 211, at Pages 62078 - 62079. The FCC has stated that the start time is 8:30 AM. Location: FCC, Room TW-C305, 445 12th Street, SW.

8:30 AM. The Computing Research Association and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) will hold a press conference on "Cyber Security Research and Development". The speakers will be Eugene Spafford (Purdue University), Annie Antón (North Carolina State University), Dan Geer (security consultant), Susan Landau (Sun Microsystems), and John Richardson (Intel). For more information, contact Carla Romero at 234-2111 x 107. Breakfast will be served. Location: Holeman Lounge, National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor.

9:00 AM. Day two of a two day meeting of the Department of Commerce's (DOC) Bureau of Industry and Security's (BIS) Information Systems Technical Advisory Committee. This meeting will be partially closed. See, notice in the Federal Register, November 3, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 212, at Pages 62279. Location: DOC, Hoover Building, 14th Street Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues, Room 3884.

9:30 AM. The U.S. Court of Appeals (DCCir) will hear oral argument in CA Metro Mobile Communications v. FCC, No. 02-1370. Judges Sentelle, Henderson and Garland will preside. Location: Courtroom 20, 333 Constitution Ave. NW.

9:45 - 11:00 AM. The Republican Technology Council (RTC) will host an event titled "Stock Options; To Expense or Not". The speakers will include Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY). RSVP to David Miller at 202 467-0045 or Miller@fedgovlink.com. Location: American Gas Association, 400 North Capitol St., NW, 4th Floor.

10:30 to 11:30 AM. Dane Snowden, Chief of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, will hold a media briefing on consumer issues, including the soon-to-be implemented wireless local number portability rules. Location: Conference Room 5, 8th floor, FCC Headquarters, 445 12th St., SW.

12:00 NOON - 1:30 PM. The Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee will host a panel discussion titled "Internet in Asia: Is the US Falling Behind?". The speakers will include Motohiro Tsuchiya (Senior Research Fellow, Center for Global Communications, International University of Japan), Yasu Taniwaki (Economic Counselor and Telecom Attaché, Embassy of Japan) and Jonas Neihardt (VP for Federal Government Affairs, Qualcomm). Lunch will be served. RSVP to rsvp@netcaucus.org or 202-638-4370. Location: Room HC-5, Capitol Building.

12:00 PM. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) Technology Administration (TA) will release a report titled "Role of Federal Laboratories in Building Tech-led Economic Development: A Look at Best Practices". Assistant Secretary Bruce Mehlman will speak at this luncheon briefing. See, notice. RSVP to Sophia Norris at norriss@asme.org or 202 785-3756. Location: Room B-338, Rayburn Building.

6:00 - 9:15 PM. The D.C. Bar Association will host a CLE course titled "How to Litigate an Intellectual Property Case Series: Part 1 How to Litigate a Patent Case". Prices vary. For more information, call 202 626-3488. Location: D.C. Bar Conference Center, 1250 H Street NW, B-1 level.

3:30 PM. Neil Netanel (University of Texas Law School) will give a lecture titled "Copyright and First Amendment: Eldred v. Ashcroft and Beyond". See, Supreme Court opinion [89 pages in PDF], and TLJ story titled "Supreme Court Upholds CTEA in Eldred v. Ashcroft", January 15, 2003. This is a part of Georgetown University Law Center's (GULC) Colloquium on Intellectual Property & Technology Law Series. For more information, contact Julie Cohen at 202 662-9871. Location: GULC, Faculty Lounge, 5th Floor of McDonough Hall, 600 New Jersey Ave., NW.

The House will meet at 9:00 AM for legislative business. The House may take up HR 3140, the "Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act", a bill that would facilitate the sale of contact lenses in electronic commerce. See, Republican Whip notice.

8:00 AM - 3:00 PM. The Department of Commerce's (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST), Judges Panel of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award will hold the fourth day of a four day closed meeting. See, notice in the Federal Register, October 27, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 207, at Pages 61189 - 61190. Location: NIST, Building 222, Red Training Room, Gaithersburg, MD.

2:00 PM. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) International Bureau (IB) will host a public meeting "to officially kick off the design phase for planned enhancements to its electronic filing system, IBFS". Location: FCC, 445 12th Street, SW, Room, Room CYB418/511.

Deadline to submit comments to the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) regarding its foreign policy-based export controls. This category includes high performance computers, encryption items, as well as chemical and biological agents, missiles, and "implements of torture". See, notice in the Federal Register, October 21, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 203, at Pages 60050-60052.

The Department of State's (DOS) United States International Telecommunication Advisory Committee, Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITAC-T), will meet electronically from November 21 through November 26, 2003 to comment on and approve normal contributions to the ITU-T Study Group 13 meeting, which will be held February 3-13, 2004. See, notice in the Federal Register, October 31, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 211, at Pages 62158.

9:30 AM. The U.S. Court of Appeals (DCCir) will hear oral argument in National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates v. FCC, No. 02-1261. Judges Ginsburg, Edwards and Rogers will preside. Location: 333 Constitution Ave. NW.

10:00 AM. The Senate Judiciary Committee may hold an executive business meeting. Press contact: Margarita Tapia (Hatch) at 202 224-5225 or David Carle (Leahy) at 202 224-4242. Location: Room 226, Dirsksen Building.

Deadline to submit initial comments to the Copyright Office (CO) in response to its Notice of Inquiry (NOI) regarding notice and recordkeeping for use of sound recordings under statutory license. The CO published a notice in the Federal Register stating that it "is requesting public comment on the adoption of regulations for records of use of sound recordings performed pursuant to the statutory license for public performances of sound recordings by means of digital audio transmissions between October 28, 1998, and the effective date of soon-to-be-announced interim regulations." See, Federal Register: October 8, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 195, at Page 58054.

Deadline to submit comments to the Department of Commerce's (DOC) Bureau of Industry and Standards (BIS), which is also known as the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) regarding its proposal to amend its rules to "expand the availability of license exceptions for exports and reexports of computer technology and software, and microprocessor technology on the Commerce Control List (CCL) of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) under Export Classification Control Numbers (ECCNs) 3E002, 4D001 and 4E001. These ECCNs control technology and software that can be used for the development, production, or use of computers, and development and production of microprocessors." Comments are due by November 24, 2003. See, notice in the Federal Register, October 24, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 206, at Pages 60891-60895.

Deadline to submit comments to the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) regarding the adequacy of its preparation process for the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC). The next WRC is in 2007. See, notice in the Federal Register, October 23, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 205, at Pages 60646-60648.

Deadline to submit comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to its notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) regarding digital low power television and television translator stations. This is FCC 03-198, in MB Docket No. 03-185. See, notice in the Federal Register, September 26, 2003, Vol. 68, No. 187, at Pages 55566 - 55573.