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****************************************************************** ////////////// ////////////// ////////////// /// /// /// /////// /////// /////// /// /// /// ////////////// /// /// ****************************************************************** EFFector Online Volume 5 No. 7 4/30/1993 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062–9424 400 lines -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- In this issue: Congressman Boucher Introduces NREN Applications Bill "Future of Computing" Program in Palo Alto, CA -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Congressman Boucher Introduces NREN Applications Bill --Offers greatly expanded vision of applications program for widespread social benefit by Andrew Blau EFF Associate for Telecommunications Policy On April 21, Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA) introduced legislation to create computer and networking applications to serve the education, library, and health care communities, and to promote access to government information. The bill, H.R. 1757, significantly expands on similar provisions found in last year's "Information Infrastructure and Technology Act" (often referred to as "Gore II," then-Senator Gore's follow-up to his NREN bill, the High Performance Computing Act ("HPCA")), and the Senate bill to promote U.S. competitiveness, S. 4. Boucher, who chairs the House Science Subcommittee which oversees the NSF, has held oversight hearings on the development of the NREN program at which EFF Chairman Mitch Kapor testified. Many of EFF's suggestions, and the suggestions of EFF's partners in the education, library, and health care sectors, have been included in this legislation. Highlights include: *a substantial broadening of the focus of NREN to accelerate progress toward "a universally accessible high-capacity and high speed data network for the nation"; *a significant commitment to public libraries, K-12 schools, and support for hardware purchases; *the creation and inclusion of local 'civic networks' of local libraries, schools, and local and state government offices, which would be connected to the Internet; *an emphasis on promoting access to government information; and *a codification of the distinction between research and production networks. This bill also shifts away from the manufacturing focus of the earlier bills; it has no provisions for manufacturing applications at all. There are a handful of weak spots, most notably that the bill seems to emphasize broadband connections to the Internet, which EFF believes could drive up the costs of the connections program and reduce the number of beneficiaries; and the lack of any coordinating or responsible agency for the government information program, the network security program, the privacy program or the ease of use program. EFF supports the approach outlined in this bill, and will be working to secure passage of it. We will also seek some minor modifications in order to improve the bill at the margins -- for example, to improve the access to information section in order to support putting federal information online and enabling innovative non-profit groups to make it available as demonstration projects, and to clarify that the broadband provisions are an option, not a mandate. Overall, however, EFF believes this is a substantive advance that merits widespread discussion and support. EFF will make a copy of the full text of the bill in our ftp archives (ftp.eff.org). Section-by-section review: ************************* Sections 1 and 2 include the bill's title ("High Performance Computing and High Speed Networking Applications Act of 1993") and the Congressional findings that support the need for this legislation. Sec. 3. Applications of the High Performance Computing Program. Contains the major provisions, which are proposed as an amendment to the original HPCA. Sections 301 through 305 cover administrative issues. Sec. 301 establishes the applications program. The bill improves on S. 4 by specifying that the applications should be "designed to be accessible and usable by all persons in the United States"; adds the provision of government information to the program purposes, and mandates that the Plan to create applications must take into account the recommendations of the High Performance Computing Advisory Committee, which this bill also mandates will include representatives of the research, K-12, higher education, and library communities, consumer and public interest groups, network providers, and the computer, telecommunications and information industries. Sec. 302 describes the Plan to implement the program. The Plan must: (a) be submitted within one year and revised at least once every two years; (b) include goals and priorities, specific responsibilities of agencies and departments to meet goals, recommend funding levels to departments; and (c) include progress reports, evaluations and recommendations. Sec. 303 describes the role of the Federal Coordinating Committee for Science, Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET) for coordination among agencies and budget review. Sec. 304 creates a new "Coordinator" position, which is to be chosen from the staff of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Coordinator is to monitor the agencies, report any discrepancies to the OSTP Director, assist in interagency coordination, and act as Congressional and public liaison. Sec. 305 describes the annual reports that each agency is to submit to OMB and OMB's review and report to the President. The major application areas: *************************** Sec. 306 creates a program to foster network access. This is a new provision to create local networks of K-12 schools, libraries, state and local governments, etc. It includes support for buying hardware and connecting those local nets to the Internet; it also expands training to teachers, students, librarians, government personnel to use networks and the Internet. Note however, that the provisions specify broadband connections, which could slow down the program, increase the costs, and reduce the beneficiaries if institutions are not free to choose the most appropriate-sized connection for their needs. NSF is the lead agency. Over the next five years, it authorizes 20, 60, 70, 80 and 80 million dollars (i.e., $310 million). Sec. 307 calls for research into security and privacy of information, integrity of digital information, and ease of use for non specialists. This is also a new provision with no counterpart in S. 4. It authorizes 10, 30, 35, 38, and 38 million dollars over the next five years for these activities (i.e., $151 million). No lead agency is specified. Sec. 308 outlines educational applications. H.R. 1757 broadens the range of educational applications compared to S. 4, and adds additional features to support the intent of this section. New provisions include: support for hardware and software purchases in order to demonstrate the educational value of the Internet; support for systems, software and networks for "informal education" including job training and life-long learning applications outside of school; a mandate to address the needs of rural and urban communities; a clearinghouse of K-12 network projects and available educational resources; and the creation of undergraduate level course materials for student teachers to familiarize them with the Internet and educational uses of computer and networking applications. Other elements are similar to or better specified versions of provisions found in S. 4 that call for projects to enable K- 12 students and teachers to communicate with peers and university level students and teachers, and to gain access to educational materials and other computing resources. NSF is directed to be the lead agency, and the section authorizes 24, 70, 82, 94 and 94 million dollars over the next five years ($364 million) for education. Sec. 309 outlines health care applications. This is a substantially expanded version of S. 4's health care section. The lead agency is shifted from the National Library of Medicine to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is to implement it through the NLM, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control. H.R. 1757 also splits health care applications into three subsections. Besides clinical information systems, which repeats S. 4's six health care provisions for clinicians, H.R. 1757 adds two sections of entirely new provisions: health information to public, and health delivery systems and population data sets for epidemiology. The section authorizes 24, 70, 82, 94, and 94 million dollars ($364 million) over the next five years. Applications for health information to the public include: consumer- oriented, interactive, multimedia materials for health promotion and distribution of such materials to public access points, such as community health and human service agencies, schools and public libraries; interactive, multimedia materials to assist patients in deciding among health care options; interfaces to allow non specialists ease of access and use; and the means to provide customized preventative and treatment information to non specialists. Applications for health delivery systems and population data sets include: networks and software for communication among local public and private health and human service providers, e.g., health centers, clinics, entitlement offices, and school based clinics to enable social service providers to deliver coordinated services; access for health care providers to current clinic-based health promotion and disease prevention recommendations and two-way links with prevention specialists at state and local health departments; and database technologies to help clinicians diagnose, treat, and provide preventative information to patients and facilitate the gathering of systematic population data sets in order to measure treatments and national health trends. Sec. 310 describes the applications programs for libraries. Most of this section describes the same digital library applications found in S. 4: terabit storage systems accessible by thousands of simultaneous users; high speed digitizing of printed and photographic materials; tools to search huge volumes of stored text, imagery, data and sound; encouragement of the development and adoption of standards; smart systems to categorize and organize information; training for librarians and database users; making networked databases easy to use; and visualization tools to help browse through large volumes of imagery. The subsection on the development of prototypes, however, is expanded in three significant ways. H.R. 1757 specifies that the prototypes should be testbeds for all the features noted above. Most importantly, H.R. 1757 specifies that the prototype libraries will be accessible to the public via the Internet. Lastly, H.R. 1757 requests an evaluation of the suitability and utility of distributing electronic information over the Internet, including an assessment of the barriers that hinder the use of the Internet for this purpose. H.R. 1757 also directs NASA to develop databases of remote-sensing images to be made available over computer networks. NSF is named as the lead agency, and 10, 30, 35, 44, and 44 million dollars ($163 million) is authorized over five years. For its part, NASA is authorized 6, 16, 20, 20, and 20 million dollars ($82 million) for the same period. Sec. 311 calls for applications for government information. H.R. 1757 has a set of new provisions to promote public access to information generated by Federal, state and local governments. H.R. 1757 calls for projects that connect depository libraries and other sources of government information to the Internet to enable access to Federal, state and local government information, and access to "related resources" as well as linkages among libraries in order to enhance the use of that information. H.R. 1757 also calls for the creation of technologies to increase access to and effective use of government information in support of three goals: research and education; economic development; and an informed citizenry. Finally, the section mandates the creation of a Federal information locator to help the public find and retrieve government information. No agency is given coordinating or lead responsibilities, but the bill authorizes 8, 24, 26 30 and 30 million dollars over the next five years ($118 million). Other provisions: **************** Section 4 changes the High Performance Computing Advisory Committee into a Computing *and Applications* Advisory Committee. It also adds representatives from K-12, consumer and public interest groups, and computer, telecommunications, and information industries. Among the Committee responsibilities is to assess whether the applications that are developed successfully address the needs of the targeted populations and to estimate the number of users served by the applications. Section 5 rewrites Section 102 of the HPCA. Whereas HPCA proposed that portions of the NREN would reach gigabit transmission rates "to the extent technically feasible," this bill appears to assume gigabit networking and moves on to redefine test-bed networks separately. The Network Program now would have three parts: R&D to support gigabit transmission speeds; experimental test-beds networks to develop advanced networking technologies in the quest for gigabit networks and to support applications that exceed what commercial networks can handle; and a connections program to help researchers, educators and students obtain access to and use of the Internet. H.R. 1757 adds a new section to the HPCA, 102(d), that would codify the distinction between experimental, "bleeding-edge" research networks and services available off-the-shelf from commercial service providers. The bill specifies that eighteen months after the bill is enacted, test bed networks are forbidden to provide services that could otherwise be provided satisfactorily over commercial networks. Other sections include one that creates a new OSTP Associate Director to oversee Federal efforts to disseminate scientific and technical information, and a handful of miscellaneous provisions. -==--==--==-<>-==--==--==- Program Announcement for Palo Alto, California from Ted Haynes of the Churchill Club Terry Winograd and Jim Warren will speak on "The Future of Computing and Its Impact on Society", May 27, 1993, at the Hyatt Rickey's, Palo Alto, California; sponsored by the Churchill Club (415- 321-9016). A reception and a light dinner begin at 6:00 PM with the program starting at 6:45 PM. Terry Winograd is a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford and a founder of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. Jim Warren is a MicroTimes columnist, founder of Infoworld, and a founder of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conferences. They will be joined by Denny Brown, founder of Coherent Thought and President of Expert Support. Will more powerful computers turn into twenty-first century servants or Big Brother? What are the implications for employment, economic growth, privacy, education, and the family? Come and find out! The Churchill Club, founded in 1985, is a non-profit public affairs organization in Silicon Valley that provides a non-partisan forum on timely issues. Past speakers include Edward Teller, Bill Joy, Bill Clinton and Sandra Kurtzig. The club has 1100 members of which about 66% work in a "high tech" related company. ============================================================= EFFector Online is published by The Electronic Frontier Foundation 666 Pennsylvania Ave. SE Washington, DC 20003 USA Phone: +1 202 544 9237 FAX: +1 202 547 5481 Internet Address: eff@eff.org Coordination, production and shipping by Cliff Figallo, EFF Online Communications Coordinator (fig@eff.org) To be included in EFF's email mailing list, send request to: eff@eff.org Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the view of the EFF. 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