Roy Mark

The U.S. Senate voted to delay by one year the looming Oct. 26 deadline for Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries to begin issuing machine-readable passports. The House of Representatives has already approved a one-year extension. The VWP allows visitors from Europe, Japan, Australia and 22 other countries to visit the United States without having to […]

After the federal election controversies of 2000, Congress turned to technology as a solution, approving almost $4 billion to modernize state voting systems. Electronic voting, however, is proving as contentious an issue as hanging chads. Congress and the states envisioned replacing paper ballots with direct recording electronic systems (DREs) offering voters choices on a video […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Thursday he plans to do “something” this year about rampant music theft on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. As for his controversial new copyright inducement bill, he’s willing to negotiate. Last month, Hatch introduced his Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004 (S. 2560), legislation permitting persons or corporations […]

WASHINGTON — State regulatory agencies won a significant victory Thursday when the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee voted to preserve state authority to impose access charges and universal service fees on Internet telephony. The narrow 12-10 vote that crossed party lines came in the form of an amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to the Regulatory […]

A Florida operator of an Internet advertising and e-mail business was indicted on 144 federal counts Wednesday in what the Department of Justice (DOJ) characterized as likely the largest case to date of stolen personal data. Scott Levine, a 45-year-old resident of Boca Raton, allegedly stole approximately 8.2 gigabytes of information from Acxiom Corp., one […]

U.S. Sen. John Sununu expects a number of challenges to his legislation exempting Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services from state regulations and taxes when the bill goes before the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday morning. “There’s no question there are lot of members that are working at different languages for amendments,” the New Hampshire Republican […]

Microsoft’s antitrust compliance in developing Longhorn, the next-generation Windows operating system, will be part of the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) agenda when investigators travel to Redmond next week. The regularly scheduled quarterly visit is part of ongoing efforts between the DoJ and Microsoft to ensure the company complies with the terms of the landmark 2002 […]

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation Tuesday strongly supported by the tech industry to pre-empt a proposed federal accounting regulation calling for corporations to deduct the cost of all employee stock options from their profits. The bill, the Stock Option Accounting Reform Act (H.R. 3574), mandates the expensing of stock options granted to the […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said Monday she was pleased with the results of the first status report on Microsoft’s compliance progress under its landmark 2002 antitrust settlement between the company and the Department of Justice (DOJ). “On the whole, it is a positive report. We have a system that’s in place that’s […]

Although the identity theft bill signed by President Bush Thursday includes mandatory jail terms for those who use a stolen identity to commit a felony, the new law does not criminalize the notorious Internet act of “phishing.” U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy wants to change that. The problem is phishing , and the latest bill only […]

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Treasury Department strongly denied Thursday they are considering an excise tax on Internet telephone calls or any other IP-based services. On July 1, the IRS published in the Federal Register a request for public comments on changes in the telecommunications industry since 1965, when the tax code was last […]

President Bush signed into law Thursday legislation creating stiffer criminal penalties for identity theft. The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act establishes the new crime of aggravated identity theft, which is defined as the use of a stolen identity to commit other crimes. As part of the legislation, convictions carry a mandatory two-year prison sentence in […]