Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 02:17:37 EDT From: freemanaz@aol.com Subject: [lpaz-discuss] McCain's at it again To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com Cc: aolsimlp@yahoogroups.com Reply-To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Subj: Vexing Questions About Net Tax By Declan McCullagh Date: 5/12/01 10:59:25 AM US Mountain Standard Time From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) To: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor)
Vexing Questions About Net Tax By Declan McCullagh
http://www.wired.com/news/politis/0,1283,43740,00.html?tw=wn20010512
2:00 a.m. May 12, 2001 PDT
WASHINGTON -- Remember all those promises that U.S. presidential candidates made last year?
Some libertarian and conservative groups sure do, and they're trying to hold Sen. John McCain to his New Hampshire pledge to oppose Internet taxes.
At a January 2000 event designed to distance himself from George W. Bush, McCain signed a Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) declaration that says: "I will support making permanent the current ban o Internet access, sales or use taxes."
But with the current moratorium expiring in October, the Arizona Republican has quietly shifted his stand. He no longer talks about banning all Internet taxes, and he has not reintroduced his bill from the last Congress, Senate Bill 1611, which would have extended the existing moratorium.
"McCain is allowing the Internet tax cartel train to roll right down the tracks and doesn't appear willing to do much to stop it at this time," said Adam Thierer, an analyst t the libertarian Cato Institute. "I don't want to be overly harsh here, but this seems like a rather abrupt about-face on this issue, considering how hard he was nailing Bush on it during the campaign."
Currently, McCain is trying to broker a deal between the pro-tax state governments -- which say uncollected sales taxes on Internet purchases could cost them $12.5 billion by 2003 -- and a shaky coalition of online businesses and groups ideologically opposed to granting governments new powers to tax.
"We are trying to work out a bill that can not only pass the Senate, but that can become law," said Mark Buse, McCain's staff director. "Every version that Senator McCain has worked on has contained a permanent extension of the Internet tax ban."
"We're political realists," Buse said. "A pure extension right now does not have the votes to pass the Senate or the commerce committee. It probably has just 6 votes out of 22 on the committee. Instead of just posturing, we're trying very hard to work outlanguage that will pass."
Besides, McCain may have an easy out: By signing the CSE pledge, McCain only promised to oppose taxes "if elected to the office of president."
Porn worm in Congress: Sen. Robert Bennett may be the former chairman of the Republican High-Tech Task Force and the current chairman of a GOP working group on "cyber safety and critical infrastructure protection," but you wouldn't know it by his own electronic security measures.
On Thursday, Bennett's staff received the "homepage" worm, which their Windows mail software dutifully forwarded to colleagues, contacts and journalists on their press list.
"Please accept our apology and do not open any e-mail or attachments entitled 'Homepage,'" said an embarrassed John Falls, Bennett's system administrator, in a follow-up e-mail message on Thursday evening.
"Homepage" works by randomly opening a number of hardcore sex sites using Internet Explorer. No details yet on the scene inside the Dirksen building suite of Bennett, a conservative Mormon, when the worm hit.
Echeloners snubbed: We told you recently about how a European Parliament committee studying the Echelon surveillance system was going to take a field trip to the National Security Agency.
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