Articles Posted in Government

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Computers and computing activities play an increasingly integral role in daily life in America, affecting our financial activity, social interactions, and more. With an increased level of dependence on networked devices comes the risk of theft, or even attacks, on and through our computer networks. While the business community has already recognized the importance of cybersecurity, the government and legal system are finally responding in five key areas.

National security. The federal government has made cybersecurity a central feature of its national security strategy. Recognizing the risk of an attack on the nation’s computer networks by a foreign power or sub-national group, the Department of Defense created a comprehensive strategy for cybersecurity (PDF file) in 2011. The strategy treats “cyberspace” as its own “operational domain,” requiring specialized training and organization. The government has also taken steps to combat online theft, which can include not only monetary theft but theft of intellectual property and identity theft. The latter has become more and more sophisticated as thieves find ways to exploit personally identifiable information (PII) stored online.

Federal legislation. The Obama administration proposed legislation outlining ten points for cybersecurity protection. These generally included protection of the American people, the nation’s infrastructure, and the federal government’s networks and computer systems. Several bills pending in Congress address aspects of cybersecurity. The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), for example, allows sharing of data between companies and the National Security Agency in order to investigate and combat cybersecurity threats.

State legislation. Protection of government data, PII, and personal privacy have informed numerous state statutes enacted in the past ten years. California passed a law requiring notification of cybersecurity breaches in 2003, and forty-six other states and the District of Columbia followed suit. Laws requiring “reasonable” levels of security for protected information exist in at least ten states, and numerous states are enacting statutes protecting people from wiretapping and other monitoring of electronic activity.

Regulatory initiatives. Multiple regulatory agencies have addressed cybersecurity concerns through additional regulations, guidelines, and enforcement actions. The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), for example, recently issued a new set of guidelines for publicly-traded companies. The guidelines address disclosure of cybersecurity breaches as a means of making information available to investors. The FBI, meanwhile, established a joint task force to investigate cyber threats.

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President Barack Obama is summoning top congressional Republicans and Democrats to a rare Sunday meeting at the White House to begin “hard bargaining” on a broad debt-reduction deal.

At the July 10 session Obama will make his latest bid to break a partisan impasse over whether to include cuts in entitlement programs and tax increases in an agreement. Both sides in the debate are signaling openness to compromise on each front.

See more here.

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Will investors move out of their “safe haven” markets? In 2009, downgrades and debt auction failures in countries like the UK, Greece, Ireland and Spain were a stark reminder that unless advanced economies begin to put their fiscal houses in order, investors and rating agencies will likely turn from friends to foes. The severe recession, combined with a financial crisis during 2008-09, worsened the fiscal positions of developed countries due to stimulus spending, lower tax revenues and support to the financial sector. The impact was greater in countries that had a history of structural fiscal problems, maintained loose fiscal policies and ignored fiscal reforms during the boom years. Going forward, a weak economic recovery and an aging population is likely to increase the debt burden of many advanced economies, including the U.S., Britain, Japan and several eurozone countries.

To read more please go to www.forbes.com.

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The White House will host a Twitter town hall with President Barack Obama on July 6. The president will answer questions submitted via Twitter, which limits messages to 140 characters. The town hall will focus on jobs and the economy, and a video feed of Obama’s answers will be streamed online.

See www.twitter.com/salaratrizadeh for more information.

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Introduction

On December 1, 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released its highly anticipated consumer privacy protection framework titled “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change” (“Privacy Report”).  A copy of the Privacy Report may be obtained on the FTC website: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2010/12/101201privacyreport.pdf.  The FTC seeks public comment on the proposed privacy framework by January 31, 2011.

The proposed privacy framework has three major components: (1) privacy by design; (2) expansion of consumer choices about how companies collect and use consumer information; and (3) increased transparency of data collection practices.  All three components have already ignited a lively debate among consumer advocates, businesses, advertisers and policy makers.  Although, stated as tasks that a company “should do,” there is worry the FTC could take steps to use its enforcement powers against a non-compliant company.

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Earlier, a post on this blog noted the jurors in the corruption trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich had informed the judge they had only reached a decision on two of the 24 charges in the case. Now, the news comes that the jurors have reached a final verdict: on one count only. Jurors have found Rod Blagojevich guilty on one count of lying to federal agents. The judge has decided to declare a mistrial on the remaining 23 counts.

Prosecutors have wasted no time in announcing that they intend to retry Blagojevich and his brother Robert on the other charges. As the Associated Press reported, one of the main charges as yet undecided is whether or not Blagojevich attempted to sell the senate seat vacated by President Obama. The presiding judge in the trial, James Zagel, has set a hearing for Aug. 26 to decide issues regarding the retrial.

The AP reported that the jurors looked wearier than they had during the trial. The single count verdict came after 14 days of deliberations. At one point, the jurors had informed Judge Zagel that they were deadlocked on as many as 11 of the charges. They had also informed the judge that they had reached agreement on two charges, but seemed to have lost their consensus along the way to the jury verdict.

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Visa Inc., the world’s biggest payments network, fell as much as 5 percent after saying the U.S. Department of Justice may sue the company over a policy that bars merchants from charging extra to customers who pay with credit cards.

“The department has indicated that it is considering filing a civil lawsuit,” Chief Executive Officer Joseph W. Saunders said yesterday in a conference call with analysts after San Francisco-based Visa reported fiscal third-quarter results. “We are currently engaged in constructive negotiations with the department to resolve its concerns as it relates to Visa without litigation or payment of monetary damages.”

Visa, American Express Co. and Purchase, New York-based MasterCard Inc. disclosed in 2008 that the Justice Department was investigating the companies over so-called anti-surcharging policies and rules prohibiting merchants from “steering” customers to other forms of payment.

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On January 22, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States granted unlimited corporate spending on elections. The justices overturn a century of U.S. electoral law by a 5-4 vote. Millions of extra dollars are expected to start flowing from big business to Republican candidates.

Overturning a century-old restriction, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as much as they want to sway voters in federal elections.

In a landmark 5-4 decision, the court’s conservative bloc said that corporations have the same right to free speech as individuals and, for that reason, the government may not stop corporations from spending to help their favored candidates.

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Redmond’s top legal mouthpiece Brad Smith is calling on US lawmakers to overhaul rules on cloud computing, just as the company ramps up its efforts to belatedly step on other vendors’ toes in that marketplace.

He asked Congress yesterday to legislate cloud computing, in a move to protect business and consumer information.

Smith’s comments came on the same day that Microsoft inked a deal with cloud rival Intuit, and spun out a survey about the relevance of small businesses climbing on board the hosted services wagon.

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FTC BEGINS COMPREHENSIVE PRIVACY REVIEW THROUGH PUBLIC ROUNDTABLES

On December 7, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began the first of three public “Exploring Privacy” roundtables. To an extent, the FTC is at a similar stage as it was in 1989 when it held its conference on online profiling (now referred to as “behavioral targeting”) that led to a recommendation to Congress for “legislation that would set forth a basic level of privacy protection for all visitors to consumer-oriented commercial Web sites with respect to profiling.”[i] The recommendation was withdrawn under the Bush Administration to determine whether the newly established Network Advertising Initiative’s (NAI) self-regulatory standards would prove sufficient.

In 2007, the FTC revisited this issue with its “behavioral targeting” workshop that led to the FTC proposing self-regulatory principles on behavioral targeting for the online advertising industry to adopt.[ii] The FTC’s “suggested” principles were not warmly received by the industry. By 2009, however, the NAI and a coalition of major trade groups including the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) each released proposed principles addressing behavioral advertising.[iii]

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