[Sorry, No Wall Street Journal Coverage Today]
Universal Service: The E-Rate Battle Continues
Cuts Possible in On-Line Plan For U.S. Schools
and Libraries (NYT)
FCC Caught in Middle on Rate Rise (WP)
FCC chief agrees to re-examine slow Internet
subsidies to schools (ChiTrib)
Kennard Promises to Make E-Rate Changes This Week
(TelecomAM)
Privacy
For Sale on the Web: Your Financial Secrets (WP)
Art and Technology
Web Photo Project Asks Viewers to Define Art (CyberTimes)
** Universal Service: The E-Rate Battle Continues **
Title: Cuts Possible in On-Line Plan For U.S. Schools and Libraries
Source: New York Times (A22)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/06/biztech/articles/11fcc.html
Author: Seth Schiesel
Issue: Universal Service
Description: Facing Congressional pressure, Federal Communications
Commission Chairman Bill Kennard is working on plans to scale back the
e-rate program to provide telecommunications discounts to schools and
libraries. Approximately 300,000 schools and libraries have applied for $2
billion in discounts under the program; although $625 million have been
collected so far, no funds have been disbursed. Chairman Kennard is offering
a plan that would give the program $2.3 billion over 18 months instead of
the $2.25 billion per year as originally planned.The FCC has set Friday as
the deadline to act of the program's budget
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Public_Notices/1998/da981094.wp.
[See Chairman Kennard's statement before the Senate Communications
Subcommittee http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/Statements/stwek843.html]
Title: FCC Caught in Middle on Rate Rise
Source: Washington Post C3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-06/11/165l-061198-idx.html
Author: Mike Mills
Issue: Universal Service
Description: "People need lower phone rates. Schools and libraries deserve
discounts. The FCC must deliver both," demanded Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr.
(R-VA), who wields control over the FCC's funding. The FCC is facing
pressure from Congress to end the program to help wire schools and libraries
to the Internet. The White House and AT&T are promoting a plan to bill
consumers a flat fee of "less than $1" to pay for it, rather than the 5
percent charge. "Do what is necessary to fix this defective program, and do
it quickly," said Senate Commerce Chairman John McCain (R-AZ).
Title: FCC chief agrees to re-examine slow Internet subsidies to schools
Source: Chicago Tribune (Sec 1, p.10)
http://chicago.tribune.com/news/nationworld/article/0,1051,SAV-9806110255,0
0.html
Author: Matt Berger
Issue: Universal Service
Description: FCC Chairman Bill Kennard has vowed to slow, but not abandon
the erate program. "I submit that the best thing we can do, in the best
interest of this program and the public, is to proceed ahead prudently,"
Kennard said in testimony to the communications subcommittee of the Senate
Commerce Committee. "This program is important to the future of America."
The Administration is pressuring the FCC to continue the program. "The
president and vice president cannot tell you what to do," Sen. Ted Stevens
(R-Alaska) told Chairman Kennard and four other FCC commissioners appearing
before the subcommittee. "I urge you to read the law. It does not say you
have to hook up every school by the year 2000." Chicago Public Schools are
hoping for $47 million from the program, according to Estelle Maajid, CPS's
e-rate manager.
Title: Kennard Promises to Make E-Rate Changes This Week
Source: Telecom AM
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Universal Service
Description: Testifying before the Senate Communications Subcommittee, FCC
Chairman promised changes to the e-rate program: 1) Make certain that the
poorest schools get first priority; 2) Extend the plan's fiscal year to
match school-year calendars; 3) Consolidate the administration of the
programs; and 4) Cut the $200,000 salary of Schools & Libraries Corporation
President Ira Fishman to about $150,000. Chairman Kennard said: "I want to
take this issue [Fishman's salary] off the table." He also said the 14
people who run the program are not a "bloated" bureaucracy as some have
charged. TelecomAM writes, "Sens. Snowe and Rockefeller carried the defense
of the program, with Snowe noting that the e-rate was passed after months of
consideration and that start-up problems should be expected. Those problems,
she said, should not become "a ruse for dismantling this program."
Rockefeller said the industry made a deal in the Act to wire schools and
cannot "walk away" from it."
** Privacy **
Title: For Sale on the Web: Your Financial Secrets
Source: Washington Post (A1)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-06/11/155l-061198-idx.html
Author: Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Issue: Privacy
Description: Personal bank account and investment information is becoming a
hot commodity online. "The ability of brokers to root out such information
has alarmed some banking officials, law enforcement authorities and privacy
specialists, who say almost anyone with a few hundred dollars can buy
confidential financial information about another individual." Online ads
offer to find this information for as little as $100.
** Art and Technology**
Title: Web Photo Project Asks Viewers to Define Art
Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/06/cyber/artsatlarge/#1
Issue: Arts on the Web
Description: To Louise Lawlor, context and perspective are everything. A
New York-based visual artist, Lawlor's work demands that viewers recognize
the role of subjective and situational elements in defining meaning in art.
Her most recent Web-exhibit, "Without Moving/Without Stopping,"
(http://www.stadiumweb.com/without_moving/without_stopping/) is composed of
a series of three 360-degree panoramic photographs that can be followed in
a circle. Launched today on the arts-exhibition site Stadium
(http://www.stadiumweb.com/), Lawlor's user-navigable work takes the viewer
to the cluttered and utterly chaotic halls of the Museum fur Abgusse
klassischer Bildwerke
(http://server.StMUKWK.bayern.de/kunst/museen/abguss.html) in Munich.
Founded in 1869 by a professor of archaeology, the museum houses more than
1600 replicas of Greek and Roman statues (the originals reside in museums
around the globe). While the viewer's experience will be circumscribed by
conventional technological and environmental limitations (monitor size,
room ambience), Lawlor minimizes the importance of these elements, "The
computer keeps you connected -- in a different way than even a book does --
because you're waiting for something to happen."
*********