Tech Policy Summit blog

CA Considers New Cyberbullying Law

California's Senate voted yesterday in favor of a bill that would allow schools to suspend or expel students who engage in cyberbullying. The State Assembly must now reconcile the Sentate's version with its own before deciding to send the legislation to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for signature. If enacted, California will join other states like Iowa, New Jersey, Oregon, Minnesota and Missouri that have passed laws to try and prevent cyberbullying and harrassment.

In late June, Missiouri's Governor Matt Blunt signed a new law that makes electronic harassment by an adult over the age of 21 a felony punishable with up to four years in prison (those under the age of 21 face misdemeanor charges if convicted).

According to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Missiouri law was 'inspired by' the death of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who committed suicide after allegedly being harassed on MySpace.com. The case received national media attention when federal authorities accused Megan's 49-year-old neighbor Lori Drew of being the one behind the electronic bullying.

The case also led to the introduction of a federal bill known as the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, or HR 6123, that was sponsored by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) in May. Like the Missouri law, the federal bill would make it a crime to engage in electronic harassment with penalties including fines and/or up to two years in prison.

For more info on other states' cyber bullying laws, check out this February 2008 USA Today report.

Verizon Wireless Pays $21M To Settle ETF Case

According to the Associated Press, Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $21 million to settle a California lawsuit brought by a group of customers who were charged early termination fees to cancel their cellphone contracts.

The details are still being worked out, so it's unclear how many Verizon customers will be eligible for a cut of the settlement money. Similar suits are pending in California against Sprint and AT&T.

You might remember that not that long ago we pointed to another AP story about the Verizon Wireless' proposal to the Federal Communications Commission that called for prorating and capping early termination fees and offering mandatory grace periods for customer cancellations.  Several wireless carriers, including Verizon Wireless, have taken steps on their own to implement these types of changes in hopes of avoiding regulatory and legal action.

Like MySpace, Facebook Strikes Net Safety Deal with AGs

TechCrunch broke the news this morning that Facebook is adopting a set of "Key Principles Of Social Networking Safety" as part of an agreement with attorneys general from 49 states and the District of Columbia that will require the social networking site to take steps to better protect kids (Texas is the only state not signed on). You may remember that MySpace made a similar announcement last January.

The policy was announced by Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal as part of the ongoing efforts of a coalition called the Multi-State Attorney General Executive Committee. Mr. Blumenthal gave the following statement in a press release:

"We are raising the safety bar, first for MySpace and now Facebook, and soon for other sites as we fight for an industry gold standard. Facebook and MySpace are showing how to aim higher and keep kids safer. Our ultimate goal is age and identity verification technology -- safeguards against child molesters and inappropriate material. Checking ages and identities is vital to better shielding underage users from predators and pornography."

It's that last point about using age verification technology that concerned Internet safety expert Adam Thierer when the MySpace agreement was made earlier this year. As he wrote in this January post on the Progress and Freedom Foundation blog, "even assuming we could find a way to make it [age verficiation] work, there are many other considerations that must be taken into account, such as the burden it might impose on freedom of speech or individual privacy."

More details on Facebook's agreement are available at TechCrunch.

REAL ID: States Buy Time With Extensions

News.com's Declan McCullagh has written a follow-up to his February report on which U.S. states will and will not be complying with the Department of Homeland Security's REAL ID Act as a May deadline approaches.

At this point, all but five states -- Delaware, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- will either comply or receive extensions from DHS that will allow citizens to keep using their existing driver's licenses through the end of 2009.

According to McCullagh, those numbers belie the fact that approximately one third of states have "no clear intention of ever complying." He points to Oklahoma as one example of a state that passed legislation prohibiting the issuance of REAL ID-compliant licenses but that has nonetheless requested the DHS extension.

You can read more at News.com.

The Lowdown on REAL ID

It's been less than a month since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its final rule on the REAL ID Act, and several states are still trying to decide how to respond to the revised regulations governing how they issue driver's licenses.

With the clock ticking on a May 10th deadline and over a dozen states still in limbo, there seem to be more questions than answers. Which is why we wanted to point to a handy FAQ by the News.com team. It's their final installment in a four-part series on "REAL ID vs. the States." It looks at how each state has reacted, so far, to the requirements and describes what's in store for residents of non-compliant states. Five states in particular have remained firmly opposed to REAL ID: Maine, South Carolina, Montana, Oklahoma and New Hampshire.

If you haven't been following the brouhaha closely and want to get up to speed quickly, check it out.

DHS Secretary Talks to Congress about Real ID

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff was on Capitol Hill yesterday to speak with the House's Homeland Security committee, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS). The hearing about "Holding the Department of Homeland Security Accountable for Security Gaps" covered a number of topics, including implementation of the Real ID Act, which would require states to issue machine-readable driver's licenses and ID cards that were linked to a national security database.

With a number of states opposed to Real ID and privacy advocates concerned about the risks associated with the cards, Secretary Chertoff wanted to make the case for why and how the program would improve security. According to this report by News.com's Anne Broache, he claimed that the stringent verification requirements for issuing the cards would strengthen people's privacy because the IDs would be of higher "quality" than current licenses. You can download a PDF of Chertoff's testimony here.

Survey Says: Should Texting While Driving Be Illegal?

According to Reuters, a recent survey of 2,049 American adults found that 89 percent of respondents believe that sending text messages while driving is "dangerous and should be outlawed," even though 57 percent admitted they've done it themselves.

Reuters points out that, in May, Washington passed the first state ban on texting while driving. Other states including New York and California, which have already banned talking on a cell phone while driving (without a hands-free device), are considering specific laws against texting as well. Washington's texting law, which goes into effect on January 1, 2008, penalizes drivers by levying fines of $100+ and possibly confiscating their phone. Oddly enough, its law against holding a handset while driving doesn't go into effect until July 1, 2008.

CTIA, the wireless industry association, states on its Web site that it believes "driver education is more effective than legislation to change drivers’ behavior and help them drive more responsibly."

It should also be added that the aforementioned survey was commissioned by a Silicon Valley startup named Pinger that offers a voice messaging service that is designed to as an alternative to text messages -- making Pinger a possible beneficiary of these state laws.

T-Mobile Appeals Class-Action Suit

On Friday, WIRED reported on the status of a class-action suit against wireless carrier T-Mobile USA. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are seeking a court order that prevents T-Mobile from collecting early termination fees, and requires the carrier to unlock its handsets for customers who wish to switch to a different carrier.

According to the WIRED article,  while "T-Mobile asked a trial judge to throw out the lawsuit based on its terms of service, which require aggrieved customers to submit to binding arbitration before a neutral mediator and bar them from filing class-action lawsuits," the lower court gave the green light for the case to be heard. T-Mobile is now appealing to the California Supreme Court in hopes of getting the case dismissed.

N.C. Age Verification Bill and MySpace

While the Senate Commerce Committee held its hearing on Internet safety earlier today, the state legislature in North Carolina had its own cyber safety hearing on a bill that would mandate age verification and require anyone under the age of 18 to get parental consent before joining a social networking site. According to this Associated Press report, "advocates for Internet companies and privacy issues testified against the proposed restrictions, saying the broad parental verification standards would be found unconstitutional because they prohibit free speech or impede interstate commerce." Other opponents pointed out ways that the measures could simply be circumvented.

News also broke today that MySpace has found and deleted over 29,000 profiles of registered sex offenders on its site, over four times the original estimate that had been reported. As MySpace announced in May, the company agreed to turn over the data to the North Carolina attorney general and several other state AGs as part of its effort to identify and ban registered sex offenders.

Op-Ed Warns of RFID "Scare Tactics"

Earlier this week, Jim Sheire of NXP Semiconductors wrote this op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News in response to proposed legislation in California that would toughen privacy and security measures on RFID-equipped ID cards. In his view, "if passed in current form, the bills would stifle innovation in California and create laws that focus on hindering a technology instead of punishing bad behavior."