By Cameron | Published: February 29, 2008
In November the EAC began a 120 day comment period on the next iteration of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, which are the Federal standards for all voting equipment. Today the EAC extended that deadline by another 60 days, pushing it to roughly May 5. USACM plans to file comments. To review and comment on [...]
By David B. | Published: February 25, 2008
February 26 Hearing: The Research and Science Education Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Subcommittee will hold an oversight hearing on the National Science Foundation. 10 a.m., 2318 Rayburn Building February 27 Hearing: The Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on election administration. The Commissioners [...]
By David B. | Published: February 22, 2008
A policy goal – like privacy protections – that has been tried repeatedly over the last few years has been legislation or other efforts to encourage the adoption of health information technology. Previous attempts have stalled somewhere in the halls of Congress, and the most recent health legislation – HIPAA – the Health Insurance Portability [...]
By Cameron | Published: February 17, 2008
This year action on large or overarching changes to copyright policy is a long-shot. Nonetheless, Congress may address two copyright issues related to technology policy — increased penalties related to copyright infringement and technology-based filtering of protected content. With filtering legislation already moving through Congress, this post takes a closer look at this issue.
By Cameron | Published: February 13, 2008
For the past few years we’ve been following funding for three key physical science agencies — The National Science Foundation (NSF), The Department of Energy Office of Science (DoE), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Last week the President released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2009, which contains some healthy increases [...]
By David B. | Published: February 8, 2008
As noted in a previous blog post, this morning the Task Force on the contested Florida 13th District election met briefly to hear the final report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO was asked to review the election machines (and previously conducted tests of those machines) used in Sarasota County in order to [...]
By David B. | Published: February 7, 2008
Yesterday USACM sent a letter to Representative Rush Holt commenting on his newest piece of electronic voting legislation, HR 5036. The bill, the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008, provides money to jurisdictions that rely on DRE voting machines to purchase paper trail systems in time for the general election. At the same [...]
By Cameron | Published: February 6, 2008
On May 31, 2008, ACM, IEEE-CS and the University of California, Berkley, along with family and colleagues, will host a tribute and a technical symposium honoring Dr. Jim Gray. Dr. Gray has been missing at sea since January 2007. He is a former Turing Award winner (widely considered as the top prize in the computing [...]
By David B. | Published: February 5, 2008
CONTENTS [1] Newsletter Highlights [2] ACM Groups Urge Actions to Broaden Web Accessibility [3] ACM Announces 2007 Turing Award Winners [4] ACM Public Policy Office Assesses Technology Policy in 2008 [5] USACM Criticizes the Final REAL ID Regulations [6] Voting Study Addresses Usability Concerns [7] FY 2008 Appropriations Significantly Affects Physical Sciences [8] MPAA Acknowledges [...]
By David B. | Published: February 5, 2008
Congressional Quarterly is reporting that the Committee on House Administration’s Task Force on the Florida 13th Congressional District contested election will meet this Friday at 10 a.m. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will present its final report on the election, and the Task Force will make its recommendation to the full committee. The contest of [...]
By Cameron | Published: February 4, 2008
Today ACM announced that Edmund M. Clarke, E. Allen Emerson, and Joseph Siafkis won the 2007 Turing Award. Press release is below. ACM TURING AWARD HONORS FOUNDERS OF AUTOMATIC VERIFICATION TECHNOLOGY THAT ENABLES FASTER, MORE RELIABLE DESIGNS Researchers Created Model Checking Technique for Hardware and Software Designers NEW YORK, February 4, 2008 — ACM, the [...]
By Cameron | Published: February 4, 2008
In the debates about the use of electronic voting machines there is a refrain that direct electronic recorder (DRE) voting machines are much easier to use and much more accurate in capturing voter intent than other voting systems. A new comprehensive usability study of five commercial e-voting machines (published by the Brookings Institution) finds that [...]
