By David B. | Published: September 29, 2006
September 26 Hearing: The Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness of the House Education and the Workforce Committee will hold a hearing on “The Internet and the College Campus: How the Entertainment Industry and Higher Education are Working to Combat Illegal Piracy.” 10 a.m., 2175 Rayburn Building Update September 27 Markup: The House Judiciary Committee is [...]
By Cameron | Published: September 28, 2006
Today the Committee on House Administration held a hearing titled “Electronic Voting Machines: Verification, Security, and Paper Trails.” Two USACM members testified. Barbara Simons and Ed Felten. Their testimony can be found here and here, respectively. Below is a press release on the hearing. Association for Computing Machinery Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession [...]
By David B. | Published: September 27, 2006
In the ongoing saga of the American Competitiveness Initiative (see our previous weblog posts on the subject) a “new” piece of legislation has been introduced in Congress. On Tuesday Senator Frist (R-TN), along with Senator Reid (D-NV) introduced the National Competitiveness Investment Act (S3936 – currently unavailable online). This is in effect a consolidation of [...]
By Cameron | Published: September 25, 2006
This Thursday at 10:00 the Committee on House Administration will hold a hearing on security, verification and paper trail issues related to e-voting machines. Two USACM-EC members have been invited to testify — Barbara Simons, past president of ACM, and Ed Felten, professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. The hearing will be webcast.
By David B. | Published: September 18, 2006
September 19 Hearing: The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on online child pornography. 2:30 p.m., 253 Russell Building September 20 Hearing: The Trade, Tourism and Economic Development Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on Internet Governance: The Future of ICANN. 10 a.m., 253 [...]
By David B. | Published: September 18, 2006
On Wednesday, September 13, the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization subcomittee of the House Government Reform Committee approved a bill to spur the development of electronic health records for federal employees. The legislation, The Federal Family Health Information Technology Act (HR 4859), would establish the health records through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. This [...]
By Cameron | Published: September 13, 2006
Professor Ed Felten at Princeton University (also a member of USACM’s Executive Committee) and two associates (Ari Feldman and Alex Halderman) released a new study today confirming the security vulnerabilities found with a popular model of Diebold direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines by many previous studies and exposing new, potentially more serious ones. Professor [...]
By David B. | Published: September 13, 2006
September 12 Hearing: The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee holds a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Kevin Martin for chairman, Federal Communications Commission, and John Kneuer to be administrator, National Technical Information Administration. 10 a.m., 253 Russell September 13 Update Markup: The House Judiciary Committee will markup several pieces of legislation, including H.R. [...]
By Cameron | Published: September 12, 2006
I was planning to post part two of the Fall tech agenda next, but the U.S. General Accounting Office released a good report last week studying offshoring in the semiconductor and software industries. Actually this is the third report on this subject in the past few weeks. (We blogged about the Department of Commerce’s report [...]
By David B. | Published: September 11, 2006
Update – September 12 While audit trails are important, proper planning works wonders for successful voting. Today (9/12) is a primary election day in my local jurisdiction – Montgomery County, Maryland. Arriving shortly after the polls opened this morning, I found that the smart cards necessary to use our DRE machines were not there. In [...]
By Cameron | Published: September 8, 2006
Congress ended their summer recess this week with just three short weeks left before heading home again to campaign for the November elections. On the technology policy front, things will likely be busy as several initiatives will wind their way through Congress, but we don’t expect many, if any, on the President’s desk before October. [...]
By David B. | Published: September 5, 2006
CONTENTS [1] Newsletter Highlights [2] USACM Warns Against Technology Mandates [3] USACM Looks Back at FY 2006 [4] Technology Administration Report on Offshoring [5] About USACM
By David B. | Published: September 5, 2006
Congress reconvenes this week. With the election year, they plan to recess at the end of the month, making September a potentially busy time. September 7 Hearing: The Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security of the Senate Homeland Security Committee is holding a hearing on IT Projects at Risk: Is it [...]
