New York bill explores 'vendor neutral' electronic documents
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Blog: Interest in digital documents continues with a New York state bill proposing to study preservation of electronic documents.
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Bill designed to clarify rules for advertising via fax could expose consumers to a flood of unwanted solicitations. -The Washington Post
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As e-mail becomes part of official business records, companies are looking to install archiving systems to make sure documents are available in case legal or compliance issues arise.
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(InfoWorld) - A coalition of voting rights groups on Monday called on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation that would require electronic voting machines to have printers attached as a way to audit the touch-screen results. But the lack of a paper trail for many e-voting machines was only one problem among many during the 2006 U.S. elections, said speakers at the Elections: Looking Forward conference, sponsored by Common Cause, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and other groups. Many of the problems attributed to e-voting machines were caused by a lack of training for poll workers or administrative mistakes, said Efrain Escobedo, director of voter engagement at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Poll workers observed by his group didn't know how to change the paper in machines with paper trails or didn't know how to reboot machines, he said. Participants in the event also described several other problems not related to e-voting: poll workers demanding photo identification when it wasn't required by law, polling places lacking voting materials in languages other than English, polling places inaccessible to disabled people, and long lines. But several speakers called on Congress to pass the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which would require paper trail printouts with touch-screen e-voting machines. Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, introduced the bill Feb. 5, after a similar piece of legislation failed to pass during the 2005-06 congressional session. The Holt bill has 183 cosponsors, close to half of the House of Representatives. Congress needs to act in the next six to eight months for the legislation to affect the 2008 elections, said Ralph Neas, president and chief executive officer of People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group. Neas pointed to the 2006 vote in Sarasota Country, Florida, where e-voting machines did not record a vote from more than 18,000 people in a congressional race decided by less than 400 votes. "Sarasota was a disgrace," Neas said. "Eighteen thousand votes ... inexplicably disappeared into cyberspace. But it's a teachable moment. We've got 18,000 faces now that we can put on the problem." Not all speakers agreed that Congress should move ahead immediately with paper trails. Many visually impaired voters were able to vote without assistance on touch-screen machines for the first time in 2006, said Christina Galindo-Walsh, senior staff attorney with the National Disability Rights Network. Paper trail printouts would again create a two-tier voting system in which some disabled people don't have access to the same information as other voters, she said. Galindo-Walsh and Jim Dickson, vice president for government affairs at the American Association of People with Disabilities, also said it was too late for Congress to mandate paper trail ballots by the 2008 presidential election. E-voting machine vendors wouldn't be able to produce enough printers by 2008, Galindo-Walsh said. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed in 2002, mandated standards for voting machines, and those standards are just being completed now, Dickson added. Those standards still need to be tested, and new machines meeting those standards need to be built, he said. "Either you lower the standards for the election equipment, or you live with the timeline that looks like 2010," he said. "You cannot have it both ways." But many voters now question e-voting systems, added Melanie Campbell, executive director and CEO of the Coalition for Black Civic Participation. "The reality is voters are losing confidence in the system," she said.
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The U.S. government will offer over the Internet low-quality images of its new $50 bill for artists, students and others who discover that their computers, scanners or printers won't allow them to view or copy pictures of the new currency...
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House of Representatives approval means most American consumers will continue seeing tax-free Internet connection bills. President Bush is expected to sign off before current law expires this week.
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A Senate bill that would propose allowing documents to be self- authenticated without being notarized passed a House committee Tuesday and was placed on the consent calendar.  SB154, sponsored by Sen.
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With the threat of new regulations looming, some credit card issuers on Wednesday promised lawmakers they would ease penalties and simplify tiny-print disclosures that few consumers read.
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Editor and Publisher - NEW YORK Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) on Friday introduced a federal shield law that would provide an "absolute protection" for confidential sources. The legislation is in response to a slew of recent court actions demanding reporters reveal sources.
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Massachusetts lawmakers are about to consider a bill that would require retailers to pay for losses when hackers and thieves breach their security systems to steal consumers' credit card and other financial information, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
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A hearing is being held today in the California State Assembly on a bill that would set new data security and cost reimbursement requirements for all organizations processing credit and debit card transactions.
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Both houses of the California legislature have passed a bill that would require government agencies to take security precautions before using RFID chips in public documents and identification cards.
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Officials from New Jersey and California say life will be easier when we all get government-issued cards mandated by the Real ID Act. Ryan Singel reports from the RSA Conference.
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Legislation that would allow the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to seek civil penalties against businesses that obtain personal data under false pretenses may soon get a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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(InfoWorld) - A new bill in the U.S. Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would "legalize hacking," the Recording Industry Association of America said. The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and John Doolittle, a California Republican, would allow customers to circumvent digital copy restrictions in six limited areas when copyright owners' business models are not threatened, Boucher said in a press release. So-called fair use doctrine allows customers of copyright works to make limited numbers of copies, particularly for reviews, news reporting, teaching and research. The bill would allow exemptions to the anticircumvention restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998. The bill is revamped from similar bills introduced in the last two sessions of Congress, Boucher said. "The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before," Boucher said in a statement. "Historically, the nation's copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use." But the RIAA said the bill would effectively repeal the DMCA. The bill would "allow electronics companies to induce others to break the law for their own profit," it said in a statement. Advances such digital music sales, online games, on-demand movies and e-books can be traced to DMCA protects, the RIAA said. "The difference between hacking done for non-infringing purposes and hacking done to steal is impossible to determine and enforce," the RIAA said in its statement. The Boucher bill would limit the availability of statutory damages against individuals and firms who may be found to have engaged in contributory infringement, inducement of infringement, or other indirect infringement. The bill would allow libraries to circumvent digital locks or secure copies of works that have been damaged, lost or stolen. The Consumer Electronics Association applauded the bill, saying it would give protections to consumers, educators, and libraries. Without fair use protections, consumers couldn't use devices such as VCRs and digital TV recorders, the trade group said.
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The U.S. government will offer over the Internet low-quality images of its new &#36;50 bill for artists, students and others who discover that their computers, scanners or printers won't allow them to view or copy pictures of the new currency.
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New York state's attorney general and legislative leaders introduce legislation to protect people online.