DIGITAL DIVIDE
Native Americans Stake a High-Tech Claim (BW)
Report Urges Legislative Branch to Comply with Section 508 (WP)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Why Copyright Laws Hurt Culture (WIRED)
OWNERSHIP
Group Launches Letter-Campaign Opposing Media Deregulation (CDD)
BROADBAND
Small Telecom Firms Step Up Fight Against Bill (WP)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
NATIVE AMERICANS STAKE A HIGH-TECH CLAIM
Issue: Digital Divide
The Northern Ute tribe, seeking to enhance economic opportunities, paid
cable companies to install hundreds of miles of high-speed optical cable
through the mountainous terrain of the 4.5 million-acre Uintah and Ouray
Reservation located 150 miles east of Salt Lake City in Utah. High tech
could strongly influence the future of this tribe, which suffers
unemployment rates of 65% or more. Now Uinta River Technology (URT) is one
of a handful of Native American IT outsourcing companies that have sprung up
in recent years. Native Americans have been traditional underserved by
information technology. The 1995 Census found that 53% of American Indians'
homes did not even have a phone. But tribes like the Northern Ute and the
Cheyenne River Sioux are hoping that new technologies will help bridge
economic and information divides. "With information-management work, there
are no boundaries," says Carey Wold, the URT's general manage. "The walls
[around the reservations] have come down. With technology, [Native
Americans] have more choices. They are empowered." [SOURCE: Business Week,
AUTHOR: Olga Kharif]
(http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2001/nf20011126_0470.htm)
REPORT URGES CONGRESS TO MAKE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMPLIANT WITH SECTION 508
Issue: Digital Divide
The Board of Directors of the Compliance Office has recommended that
Congress order all legislative branch entities to become Section 508
compliant. Currently, Congress mandates only that the executive and judicial
branches provide electronic information accessible to the disabled. The
Compliance Office, which was created to monitor federal law relating to
employment of and access to public services and accommodations by disabled
persons, reports Congress every two years, but decided to go forward with
this report early because of the importance of the issue. "I don't know why
Congress did not include themselves in the bill," said Bill Thompson,
Compliance Office executive director. Starting last June, the executive and
legislative branches had to make sure all new information technology
products and services complied with the requirements. Only 54 percent of all
federal agencies offer some kind of disability access, according to the
State and Federal E-Government in the United States 2001 report by Brown
University's Taubman Center.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jason Miller]
(http://www.washtech.com/news/regulation/13864-1.html)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
WHY COPYRIGHT LAWS HURT CULTURE
Issue: Intellectual Property
American copyright laws have gotten so out of hand that they are causing the
death of culture and the loss of the world's intellectual history, according
to Stanford technology law professor Lawrence Lessig, who was in Dublin to
speak at the Darklight Digital Film Festival. Copyright laws in the United
States are placing the control of material into an increasingly "fixed and
concentrated" group of corporate hands, he said. Five record companies now
control 85 percent of music distribution, for example. "The period of
copyright primacy is going to end up as a huge hole in the cultural record,"
said Electronic Frontier Foundation founder John Perry Barlow, who also
attended the conference. Barlow and Lessig both said that new technologies
such as peer-to-peer-based communication and file-exchange programs could
force a new look at copyright laws and profoundly change the methods of
distribution.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Karlin Lillington]
(http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48625,00.html)
OWNERSHIP
GROUP LAUNCHES LETTER-CAMPAIGN OPPOSING MEDIA DEREGULATION
Issue: Ownership
In response to the Federal Communications Commission's review of policies
that threaten to weaken or end key public interest safeguards on media
ownership, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) launched a campaign today
asking the president and congressional leaders to oppose any new media
deregulation. CDD also urged the public--whose perspectives are routinely
ignored by the FCC--to file formal comments in the two current proceedings
[SOURCE: Center for Digital Democracy]
(http://www.democraticmedia.org/news/marketwatch/journalism.html)
BROADBAND
SMALL TELECOM FIRMS STEP UP FIGHT AGAINST BILL
Issue: Broadband
Local telecommunications firms in Washington are helping wage a last-minute
public-relations campaign against proposed legislation that they say will
put most of the smaller telecom firms out of business. Known as
Tauzin-Dingell bill because of its co-sponsors-Reps. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin
(R-La.) and John D. Dingell (D-Mich.)- the legislation would roll back some
key regulatory requirements on the Bell companies, which, as a condition of
the Telecommunications Act of 1996, must lease parts of their local networks
to their upstart competitors at wholesale rates. Proponents of the bill
argue that the Bells are regulated more than the cable companies, and the
proposed legislation would level the playing field. Already, the companies
on both sides of the issue have spent millions-an estimated $3 million or
more on each side-on a media blitz that peaked early this year.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Yuki Noguchi]
(http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/13857-1.html)
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