Roy Mark

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved on a voice vote Wednesday legislation to create a spectrum relocation fund for federal agencies. The Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act (H.R. 1320) seeks to help federal agencies relocate to comparable wavelengths to make way for private wireless carriers’ advanced wireless service offerings to consumers. The government already has […]

WASHINGTON — An overflow crowd at the opening session of the Federal Trade Commission’s Spam Forum Wednesday was quickly disabused of any notions that there are any simple answers to stopping the plague of unsolicited e-mail. The morning panelists, which included representatives from AOL, Microsoft and the Direct marketing Association (DMA), couldn’t even agree on […]

The U.S. House of Representatives has issued a subpoena to Cheryl L. Parrino, CEO of the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC), the agency regulating the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) E-Rate program, for records related to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s investigation of the troubled agency. While USAC has submitted thousands of pages of […]

The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) will investigate the individual privacy protection aspects of the controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) program as part of a $3.5 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Information Directorate. The 42-month agreement, “Protecting Privacy of Individuals in Terrorist Tracking Applications,” is funded by the Defense Advanced Research […]

With the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hosting a three-day “Spam Forum” beginning Wednesday, lawmakers are using the spam spotlight to grab their own political publicity. While the FTC plans to listen, the politicians are jockeying into position to tell Americans they, too, are upset by spam. Unlike the FTC, the lawmakers want action now. Congress […]

No sooner had the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) put up headlines on its site touting a major legal victory in its ongoing legal war against file sharing, it had to reverse course and put up a new headline admitting — for the first time in quite awhile — to a rare courtroom defeat. […]

If the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) ultimately prevails in its legal effort to force Verizon to reveal the names of customers suspected of illegally downloading music, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says alleged copyright infringers will be deemed guilty until proven innocent. The EFF is leading a group of 28 consumer and privacy […]

U.S. District Court Judge John Bates ruled Thursday Verizon must reveal the names of two Internet customers the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claims have illegally downloaded hundreds of copyrighted songs from the Web. Bates also issued a temporary stay to allow the U.S. Court of Appeals time to consider the issue of a […]

Anteon International has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Information Spectrum, Inc. (ISI), for $90.7 million in cash. The Annandale, Va.-based ISI is the prime contractor for secure identification and access management solutions for the Department of Homeland Security’s Permanent Resident Card and the Department of State’s Border Crossing Card programs. Under the terms of […]

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted new rules Wednesday to “simplify and streamline” its controversial E-Rate program, the $2.25 billion fund designed to help schools and libraries connect to the Internet and financed by fees added to consumers’ telephone bills. Recent FCC audits of the program have discovered abuses ranging from simple paperwork […]

WASHINGTON — Calling it a historic moment, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously voted Wednesday to begin researching the use of existing electrical power lines to provide Internet and broadband services to homes and offices. While broadband over power line (BPL) technology is in its infancy, the FCC thinks it could provide another way to […]

The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is calling for the appointment of a “cyber czar” in the wake of the resignations of key White House cybersecurity advisors Howard Schmidt and Richard Clarke. The corporate IT trade group says the issues of cybersecurity are different from physical security, and the ITAA is concerned that no […]