2007 VA Legislation tracking

• telecommunications
• emergency communications
• disaster recovery
• identity theft and other network security issues
• municipal networks

Federal Policy Issues to be Monitored

Net Neutrality

• see upcoming Virginia Issues and Answers article *Coming Soon*

CALEA

• In June a 3-judge appeals court panel split on whether CALEA applies to the communications networks operated by colleges and universities.  EDUCAUSE is working to help campuses interpret the order.  In addition to serious privacy and network security concerns, CALEA compliance is expected to be very costly for those to whom the provisions are considered applicable.

Unit Records

• The Education Department has proposed creating a national database of students records, using social security numbers as the identifier.  The proposed system would track more information about students than anything currently available and could be used to track the progress of the increasing number of students who receive their education at multiple institutions.  However, there are some concerns. Most likely the proposed plan will not be enacted but it is likely that some version of this concept will.  The concerns include:
  • Privacy – lack of trust that the federal Dept. of Educ. will keep records safe
  • Accuracy – overwhelming management task to inputting and maintaining so much data made up of small bits like grades, withdrawals, transfers, etc.
  • Unwieldy in structure and size and lack of expertise interested in working on this as there is little or no applicability to research objectives

Data Retention

• Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller have expressed interest in mandating two years’ worth of online data retention.  The European Union currently has a requirement for internet companies to save logs showing the identities of email and possibly internet message correspondents in addition to data about the ownership of IP addresses used in such correspondence.
  • Libraries object strongly to it because of the practicality of being able to track all users of library computers
  • Other providers of low-cost or free Internet access would be severely impacted (coffee shops, municipalities, libraries, public spaces)
  • Privacy is obviously a concern
  • Internet providers are concerned about the costs of data retention and consumers are concerned about anything that could increase their costs for ISP services
  • There are real security issues with maintaining such data for 2 years

Spectrum issues

There is a general trend toward increasing the usage of unlicensed spectrum as a means of providing low-cost, ubiquitous network coverage on campuses.  Campuses can leverage unlicensed spectrum because they are less subject to other technologies and applications that tend to cause interference.  Congress may enact legislation in the upcoming terms that allocates spectrum, both licensed and unlicensed.