April 2010

The Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance held a hearing on protecting the privacy of children using the Internet.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said, "believe in my core that all children deserve special protections. Always. Period. I am enormously alarmed by the rise in criminal behavior targeting children online, from 'cyber-bullying' to adult predators. These frightening trends are directly connected to the fact that our children's sensitive, personal information is being increasingly exposed to the public. We have a responsibility to understand this rapidly changing digital landscape and to give parents the tools they need to protect their children's privacy."

Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) said, "The rise of new technology and social networking sites have significantly changed the Internet landscape over the last five years, and we need to make sure that our privacy laws are protecting children when they use these new tools. Today's hearing is a learning opportunity. We need to find out whether parents are still able to guard their children's personal information while allowing their kids to benefit from today's emerging technology."

Industry leaders cautioned federal lawmakers not to seek too drastic changes to long-standing rules that govern how websites safeguard children's privacy. While both Microsoft and Facebook argue that recent technological advances, including the rise of the mobile Web, necessitate new protections for children under 13, they signaled that aggressive changes to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) would harm innovation and perhaps even the law's original intent.

The Federal Trade Commission said that the rapid-fire pace of technological change, including an explosion in children's use of mobile devices and interactive gaming, has led the agency to accelerate its review of the COPPA Rule to make sure that it is still adequately protecting children's privacy. Although the FTC reviews most of its rules every 10 years, the COPPA Rule is being reviewed only five years after its last review, in 2005.

Kathryn Montgomery, an American University communications professor and also an architect of COPPA, said that the current regulations, enacted in 2000, need to be updated to reflect new developments in communications. "The commission must ensure that its regulations implementing COPPA include the full range of Internet-enabled or connected services, including the increasingly ever-present cell phones children use, along with Web-connected gaming devices and online, interactive video," she said.

Beware of that copy machine in your office: it could be storing sensitive information on its digital hard drive.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) is concerned that digital hard drives in copy machines are storing images of every document scanned, copied or emailed by the machine. And the machines are usually leased and then passed on to other companies, making previously stored documents accessible on the hard drives for years to come. Rep Markey sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, urging the agency to "immediately investigate the matter" and giving consumers information about privacy risks associated with digital copy machines.

[Commentary] Who can do a better job of protecting us from cyberthreats: private companies like Google, or Uncle Sam?

This was the question discussed at a recent event hosted by the Center for National Policy in Washington. It was one of those seminars that should have been attended by everyone who conducts business online. The views of the two experts on hand - Doug Raymond of Google and Rob Knake of the Council on Foreign Relations - echo the debate in Washington over regulating banks and Wall Street. And the stakes of a cybersecurity crisis are just as high as a financial crisis, if not higher. Clearly, there are legitimate rights and privacy concerns if the government partners with Internet providers. And it's fair to ask how long it would be before we end up with government surveillance and monitoring of all American Web traffic. But foreign governments in league with foreign hackers already are exploiting that vulnerability. Russia, China, and even some European governments are bigger players on the Net than Washington. Our current cyberinsecurity, left only to private Internet firms, is rendering American businesses victims of vast industrial espionage unlike anything we have previously experienced.

A handful of lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee hope to compel the Supreme Court to begin televising its proceedings.

Days after Justice Steven Breyer shot down the prospect that the high bench would permit cameras in the court room this year, 13 committee members from both parties voted to advance legislation that would force SCOTUS to do just that. A similar effort to express the "sense of the Senate in support of permitting the televising of Supreme Court proceedings" also cleared the committee on a 13-6 vote on Thursday. However, that effort is more symbolic, and would not have the force of law.

"Television coverage of the Supreme Court is long overdue, and I'm pleased that the Committee made progress on this front today," said Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA). "The Supreme Court makes pronouncements on Constitutional and federal law that have a direct impact on the rights of all Americans. Those rights would be substantially enhanced by televising the oral arguments of the Court so that the public can see and hear the issues presented."

The committee also cleared a third bill on Thursday that would instruct lower federal district and circuit courts to televise their proceedings too. Led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the legislation carves out an exception for cases that could "endanger trial participants."