The CyberNation of Freedom is a non-violent, law abiding nation on the Internet that seeks your citizenship and support in order to revert government back to the founding principles of our republic. It is not a right wing or left wing movement. It is a mainstream effort for serious change. Citizenship is free and welcome to all.

May of 1998 marked the beginning of a widespread government campaign to conquer, control and ultimately tax cyberspace. The government lawsuits leveled against Microsoft and Intel in May and June of 1998 had far more to do with showing who's the boss in cyberspace than with protecting consumers. Since these lawsuits were filed, there has been a steady expansion of government activity in all spheres of cyberspace, culminating in the July 28, 1999 announcement that the United States has been secretly developing a plan for an extensive computer surveillance system, as well as the November 5, 1999 'Finding of Fact' against Microsoft and the subsequent June 7, 2000 federal judge order to break it up.

Very few who understand how the U.S. Government operates were surprised by these developments. Once the Justice Department put its credibility on the line against Microsoft there was never any question that they would rule against them. (Does anyone seriously believe vindicating Microsoft was ever an option?) Attorney General Janet Reno, Joel Klein and company paraded themselves at their 'victory' news conference as if they were pompous Roman Legionaries returning from a victorious battle of conquest, instead of being the faceless defenders of the 'Rule of Law' that they are supposed to be. The CyberNation is not here to defend Microsoft if they have violated the law and we believe they should be punished if they have done so. However, we seriously question the veracity of a 'Finding of Fact' by a government so obviously intent upon making cyberspace and the most recognized players in cyberspace (Microsoft, Intel, et al.) part of their fiefdom of taxation and control. "The real political significance of the Microsoft breakup is that it signals that Silicon Valley is now another Detroit. As a target for government meddling, software is now little different from autos, or steel or even textiles. The trust being busted here is the illusion that any part of the private sector is safe from federal power." (The Wall Street Journal, Paul A. Gigot. June 9, 2000 Page A18.)

As noted in the ‘Liberation of the Individual’ document, government will creep into every aspect of our lives if given enough time. This is occurring at an alarming rate in cyberspace and by the time we awake the Internet will be taxed and regulated in every way imaginable. We have chronologically listed the major developments and articles of concern below starting with the most recent and extending back to the beginning of the ugly process in May of 1998. Please remember to measure government by its actions, not its rhetoric.

• Microsoft Shuts Blog’s Site After Complaints by Beijing: “Microsoft has shut the blog site of a well-known Chinese journalist who uses its MSN online service in China after he discussed a high-profile newspaper strike that broke out here one week ago. The decision is the latest in a series of measures in which some of America’s biggest technology companies have cooperated with Chinese authorities to censor Web sites and curb dissent or free speech online as they seek access to China’s booming Internet marketplace.” (The New York Times, David Barboza and Tom Zeller Jr. January 6, 2006 Page C3.)
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• Microsoft Is Warned By Europe: “The European Commission turned up the heat yesterday on Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, threatening to fine it more than $2 million a day unless it agrees to share more technical information with competitors.” (The New York Times, Steve Lohr and James Kanter. December 23, 2005 Page C1.)
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• Some States Push to Collect Sales Tax From Internet Stores: "For years, states and online retailers have bickered over whether the retailers should - and, if so, could - collect local and state sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet." "18 states tomorrow will implement a long-planned move to remove obstacles that the retailers have cited." (The Wall Street Journal, Robert Guy Matthews. September 30, 2005 Page B1.)
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• China Tightens Grip on Internet With New Content, Media Rules: "Can China really control the Internet? It has launched a new bid to try. In an effort to crack down on the information access and activities of China's 100 million Internet users, the Chinese government is imposing new regulations that will attempt to centralize all China-based Web news and opinion under a state regulator. The laws would prohibit content that "goes against state security and public interest," likely affecting Chinese bloggers, bulletin boards on popular portal sites and other independent Chinese-news Web sites." (The Wall Street Journal, Geoffrey A. Fowler and Mei Fong. September 27, 2005 Page B4.)
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• Iran sees red over election text messaging craze: “The use of text messaging by Iranians to send often highly acerbic comments on their presidential election choice has worried the authorities, who are threatening to prosecute mobile-addicts who insult the candidates.” (Yahoo News, June 21, 2005.)
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• ‘Freedom’ a Taboo Word on Chinese Internet: “Chinese bloggers, even on foreign-sponsored sites, had better choose their words carefully – the censors are watching. Users of the MSN Spaces section of Microsoft Corp.’s new China-based Web portal get a scolding message each time they input words deemed taboo by the communist authorities – such as democracy, freedom, and human rights. “Prohibited language in text, please delete,” the message says.” (Associated Press, Elaine Kurtenbach. June 14, 2005.)
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• Online book retailers face sales-tax bite: “A little-noticed appellate court ruling against Borders Group sets a precedent that could enable California to force some major Internet retailers to start collecting state sales tax on books, music and other goods sold online to state residents, analysts said yesterday. (The San Diego Union-Tribune, Kim Curtis. June 14, 2005 Page C1.)
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• China Orders All Web Sites to Register: “Authorities have ordered all China-based Web sites and blogs to register or be closed down, in the latest effort by the communist government to police the world of cyberspace. Commercial publishers and advertisers can face fines of up to 1 million yuan ($120,000) for failing to register, according to documents posted on the Web site of the Ministry of Information Industry.” (Associated Press, Elaine Kurtenbach. June 7, 2005.)
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• A National Telephone Tax?: “The National Governors Association – along with its buddies at the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National League of Counties, the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors – desperately wants to tax Internet use. And they’re hoping that Internet phone calls, the latest hot Web application, will pave the way.” (The Wall Street Journal. December 22, 2004 Page A14.)
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• Iran Jails More Journalists and Blocks Web Sites: “Iran has continued its crackdown on journalists, with two arrests in the past week, and has moved against pro-democracy Web sites, blocking hundreds of sites in recent months and making several arrests.” (The New York Times, Nazila Fathi. November 8, 2004 Page A10.)
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• Google Conforms to Chinese Censorship: “Google Inc.’s recently launched news service in China doesn’t display results from Web sites blocked by that country’s authorities, raising prickly questions for an online search engine that has famously promised to “do no evil.” Dynamic Internet Technology Inc., a research firm striving to defeat online censorship, conducted tests that found Google omits results from the government-banned sites if search requests are made through computers connecting to the Internet in China.” (My Way, Michael Liedtke. September 25, 2004.)
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• China’s Cyber Censors: “First it was the Internet, now China’s censors are targeting telephone text messages. Last Friday, China announced plans to use new technology to monitor cell-phone messages. The official reports claimed that the campaign is aimed at cleaning up pornography. But there is another target as well – stopping political dissidence from being spread through text messaging. We can understand why China’s Communist rulers are worried about the threat that text messages pose to the state’s control over the flow of information. Last year, Chinese text messages helped expose the government cover-up of the outbreak of SARS. And in the Philippines, text messages have already played a part in toppling a president, helping organize the street demonstrations that forced Joseph Estrada to step down in 2001.” (The Wall Street Journal. July 6, 2004 Page A22.)
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• Court, 5-4, Blocks Law Regulating Internet Access: “The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Congress’s latest effort to curb children’s access to sexually explicit material on the Internet. But at the same time it gave the Bush administration a second chance to defend the law as a trial on its constitutionality goes forward in Federal District Court in Philadelphia.” (The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse. June 30, 2004 Page A1.)
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• EU Regulators Slap Microsoft: “EU Regulators Slapped Microsoft with tough sanctions and a record $612.7 million fine for allegedly abusing its market power for technology that links computers and plays music and video. The software titan was ordered to disclose code from its Windows operating system and to offer PC makers a version of Windows that doesn’t include Media Player.” (The Wall Street Journal. March 25, 2004 Page A1.)
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• The Justice Department Files Suit to Block Oracle: “The Justice Department filed suit to block Oracle’s $9.4 billion hostile bid for PeopleSoft, saying a takeover would choke competition ion the market for business-applications software.” (The Wall Street Journal. February 27, 2004 Page A1.)
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• China Frees 3 ‘Cyber Dissidents’ (as a Diplomatic Visit Nears): “The Chinese government has released three jailed “cyber dissidents,” including a young college student nicknamed Stainless Steel Mouse whose arrest a year ago had brought international condemnation, a Hong Kong human rights group said Sunday.” (The New York Times, Jim Yardley. December 1, 2003 Page A3.)
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• Internet Phone Service Threatens Industry Giants: “When is a phone call not a phone call? Federal regulators plan to tackle this thorny question Monday, when they will hear arguments about whether and how to regulate voice calls that are sent over the Internet. The fast-growing service could radically transform the $300 billion telecommunications industry and is renewing doubts about whether the Internet should remain regulation-free.” (The Wall Street Journal, Anne Marie Squeo. November 28, 2003 Page B1.)
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• Point, Click and Tax: “The effort to make permanent a temporary ban on Internet-access taxes has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. But don’t blame the Democrats. Fault instead two GOP Senators, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and George Voinovich of Ohio. Both are using procedural legerdemain to prevent a vote on the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act, a provision that not only keeps the taxman away from your AOL or Earthlink account but also bans “multiple or discriminatory” levies on electronic commerce. A temporary Internet tax moratorium, in place for the past five years, expired on November 1. If Congress doesn’t act to extend it before winter recess, don’t be surprised by a yuletide e-mail tax.” (The Wall Street Journal. November 13, 2003 Page A18.)
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• Microsoft in Lilliput: “With the settlement of six more class-action suits last week, Microsoft moved one step closer to resolving its long-running legal woes – in the U.S. anyway. But on the other side of the Atlantic, it’s beginning to look like the European Commission will never leave Microsoft alone. Even as one investigation dating to 1998 winds down, the commission last week announced the beginning of a fresh inquiry.” (The Wall Streeet Journal, Brian M. Carney. November 4, 2003 Page A18.)
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• The Internet Tax Grab: “Just as Congress is poised to make the temporary ban on Taxing Internet access permanent, some politicians are using the occasion to stage a revenue gold rush by pushing for an Internet sales tax. We can’t think of a better way to handicap a technology with uses the world is just beginning to understand.” (The Wall Street Journal. October 21, 2003 Page A26.)
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• Judge Says Minnesota Cannot Regulate Internet Calls: “A federal judge in Minnesota has ruled that the state’s Public Utilities Commission cannot apply its telecommunications regulations to the Vonage Holdings Corporation, a start-up company that allows consumers to place phone calls over the Internet.” (The New York Times, Barnaby J. Feder. October 9, 2003 Page C8.)
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• Net of Taxes: "Cash-starved states are taxing anything that isn’t nailed down. That may soon include the fast-growing new business of making phone calls over the Internet." "Cash-strapped state and local governments are fearing the end of a century’s worth of telephone taxes. (Make that a century-plus: Congress passed a telephone tax to fund the Spanish-American War. The war ended in 1898. The tax lives on.) In recent months many states have taken steps to begin applying the old regulations and taxes to the Internet." (Forbes, Scott Woolley. September 29, 2003 Page 44-45.)
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• California Gets Serious About Spam: "California Gov. Davis plans to sign a bill that would give the state the nation’s toughest antispam law. The measure would prevent marketers from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail from California and to state residents. It could influence proposals being considered by Congress and other states." (The Wall Street Journal, Mylene Mangalindan. September 24, 2003 Pages A1 and A3.)
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• EBay to Tax Deals on European Sites And Raise Fees: "Internet Auction site eBay Inc. warned users it will begin collecting tax on transactions on its European sites at the same time it will raise most fees for merchants in its biggest European markets, separate moves that could crimp near-term growth in its increasingly important overseas businesses." "EBay is making the change to comply with European Union regulations that go into effect on that date requiring collection of VAT on digital services, including music and software downloaded from Web sites." (The Wall Street Journal, Nick Wingfield. June 5, 2003 Pages A1 & B10.)
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• White House Scales Back Cyberspace Plan: "The White House today scaled back plans for a more active government role in protecting cyberspace from attacks from terrorists, criminals and nation states, emphasizing voluntary industry initiatives instead. The revamped national security strategy on cyberspace security was a response to lobbying from industry groups that were worried about an overly heavy handed approach by government regulators." (The Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Lee. February 15, 2003 Page A12.)
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• Microsoft Rivals Allege Antitrust In New EU Case: "Opening a new front against Microsoft Corp., a coalition of global telephone, computer and consumer-electronics companies asked European antitrust regulators to block efforts by the software giant to extend its Windows monopoly into new markets." (The Wall Street Journal, John Wilke & Brandon Mitchener. February 11, 2003 Page A1.)
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• More Web Retailers Collect Sales Tax: "Major retailers have voluntarily expanded the number of states in which they collect sales tax from Web consumers. While the impact of the change on online sales is expected by industry executives to be minimal, it represents another step in a movement by bricks-and-mortar retailers to persuade states and Congress to impose sales tax on companies such as Amazon.com Inc. that operate only on the Web." (The Wall street Journal, Nick Wingfield & Amy Merrick. February 10, 2003 Page B5.)
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• Microsoft to Alter Online System to Satisfy Europe: "To avert a clash with European regulators over data privacy, Microsoft has agreed to make "radical" changes in the workings of .Net Passport, its online authentication system, regulators said today." (The New York Times, Paul Meller. January 31, 2003 Page W1.)
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• Planned Databank on Citizens Spurs Opposition in Congress: "Opposition is growing in Congress and among public interest groups to a domestic antiterrorism surveillance program being developed in the Defense Department. The program, known as Total Information Awareness, would mine the databases of American telephone, financial and travel companies, retailers and other concerns for patterns that suggest terrorist activity." (The New York Times, John Schwartz. January 16, 2003 Page A14.)
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• Endangered Liberties in Hong Kong: "You don’t have to be a human rights activist to deplore Hong Kong’s current drive to enact insidious security legislation that threatens its people’s freedoms. Hong Kong’s conservative business community is alarmed by the effort, too, seeing a threat to the territory’s status as a financial center." "The proposed measure would sharply curtail Hong Kong’s freedoms by giving the government a pretext to crack down on political activities, dissent and the distribution of information it finds unacceptable." (The Wall Street Journal. December 27, 2002 Page A20.)
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• Cash-Short States Scroll for E-Taxes: "As states across the country struggle with budget deficits in the billions, many officials are beginning to eye sales taxes on online shopping. In California alone, such taxes could yield an estimated $200 million a year. Nationally, local and state governments could raise billions." (Associated Press, Jim Wasserman. December 27, 2002.)
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• Bush Administration to Propose System for Wide Monitoring of Internet: "The Bush Administration is planning to propose requiring Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users. The proposal is part of a final version of a report, "The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," set for release early next year, according to several people who have been briefed on the report." (The New York Times, John Markoff and John Schwartz. December 20, 2002 Page A16.)
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• Down (Under) With the Internet: ""Some Australian guy went and ruined the Internet. Dang." So writes Web writer Glenn Reynolds. And he might not be far wrong. Yesterday’s ruling by the High Court of Australia that libel suits can be brought wherever damage occurs has chilling implications for free speech, whether the alleged offender be a large news corporation or a one-man operation like Mr. Reynolds’s Instapundit.com. In theory, one incautious comment on your family Web site could be enough to land you in a foreign court if it gets read in the wrong place." (The Wall Street Journal. December 11, 2002 Page A18.)
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• A Blow to Online Freedom: "Since the Internet’s inception, its promise has been threatened by governments seeking inappropriate jurisdiction over far-flung online communications. French authorities have sought to enforce a ban on the sale of Nazi memorabilia against Yahoo, Zimbabwe has prosecuted foreign correspondents for articles critical of its repressive regime, and China has famously insisted that foreign-based search engines engage in odious self-censorship. Now comes a ruling from Australia’s highest court in a libel case that could strike a devastating blow to free speech online. Yesterday the court decided to allow a novel cross-border libel suit brought against Dow Jones by an Australian businessman to proceed in Australian courts. The businessman, Joseph Gutnick, took issue with an article about him that was published in Barron’s, one of Dow Jones’s financial publications. The issue before the court was whether Dow Jones, by uploading Barron’s onto the World Wide Web at its New Jersey headquarters, could have committed the act of defamation in Melbourne, simply because that is where Mr. Gutnick downloaded the article." (The New York Times. December 12, 2002 Page A34.)
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• Internet Makes Dow Jones Open to Suit in Australia: The Australian High Court ruled yesterday that a local businessman could bring libel charges against Dow Jones & Company in a local court, a decision that reignited publishers’ fears that posting material on Web sites could leave them open to libel prosecution in any country with Internet access." (The New York Times, Felicity Barringer. December 11, 2002 Page C6.)
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• China Has World’s Tightest Internet Censorship, Study Finds: "China has the most extensive Internet censorship in the world, regularly denying local users access to 19,000 Web sites that the government deems threatening, a study by Harvard Law School researchers finds." (The New York Times, Joseph Kahn. December 4, 2002 Page A15.)
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• Judge Explores Sun Challenge Of Microsoft: "A federal judge hearing Sun Microsystems’ private antitrust suit against Microsoft said today that forcing Microsoft to carry Sun’s Java software in the Windows operating system could be an attractive remedy." (The New York Times. December 4, 2002 Page C11.)
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• Terror-Tracking Agency Weighed, but Discarded, Plan Reconfiguring the Internet: "The Pentagon research agency that is exploring how to create a vast database of electronic transactions and analyze them for potential terrorist activity considered but rejected another surveillance idea: tagging Internet data with unique personal markers to make anonymous use of some parts of the Internet impossible." (The New York Times, John Markoff. November 22, 2002 Page A14.)
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• White House Defends Pentagon Data-Mining Plan: "The Bush administration is trying to calm fears that a planned Pentagon program to comb through large quantities of citizens’ personal information will erode civil liberties. The Total Information Awareness program has been blasted by advocacy groups and in the media as a potentially serious invasion of privacy." (The Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Kulish & Ann Davis. November 21, 2002 Page A4.)
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• You Are a Suspect: "If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend – all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database." To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you – passport application, driver’s license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance – and you have the supersnoop’s dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen. This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks." (The New York Times, William Safire. November 14, 2002 Page A35.)
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• Top Court to Decide if Libraries Must Block Sex Material on Web: The Supreme Court will decide whether a law requiring public libraries to block access on their computers to sexually explicit material violates constitutional free-speech rights. The case involves an issue that the high court has dealt with before – how to strike the proper balance in an Internet-wired world between the First Amendment and the need to protect people, particularly children, from access to material that may be deemed obscene or child pornography." (The Wall Street Journal, Robert S. Greenberger. November 13, 2002 Page A7.)
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• Microsoft’s U.S. Settlement Won’t Clear Path in Europe: Last Friday’s ruling in the settlement of the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Microsoft forces the company to make more concessions than it has offered so far to the European Commission, which is also pursuing an antitrust action." "The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, has accused the company of withholding vital information from rivals to extend its dominance of computer operating systems into the market for server software." (The New York Times, Paul Meller. November 5, 2002 Page C5.)
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• Microsoft Won A Sweeping Victory: "Microsoft won a sweeping victory as a federal judge upheld the software company's antitrust settlement with the Bush Administration and nine states. But the Justice Department and courts in Baltimore and Brussels are weighing further claims of monopoly abuse that could prolong the firm's legal problems." (The Wall Street Journal. November 4, 2002 Page A1.)
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• Microsoft Wins Major Points in Antitrust Settlement Ruling: "A federal judge handed Microsoft Corp. a definitive legal victory Friday by approving most provisions of a controversial antitrust settlement with the Justice Department, all but certainly freeing the world's biggest software company from the threat of crippling sanctions." (Los Angeles Times, Joseph Menn and Jube Shiver Jr. November 2, 2002 Page A1.)
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• Can This Marriage Be Saved: "While in Saudi Arabia recently, I sat down at a computer terminal to see how the Internet works there. I typed in the address women.org, not knowing what it was but figuring that it might sound subversive to Saudi ears. (It turns out to be a women's empowerment site.) Sure enough, a message flashed on my screen that the site was blocked. Then I tried religioustolerance.org ("promoting religious tolerance as a human right"), and that was blocked as well. So were informational pages on Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism, as well as sites calling for love and respect among faiths." "Blocked sites included skirtmag.com (a women's magazine), rollingstone.com, blueskyswimwear.com and human rights sites. Saudi Arabia even bans the home page for the Anne Frank House." (The New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristoff. November 1, 2002 Page A31.)
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• China Toughens Obstacles to Internet Searches: "Some Chinese internet users seeking the popular search engine Google today instead are now instantly routed to GlobePage, which calls itself the "premier Asian search engine."" "The diversions are an intensification of an effort to block access to Google that began last week, and they appear to represent an unusually strong campaign to funnel Chinese Internet traffic into sites the government deems friendly and safe." (The New York Times, Joseph Kahn. September 12, 2002 Page A3.)
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• The Internet on Trial: "American journalist Andrew Meldrum, who is facing deportation from Zimbabwe after 20 years faithfully reporting from that country, is the first to be prosecuted and punished for writing a news story placed on the Internet. Robert Mugabe’s vindictive precedent puts journalists, editors and publishers throughout the world at risk, because it pioneers a legal path whereby repressive regimes may inflict their draconian media rules on the rest of the world." "Mr. Meldrum’s paper, the Guardian, is not distributed in Zimbabwe, but his report, which discomforted the government, went "online" in London and was in due course downloaded in Harare by secret policemen who spend their days surfing the net for criticisms of Mr. Mugabe. He was arrested for the crime of "publishing falsehoods," which carries a two-year prison sentence, on the theory that any local court can take jurisdiction over all the people involved in an Internet publication, wherever they or their Web-servers are located." "Unfortunately, the Mugabe government is not alone in its attempt to subject material published on the Internet to local laws." (The Wall Street Journal, Geoffrey Robertson. July 18, 2002 Page A12.)
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• Setback in State Sales-Tax Plan Hurts Push for Levies on Web Sales: "A herculean effort to simplify state sales taxes that was to be a precursor to convincing Congress to allow states to tax Internet transactions suffered a setback as representatives from businesses and state governments failed to agree on a final, crucial part of the plan." "After two years of discussions, state officials hoped to emerge from a meeting in Salt Lake City on Friday with a draft of a modernized sales tax. Once states adopt this simpler, uniform tax, they planned to press Congress to approve an Internet tax." (The Wall Street Journal, Russell Gold. July 15, 2002 Page B6.)
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• The FBI Has Begun Visiting Libraries: "The FBI has begun visiting libraries to check reading records of people suspected of terrorist ties, library officials said. The effort was authorized by antiterrorism legislation that passed soon after Sept. 11." (The Wall Street Journal. June 25, 2002 Page A1.)
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• Whose Domain Is It Anyway?: "Last week, the Senate held hearings on the putative governing authority of the whorls of cyberspace, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names ans Numbers. On Monday, Sen. Conrad Burns, (R., Mont.) announced plans for a bill to give the U.S. government greater sway in ICANN’s operations. At stake is just who should oversee the non-government policy-setter of the domain name business – the U.S. government, many governments or the Internet community itself." (The Wall Street Journal, Esther Dyson. June 17, 2002 Page A18.)
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• The FBI Was Given Broad New Powers on Domestic Spying: "Agents now will be allowed to conduct surveillance of public gatherings and surf the Internet as part of terrorism investigations. Previously, FBI agents had to have clear evidence of possible criminal activity to get approval for such monitoring." (The Wall Street Journal. May 31, 2002 Page A1.)
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• Ashcroft Permits F.B.I. to Monitor Internet and Public Activities: "Attorney General John Ashcroft said today that he was stepping up the fight against terrorism by expanding the F.B.I.’s authority to monitor the World Wide Web, political groups, libraries and religious organizations, including houses of worship like mosques." "Mr. Ashcroft said guidelines restricting the bureau, imposed a quarter of a century ago in response to abuses by federal law enforcement officials, were outdated and left investigators at a disadvantage in fighting terrorism today." (The New York Times, Neil A. Lewis. May 31, 2002 Page A18.)
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• Microsoft Faces European Commission Inquiry on Privacy Concerns: "The European Commission has begun an inquiry into Microsoft because of concerns that its .NET Passport system may violate privacy rules." (The New York Times. May 28, 2002 Page C4.)
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• The Monitors Have Eyes: "Cheating hearts and delinquent teens beware: New software is stripping another layer off the Internet’s privacy protections." "Called "BeAware with ChatWatch," the software takes periodic screen shots of a monitored computer, letting a parent or suspicious spouse see everything that crosses the screen, from Web pages and chat to instant messages (IM)." (Forbes, Chana R. Schoenberger. May 27, 2002 Page 138.)
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• Senator Prevents Action on Online Privacy Bill: "Senator Trent Lott, the minority leader, forced the Senate Commerce Committee to adjourn this morning as it was on the verge of adopting an online privacy bill." (The New York Times, Adam Clymer. May 17, 2002 Page A14.)
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• ‘Virtual’ Child Pornography Ban Overturned: "Affirming that free speech principles apply with full force in the computer age, the Supreme Court today struck down provisions of a federal law that made it a crime to create, distribute or possess "virtual" child pornography that used computer images or young adults rather than actual children." (The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse. April 17, 2002 Page A1.)
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• Seeking Profits, Internet Alters Privacy Policy: "Pressed for profits, Internet companies are increasingly selling access to their users’ postal mail addresses and telephone numbers, in addition to flooding their e-mail boxes with junk mail." "Yahoo, the vast Internet portal, just changed its privacy policy to make it clear that it has the right to send mail and make sales calls to tens of millions of its registered users." (The New York Times, Saul Hansell. April 11, 2002 Page A1.)
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• Breakup of Microsoft’s Windows Is a Viable Option, Expert Says: "Endorsing a key component of the case for tough restrictions on Microsoft Corp., a computer expert who inspected the secret code that makes up the Windows operating system said it could be broken into separate parts and still function effectively." "Andrew W. Appel, a professor of computer science at Princeton University in New Jersey, inspected the closely guarded code – often likened in corporate importance to the secret formula for Coca-Cola – on behalf of the group of nine state attorneys general pursuing the antitrust case against Microsoft. He was the first expert witness to take the stand, following weeks of testimony by high-tech executives from AOL Time Warner Inc., Gateway Inc. and other companies." (The Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Kulish. April 10, 2002 Page B4.)
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• SBC Wants Restraints on Microsoft: "A telecommunications firm joined other members of the technology sector pressing for tough restraints on Microsoft Corp.’s business tactics, as the software company’s renewed antitrust trial entered its fourth week." (The Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Kulish. April 9, 2002 Page B14.)
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• Microsoft Says Court Should Not Design Computer Systems: "The hearings over the Microsoft antitrust case returned today to what has been the most hotly contested question since the government filed its suit four years ago: Can a court tell the company how to design its own software code?" (The New York Times, Amy Harmon. April 4, 2002 Page C4.)
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• Novell Official says He Sought Microsoft’s Aid: "Novell, once the biggest maker of software for corporate networks, offered two years ago to tell antitrust enforcers that Microsoft had altered its behavior in return for help promoting its products, a Novell executive testified today." (The New York Times. March 29, 2002 Page C6.)
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• Big Brother Is Watching – Be Grateful!: "Cameras are the hot new law-enforcement tool." "Washington is setting up hundreds of cameras monitoring streets, federal buildings, Metro stations, and other locations. Police used cameras with face recognition technology at last year’s Super Bowl to catch known fugitives." "The main concern with cameras must be not individual privacy, but government power. Cameras are a tool, which can be used for good (to enforce good laws) or for ill – to enforce bad laws, to track the government’s political enemies, to gather ammunition for blackmail, and so on." (The Wall Street Journal, Eugene Volokh. March 25, 2002 Page A22.)
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• States Seeking Stiffer Penalties For Microsoft: "As the landmark antitrust battle against the Microsoft Corporation enters its latest phase, the company’s opponents are trying to shift the focus to how Microsoft will be prevented from abusing its market power in new technologies." (The New York Times, Amy Harmon. March 19, 2002 Page A1.)
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• Lawyer’s Ties Questioned In AOL Accord: "An attorney representing AOL Time Warner Inc. helped write a controversial agreement between two agencies dividing antitrust enforcement that steers future AOL merger reviews to the Justice Department’s antitrust division – headed by one of his former law partners." (The Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Kulish. March 14, 2002 Page A3.)
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• Microsoft Is Ordered to Give Code to Opponents in Court: "A federal judge has ruled that Microsoft must give nine states that are seeking tougher sanctions against the company access to the software code for its flagship Windows operating system." (The New York Times, Steve Lohr. February 19, 2002 Page C2.)
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• Europe Is Said To Be on Verge Of Ending Case Against Intel: "The European Commission is about to drop its antitrust investigation of the Intel Corporation, a person close to the investigation said today. "The intention is to close the inquiry," the person said. "After careful analysis of the complaints, the commission has decided that the accusations are unfounded."" (The New York Times, Paul Meller. February 2, 2002 Page B1.)
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• Court Weighs Shielding Children From Web Smut: "As the Supreme Court considers the fate of Congress’s latest attempt to shield youngsters from Internet smut, one question looms large: Do "community standards" exist in the far-reaching, freewheeling realm of cyberspace? The justices will ponder the First Amendment yardstick Wednesday, when they hear a Bush administration bid to revive the 1999 Child Online Protection Act. A federal appeals court in Philadelphia, siding with the American Civil Liberties Union and several Web sites last year, said the statute seemed to trample constitutionally protected speech and upheld a preliminary injunction blocking it." (The Wall Street Journal, Scott Ritter. November 26, 2001 Page B6.)
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• Companies Compete to Provide Internet Veil for the Saudis: "Nearly a dozen software companies, most of them American, are competing for a contract to help Saudi Arabia block access to Web sites the Saudi government deems inappropriate for that nation’s half-million Internet users." (The New York Times, Jennifer Lee. November 19, 2001 Page C1.)
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• Attorney-Client Confidentiality Waived in Rule: "The right of a client to communicate confidentially with his lawyer is a sacred tenet of the U.S. legal system. But when some of the more than 1,000 detainees rounded up during the Justice Department’s terrorism investigation confer with their attorneys, they could find a government agent listening in. In an extraordinary development that has defense lawyers up in arms, the Justice Department has quietly put into effect a new federal rule giving the government authority to monitor communications between people in federal custody and their lawyers if the attorney general deems it "reasonably necessary in order to deter future acts of violence or terrorism." The rules cover both conversations and mail. The Justice Department estimates it will apply to about 100 inmates who present a "national security risk."" (The Wall Street Journal, Ann Davis. November 11, 2001 Page B1.)
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• Court Says France Can’t Censor Yahoo Site: "In a decision that is being applauded by Internet companies and civil liberties groups, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the United States Constitution’s protections of free speech trumped a French order requiring Yahoo to remove Nazi materials from its Web site." (The New York Times, Lisa Guernsey. November 9, 2001 Page C5.)
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• Congress Will Allow Ban on Internet Taxes to Expire: "In a move that will allow a ban on Internet taxes to expire this weekend, Congress declined today to extend it, remaining mired in a dispute over how state sales taxes should apply to billions of dollars in electronic commerce." (The New York Times. October 19, 2001 Page A14.)
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• Living Under an Electronic Eye: "In reaction to the attacks of Sept. 11, lawmakers and many of their constituents are saying yes. Several bills are being considered this week that would expand the ways in which the federal government could use technology not only as a law enforcement tool to track down terrorists or anyone suspected of committing a crime but also as a crime prevention tool to monitor suspicious activity and possibly anticipate any future attacks. Officials, for example, are asking for broad authority to inspect logs of Internet use and the address fields of e-mail messages, which in addition to revealing the senders and the recipients could also divulge the messages’ content through the subject lines. And they are seeking more latitude in listening to conversations of people on the move as they communicate by cellphone or other wireless technologies." (The New York Times, Lisa Guernsey. September 27, 2001 Page D1.)
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• U.S., Microsoft Resume Antitrust Case: "Government lawyers said they will make Microsoft Corp.’s powerful new Windows XP software a central focus in the final round of court hearings in their landmark antitrust case against the company." (The Wall Street Journal, John R. Wilke. September 21, 2001 Page B6.)
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• Civil Liberties of Ordinary Americans May Erode – Legally – Because of Attacks: "The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks could lead to an erosion of the civil liberties of ordinary Americans." "Last week, a mobilized Senate agreed to broaden the nation’s electronic-surveillance laws, making crimes involving "terrorism" grounds for wiretapping telephones and computers for the first time. Last night in New York, Gov. George Pataki said he would call a special session of the state legislature to consider broadening police wiretapping and video surveillance power to a list of newly defined crimes related to terrorism." "To some, the early signs are disturbing, and illustrate the kinds of problems ahead, as Americans seek to balance the need for heightened security with the desire to maintain their freedoms. The wiretap provision "threatens privacy rights without receiving any public showing that it would make us any safer," the American Civil Liberties Union says." (The Wall Street Journal, Pamela Sebastian Ridge and Milo Geyelin. September 17, 2001 Page A5.)
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• U.S. Abandoning Its Effort To Break Apart Microsoft, Saying It Seeks Resolution: "Reversing the government’s strategy in the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft, the Bush administration announced today that it would no longer seek a breakup of the company. The government also abandoned a central claim of the lawsuit: that Microsoft had violated federal antitrust law by integrating its Internet Explorer browser software into its Windows operating system." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. September 7, 2001 Page A1.)
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• Coming: A National Sales Tax: "A big tax increase is on the way. This October the moratorium on a special Internet tax expires. If not renewed, 30,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S. will be allowed to begin laying levies on this new, still fast-growing marketplace. Tax-hungry governors and some bricks-and-mortar retailers are pushing to make it easy to tax sales on the Net." (Forbes, Steve Forbes. August 20, 2001 Page 31.)
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• Rebels in Black Robes Challenge Government Computer Monitors: "A group of federal employees who believed that the monitoring of their office computers was a major violation of their privacy recently staged an insurrection, disabling the software used to check on them and suggesting that the monitoring was illegal and unethical." "In this case, the concern over the loss of privacy comes from the very individuals, federal judges, who will shape the rules of the new information era." (The New York Times, Neil A. Lewis. August 8, 2001 Page A1.)
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• New Software, New Scrutiny For Microsoft: "Federal and state regulators are again considering legal action to force Microsoft to alter a new system, Windows XP, which tightly integrates Internet services like music, instant messaging and shopping into this basic operating system." (The New York Times, Steve Lohr. July 30, 2001 Page C1.)
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• Third of U.S. Employees’ Web Use Monitored – Study: "More than one-third of U.S. employees who browse the Web and use e-mail at work have their Internet use systematically monitored by their employers, a privacy group said on Monday." (Reuters. July 10, 2001.)
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• In Asia, It’s Not a Wide-Open Web: "Singapore – The story was rather grisly: a report two weeks ago that doctors were harvesting organs from Chinese prisoners who had been executed, including some not quite dead. The "world news" section of the U.S. Web site of Yahoo Inc. carried the news, as did several other Yahoo Web sites targeted at other parts of the world." "But there was one place Yahoo didn’t carry the story: in China itself. The Chinese-language Web page prepared in Beijing by a Chinese unit of Yahoo contained no mention of the allegations-although it did have a report about civil service reform in the city of Guangzhou." "U.S. Internet companies may think of themselves as the world’s defenders of free speech in cyberspace. But that’s not the case when they operate in Asia. As Internet usage has spread around the globe, authoritarian governments like those in China, Singapore and Malaysia have, to various degrees, clamped down on Net access, fearing it would make for a restive population. The fact that big Internet companies are complicit in that process is less well-known." (The Wall Street Journal, Chen May Yee. July 9, 2001 Page B1.)
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• Sect Clings to the Web in the Face of Beijing’s Ban: "Tapping away at one of his computers in a cramped two-room apartment in western Beijing, Lloyd Zhao is engaged in an extraordinarily dangerous endeavor – searching through the night for holes in the electronic wall that the government has built to keep Chinese from seeing Web sites of Falun Gong, the outlawed spiritual movement." (The New York Times, Craig S. Smith. July 5, 2001 Page A1.)
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• Appeals Court Voids Order For Breaking Up Microsoft But Finds It Abused Power: "A federal appeals court unanimously threw out a lower court’s order today that the Microsoft Corporation should be broken up, although the appeals court found that the companies had repeatedly abused its monopoly power in the software business. The appeals court also sharply chastised the district judge who oversaw the Microsoft antitrust trial and removed him from any further involvement in the case because of derogatory comments he made to reporters about the company and its senior executives." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. June 29, 2001 Page A1.)
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• Bill in senate Gives Governments More Power to Tax E-Commerce: "Congress would consider granting state and local governments more power to tax electronic commerce if at least 25 states simplify their sales-tax codes, under a bill being negotiated by Senate Democrats and Republicans. The proposal, an attempt to break the deadlock over how to tax the swelling trade in retail sales by phone and the Internet, is being drafted by Arizona Republican John McCain, Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and John Kerry of Massachusetts and others active on e-commerce issues." (The Wall Street Journal, Glenn R. Simpson. June 18, 2001 Page A20.)
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• Justices Say Warrant Is Required in High-Tech Searches of Homes: "In an important declaration of the constitutional limits on new privacy-threatening technology, the Supreme Court ruled today that the use by the police of a thermal imaging device to detect patterns of heat coming from a private home is a search that requires a warrant. The Court said further that the warrant requirement would apply not only to the relatively crude device at issue in the case but also to any "more sophisticated systems that are already in use or in development" and that allow the police to gain knowledge that in the past would have been impossible without a physical entry into the home. "We must take the long view, from the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment forward," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a 5-to-4 majority that cut across the court’s usual ideological division." (The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse. June 12, 2001 Page A1.)
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• Judge Throws Out New York Ban On Cigarette Sales by Mail, Internet: "A federal judge struck down a New York state law banning the sale of cigarettes by mail order and the Internet, finding the statute is an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce." (The Wall Street Journal, Gordon Fairclough. June 11, 2001 Page B4.)
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• A Father’s Cranky essays on Web Site Put Son in Jail in China: "The government’s frantic attempt to control political views on the Internet has taken a new twist with the detention of a man whose only apparent trespass was to help his father maintain Web sites featuring the father’s obscure, left-wing writings." "To publish his views, Mr. Lu, who is not adept with computers, mailed his articles to his son Hu Dalin, 30, who posted them on the Web sites he had created for his father. But while the father remains free, the son, who dabbled in computers, the stock market and an art-supply business in their hometown, Shaoying, in Hunan Province, was jailed on May 18." (The New York Times, Erik Eckholm. May 24, 2001 Page A13.)
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• Beijing Jails a U.S.-Based Chinese Entrepreneur: "Liu Yaping left a comfortable life in the United States to seek out business opportunities in the city where he was born. A permanent resident of the United States with a home in Weston, Conn., he traveled frequently in the last six years to Hohhot, the capital of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, often staying for months at a time. When he tried to start a company to design Web sites last year, he seemed headed for success." "But on March 8, one day before he was to return to the United States for talks with investors, public security officers dragged Mr. Liu off the street and he has been held incommunicado in a military prison ever since, family friends and lawyers said." "Mr. Liu, 48, is one of a growing number of Chinese-born United States residents who have found themselves mysteriously detained by the Chinese authorities in the last six months, a trend that Western diplomats say reflects increasingly aggressive behavior by China’s security agencies toward this group." (The New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal. May 7, 2001 Page A6.)
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• E-Tailers Faced Death; Now Can They Handle Taxes?: "They say the only things certain are death and taxes. Web retailers have definitely learned the former. They’re about to learn the latter. It’s about time. A bevy of tax collectors and powerful off-line retailers are gearing up for another round of wrangling over sales taxes owed on online commerce." "Their current battleground: The 1998 federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, which placed a moratorium on any special or discriminatory taxes on the Internet and which is set to expire in October. Internet access-what you pay to get your connection-will probably remain untaxed for now and possibly forever; the big fight this year is over sales taxes." (The Wall Street Journal, Kara Swisher. April 9, 2001 Page B1.)
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• European commission Now Probe Intel: "European antitrust enforcers have opened an investigation of Intel Corp.’s business tactics, taking up an effort the Federal Trade Commission ended last year with no action." (The Wall Street Journal, John R. Wilke. April 6, 2001.)
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• Pick Your Net: "Despite its Wild West reputation, the Internet has no shortage of regulation. There are rules involving children, copyright, domain names and more. Congress is looking at new privacy and antispam requirements, Internet taxation, gambling and the digital divide. And the American Bar Association, the French government and the UN are pushing global Internet governance." (Forbes, Clyde Wayne Crews. April 2, 2001 Page 36.)
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• NSC Chief Urges U.S. Tech Firms To Protect Computer Network: "President Bush’s national security adviser warned technology executives that private industry, not the government, must lead the way in protecting vital U.S. computer systems from terrorist-hacker attacks." "Sen. Robert Bennett (R., Utah) told the Chamber’s computer-infrastructure conference that government-securities regulators should require companies to disclose their computer-security posture as part of their securities filings. He called it "appropriate for government to facilitate transparency."" (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. March 23, 2001 Page B2.)
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• Internet Filters Used to Shield Minors Censor Speech, Critics Say: "When Jeffery Pollock ran for Congress last year, he posted his forceful opinions on more than a dozen topics on his Web site, pollock4congress.com, including his support for the federally mandated use of Internet "filtering" software to block pornography in schools and libraries. Then he discovered that his own site was blocked by one of those filtering programs, Cyber Patrol. The experience led Mr. Pollock, a 47-year-old Republican from Oregon, to reconsider his views on filtering. What he once thought of as protection, he said, now looked a lot like censorship. "To mandate the federal government to legislate morality, I find abhorrent," Mr. Pollock said. Congress apparently disagrees. In December, lawmakers passed a bill requiring federally financed schools and libraries to use a "technology protection measure" like filters to block access to obscene material, child pornography and anything considered to be "harmful to minors."" (The New York Times, John Schwartz. March 19, 2001 Page A15.)
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• Welcome to the Web. Passport, Please?: "Last fall, a French judge named Jean-Jacques Gomez made Internet history, and attracted a flock of critics, when he ordered the yahoo Web site to prevent French residents from viewing Nazi memorabilia in its online auctions." "But Judge Gomez was intent on upholding French law, which largely prohibits the display of Nazi insignia." "His decision raised the question, How can one jurisdiction decide what can or cannot be displayed on the World Wide Web?" (The New York Times, Lisa Guernsey. March 15, 2001 Page D1.)
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• The FCC's Dangerous Internet Precedent: "Last Friday, exactly one year and one day after America Online and Time Warner announced they wanted to merge, the Federal Communications Commission finally granted permission. But the FCC, like the Federal Trade Commission, attached certain conditions. It told AOL how it had to run an important part of its business, a magnificent invention called instant messaging that allows 140 million computer users to communicate in real time ­ a sort of a cross between a telephone conversation and e-mail." "The action by the FCC was a landmark ­ a disgraceful and dangerous one. The commission broke sharply with past policies and took its first step ever in regulating the Internet, a medium that has benefited both consumers and businesses in large part because government has left it alone." (The Wall Street Journal, James K. Glassman. January 17, 2001 Page A26.)
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• F.C.C. Approves AOL-Time Warner Deal, With Conditions: "Clearing the final obstacle to the creation of the world's biggest media business, the Federal Communications Commission approved tonight the proposed merger of America Online and Time Warner. In doing so, however, the agency laid down conditions intended to make America Online's popular instant-messaging service compatible with the systems of Internet rivals." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. January 12, 2001 Page C1.)
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• Judge: Gates a Napoleon, Microsoft executives immature: "The Federal judge who ordered Microsoft split in two last year compares Bill Gates to Napoleon ­ even musing that the company founder should be required to write a book report on him ­ and said Microsoft executives behave like children. "I think he has a Napoleonic concept of himself and his company, an arrogance that derives from power and unalloyed success, with no leavening hard experiences, no reverses," Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson says of Gates in the January 15 issue of The New Yorker." (Associated Press. January 8, 2001)
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• F.C.C. Orders AT&T to Shed Some Assets: "Taking a slap at AT&T, the Federal Communications Commission ordered tonight that the telephone and cable giant sell its interest in Time Warner Entertainment, after officials concluded that the company had been trying to wriggle out of an earlier commitment it had made to win government's approval of its acquisition of MediaOne." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. December 22, 2000 Page C1.)
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• FBI's E-Mail Suggests Divisions On Legality of Web Surveillance: "Law-enforcement officials say telephone-era wiretap laws let them secretly copy e-mail addresses in messages sent to people involved in criminal probes, but a newly disclosed Federal Bureau of Investigation e-mail suggests internal dissent about the practice's legality." (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. December 7, 2000 Page B9.)
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• Computer Security Experts Question Internet Wiretaps: "Despite winning a favorable review by an outside group, the FBI's Carnivore Internet wiretap system continues to raise strong concerns about privacy and the legal limits of government surveillance, a prominent panel of computer security experts said yesterday." (The New York Times, John Schwartz. December 5, 2000 Page A14.)
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• Yahoo! Ordered To Bar the French From Nazi Items: "A French court said Yahoo! Must block French users from accessing Nazi memorabilia on its U.S. ­ based Web site, establishing a precedent that Web companies operating on the global Internet can be required to tailor their practices to the laws of individual countries. "This French court ruling has disastrous implications for free expression around the world," said Alan Davidson, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington, D.C., watchdog group." (The Wall Street Journal, Mylene Mangalindan and Kevin Delaney. November 11, 2000 Page B1.)
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• From Europe, Creative Taxation: "Europe is rushing to tear down borders, but the Internet is toppling some of them even faster, making life distinctly uncomfortable for European policy makers. A big source of that discomfort is the threat of lost tax revenues, because European nations depend far more on taxes on consumption than the United States does. So in contrast to the United States ­ where a federal commission failed to agree on how states should tax basic electronic commerce and mail-order sales like books, consumer electronics and other products ­ European officials are pushing hard to adopt a seemingly narrow but potentially far reaching proposal to ensure that digital products bought in Europe over the Internet do not escape taxation." (The New York Times, John Tagliabue. September 28, 2000 Page C1.)
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• Justices Decline A Direct Appeal In Microsoft Case: "The Supreme Court handed a major tactical victory to the Microsoft Corporation today when it rejected the government's plea to hear the appeal of its landmark antitrust case immediately and instead returned the proceeding to a lower court." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. September 27, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Tax on Web purchases won't be charged by California as Gov. Davis vetoed a bill to tack a 7.25% levy on goods bought online from firms with a physical presence in the state. He said the issue needs further study." (The Wall Street Journal. September 26, 2000 Page A1.)
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• AOL-Time Warner Plan Hits Roadblock: "The European Commission drafted a preliminary recommendation to block AOL's merger with Time Warner, partly because of concerns over Time Warner's own plans to create a music joint venture with Britain's EMI Group. The EMI venture also faces antitrust objections from the FTC." (The Wall Street Journal, Philip Shishkin and John Wilke. September 19, 2000 Page A1.)
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• U.S. Endorses a Global Approach to Antitrust: "In a change of tone in U.S. policy toward cross-border mergers, Washington's top antitrust official endorsed the idea of a multilateral organization that would help standardize treatment of international merger proposals. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein told a surprised international meeting of lawyers, economists and antitrust officials that there is no other way to relieve political friction and reduce the regulatory burden on merging companies, as deals become larger and more complex. While stressing that he favors a "cautious beginning," Mr. Klein said "the time has come for a world organization committed to these issues." At the same time, he insisted that any such organization not be a part of the World Trade Organization ­ something the European Union has repeatedly proposed." (The Wall Street Journal, Brandon Mitchener. September 15, 2000 Page A15.)
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• Antitrust Enforcers' Actions on Mergers Chill Wall Street: "News that federal antitrust enforcers are prepared to block America Online Inc.'s $129 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. unless the two sides make key concessions brought shudders to Wall Street. It comes on the heels of a string of high-profile deals that have either faced intense scrutiny or been blocked outright by regulators in the U.S. and Europe, such as WorldCom Inc.'s attempted pact for Sprint Corp. and a merger of three aluminum producers." (The Wall Street Journal, Nikhil Deogun and Anita Raghavan. September 6, 2000 Page C1.)
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• FTC Staff Raises Serious Concern on AOL Deal: "Federal antitrust enforcers are prepared to block America Online Inc.'s $129 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. unless the companies accept far-reaching restrictions on their combined market power, lawyers close to the case said." (The Wall Street Journal, John R. Wilke. September 5, 2000 Page A3.)
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• Ambivalence in China On Expanding Net Access: "The warning followed renewed reports that local [Chinese] governments are establishing Internet surveillance units and tracking down people who use the Web to express political dissent or other nonconformist ideas. The government shut one such Web site, www.xinwenmig.com, this week for posting "counterrevolutionary content," a euphemism that often means nothing more than criticism of the government. Police are searching for the Web site's organizers, according to the New York-based Human Rights in China group." (The New York Times, Craig S. Smith. August 11, 2000 Page C3.)
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• FBI Won't Provide Data on Carnivore Congress Requested: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to give to Congress details of its Carnivore Internet surveillance system, telling a member of a House oversight committee that some of the documents he requested include classified information and others are the subject of a pending lawsuit seeking their release." (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. August 10, 2000 Page B8.)
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• Chinese Dissident Web Site Closed: "A Chinese dissident Web site was closed by the government and police are hunting those who ran it, a U.S. human-rights organization said. The site was described as the first by a China-based pro-democracy group." (The Wall Street Journal. August 9, 2000 Page A1.)
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• EC Accuses Microsoft on 'Server' Sector: "Microsoft Corp., still threatened with a two-way breakup, ordered by a U.S. judge, sustained another legal blow when the European Commission formally accused the company of seeking to corner the global market for software that runs powerful "server" computers. The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, has tangled with Microsoft several times over the past few years, but the most recent action is its biggest assault yet on the Redmond, Wash., software company." (The Wall Street Journal, Brandon Mitchener, Rebecca Buckman and Ted Bridis. August 4, 2000 Page A3.)
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• Judge Prods FBI to Decide on Carnivore: "A federal judge proded the Federal Bureau of Investigation to decide quickly whether it will publicly disclose the secret blueprints for its "Carnivore" Internet wiretap system." (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. August 3, 2000 Page B8.)
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• Wiretapping in Cyberspace: "Millions of Americans now log on to the Internet as naturally and as frequently as they pick up a phone. Technology has created a revolution in personal communications, but technology is also making it possible for government and even employers to monitor private conversations as never before. Telephone-era laws must be updated to address these new challenges to privacy." "It is probably not practical for agents to listen in on all the phone calls, for example, that go through AT&T. But new technology is making it possible for agencies like the F.B.I. to scan, read and record millions of pieces of e-mail on the network of an Internet service provider. Until now, this kind of power and its potential for abuse were not so readily available." "Until now, routine government surveillance of private conversations was limited as much by practicality as by legal constraints. Now that it is feasible to eavesdrop electronically on an unlimited scale, the laws have to be strengthened to prevent monitoring of all online communications simply because technology makes it easy." (The New York Times. July 27, 2000 Page A26.)
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• FBI is Pressured To Disclose Codes For Carnivore: "The FBI is resisting pressure to divulge the source code for its e-mail surveillance system, called Carnivore. The bureau says such a move would help hackers and violate copyright protections for software licensed to develop the system." (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. July 24, 2000 Page A1 and A6.)
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• Deutsche Telekom To Pay $50 Billion For U.S. Company: "Despite political opposition in Washington, Germany's largest telephone company, Deutsche Telekom, agreed last night to acquire an upstart American cellular communications company, the VoiceStream Wireless Corporation, for $50.7 billion." "But the merger is far from a certainty. In recent weeks lawmakers in both the Senate and House, anticipating a move by Deutsche Telekom, introduced legislation with the intent of preventing the German company from acquiring an American telephone company. And last week the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, citing those concerns, said any telecommunications deal involving a foreign government-owned company would face heavy scrutiny." (The New York Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Simon Romero. July 24, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Carnivore E-Mail Tool Won't Eat Up Privacy, Says FBI: "FBI e-mail surveillance is generating much criticism, and the agency is trying to convince lawmakers that its system, called Carnivore, isn't the threat to privacy it seems. Top officials expressed regrets about the unfortunate name." (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis and Neil King Jr. July 20, 2000 Page A1 and A28.)
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• High-Tech Executives Urge Action on World's Digital Divide: "A group of high-technology executives urged the wealthiest nations today to take action to erase a growing digital divide resulting from the economic chasm separating the developed and developing worlds." "The perception that the world is increasingly being divided into information technology have and have-nots is among the topics that the seven leading industrial nations and Russia will take up at their annual summit meeting, which begins on Friday in Okinawa." (The New York Times, John Markoff. July 20, 2000 Page A6.)
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• British Authorities May Get Wide Power to Decode E-Mail: "As the Clinton administration formally enters the debate about law enforcement surveillance in cyberspace, the British government is about to enact a law that would give the authorities here broad powers to intercept and decode e-mail messages and other communications between companies, organizations and individuals." "The measure, which goes further than the American plan unveiled on Monday in Washington, would make Britain the only Western democracy where the government could require anyone using the Internet to turn over the keys to decoding e-mails messages and other data." (The New York Times, Sarah Lyall. July 19, 2000 Page A3.)
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• Updating of Wiretap Law for E-Mail Age Is Urged by the Clinton Administration: "The White House is urging changes in U.S. law to make it easier for authorities to eavesdrop on Internet communications such as electronic mail, updating what the government described as wiretap laws written for an earlier era." "The American Civil Liberties Union said the White House announcement was "deeply disappointing," because it did not include any promise to suspend use of Carnivore, which the group charged gives the government "unsupervised access to a nearly unlimited amount of communications traffic."" (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. July 18, 2000 Page A3.)
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• Internet May Need New Cyber-Borders ­ U.S. Legal Body: "The Internet makes such light of geographical frontiers that new cyber-borders may be needed instead, top U.S. lawyers said Monday as they presented a two-year report into preventing global online chaos." (Reuters, Richard Meares. July 17, 2000)
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• ACLU Asks Details On FBI's New Plan To Monitor the Web: "The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking to force the Federal Bureau of Investigation to disclose the technical details behind a controversial electronic surveillance system created by the bureau." "The request reflects the growing concern among privacy groups and Internet companies about the privacy implications of Carnivore. The FBI surveillance system, a hardware device that contains a specialized program for tracking e-mail and other forms of online communication, has especially raised hackles among Internet service providers. The FBI is attempting to install Carnivore on the networks of ISPs as part of specific criminal investigations of online users. But ISPs say they have no way of knowing whether Carnivore is limiting the scope of its surveillance to the cases at hand." (The Wall Street Journal, Nick Wingfield. July 17, 2000 Page B7.)
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• Earthlink Says It Won't Install Device for FBI: "One of the nation's largest Internet service providers, Earthlink Inc., has refused to install a new Federal Bureau of Investigation electronic surveillance device on its network, saying technical adjustments required to use the device caused disruptions for customers." "The FBI has used Carnivore, as the surveillance device is called, in a number of criminal investigations. But Earthlink is the first ISP to offer a public account of an actual experience with Carnivore. The FBI has claimed that Carnivore won't interfere with an ISP's operations." "Earthlink executives said they were also concerned about privacy. The company said it had no way of knowing whether Carnivore was limiting its surveillance to the criminal investigation at hand, or was trolling more broadly. Other ISPs have said there could be serious liability issues for them if the privacy of individuals not connected to an investigation is compromised." (The Wall Street Journal, Nick Wingfield, Ted Bridis and Neil King Jr.. July 14, 2000 Page A16.)
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• Measure To Curb Internet Gambling Gains In The House: "A tentative deal has been reached in the House of Representatives on a bitterly fought bill to ban most forms of gambling on the Internet, clearing the way for a floor vote as early as next week." The legislation has created a number of odd alliances and has fattened the bank accounts of some of the most powerful lobbying and law firms in Washington. Evangelical Christian groups have lined up with horse-track operators and liquor store owners to support the bill." "The measure, strongly backed by major sports leagues and the Nevada gambling industry, is an attempt to halt the rapid growth of online betting on casino-style games and professional and college sports by anyone with access to a personal computer, modem and credit card. The big Nevada casinos have put their money and considerable lobbying clout behind the bill to try to crush a competitive threat to their billion-dollar desert palaces." (The New York Times, John M. Broder. July 14, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Senators Say They Will Intervene If Web-Music Battle Isn't Settled: "Signaling Congress's close attention to the burgeoning Internet-Entertainment industry, influential lawmakers said if private industry fails to work out disputes over the future of online music, they would step in with legislation." "Most witnesses at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, which included industry representatives and celebrities, opposed government involvement in the industry, and Mr. Hatch said that was the "last thing" he wanted." (The Wall Street Journal, Jill Carroll and Anna Wilde Mathews. July 12, 2000 Page B12.)
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• Internet Companies Decry FBI's E-Mail Wiretap Plan: "Internet-service providers and privacy advocates are concerned about the implications of a new electronic surveillance system devised by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with some providers vowing to resist if they are asked to install it on their networks." "The FBI system, a sophisticated combination of hardware and software the agency has dubbed Carnivore, must be connected directly to an ISP's network. Once it is connected, Carnivore has he potential to keep tabs on all of the communications on the network. The FBI has said it will use the system only with valid court orders and that Carnivore will allow it to narrowly target its investigation" "However, ISPs, industry representatives and privacy advocates, responding to a report in The Wall Street Journal about the FBI system, criticized the potential for excessive monitoring of online communications." (The Wall Street Journal, Nick Wingfield and Don Clark. July 12, 2000 Page B11A.)
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• FBI's Wiretaps To Scan E-Mail Spark Concern: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is using a superfast system called Carnivore to covertly search e-mails for messages from criminal suspects." "Essentially a personalized computer stuffed with specialized software, Carnivore represents a new twist in the federal government's fight to sustain its snooping powers in the Internet age. But in employing the system, which can scan millions of e-mails a second, the FBI has upset privacy advocates and some in the computer industry. Experts say the system opens a thicket of unresolved legal issues and privacy concerns." (The Wall Street Journal, Neil King Jr. and Ted Bridis. July 11, 2000 Page A3.)
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• Business Links On Web Raise Antitrust Issues: "As companies in practically every industry rush to join business-to-business exchanges on the Internet, regulators are growing concerned that they will face a rash of new antitrust questions for which they are not prepared." "Both regulators and executives agree that the stakes are enormous. B2B sites already account for about $150 billion in annual sales, significantly more than the better-known consumer sites like Amazon.com. And that number is expected to grow exponentially as businesses move more and more into buying and selling on the Web." ""Antitrust has never had this kind of factual scenario to look at before," said Susan DeSanti, the director of policy planning for the Federal Trade Commission." "Last week, the commission took the unusual step of holding a two-day conference to which it invited executives, lawyers and consumer advocates to advise it on how to regulate B2B marketplaces." (The New York Times, David Leonhardt. July 7, 2000 Page A1.)
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• The FBI Raises Security Issues On NTT-Verio: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has raised national-security concerns about a Japanese company's attempt to acquire a U.S. Internet service provider, signaling the government's increasing worry about the globalization of, and its loss of control of, telecommunications networks." "The agency has registered its concerns with the Treasury Department about Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp.'s planned acquisition of Verio Inc., Englewood, Colo." "In recent years, the FBI and other security agencies have raised concerns about their ability to maintain surveillance over telecommunications networks being acquired by companies based outside the U.S. Now, law-enforcement officials appear to be moving to extend their influence to Internet deals, which generally aren't regulated by the Federal Communications Commission but come before an obscure Treasury panel called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S." (The Wall Street Journal, Glenn R. Simpson and David S. Cloud. July 6, 2000 Page A3.)
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• All Wires Lead to Washington: "When the Justice Department dispatched a private lawyer, Steve Axinn, to se if the WorldCom merger raised any antitrust problems, he came back and reported that he had "deep concern." Of course he did. Those who gurgle about the "rule of law" in antitrust don't know, or have forgotten, that antitrust enforcement has always been an area of untrammeled policy initiative masquerading as law enforcement. In the WorldCom case the arbitrariness surpasses the usual opportunism and verges on contrived ignorance. Joel Klein said the deal must be stopped because WorldCom and Sprint would jointly have 27% of consumer long-distance business. Last time we checked, 27% doesn't constitute a monopoly, but Mr. Klein's reasoning is that AT&T has nearly 50%, so two companies instead of three would control 77% if Sprint and WorldCom were to merge. Never mind that you could just as easily argue the deal would finally give AT&T somebody its own size to pick on. The pith of the Justice Department's complaint is that an industry whose prices are trending toward zero, that has no natural reason to exist, and that is on the verge of being rendered a technological nullity, must be treated like a dangerous oligopoly. If the long-distance business were your Uncle Fred, you'd have to pity it." (The Wall Street Journal, Holman W. Jenkins Jr.. July 5, 2000 Page A23.)
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• EU May Block Microsoft Deal With Telewest: "Microsoft Corp. is working to salvage its proposed $3 billion investment in British cable-television concern Telewest Communications PLC amid evidence European antitrust regulators are leery of the deal." (The Wall Street Journal, Brandon Mitchener. July 5, 2000 Page A3.)
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• New Global Cybercops: "The wording in a recent Council of Europe document may sound like boring legalese, but it could have profound implications for civil liberties around the world. It reads: "Each Party shall take such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to empower its competent authorities to search or similarly access a computer system or part of it and computer data stored thereinfor the purpose of criminal investigation or proceedings." A "Party" is any country that signs the International Convention on Crime in Cyberspace ­ let's call it IC3. The first draft was published for public comment in April by the Council of Europe, an independent group of 41 countries that focuses on social and legal issues. While the general content of the treaty has been widely discussed (granting police more powers and narrowing the differences in national laws), one disturbing detail has gone almost unnoticed, and it is hidden in four words of Article 14 quoted above: "search or similarly access." In other words, the IC3 could authorize law-enforcement agencies to remotely search computer hard drives by penetrating somebody's computer (or a corporate system) through the Net and other networks. This interpretation was confirmed in an interview with Peter Csonka of the Council of Europe's legal office. "The convention admits the possibility of direct online searches," he says. That opens the door for some very troubling changes. Lawful searches in most democratic countries are authorized only in certain situations: when a search warrant is obtained, when the target person is notified and so on. No such provisions are stated in the IC3 draft. Rather, the authors of the convention have implemented an insidious semantic shift from "search" to "access." The word "search" is often associated with force, typically embodied by police officers seizing any kind of potential evidence from a person, a home or an office. "Access" has a softer, more neutral connotation. Imagine authorities gaining access to your hard drive remotely, opening files, reading or copying them and leaving no trace of what they had done. Moreover, the very notion of telesearch collides with political borders and legal jurisdictions. The convention, for example, authorizes the police to extend searches "expeditiously" across networks connected to the initial computer, basically prejustifying any search by a law-enforcement agency that, bouncing from computer to router to computer, would "inadvertently access" data located in the jurisdiction of another country. Almost any cop could be a global cybercop. The IC3 will be finalized after the summer; it then is subject to an approval process expected to be completed in about 18 months. The text then will be legally binding in the countries that sign it. Canada, Japan, South Africa and the U.S. are not members of the Council of Europe, but they do participate in IC3 discussions. The U.S. Department of Justice has been very active in supporting the draft. It seems that Washington, confronted with strong privacy and consumer lobbies at home, is using the Council as a back door to expand police powers in cyberspace around the world. That, in turn, could give U.S. law-enforcement agents even more power to sneak into computers than they have now." (The Standard, Bruno Giussani. July 3, 2000.)
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• Welcome To Sealand. Now Bugger Off: "Ryan Lackey, a 21-year-old MIT dropout and self-taught crypto expert, sees fantastic things for himself in 2005. For starters, he'll be filthy rich. But his future is animated by more than just money ­ to wit, the exploration of a huge idea he thinks will change the world. Lackey's big concept? That freedom is the next killer app." "Before you get too choked up, you should know that Lackey means giving corporations and frisky individuals the "freedom" to store and move data without answering to anybody, including competitors, regulators, and lawyers. He's part of a crew of adventurers and cypherpunks that's working to transform a 60-year-old gunnery fort in the North Sea ­ an odd, quasi-independent outpost whose British owner calls it "the Principality of Sealand" ­ into something that could be possible only in the 21st century: a fat-pipe Internet server farm and global networking hub that combines the spicier elements of a Caribbean tax shelter, Crytonomicon, and 007." "This summer, with $1 million in seed money provided by a small core of Internet-fattened investors, Lackey and his colleagues are setting up Sealand as the world's first truly offshore, almost-anything-goes electronic data haven ­ a place that occupies a tantalizing gray zone between what's legal and what'spossible. Especially if you exist, as the Sealanders plan to, outside the jurisdiction of the world's nation-states. Simply put: Sealand won't just be offshore. It will be off government." (Wired 8.07 cover article, Simson Garfinkel. July 2000 Issue, Page 230.)
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• Oracle Leader Calls Microsoft Spying 'Civic Duty': "In a raucous news conference on a sprawling Silicon Valley corporate campus affectionately called Larryland by its inhabitants, Lawrence J. Ellison, the chairman and founder of Oracle Corporation, today defended his company's yearlong spying operation against Microsoft as a "civic duty" similar to investigative reporting by the press." (The New York Times, John Markoff. June 29, 2000 Page C1.)
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• A Lobbying Machine Springs Up to Revive Issue of Internet Taxes: "The road to a tax-free Internet looked smooth and clear in Congress. Then an oddball coalition of retailers, real-estate agents, firemen and teachers came along. Just last month, the House rammed through a bill imposing a five-year moratorium on new Internet taxes, without even considering the devilish question of how to handle sales taxes on Internet commerce. Love of the Internet being this year's version of a motherhood issue, most expected the Senate to soon follow suit. But the forces of cyberspace were in for a surprise. A broad collection of people who want sales taxes on the Internet suddenly materialized and succeeded installing the bill in the Senate. Senators may soon begin considering alternative bills that, while still blocking new Internet taxes, would take the first steps toward a uniform tax system under which Americans would pay for shopping in stores and on the Internet alike." (The Wall Street Journal, Gerald F. Seib and Jim VandeHei. June 29, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Justice Dept. Acts To Block Merger Of Phone Giants: "The Justice Department sought to curb the headlong consolidation of the telecommunications industry yesterday by moving to block WorldCom's proposed $115 billion acquisition of the Sprint Corporation." "At the same time in the face of opposition in Europe, WorldCom and Sprint formally withdrew their deal from consideration by the European Commission, reserving the option to file again in the future." "The Justice Department, while seeking an injunction against the deal in Federal court, cited concerns that the combined company would stifle competition on the Internet and in the long-distance telephone industry. Industry executives said the filing probably doomed the deal, which was agreed to last year and would have created an Internet powerhouse and the nation's second-largest long-distance phone company after AT&T." (The New York Times, Seth Schiesel with David Leonhardt. June 28, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Oracle Hired Firm to Probe Microsoft Allies: "Oracle said it hired a detective agency to investigate allies of Microsoft and disclose internal documents to the media, saying it was necessary to expose Microsoft's underhanded attempts to fight its antitrust case." (The Wall Street Journal, Glenn R. Simpson and Ted Bridis. June 27, 2000 Page A1 and A3.)
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• U.S. Court Rules Against Online Pornography Law: "A federal law intended to shield children from online pornography was dealt a second setback today, as an appellate court upheld a lower court order against its enforcement and declared that the statute was probably fatally flawed." (The New York Times, David Stout. June 23, 2000 Page A16.)
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• Both Sides Talk of Victory in Cable Ruling: "Reversing a lower court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled today that a local government could not force a cable company that offered Internet access to share its telecommunication lines with rival providers of cable modems." "The decision left AT&T, the City of Portland and a coalition of Internet companies seeking access to AT&T's telecommunications lines each claiming victory in a suit closely watched by the Internet industry." (The New York Times, Matt Richtel. June 23, 2000 Page C2.)
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• Sprint, WorldCom Merger Faces Hurdle in Europe, Too: "Sprint Corp. and WorldCom Inc. were scrambling to salvage their $115 billion merger amid indications that the European Commission has joined the staff of the U.S. Justice Department in recommending it be blocked." (The Wall Street Journal, Philip Shisfkin and Brandon Mitchener. June 22, 2000 Page B10.)
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• Drug Office Ends Tracking Of Web Users: "The White House conceded today that it might have violated federal privacy guidelines, and it ordered its Office of National Drug Control Policy to stop using a software device that tracks computer users who view the government's antidrug advertisements on the Internet." "To monitor traffic on its Internet sites for children and parents, the White House's drug policy office has employed computer files known as cookies, which are placed in computers electronically ­ usually without the knowledge of users ­ to monitor their Internet travels." (The New York Times, Marc Lacey. June 22, 2000 Page A14.)
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• U.S. to Decide if it Will Halt WorldCom-Sprint Merger: "The Justice Department is expected to decide in the next few days whether to seek to block the proposed $115 billion merger of WorldCom Inc. and Sprint Corp." "Negotiations between the parties have intensified in recent days as the companies officials have tried to persuade antitrust chief Joel Klein to look beyond his staff's recommendation to halt one of the biggest telecommunications mergers ever proposed. If the department does try to halt the deal, it would be the biggest merger ever blocked by regulators." (The Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Blumenstein and John R. Wilke. June 21, 2000 Page B6.)
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• Hi-Tech to Feds: We Love You, We Love You Not: "Ah, but the times have changed, and fast. The high-tech world has gone from resisting any government role, to grudgingly accepting one, to actively seeking one out. High-tech has discovered that government can be you friend." "This week, two new bits of evidence are on display here in California to support this finding. The first came on Monday night, when John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco Systems Inc., hosted Republican candidate George W. Bush at a fund-raiser that bagged a cool $4 million for the GOP. As it happens, this fund-raiser eclipsed the $2.6 million vice President Al Gore raised at his own Silicon Valley fund-raiser earlier this year. These aren't events hosted by people who think government is irrelevant to their lives." "Less splashy but more telling is a letter that was sent to both Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore on June 7 by the heads of the nation's biggest software companies. The 13 executives who signed the letter essentially asked the candidates: What are you going to do for us?" (The Wall Street Journal, Gerald F. Seib. June 21, 2000 Page A28.)
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• A Contract with America.Com: "Has Newt Gingrich gone Silicon Valley? It looks like it, from the minute he opens the door of his top floor suite at the Fairmont Hotel." But although the paradigm has changed, his target is still big, unresponsive government." "Some of the ideas he hopes to promote include: giving a computer (which he calls "the textbook of the information age") to every four-year old, buying weapons systems via the Internet with an open bidding process that everyone could see, giving everyone a medical smart card, promoting online voting using thumbprint or eye identification, and offering online access to all free of charge." (The Wall Street Journal, Kara Swisher. June 19, 2000 Page B1.)
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• AOL Makes Instant-Messaging Proposal: "A week after federal antitrust enforcers began investigating America Online Inc.'s instant-messaging policies, the online giant made its first gesture toward allowing open access to its wildly popular messaging system." "The conciliatory gesture comes at a time when regulators are reviewing AOL's proposed $113 billion purchase of Time Warner Inc., leading competitors to speculate that it was a more political than technical move." (The Wall Street Journal, Julia Angwin. June 16, 2000 Page A3.)
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• Visas for the Information Age: "The immediate issue that has [Intel's Andy] Grove and his peers so exercised ­ and which Congress looks set to act upon ­ is the increasingly ominous gap between the number of skilled workers they need to import and the H1-B work visas available to let them do it. The Information Technology association reckons that though the industry will this year create nearly 1.6 million jobs, some 843,000 will go unfilled because of the lack of qualified workers. The reason, say the CEOs, is that they are caught between the twin pincers of a U.S. education system that isn't turning out enough math and science grads and an H1-B quota that prevents them from making up the difference with qualified foreign students, many of them graduates of American universities." (The Wall Street Journal. June 12, 2000 Page A30.)
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• Tsk, Tsk, Bill: You Aren't Playing By Beltway Rules: "Bill Gates is a hard man to warm to, but this week I sympathize with him. Not only do the feds want to break up his company, but he must now endure public lectures about his many supposed political blunders. The Microsoft chairman didn't bow enough to bureaucrats, or canoodle enough with politicians. He gave away too little money too late, when it only looked cynical. His e-mails were too tart, or too honest, or something. And ­ this one belongs in the Hindsight Hall of Fame ­ he was too cheap to spring for a good barber. It's all hilariously beside the point. The real political significance of the Microsoft breakup is that it signals that Silicon Valley is now another Detroit. As a target for government meddling, software is now little different from autos, or steel or even textiles. The trust being busted here is the illusion that any part of the private sector is safe from federal power." (The Wall Street Journal, Paul A. Gigot. June 9, 2000 Page A18.)
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• Microsoft Breakup Is Ordered For Antitrust Law Violations: "A federal judge ordered the breakup of the Microsoft Corporation today, saying the severe remedy was necessary because Microsoft "has proved untrustworthy in the past" and did not appear to accept his ruling that it had broadly violated the nation's antitrust laws. "There is credible evidence in the record to suggest that Microsoft, convinced of its innocence, continues to do business as it has in the past and may yet do to other markets what it has already done" to dominate operating systems and Internet software, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said in his final ruling in the long-running trial." "Under his order, Microsoft would be broken into separate and competing companies, one for its Windows operating system and one for its other computer programs and Internet businesses. Microsoft would also be forced to comply with a long list of restrictions on its conduct that would last three years if the breakup order withstands appeal, and 10 years if it does not." "Microsoft said it would appeal the case to the Court of Appeals, filing the papers within a few days, while the government said this evening that it would try to bypass that court and ask immediate review by the Supreme Court." (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. June 8, 2000 Page A1.)
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• AT&T Delays Its Rate Increase Under Pressure From Government: "AT&T gave into pressure from embarrassed federal regulators and outraged consumer groups today and said that it would put off a planned rate increase that would have raised telephone bills for tens of millions of customers." "The announcement came after a flurry of calls between senior AT&T executives and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, William E. Kennard, who said that the company, the nation's largest long-distance provider, had broken a promise to reduce overall phone charges under an agreement reached last week." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. June 8, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Cisco's Chambers Revs Up Political-Contribution Engine: "Cisco Systems Inc. has been on an investment binge since John Chambers became chief executive of the Silicon Valley company in the mid-1990's. Now Mr. Chambers is bringing something of the same approach to politics." "This month he is throwing open the doors of his home in Los Altos, Calif., for a fund-raiser benefiting the GOP and Texas Gov. George W. Bush that promises to rival a $2.5 million Silicon Valley event that benefited Democrats and Vice President Al Gore in April." "Pushed by Mr. Chambers, Cisco was one of the first Internet companies to establish a permanent presence in Washington. Schmoozing with power brokers and government officials is all part of a corporate strategy aimed at keeping the maker of computer-networking products out of the sort of trouble now ensnaring Microsoft Corp., which a federal judge ordered split into two companies." "But Dan Scheinman, Cisco's senior vice president for legal and governmental affairs, acknowledges there is a broader point behind political donations, which are on the rise to both parties from Cisco executives and workers. "We're building a relationship," Mr. Scheinman explains. "Money-contributing is part of the relationship." (The Wall Street Journal, Greg Hitt. June 8, 2000 Page A26.)
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• European Union Plans Rule For Web Tax; U.S. Companies Protest Proposal: "Drawing an immediate protest from the U.S., the European Union announced plans to force foreign companies to levy value-added tax, or VAT, on services delivered via the Internet, television or radio to customers in the EU." "U.S. companies immediately slammed the idea that the EU would force them to comply with its VAT rules. Speaking at a forum in Washington, Andrew Grove, chairman of Intel Corp., described the proposals as "e-protectionism" and said he approached the U.S. government to protest." (The Wall Street Journal, Geoff Winestock. June 8, 2000 Page A19.)
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• Next Big Question: Will High Court Use Old Law And Push the Microsoft Case Onto Fast Track?: "The Supreme Court doesn't readily abandon tradition or its deliberative pace. But would it do so to speed the mammoth Microsoft antitrust case to its door? That is the key question hanging over the next phase of the case - with huge implications for Microsoft Corp., the government and the U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is set to finalize his ruling against the software maker." "Many government officials want to use an obscure legal rule from an earlier era of antitrust cases to rush the inevitable appeals process directly to the high court. That is because the U.S. has lost several decisions involving Microsoft at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, including in 1995 and 1998. Given that track record, the Justice Department has little to gain and much to lose by proceeding along the time-consuming path of the usual appellate process." (The Wall Street Journal, Robert S. Greenberger. June 7, 2000 Page A28.)
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• Microsoft Files Final Criticism of Government Breakup Plan: "In a spirited final filing, Microsoft yesterday condemned the government's plan to split the company in two as "a radical step" that seemed to treat software as if it were pornography." "Microsoft's brief denounced the government's breakup plan as "completely obscure" for failing to clearly define Internet software." (The New York Times, Steve Lohr. June 7, 2000 Page C2.)
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• Intel Chairman Says He Favors Sales Tax on Internet Purchases: "Breaking with most of the technology industry, Intel Corp.'s chairman told a congressional committee that Internet sales don't deserve exemptions from taxes, and he expressed support for new federal Internet-privacy laws." "Andrew Grove, at 63 years old, is considered an elder statesman in an industry flush with start-ups run by young executives. His remarks were so extraordinary they overshadowed the testimony moments later by Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp.'s chairman, who also appeared before the Joint Economic Committee." (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. June 7, 2000 Page B6.)
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• Justice Dept. rejects Big Changes in Its Breakup Plan for Microsoft: "Responding in detail to Microsoft's criticisms, the Justice Department today rejected any substantial changes in its plan to break up the company." (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. June 6, 2000 Page C1.)
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• Signifying Nothing: "As far back as October 1997, one year before the Microsoft antitrust trial actually began, Jackson issued a court order that would have forced the software maker to offer its Windows operating system software separate from its Internet software. The judge concluded at the time that Microsoft's "bundling" of Windows with its web browser amounted to a violation of federal antitrust law; that the company was using its monopoly in operating system software to gain an unfair advantage in the market for browser software. A federal appeals court disagreed. In June 1998, it struck down Jackson's ruling, declaring that the lower court judge had not only "erred procedurally," by failing to give Microsoft an opportunity to present its case, but also erred "substantively" by misinterpreting the intent of antitrust law. "Antitrust scholars have long recognized," the appellate court declared," the undesirability of having courts oversee product design, and any dampening of technological innovation would be at cross-purposes with antitrust law. "We suggest here," the appellate judge added, "that the limited competence of courts to evaluate high-tech product designs and the high cost of error should make them wary of second-guessing the claimed benefits of particular design decision." The court's ruling was a stinging rebuke to Jackson. And the lower court judge was determined, apparently, to work his way around the ruling when the Microsoft antitrust trial began in October 1998." (The San Diego Union-Tribune. June 5, 2000 Page B6.)
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• AttaGirl, Janet Reno: "Janet Reno's antitrust hounds may well accomplish even more than they could have imagined. Instead of settling for a mere breakup of Microsoft, they might succeed in running it out of the country." "The British Broadcasting Corp. reported Friday that Canadian officials have contacted Microsoft about moving to Canada. It seems British Columbia would gladly receive a company that's on the eve of destruction by the hand of the U.S. government. So giddy is the province at the prospect, it's already offered the company preferential treatment that would include a loan to build a new headquarters, the BBC said. It's no surprise that a British Columbia official called Microsoft a "welcome asset." It's among the most valuable companies in the world. It employs thousands, fills tax coffers and generates growth." "What reasonable person wouldn't think Microsoft an asset? Well, start with Reno. The attorney general implied Thursday that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is a "robber baron." Never mind that Gates is subject to market forces - consumer choice - and has never robbed anyone. Then there's Justice Department antitrust chief Joel Klein, who demonized the software maker before, during and after the show trial that he so feverishly sought. And don't forget Microsoft's rivals - who baited a pliable government into its Microsoft crusade - and federal District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson - who's itching to split up Microsoft." "If Microsoft can be so blithely targeted, what's to stop the government from going after any company?" (Investor's Business Daily. June 5, 2000 Page A30.)
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• Database Legislation Spurs Fierce Lobbying: "Last year, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill sponsored by Representative Howard Coble, Republican of North Carolina, that would establish criminal penalties for the unauthorized use of material in databases. Opponents say the bill would allow companies with databases to control access to facts." "The measure, held up by competing commercial interests and a jurisdictional dispute in the House, seems unlikely to be enacted this year, but few other issues before Congress this year have generated so much lobbying. Advocates on both sides say their livelihoods are at stake." (The New York Times, David E. Rosenbaum. June 5, 2000 Page A14.)
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• Big Brother on Internet Close to Reality in Britain: "Big Brother is not only watching Britons, soon he may be demanding their computer passwords and perusing their e-mail from a new $40-million cyber-surveillance center in the headquarters of the MI5 domestic spy agency." "Under a bill making its way through Parliament, the government would have the right to monitor all online activities - some of them without a warrant. And Internet users who failed to comply with government orders to provide a password or encryption key would face two years in prison, unless they could prove that they no longer had the information." ""This goes way beyond what any other country in the world has proposed with the exception of Russia," said Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. "With this, any public authority would have the ability to sit on the shoulder of anyone who goes Web surfing to see what they are viewing or who they are e-mailing," Bowden said." (The Los Angeles Times, Marjorie Miller. June 4, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Internet Body Finds Problems Collecting Funds From Nations: "The group taking over management of the Internet from the U.S. government is having trouble collecting about $1.5 million from 250 nations that operate their own Web-address system." "Failure by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to collect the money puts its budget at risk as it wraps up its fiscal year June 30. The problem also raises questions about Icann's self-sufficiency and legitimacy as the government considers handing over this fall full control of technical decisions affecting the Internet, the engine of the New Economy." "South Africa has indicated it might not pay its Internet bill, and New Zealand is complaining about its tab. Some officials of a group representing 30 nations, mostly in Europe, are urging members to disregard the invoices." (The Wall Street Journal, Ted Bridis. June 1, 2000 Page B12.)
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• Microsoft Files Sharp Critique Of a Breakup: "Ignoring the judge's assertion that he wanted no more briefs, Microsoft filed a detailed criticism of the government's breakup plan today, the last filing for the record before the judge rules on how to deal with the company's antitrust violations." (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. June 1, 2000 Page C1.)
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• Technology Will Solve Web Privacy Problems: "The privacy showdown has come. After years of waiting for the high-tech industry to voluntarily enforce "fair information practices," the Federal Trade Commission's patience is at an end. While the number of Web sites sporting privacy policies has increased significantly, only 20% even partially implement the fair-information recommendations. The FTC is now insisting that Congress enforce compliance." (The Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Lessig. May 31, 2000 Page A26.)
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• What's Worse Than Two Baby Bills? Three.: "On Wednesday, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson invited government attorneys to draft an even more sweeping proposal for breaking up Microsoft. But a split - whether into two Baby Bills, three, or more - isn't the way to increase competition. Judge Jackson's zeal seems destined to hurt consumers, the very constituency antitrust law seeks to protect." "What a breakup is likely to do, however, is raise prices. Microsoft's main "anticompetitive" actions - giving away Explorer or selling Windows at low prices, in order to sell other Microsoft products - have only helped consumers. After a breakup, none of the new divisions of Microsoft will have any reason to subsidize each other, but will be forced to sustain independent development costs. The breakup is therefore laying the groundwork for the Baby Bills to exercise their market power and increase prices." (The Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Economides. May 26, 2000 Page A22.)
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• Judge Suggests U.S. Remedy For Microsoft Is Inadequate: "The federal judge trying the Microsoft antitrust case raised serious questions today about the government's plan to break up the company, seeming to suggest that he did not think the plan went far enough." "The judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, praised a brief submitted by a group of computer industry executives - including many of Microsoft's rivals - that called for breaking the company into three parts instead of two, as the government proposed. He called it "an excellent brief, excellent brief." "With an uncharacteristically determined manner, the judge also bluntly rejected Microsoft's request for months of additional hearings on the remedy for its antitrust violations, telling stunned Microsoft lawyers near the end of the day, "I am not contemplating any further process."" (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. May 25, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Microsoft Unexpectedly Files Another Brief: "Microsoft filed an unexpected brief with a federal judge today that quoted from a five-year-old government legal document in which the Justice Department argued that breaking up Microsoft would be "against the public interest" and "dangerous to the economy's welfare."" (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. May 23, 2000 Page C6.)
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• White House and Agency Split on Internet Privacy: "Clinton administration officials today threw cold water on a proposal by the Federal Trade Commission for legislation to protect consumer privacy on the Internet. But the commission chairman said failure to put new federal privacy-protection standards in place would undermine consumer confidence and significantly retard the development of commerce in cyberspace." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. May 23, 2000 Page C1.)
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• FTC Seeks Measure to Protect Privacy on Web: "Citing new statistics about how online companies collect personal data, the Federal Trade Commission asked Congress for broad legislation to protect consumer privacy on the Internet." (The Wall Street Journal, Glenn R. Simpson. May 23, 2000 Page A4.)
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• The Capos of Communication: "We've been inclined to discount reports that Justice was determined to punish Microsoft for not showing the Washington bureaucrats enough "respect." Then came the amazing stream of leaks and pronouncements about the WorldCom-Sprint merger, a virtual mud wrestle of various bureaucrats here and abroad competing to see who could extort the most "respect" from the New Economy." (The Wall Street Journal. May 15, 2000 Page A18.)
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• WorldCom's Bid for Sprint: "WorldCom's Bid for Sprint is suddenly in question after a Justice Department advisor recommended antitrust regulators block the $115 billion transaction. Company executives will meet next week with antitrust chief Joel Klein, who hasn't taken a position on the purchase." (The Wall Street Journal. May 19, 2000 Page A1.)
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• His Civil Rights Challenge: Equal Access to Technology: "At the vortex of a telecommunications revolution and a whirlwind of corporate deal-making that faces regulatory review, Mr. Kennard [William E. Kennard, chairman of the Federal Communication Commission] said he was ideally positioned to advance interests that some civil rights leaders say have caused a deep digital divide between the haves and have-nots, a gap that has been ignored by Congress and only belatedly recognized by the White House." ""I believe one of the main civil rights challenges of this new millennium is the challenge of ensuring equal access to technology," he said." (The New York Times, Stephen Labaton. May 15, 2000 Page A12.)
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• The Parallel Universe: "When the Industrial Revolution came along it shaped the contours of several U.S. elections. Although our current election comes at the dawn of the information and biotech revolutions, you'd never quite know it from the presidential campaign, which has been almost a parallel universe, operating on its own news and historic logic. It has been characterized either by the arcane - the Confederate flag and Bob Jones - or by the evergreens - Social Security, campaign finance reform, abortion and gun control. There is a general sense that not much is at stake in this election, and that we have entered an era of good feelings and tiny differences." "This is an illusion. My gut tells me that by 2008 we will look back at the Clinton years as a fool's paradise - the quiet interlude after the cold war and before all the forces unleashed by e-commerce, the biotech revolution, the information revolution and global integration reached their critical mass and ushered in a period of radically new political choices and issues in U.S. and global politics." (The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman. May 12, 2000 Page A31.)
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• House Votes to Extend Ban on New Internet Taxes: "In a Republican bid to woo the high-technology industry and please taxpayers, the House today rushed to the floor and then handily passed a bill to extend the current moratorium on new Internet taxes until 2006." "The legislation passed today, which faces an uncertain future in the Senate, does not directly address the question of sales taxes; it would not stop states from trying to collect taxes for goods sold on the Internet." (The New York Times, Lizette Alvarez. May 11, 2000 Page C10.)
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• GOP Drafts 'E-Contract' With America In Pitch for Tech Community's Support: "Republicans are preparing to make a strong pitch for support from the technology community with a high-tech version of their famous "Contract With America."" "The GOP's "E-Contract 2000," a reaction to the Democrats' recently unveiled E-Agenda, is designed to cast Republicans as guardians of the booming New Economy. It calls for such things as increasing "digital opportunities" by providing access to technology for poor people, new laws governing "cybersecurity" and new benefits for telecommuters. "Republicans need to stand up for freedom on the Internet," Mr. Armey says. "That's what the E-Contract is all about."" (The Wall Street Journal, Jim VandeHei. May 9, 2000 Page A28.)
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• Washington Whacks Silicon Valley: "Buried amid last week's ruckus over a possible Microsoft breakup was another tiny news item. Cisco Systems fired two salespeople, suspended another, accepted the resignation of a fourth, and reassigned three more for alleged extortion, death threats and conflicts of interest. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now on the case. While it was a good job of self-policing, Cisco's problems may be just starting. After all, we here in Silicon Valley can't help noticing a pattern. What was America's most valuable company in the mid-1990's? Intel - Federal Trade Commission settlement. At the end of the decade? Microsoft - antitrust dismemberment. Today? Cisco. Get ready John Chambers; now that the G-men know there are nefarious doings behind the server farm, it's only a matter of time before the Beltway show trial begins. If we've grown fatalistic out here, it's because Washington's strategy now seems clear. In a rare example of bipartisanship, Republicans and Democrats, the White House and Congress, are going to play Whack-a-Mole with each big company in turn. Why? Because with good, solid 1910-style thinking, any big company is a de facto monopoly. Never mind that the history of high-tech shows the rate of innovation to be so fast and the competition so intense that a natural monopoly - even long-term industry dominance - is impossible to sustain. Rather, each new alpha firm that lifts its head above the pack is to be hauled off to Janet Reno's Ministry of Truth for punishment and self-criticism. If its executives apologize and abase themselves, as Intel's did, they'll get off with a slap; if they get stupid and cocky like Bill Gates and Co., they'll be drawn and quartered. This new antitrust fervor is only a piece of growing government interference in the tech industry. Besides the predations of the Justice Department, there is the continuing struggle (again bipartisan) to stop well-educated foreigners from getting visas and helping U.S. companies stay competitive. Add to that the Security and Exchange Commission's perpetual effort to revise stock-option reporting and thus kill off entrepreneurship. Finally, in the spirit of federalism, throw in tireless attempts by state governments to tax the Internet." "If we're lucky, the damage will be confined to the lobby. But if it ever reaches the hallways - driving away the inventors and builders - this golden age of innovation will suddenly end. Then we'll see what true monopolies look like." (The Wall Street Journal, Michael S. Malone. May 4, 2000 Page A26.)
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• U.S. Says Microsoft Should Be Broken Up: "Determined to change the rules of competition in the software industry, the Justice Department and 17 states asked a federal judge yesterday to break Microsoft Corp. into two parts and seriously restrain its behavior while the breakup is being carried out. Attorney General Janet Reno said, "This is the right remedy at the right time." But Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates affirmed his company's determination to fight not only the proposed remedy but the antitrust finding. "Breaking up Microsoft into separate companies is not in the interest of consumers and is not supported by anything in the lawsuit," he said. "Dismantling Microsoft would hurt the company's ability to continue to innovate."" (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. April 29, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Regulators Confront Politics on the Web: "As more political campaigning goes online, federal regulators face a tricky set of questions about how, and whether, to regulate the Internet as it plays an increasingly powerful role in promoting candidates, raising money and encouraging debate." "The effort pits the laissez-faire culture of the Internet against the government's need to regulate political activities." (The New York Times, Leslie Wayne. April 21, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Governors Criticize Internet Tax Panel: "More than two-thirds of the nation's 50 governors today will deliver to Congress a scathing bipartisan attack on the Internet tax commission, denouncing it as a forum for special interests seeking tax breaks while threatening the system in which states set their own tax policies to pay for police, firefighters and schools. By last night, 36 governors, most of whom have reputations as tax cutters, had signed a letter saying that Congress should not interfere with the right of each state to determine its tax policy." (The New York Times, David Cay Johnston. April 12, 2000 Page C6.)
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• Is Government Strangling the New Economy: "The rout in Nasdaq stocks - which only began to bounce back a little yesterday - has been broad and deep. The breakdown of settlement talks in the Microsoft case was only the catalyst. What investors are realizing is that the environment that helped the high-tech boom - low regulation, low taxes, minimal government intervention and a low level of corporate rent-seeking - is changing profoundly. In the past, no one told the entrepreneurs in the garages of Silicon Valley what products to invent, how to sell them, what prices to charge or what deals to offer. Now, the new economy is beginning to look more like the old - an environment in which the winners are not necessarily the companies that please customers the most but the companies that do best at keeping government at bay - or, better yet, at using government to thwart competitors. Stock prices are falling because the risks to real innovators are rising." "But Microsoft is only part of the story. The Nasdaq carnage has been wide-ranging. And why not? The Internet intervention of government, often in league with trial lawyers, threatens every high-tech firm in America." (The Wall Street Journal, James K. Glassman. April 6, 2000 Page A22.)
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• In Wake of Ruling, Microsoft May Face Wave of Civil Suits: "In the wake of a federal judge's harsh ruling, the Microsoft Corporation now faces the threat of a rising wave of consumer class-action cases and other private lawsuits." (The New York Times, Steve Lohr. April 5, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Gore Denounces Disparities in Minority Access to Computers: "Speaking at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s alma mater on the eve of the anniversary of his death, Vice President Al Gore called today for programs to narrow the "digital divide" that has left minorities with unequal access to computers and the Internet." (The New York Times, Kevin Sack. April 4, 2000 Page A12.)
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• Who's Next: "And so it came to pass that Microsoft ended up under the tender mercies of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. Even Judge Jackson himself seems to have wanted to avoid this result, calling on Judge Richard Posner, one of the nation's most innovative legal thinkers, to work out a compromise. But Judge Posner threw in the towel over the weekend, and now Judge Jackson has defaulted to throwing the book at Microsoft. The company says it will appeal, and the Nasdaq's plummet yesterday suggests the market sees a disconnect between the realities of the high-tech business today and the prospect of Microsoft spending years lurching through the courts the way IBM did in the 1970's, dragging with it Justice, a judge, boats of lawyers and all the harpoons envy can sink into its carcass." "In commenting on his failed mediation, Judge Posner praised the Justice Department. He praised Microsoft. He said zip about the [19] state Attorneys General. It was Cicero who famously remarked on the condemnation implicit in such silence. It'll never be on the evening TV news, but it's no news to the Judge Posners of the world that the attorneys general increasingly have become little more than deputized posses running raids against the private sector." (The Wall Street Journal. April 4, 2000 Page A26.)
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• U.S. Judge Says Microsoft Violated Antitrust Laws With Predatory Behavior: "The Microsoft Corporation violated the nation's antitrust laws through predatory and anticompetitive behavior and kept "an oppressive thumb on the scale of competitive fortune," a federal judge ruled today. (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. April 4, 2000 Page A1.)
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• SEC's Plan to Snoop for Crime on Web Sparks a Debate Over Privacy: "The Securities and Exchange Commission is moving to create an automated surveillance system that would scour the Internet for people who violate securities law. The agency has begun receiving proposals from vendors, who have conducted trial runs in recent weeks. But even before it gets under way, the multimillion-dollar project is running into trouble on privacy grounds. The mechanism would monitor public Web sites, message boards and chat groups. Anything deemed suspicious - like the phrase "get rich quick" - would be copied into a database, analyzed and then indexed for use by SEC investigators in bringing civil proceedings against people suspected of wrongdoing, according to the project-contractor solicitation. Other federal agencies might develop their own automated surveillance, the contracting records indicate." "But after reviewing the documents and holding discussions with SEC officials, one invited bidder, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, advised the agency that it would not participate because the endeavor might impinge on constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. Its chief concern: Innocent people would end up in the database." (The Wall Street Journal, Michael Moss. March 28, 2000 B1.)
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• Gephardt, Seeking to Boost Democrat's Image, Plans to Propose Tax Breaks for Internet Firms: "With an eye to the high-tech industry's growing clout, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt today will open a campaign to paint Democrats as the party of the New Economy." "Six seats separate Mr. Gephardt from the speaker's chair, and a boost from donors and voters in the high-tech community could get him there." (The Wall Street Journal, Jim VandeHei. March 28, 2000 Page A32.)
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• Panel on Taxing Internet Sales Ends Its Meetings in Disagreement: "Amid bitter accusations that one company's desire for tax breaks for itself had blocked a consensus, the commission created to advise Congress on Internet sales taxes ended its last scheduled meeting today in failure." (The New York Times, David Cay Johnston. March 22, 2000 Page C1.)
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• Agreement on Internet Taxes Eludes Deeply Divided Commission: "A commission advising Congress on whether and how Internet commerce should be taxed fell into disarray today, with members trading heated accusations and increasingly likely to go back to Congress with no recommendation at all." (The New York Times, David Cay Johnston. March 21, 2000 Page C1.)
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• Is U.S. a Global Snoop?: "Fears that the United States, Britain and other English-speaking countries are using a cold-war eavesdropping network to gain a commercial edge roused passions across Europe today, even after Washington and London roundly denied the notion." "The hubbub grew from a report prepared for the European Parliament that found that communications intercepted by a network called Echelon twice helped American companies gain an advantage over Europeans." "Echelon is a network of surveillance stations stitched together in the 1970’s by the United States National Security Agency with Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand to intercept select satellite communications, according to recently declassified information in Washington."(The New York Times, Suzanne Daley. February 24, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Internet Tax Panel's Chief May Accept Something Less Than Permanent Ban: "In a reversal, the chairman of a sharply divided federal commission on Internet tax issues signaled he may accept something less than a permanent ban on taxing Internet commerce." (The Wall Street Journal, Glenn R. Simpson. February 23, 2000 Page B6.)
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• The Hackers’ Lessons: "To whoever it was out there in cyberspace who launched last week’s "smurf" attacks that temporarily crippled Yahoo, Amazon.com, E-Trade, eBay, and CNN.com by overloading their web servers with fake requests for data, let me just say on behalf of all of us: Thank you. Yes, thank you for doing us all a favor, which is highlighting the vulnerabilities of an increasingly wired world, but doing it in a calibrated fashion - not so powerful that you did any lasting damage, but powerful and brazen enough to get everyone galvanized to address the threat." "The only one who can possibly protect you from the super-empowered angry people, or the Little Brothers, is Uncle Sam. Yeah, guess what? Despite all this wiring and virtual interaction, government still matters. In fact, it matters more now in the cyber-age, not less….Who’s the only one who can protect you from cyber-attacks on your private data? The government - and we need to make sure it has the resources and the laws to ensure that if anyone wants your data he has to negotiate with you first."(The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman. February 15, 2000 Page A31.)
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• Clinton to Hold Internet Security Summit: "The White House will convene an Internet-security summit with high-tech industry leaders next week to plot a response to this week’s stunning attacks on the Web’s most popular sites. As many as 20 top Internet executives are expected to meet with President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, Commerce Secretary William Daley and National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger. The announcement of the meeting came as the attacks appeared to have ebbed and Internet companies stepped up efforts to counter them when detected. The National Security Council has taken the lead in organizing the conference, a sign that the Clinton administration views the attacks as a potential security threat rather than a nuisance crime or a moderate economic disruption." (The Wall Street Journal, Neil King Jr. and Glenn R. Simpson. February 11, 2000 Page A3.)
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• Web Attacks Putting U.S. On Offensive: "Expressing concern about the economic damage, including sell-offs in the stock market, caused by the attacks on leading Web sites this week, the Justice Department said today that tougher criminal penalties might be necessary to prevent malicious disruption of Internet commerce."(The New York Times, Raymond Bonner. February 11, 2000 Page C1.)
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• China Lists Controls To Restrict the Use Of E-Mail and Web: "The Chinese government issued stern new regulations today that were intended to control the release of information on the Internet, underscoring the government’s love-hate relationship with cyberspace in a country where the number of Internet users is growing dramatically. The new regulations, published today in the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily, specifically govern the posting and dissemination on the Internet of "state secrets," a vaguely defined term that has been applied by the government to cover any information whose release it has not sanctioned."(The New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal. January 27, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Foreigners Must Disclose Internet Secrets to Beijing Soon: "The Chinese government is about to require foreign firms to reveal one of their deepest secrets - the type of software used to protect sensitive data transfers over the Internet. By next Monday, foreign and Chinese companies must register the type of commercial encryption software they use. Such software makes it more difficult for hackers - or governments - to eavesdrop on electronic messages. Eventually, the companies must provide details of employees who use the software, making it easier for authorities to monitor personal and commercial use of the Internet."(The Wall Street Journal, Matt Forney. January 25, 2000 Page A10.)
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• As High-Tech Jobs Go Begging, Germany Is Loath to Import Talent: "To get one man, Erik Masing bought a whole company. That’s what it took for the German software entrepreneur to get permission to employ a Russian programmer here. Even after buying the programmer’s employer, Mr. Masing got a series of lectures from government officials, who questioned his patriotism and forced him to interview dozens of unemployed Germans before relenting. Mr. Masing’s experience shows the extent to which lawmakers and bureaucrats here have tried to slam the door on foreign high-tech professionals even as the nation’s employers bemoan a shortage of engineers and programmers. It also reflects the lengths to which some companies have gone to get around the barriers to importing talent." (The Wall Street Journal, G. Pascal Zachary. January 17, 2000 Page A1.)
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• Controls Sought For Drug Sales On the Internet: "Clinton administration officials said today that they would ask Congress to regulate the growing sale of prescription drugs over the Internet. White House officials said President Clinton would ask for legislation requiring online drug stores to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration to operate. In addition, they said, he will ask Congress to beef up the agency's investigative powers and increase the penalties for online sales of prescription drugs without prescriptions." (The New York Times, Robert Pear. December 28, 1999 Page A1.)
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• Governors' Internet Grab: "These days our Governors are consumed by the Web. If the dragon of Internet commerce remains unfettered by sales taxes, they warn, it will devour shop owners from Maine to New Mexico. Thus South Dakota's William Janklow at last week's San Francisco session of the Congressional Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce: "We can't adopt a tax policy in America that assists in wiping out small-town Main Streets." ...To solve their problem the Governors, led by Republican Mike Leavitt of Utah, are now backing a multi-state agreement under which Internet businesses would "volunteer' to collect sales taxes on behalf of all states from all Internet shoppers....What really should frighten us is that any such agreement would quickly become a wedge for all sorts of new taxes for the Internet. Only one Governor in the land, and he is not George W. Bush, has staked out a visible, strong, anti-e-tax position. He is Jim Gilmore of Virginia, who says the only explanation for the Governors' behavior is that lawmakers have an unstoppable desire "to tax anything that moves." He's right. The drive to squeeze every last tax dollar out of Internet shopping isn't about voters, fairness, simplification, harmony or financing highways. It is about public power." (The Wall Street Journal. December 20, 1999 Page A26.)
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• Retailers and Governors Attack Proposal to Make the Internet a Tax-Free Zone: "Proposals to make the Internet a tax-free zone came under withering attack today by major retailers, shopping-center owners and state and local officials in testimony before a commission created by Congress to study the question." (The New York Times, David Cay Johnston. December 16, 1999 Page C2.)
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• China Internet Investors Face Web of New Rules: "Foreign investors in China's Internet face a barrage of regulations despite a recent trade deal with the U.S. that had appeared to throw open the sector to them, one of China's top ministers said. In a wide-ranging 90-minute interview, Minister of Information Industries Wu Jichuan gave details of planned regulations that could rein in China's free-wheeling Internet. He said that new laws will require content on Internet sites to be regulated by Beijing, that all Internet companies will have to apply for licenses and that foreign investors would need official approval before taking stakes in such companies." (The Wall Street Journal, Leslie Chang and Ian Johnson. December 13, 1999 page A25.)
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• The E-Grinch: "Indeed, holiday shoppers are expected to spend at least $4 billion online this year, nearly triple the $1.5 billion they spent last year. While the dollars are still relatively small when set against total Christmas buying, the trend lines are clear. And it has not been lost on the tax man. Already a group of governors led by Utah Republican Mike Leavitt have put forth a proposal about how to get back some of what they see as lost tax revenue. Predictably, they've concluded that our taxes aren't high enough. Mr. Leavitt even claims essential civic services like police and fire departments - even public schools - will be jeopardized unless states find a way to tap into the e-commerce revenue keg." (The Wall Street Journal. November 29, 1999 Page A28.)
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• 7 Suits So Far As Pressure On Microsoft Is Escalating: "A growing wave of private lawsuits against the Microsoft Corporation suddenly has the company fighting on several fronts at once, raising the stakes in its antitrust battle in Washington and intensifying pressure on Microsoft to settle with the Justice Department." (The New York Times, by the Associated Press. November 23, 1999 Page C6.)
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• Internet Makes an Easy Target for Lobbyists and Lawmakers: "When it comes to cyberspace, the mantra of politicians vying for the title of most e-friendly, Republicans and Democrats alike, has been "Hands off and go slow." Yet lawmakers have already passed a laundry list of bills that leave the federal government's fingerprints all over the Internet, and more are in the pipeline. The efforts include inventing rules against the peddling of Internet addresses, granting legal standing for digital contracts, proposing bans on the Internet programming known as Webcasts, prohibiting online gambling and regulating "spam," the junk mail of cyberspace. And that is just a partial list of e-era legislation this Congress has passed or is considering." (The New York Times, Jeri Clausing. November 22, 1999 Page C1.)
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• Microsoft Faces A Class Action On 'Monopoly': "Lawyers say they will file a class-action suit against Microsoft today on behalf of millions of Californians, in the first of what could become a flood of major lawsuits springing from the Justice Department's antitrust action against the company." (The New York Times, Steve Lohr. November 22, 1999 page A1.)
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• And Now the Lawyers Begin to Circle Around: "After the deluge come the lawyers." "Private antitrust lawyers and corporate general counsels are scouring a federal judge's scathing finding that Microsoft Corp. used its monopoly in personal-computer operating systems to hurt consumers and competitors, looking for opportunities to seek monetary damages from the software company." (The Wall Street Journal, David Bank, Lee Gomes and Nick Wingfield. November 9, 1999 Page B25.)
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• A Top Government Lawyer Puts a Breakup on the Table: "The Justice Department's top antitrust enforcer said for the first time yesterday that a breakup of Microsoft was within a range of remedies being considered in the government's antitrust suit against the software giant. Assistant Attorney General Joel I. Klein, head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, said on the ABC News program "This Week" that a wide range of remedies was being considered after a federal court's findings of fact on Friday, and that a breakup was "in the range." (The New York Times, Richard A. Oppel Jr.. November 8, 1999 Page A23.)
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• U.S. Judge Declares Microsoft A Monopoly Stifling A Market; Gates Dissents, Favoring Talks: "With a 207-page legal document, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has fashioned a club and wielded it against the Microsoft Corporation. In findings of fact that echo almost every one of the Government's accusations in its sweeping antitrust suit against the big software maker, Judge Jackson has concluded that Microsoft is a monopolist that time and again bullied other companies in the computer industry, harming consumers and hindering innovation. "It's a bad day for Microsoft," observed William Kovacic, a professor at the George Washington University law school. "The judge relentlessly accepted the Government's story of what happened."" (The New York Times, Steve Lohr. November 6, 1999 Page A1)
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• Must Web Sites Be Accessible To the Blind?: "In what could be a key test of disability law in cyberspace, the National Federation of the Blind has filed a lawsuit against America Online Inc., alleging that the online service is violating federal law by remaining inaccessible to blind users." (The Wall Street Journal, Nick Wingfield. November 5, 1999 Page B1.)
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• Advocates for the Blind Sue on Internet Access: "Arguing that virtual spaces must be as accessible to people with disabilities as are physical spaces, a major organization representing the blind filed suit against America Online yesterday, saying the online service is almost impossible for blind people to use." "The lawsuit, which accuses the service of violating the Americans With Disabilities act, was filed in federal district Court in Boston by the National Federation of the Blind," (The New York Times, November 5, 1999 Page A23.)
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• Coming Soon to a Web Site Near You: A Simpler Sales Tax: "If you are hoping that the Internet will become a tax-free zone, dream on. Business leaders know that would distort the economy, creating an uneven playing field that would benefit some companies while damaging their competitors. Also, state and local governments are not about to concede a chunk of their single biggest source of revenue, sales and use taxes worth $189 billion last year." (The New York Times, David Cay Johnston. September 22, 1999 Page E20.)
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• Official in China Says Foreign Internet Stakes Are Illegal: "A top Chinese official declared that foreign investment in the country's Internet industry is illegal, potentially closing off one of the Chinese economy's most promising sectors to foreigners and raising questions about the country's campaign to join the World Trade Organization." (The Wall Street Journal, Matt Forney and Leslie Chang. September 15, 1999 Page A25.)
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• U.S. Drawing Plan That Will Monitor Computer Systems : "The Clinton Administration has developed a plan for an extensive computer monitoring system, overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to protect the nation's crucial data networks from intruders. The plan, an outgrowth of the Administration's anti-terrorism program, has already raised concerns from civil liberties groups." "...critics of the proposed system say it could become a building block for a surveillance infrastructure with great potential for misuse." (The New York Times, John Markoff. July 28, 1999 Page A1.)
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• Globalization Widens Rich-Poor Gap, U.N. Report Says: "Globalization is compounding the gap between rich and poor nations and intensifying American dominance of the World's economic and cultural markets, according to the latest human development report published today by the United Nations Development Program. The 262-page report, the 10th the program has issued, is the first to focus on the spread of the Internet and computer technology as well as the impact of globalization. It concludes that the so-called "rules of globalization" should be rewritten to save the 60 countries that are worse off than they were in 1980 from falling even further behind. While short on specific proposals for making international markets work "for people rather than profits," the report recommends, as have previous versions, faster debt relief, redirection of aid to the poorest countries and a task force to review "global governance." It also endorses a tax of one American cent on lengthy E-mails to raise $70 billion a year that could be used to connect the world's Internetless." (The New York Times, Judith Miller. July 13, 1999 Page A8.)
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• Big Racial Disparity Persists Among Users of the Internet: "A new federal survey shows that while minorities are increasingly gaining access to computers and the Internet, the racial divide remains stark, with black and Hispanic families less than half as likely as whites to explore the Net from home, work or school. The study, the third and most comprehensive to be conducted by the Commerce Department over the last three years, reinforces the fear that minorities are increasingly at a disadvantage in competing for the hottest entry-level jobs in the nation, which require a knowledge of computers and comfort in navigating the Internet." (The New York Times, David E. Sanger. July 9, 1999 Page A12.)
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• Keep the Tax Man Off Line: "Here's Washington's way of thanking Silicon Valley for its contribution to the bull market: Last week, on the same day the Department of Commerce released a report detailing the enormous debt our flush economy owes to the Internet and high-tech industries, a federal advisory commission convened here to think up good reasons to tax electronic commerce." (The Wall Street Journal, Jason L. Riley. June 29, 1999 Page A14.)
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• Internet Sales Tax: "Internet sales cost state and local governments $170 million a year, about 0.1% of total sales-tax collections, says a study presented at the opening session of a national commission on the issue. There is now a moratorium on Internet taxes, but most of the participants agree that must change." (The Wall Street Journal. June 23, 1999 Page A1.)
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• Paternity Suits Some Better Than Others In the Invention Biz: The Father of the Internet - No, not Al Gore - Remains A Matter of Much Dispute: "Al Gore may have blown his shot at the National Inventors Hall of Fame earlier this year when he claimed, quite improbably, to have "taken the lead in creating the Internet." But at least he ought to have learned something in the process: If you are going to say you are the father of an invention, be prepared for a fight." "Take the Internet. Mr. Gore isn't its father, but who is?..." (The Wall Street Journal, Lee Gomes. June 18, 1999 Page A1.)
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• Casting Too Wide a Net? Critics See Internet Board Overstepping Its Authority: "They are mysteriously appointed, they meet behind closed doors and they have questionable public accountability. Yet members of the interim board of the Internet's new oversight body are beginning to make decisions and shape policy that could ultimately affect everyone who uses the global network. "To finance the $5.9 million annual budget of the oversight body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, this temporary board has already voted to levy a $1 a year tax on the more than four million Internet addresses, or domain names, that end in .com, .net and .org. The board is also planning to impose tens of thousands of dollars in licensing and other fees on companies that want to get into the business of dispensing Internet addresses. And recently, the board endorsed controversial recommendations for establishing a new global framework for resolving disputes over who can and cannot use certain words in their Internet addresses." (The New York Times, Jeri Clausing. June 7, 1999 Page C1.)
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• Gore Tax Hike: "A rare moment of public outrage forced CNN to give up plans to let the Gore-for-President crowd commandeer the "Larry King Live" show recently. We wish the same could be said of Mr. Gore's allies over at the Federal Communications Commission. They're about to wave through an unlegislated billion-dollar tax hike on America's phone users. The new charge, which will add an average 40 cents a month to bills, represents a doubling of what has come to be known as the Gore Tax. Originally engineered by former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, the Gore Tax appears on bills under the euphemistic heading" universal service charge." Its ostensible purpose is corralling the private sector into funding one of Mr. Gore's pet projects, The Internet wiring of America's libraries and schools." (The Wall Street Journal. May 12, 1999 Page A22.)
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• 'Internet Governor' Woos Silicon Valley: "James S. Gilmore 3d, the Governor of Virginia, stood on the steps of the Netscape Communications Corporation's headquarters last Tuesday and smiled in the morning sun. The man Virginians know as the "Internet Governor" was 3,000 miles from his constituents but he insisted he felt at home in Silicon Valley. "I speak their language," Governor Gilmore said. "We're on line together." " "In recent years, Virginia's high-technology economy has surged and Governor Gilmore, a Republican, has made Internet policy central to his 18-month stint in office. He helped create and signed what supporters deemed the nation's first comprehensive set of state Internet laws, created the first state technology cabinet post, made fast ties with Virginia's technology industry and aggressively recruited technology companies to consider making Virginia their home." (The New York Times, Matt Richtel. April 26, 1999 Page C4.)
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• Search Fox: "Does Beijing love the Web or hate it? In January an entrepreneur in Shanghai was sentenced to two years in prison for supplying e-mail addresses in China to a pro-democracy, U.S.-based Chinese on-line newsletter. Two hackers recently convicted of electronically stealing money from a bank will likely be dispatched with bullets to the back of the head. The government is trying to tighten control over Internet cafes and bars, where students and many other Chinese log on for the first time. And yet the Internet is growing explosively in China, in part with government encouragement. Jim Jarrett, president of Intel China, notes that the number of Internet subscribers multiplied from 60,000 when he arrived in the country in September 1996 to 2 million at the end of last year." (Forbes, Andrew Tanzer. March 8, 1999 Page 108.)
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• F.C.C. Rules Internet Calls Are Interstate: Federal Jurisdiction Asserted on Access: "A computer user's calls to gain access to the Internet are interstate communications subject to Federal jurisdiction, regulators said today. Until now, such connections have been treated as local calls." "But consumer groups and Harold W. Furchgott-Roth, an F.C.C. commissioner who protested by not joining in the vote, said the action could inadvertently open the door to higher future charges for Internet access. Gene Kimmelman, co-director of the Washington office of Consumer Union, said the decision could eventually lead to people paying per minute rates for using the Internet, just as they do with long-distance phone calls." (The New York Times. February 26, 1999 Page C3.)
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• Panel to Urge Big U.S. Effort In Technology: "Warning that the nation's economic future is at risk, a Presidential advisory committee plans to recommend that Federal financing for advanced research in the field of information technology be doubled over the next five years." "The groups appeal for increased Federal research funds for computing and telecommunications at a time when these industries are thriving is based on the view that the Government has a unique role to play in supporting research that is the seed corn of new businesses 10 or 15 years in the future. Everything from the microchip to the Internet, the report notes, can be traced to fundamental research bankrolled by the Government years ago. That role, the advisory group insists, needs to be strengthened. The vast majority of the proposed funds would go to universities, not private industry." (The New York Times, Steve Lohr. February 24, 1999 Page C1.)
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• AT&T Fights for Control of Its Cable Lines in Struggle Over Internet Access: "The fight over access to the cable lines is taking place amid a lobbying blitzkrieg, pitting AT&T and the huge cable company it is planning to acquire, Tele-Communications Inc., or TCI, against local phone companies and an array of Internet competitors, including America Online and dozens of smaller Internet service providers. But it is also raising a core philosophical issue, one that is already being debated in other communities around the country and that will become all the more consequential as Americans increasingly use their cable lines to connect to the Internet for work, education, shopping and entertainment. Should the cable lines, in which private companies have invested billions of dollars, be treated like public rights-of-way?" (The New York Times, Sam Howe Verhovek. February 15, 1999 Page A12.)
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• Indecent Proposal: "Strike two. That was the court's response to the government's second attempt to regulate online content. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed ruled that the Child Online Protection Act, like its predecessor, the Communications Decency Act, violates First Amendment free-speech guarantees." "Fortunately a national decency law is not the only way to go. Indeed, it may not even be the best way to go, for it overlooks the very real contributions the market is now making, most notably in the form of filters. Widely available software - NetNanny, for example - allows people to program computers to block adult sites. On the Internet itself, we now have browsers and search engines, such as Microsoft's Kids CyberHighway and AOL's NetFind Kids Only, designed just for minors. And there are even whole service providers, such as Mayberry USA, that act like family-friendly channels on cable TV by keeping out the sites with smut and closing off access to sexually charged chat groups." (The Wall Street Journal. February 3, 1999 Page A22)
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• Setback for a Law Shielding Minors From Smut Web Sites: "A federal judge yesterday blocked a new law that supporters said would shield children from pornography on the World Wide Web but that opponents said would chill free speech on line. "Such a chilling effect," he continued, "could result in the censoring of constitutionally protected speech, which constitutes an irreparable harm to the plaintiffs." " (The New York Times, Pamela Mendels. February 2, 1999 Page A10.)
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• States Chafe as Web Shoppers Ignore Sales Taxes: "What's the difference between a $3,000 personal computer purchased on the Internet and the same machine bought at a PC outlet and tucked in your trunk? This isn't a joke, and states and municipalities hungry for sales-tax revenue aren't laughing. The answer in Rhode Island at least, is $210. That's the 7% the state loses every time a consumer points and clicks through an Internet retail site like Dell Computer.... With the current law on Internet-sales taxation murky and a three-year moratorium on new rules in effect, state tax collectors are breathless at the revenue slipping through their fingers." (The Wall Street Journal, John Simons. January 26, 1999 Page B1.)
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• E-mail to U.S. Lands Chinese Internet Entrepreneur in Jail: "A court here sentenced a computer engineer to two years in jail today in a case watched closely by people monitoring official efforts to control China's growing use of the Internet. The Shanghai No.1 Intermediate Court ruled that Lin Hai, 30, committed a subversive act last year when he sent 30,000 Chinese E-mail addresses to VIP Reference, an electronic publication based in the United States that the Chinese authorities consider hostile to Beijing. Mr. Lin, who was arrested last March, ran a software company that set up Web sites and offered other Internet-related services. Mr. Lin's wife, Xu Hong, said her husband was not interested in politics and had simply been exchanging E-mail addresses to build a database for his on-line business." (The New York Times, Seth Faison. January 21, 1999 Page A10.)
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• International Group Reaches Agreement on Encryption: "The United States Government said yesterday that an agreement had been reached in Vienna that was expected to produce new international controls on the export of data-scrambling software and hardware, a long-contentious issue pitting individual privacy against national security in the information age." "Though the new agreement was likely to lead to some new restrictions, it probably would do little to change the policy of nations like Germany and Finland, which have opposed any restrictions on the export of encryption software, they said." (The New York Times, John Markoff. December 4, 1998 Page C4.)
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• White House to Unveil Plan to Expand Internet Projects in Developing Nations: "The White House is expected today to unveil a broad electronic-commerce agenda that will include pushing for Internet projects in developing nations." (The Wall Street Journal, John Simons. November 30, 1998 Page B7.)
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• Internet Governance Board Confronts a Hostile Public: "Eight people found themselves at a crossroads in history today, visibly uncomfortable with their task of creating the first real government for an on-line world and intimidated by the level of distrust - sometimes outright animosity - they encountered when facing their constituents for the first time." (The New York Times, Jeri Clausing. November 16, 1998 Page C4.)
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• FCC Wants Wireless Companies to Modify Networks to Help Police Tap Phone Calls: "Federal regulators want wireless telephone companies to modify their networks to make it easier for law-enforcement officers to tap conversations and collect data on calls." "The proposed rules - particularly that portion - were denounced by privacy advocates. "By putting this in, the commission has destroyed the balance in the law - the balance among the interests of law enforcement and the public's privacy," said James X. Dempsey, a senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based civil-liberties group. "On all of the issues that mattered, the commission ruled against privacy." " (The Wall Street Journal, John Simons. October 23, 1998 Page A16.)
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• Industry Groups Encryption Method May Break a Long Impasse With FBI: "A computer-industry group will offer today a new approach to encryption technology that would keep electronic messages secure but still enable government officials to "eavesdrop" for law enforcement. The group, led by Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., hopes the solution will persuade the government to ease export restrictions that have made overseas competition difficult for U.S. hardware and software manufacturers." (The Wall Street Journal, Ralph T. King Jr. and John Simons. July 13, 1998 Page A16.)
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• High Tech's Political Perils: "Politicos can no more resist involving themselves in successful industries than bears can resist honey." 'The technology industry should guard its back. It has become an irresistible target, thanks to the fantastic wealth it has created. Equity prices are skyrocketing; unknown entrepreneurs are fast becoming millionaires and billionaires because of the success of their technology startups. This boom is occurring without Washington's permission or knowledge, and it irks the politicians to no end." "If we're to realize the fabulous potential of technology, believers in free enterprise must prepare to battle the Beltway. Government is resorting to its most potent tool, taxation, to exert control and exact tribute. In April the Federal Communications Commission proposed network access fees for some companies that provide telephone service over the Internet. And the overseers of some 30,000 state and local taxing authorities are drooling over the unlimited possibilities in the explosive amount of commerce being conducted via the Internet. For the moment, there is a tax moratorium on Internet commerce - but never underestimate a rapacious government." "There is other evidence of growing political involvement and interference: Politicians and regulators are using people's legitimate fears of crime and terrorism to wrest control of encryption technology; they are also trying to use the year 2000 problem to extend their sway; and the FCC has decreed a special "charge" on telephone companies - then to be passed on to users - ostensibly to pay for connecting all classrooms to the Internet." (Forbes, Steve Forbes. June 15, 1998 Page 27.)
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• Don't Tax the Internet - Yet : "The World Trade Organization should be applauded for the agreement its members reached last month to keep the Internet tax-free for at least another year. Unfortunately, the WTO's members didn't go far enough... But at least the WTO move seems to have pre-empted the German Finance Ministry's radical plan to establish a global tax system as quickly as possible." (The Wall Street Journal, Jack Stephenson and Michael Zeisser. June 11, 1998 Page A22.)
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• F.T.C. Sues Intel, Saying It Violated Antitrust Laws: "The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust suit today against the Intel Corporation, accusing the company of threatening and actually injuring three computer manufacturers, including the Compaq Corporation, in an attempt to coerce them to turn over rights to patented technologies.... In a statement issued this afternoon, Intel said the suit was "based upon a mistaken interpretation of the law and facts," adding, "The commission apparently questions whether Intel has the legal right to assert its intellectual property rights as a defense to an attack on its core microprocessor business." " (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. June 9, 1998 Page A1.)
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• U.S. Is Preparing to Sue Intel Over Its Microchip Monopoly: "The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to file a major antitrust lawsuit against the Intel Corporation, charging the company with abusing its position as the monopoly manufacturer of microprocessor chips for personal computers and bullying some computer manufacturers, Government lawyers involved in the investigation said today." (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. May 28, 1998 Page A1.)
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• U.S. and 20 States File Suits Claiming Microsoft Blocks Competition Over Internet: "The Federal Government and 20 state Attorneys General filed two broad, aggressive antitrust suits against the Microsoft Corporation today, launching the most concerted government attack on a single company in a generation." "In a meeting with reporters at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash., this afternoon, Microsoft's Chairman, William H. Gates, said, "This is a step backward for America, for consumers and for the personal computer industry that is leading our nation's economy into the 21st century." "How ironic," Mr. Gates added, "that in the United States - where freedom and innovation are core values - that these regulators are trying to punish an American company that has worked hard and successfully to deliver on these values." " (The New York Times, Joel Brinkley. May 19, 1998 Page A1.)