June 2011

President Obama Announces an Initiative in Technology

President Barack Obama visited a university research center in Pittsburgh on June 24 to announce a new partnership between the government, industries and leading universities to speed the movement of technological advances to commercial users.

The trip was the latest of his increasingly frequent travels to battleground states to showcase Administration efforts to create manufacturing jobs. After touring the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University, a high-technology facility adjacent to a rusted factory symbolic of the area’s industrial past, President Obama said federal agencies would invest more than $500 million to seed the initiative. Of that, $70 million is to go to robotics projects like one he viewed at the center: a boom-box-size robot that inspects sewer pipelines, made by a company started by a Carnegie Mellon professor.

Intel Gets OK to Bid on Nortel Patents

Intel received a green light from the Justice Department to bid on a trove of high-tech patents being sold by bankrupt Canadian telecom-equipment maker, Nortel Networks Corp., according to a posting by the Federal Trade Commission.

Supreme Court to review FCC role as TV’s curse-words and nudity police

The Supreme Court said that it will rule on the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to police the nation’s airwaves for indecencies.

The Justices said they will review a decision by the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that put the FCC’s role as indecency watchdog in jeopardy. That appeals court found that the FCC went beyond its duties when it fined ABC for a 2003 episode of “NYPD Blue” that showed a woman’s naked backside. It also fined Fox around the same time for curse words uttered by Cher and Nicole Richie during live awards shows. The FCC has fought for its ability to enforce broadcast indecency rules, which can impose up to $325,000 in fines per violation. Broadcasters have opposed strengthened rules, saying they violate the First Amendment. “We are pleased the Supreme Court will review the lower court rulings that blocked the FCC’s broadcast indecency policy,” the FCC said in a statement. “We are hopeful that the Court will affirm the Commission’s exercise of its statutory responsibility to protect children and families from indecent broadcast programming.” The Supreme Court said it will begin hearing oral arguments in the case this fall.

Broadcasting & Cable reports that the Federal Communications Commission and Parents Television Council were understandably pleased that the Supreme Court had agreed to decide whether a lower court was right to rule the FCC's indecency enforcement regime unconstitutionally vague and chilling. The National Association of Broadcasters said it supported a congressional review, but that broadcasters would continue to program responsibly, while Media Access Project was pleased the review was confined to indecency and not broader regulation.

The Court will now set up a briefing and argument schedule. Look for briefs to be submitted by the end of the summer or early fall, with an argument date following several weeks later. It’s reasonably likely that the argument will be held before the end of the year, although the Court might not issue its ruling until June, 2012, CommLawBlog speculates.

LightSquared at odds with industry, government agencies over GPS interference

The swath of airwaves on which LightSquared plans to operate its network runs adjacent to those used by the GPS industry. GPS signals would be overpowered and drowned out as a result, opponents have said.

But executives at LightSquared are bullish that a solution can be reached. Last week the company offered to relocate the network on spectrum that’s farther away, a move that chief executive Sanjiv Ahuja claims would eliminate 99.5 percent of interference. “This industry is blessed with very strong technical talent that has developed strategies to deal with interference all around the world,” he said. “We understand the interference concerns here and I have full confidence in LightSquared engineers as well as the GPS community’s engineers to be able to work through any of these questions as they arise.” LightSquared and the U.S. GPS Industry Council are expected to issue a technical report to the Federal Communications Commission later this week. Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel at GPS firm Trimble, represents the Coalition to Save Our GPS, a group that opposes LightSquared’s project. He doubted the solution put forth by LightSquared last week and urged the FCC to be skeptical. “Our view from the start is given how ubiquitous GPS is .?.?. there should be a very, very high hurdle before you let such a totally different use [of spectrum] in any proximity to that,” he said. “It’s most definitely a wait and see” situation, said Byrne at IDC. “A lot depends on how that technical report is received and whether this is a situation where there is such a spotlight on it that the FCC needs to go the extra mile to make sure their solution is actually a solution.”

FTC member: Do not track should apply to mobile apps

Federal Trade Commission member Julie Brill reiterated a push for stronger Internet privacy policies, including a controversial “do not track” requirement for all Web sites to adopt.

Commissioner Brill, who spoke at a panel at the American Center for Progress on proposed anti-tracking mechanism, said such a mechanism should extend to Internet access on mobile devices. Consumers, she said, should be able to block Web sites and marketers from following them on smartphones and tablets, where they are spending more of their online time. “Consumers should not be expected to make tracking choices on a company-by-company basis,” Commissioner Brill said . “This raises the issue ... of whether Do Not Track should be extended to the mobile environment. With so much information about consumers exchanged in that space, I believe the answer is yes.” Commissioner Brill cited a Future of Privacy Forum report that found that of the top 30 paid apps, 22 didn't have a basic privacy policy. She said the Web industry hasn't done a good enough job to inform users clearly and simply when data about them is being collected. And while the FTC has stepped up enforcement of privacy violations, those actions come after potential harms are made and consumers need better preventative measures to protect them.

Supreme Court lifts limits on sale of violent video games to minors

The Supreme Court struck down a California law that limited the sale of violent video games to minors, ruling the restriction violated the free-speech principles in the 1st Amendment.

"Like books, plays and movies, video games communicate ideas," said Justice Antonin Scalia. "The most basic principle of 1st Amendment law is that government has no power to restrict expression because of its content." The ruling came on a 7-2 vote. Justice Scalia spoke for five members of the court who ruled that under no circumstances could the government be allowed to protect children by limiting violence in the media. "There is no tradition in this country of specially restricting children's access to depictions of violence," Justice Scalia said in the courtroom. "Certainly, the books we give children to read -- or read to them when they are younger -- have no shortage of gore. Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed." Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined his opinion. Justice Samuel Alito Jr, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr, applauded California's effort to deal with a "serious social problem: the effect of exceptionally violent video games on impressionable minors." But they too voted to strike down the state's law because it did not spell out clearly enough the limits that the gaming industry must follow. Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer filed separate dissents. Justice Thomas said minors had no free-speech rights. Justice Breyer said he thought the law was constitutional as is.

The ruling drew immediate praise from the Motion Picture Association of America and The Media Institute, while the Parents Television Council decried it, Multichanel News reports. California state senator Leland Yee said the Supreme Court "put the interests of Corporate America" first with the decision: "As a result of their decision, Wal-Mart and the video game industry will continue to make billions of dollars at the expense of our kids' mental health and the safety of our community. It is simply wrong that the video game industry can be allowed to put their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children."

Supreme Court to decide whether police can attach GPS device to a car without a warrant

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether police investigators seeking to build a criminal case may put a tracking device on a car without first obtaining a search warrant.

The case, to be heard in the fall, figures to be a major test of the government's power to use electronic devices to secretly monitor individuals. At issue is whether tracking a motorist for several weeks through the use of a global positioning system that has been attached to his car qualifies as an "unreasonable search" under the 4th Amendment. Last year, a US appeals court in Washington overturned Antoine Jones' drug-trafficking conviction on the grounds that FBI agents had used a GPS device to track his Jeep for a month. The judges said this kind of close monitoring for weeks on end violates a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy."

Supreme Court strikes down Arizona matching funds campaign law

The Supreme Court axed an Arizona campaign finance law that provided additional taxpayer money to in-state candidates outspent by well-funded opponents and independent political groups.

In a split 5-4 decision, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying that the 1998 Citizens Clean Elections Act stifled free speech in political campaigns. "We hold that Arizona’s matching funds scheme substantially burdens protected political speech without serving a compelling state interest and therefore violates the First Amendment," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority. The court's ruling represents another blow to campaign finance laws that place restrictions or oversight on political spending. In 2009, the court knocked down limits on political contributions by corporations and unions in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Hacker group the A-Team publishes list of alleged LulzSec members

An Internet hacker group calling itself the A-Team has published a document it claims reveals the identities of at least some members of the recently retired hacker network LulzSec, including phone numbers, addresses, Facebook URLs and even the identities of some of their relatives and associates.

The A-Team exposed the names of seven individuals, the first name of two others, information on a 10th and implied that there was another member of LulzSec who they were unable to find out about. The document traced some of the claimed LulzSec's members back to parts of the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. The A-Team said LulzSec's members were a product of the hacking culture found on the Website 4chan, which is rooted in anonymity, making some feel invincible.

In Silicon Valley, select tech workers are in high demand

Thousands of people in Silicon Valley are unemployed and looking for work. But for tech workers with the right skills, work is looking for them.