United States Congress news from FierceCIO

Hmm. We've just received word from our department of questionable reasoning that Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing networks are being fingered as a "national security threat" by members of the U.S. Read more...

There have been numerous times in my technology journalism career when I yearned to put high-profile executives on a sworn witness stand. So, while I have nothing against the fine legacy of Hewlett-Packard (in fact I somewhat admire them) it felt like real justice to watch Pattie Dunn squirm as she got the Mark McGwire treatment in Congress yesterday. For all the juiciest …

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Another day, another head rolling away from Hewlett-Packard. The latest person to resign is general counsel Ann Baskins, who said she will enact Fifth Amendment rights not to testify before Congress. CEO Mark Hurd and former chairwoman Patricia Dunn are testifying today. Article

> Sun buys Neogent for ID management. Article

> IBM licenses water cooling technology. Article

> Intel, Emulex team up on storage chips. Article

> Congress desperately needs IT help. …

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Hewlett-Packard's leadership is in trouble. CEO Mark Hurd yesterday offered to testify before Congress about the leak scandal, and today he plans to brief the media on what he knew and when he knew it. Plenty of hard questions will certainly still remain, primarily, what the heck were they thinking? Article

The controversial issue of network neutrality is currently being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission, even after Congress recently declined to regulate it, chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras said. Majoras openly supports the computer industry regulating itself rather than being regulated externally and she suggested that existing laws would already cover companies which unfairly use network services. It's not clear if the new Internet Access Task Force has a solid timetable for …

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Congress established a 3 percent tax on the luxury of long-distance telephone service back in 1898 to help fund the Spanish-American war. The war ended in just a few months, and now the tax is ending too. Article

Congress approved a bill requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to study the use of energy-efficient servers in data centers. There are already several million servers sold each year in the U.S. alone, with the numbers increasing despite some consolidation trends. The study would also consider incentives for advocating efficient servers. Moreover, the study should take less than six months and cost less than $500,000, according to official estimates. It's co-sponsored by a Democrat …

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The nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology has a suggestion: Instead of broadly supporting or denying network neutrality, Congress should legislate that public networks remain open and equal while service providers can choose to develop priority networks. Neutrality advocates insist it won't work because finite bandwidth dictates that priority networks will naturally inhibit public networks. On another side entirely are groups that desire as little interference as possible. Article

The Data Accountability and Trust Act ("DATA", get it?) is steadily winding its way through Congress. The latest milestone is that it successfully passed through the House Commerce Committee. Still unclear are when this bill might go before the full House, and whether it will be put aside or merged with similar bills. Article