Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott persuaded his caucus to go ahead with confirmation votes on four FCC nominees, and the results were swift. The Senate tonight approved Michael Powell, Harold Furtchgott-Roth, and Gloria Tristani. Partly in order to answer concerns raised by Senator Conrad Burns, the full Senate will debate and vote on the nomination of chairman-designate William Kennard.
Burns had threatened to hold up Kennard's confirmation until he got a promise for reconsideration of telephone universal service rules.
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The ACLU is targeting Kern County, California, for its first constitutional challenge to Internet filtering software installed in public libraries. National staff attorney Ann Beeson says the American Civil Liberties Union has been gathering plaintiffs in the Bakersfield area to fight a 1996 county Board of Supervisors decision to install software-maker N2H2's Bess censorware on all county library computers.
"It's a very strong case in that the product is blocking access to valuable sites. [And] it's the one on the fastest track from the ACLU," said Beeson.
Kern County Counsel B.C. Barmann said today that he believes the policy is legal and protects minors from obscene graphics on the Internet.
If both sides stand their ground, Beeson expects that the ACLU will file its case anywhere from two to six weeks from now.
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A coalition of US, European, and Japanese companies has announced that it will hold international summits in January in London and a month later in Washington to formulate a plan for future Internet governance and operations.
The Internet Executive Summits will be jointly sponsored by the private coalition, domain-name registrar Network Solutions Inc. and the Interim Policy Oversight Committee involved in implementing the new global domain system created by the International Ad Hoc Committee earlier this year.
Among groups attending the sessions: the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Information Technology Association of America, the Interactive Services Association. The expected result: a sheaf of new recommendations to the US and other governments about domain registration and other issues.
