Alan S. Inouye heads public policy for the American Library Association (ALA). In this role, Alan leads ALA’s technology policy portfolio ranging from telecommunications to copyright and licensing, to advance the ability of libraries to contribute to the economic, educational, cultural, and social well-being of America’s communities.

 

Alan is a recognized expert in national technology policy, published in various outlets such as The Hill, Roll Call, and the Christian Science Monitor. He serves on advisory boards or committees of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the U.S. State Department, Library For All, and the University of Maryland.

 

From 2004 to 2007, Dr. Inouye served as the Coordinator of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) in the Executive Office of the President. At PITAC (now merged into the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology—PCAST), he oversaw the development of reports on cybersecurity, computational science, and other topics.

 

Prior to PITAC, Alan served as a study director at the National Academy of Sciences. A number of his major studies culminated in book-length reports; three of these are LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress, The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age, and Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity.

 

Dr. Inouye began his career in the computer industry in Silicon Valley. He worked as a computer programmer for Atari, a statistician for Verbatim, and a manager of information systems for Amdahl (now Fujitsu). Alan completed his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley and earned three master’s degrees, in business administration (finance), systems engineering, and computer systems.

 

 

 

The Future of the Professions: How Technology will Transform the Work of Human Experts by Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind

 

 

NEWS ROUNDUP

 

What a mess. The CIA has officially concluded that Russia hacked the 2016 presidential election not just to undermine voter confidence, but to get Donald Trump elected.  This is according to a widely reported secret assessment conducted by the agency. The FBI on the her hand, isn't going that far. The FBI acknowledges that Russia did something--it's just saying it's not clear about Russia's motive: it thinks Russia carried out the intrusions for a mix of different reasons. The National Security Agency is due to release its own findings in the coming weeks before the election. The investigation is getting bi-partisan support from Chuck Schumer and Democrats, but it is also getting support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, as well as John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

 

Here's what we know. We know the Director of the FBI, James Comey, sent a letter to Congress 11 days before the election saying more of Hillary Clinton's emails found on Anthony Weiner's computer could lead to a new investigation. Of course, that inquiry was dropped after a few days but, by then, the damage had already been done. Outging Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is calling for a Congressional investigation of Comey.

 

We know Trump said many times that the election was rigged.

 

We know that Trump called on Russia during the campaign season to leak Hillary Clinton's emails.

 

And now, Trump wants to appoint ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, whom the Wall Street Journal reports has close ties to Russia.

 

We also now know that hackers got into the Republican National Committee's servers as well but, for whatever reason, only the DNC's emails were released to the public.

 

Trump and others on his transition team called the CIA's conclusions "ridiculous". Ridiculous or not, whether those advocating to get 37 Electors to change their votes in favor of Hillary Clinton win or not, this isn't going away.

 

The electoral system of the country that prides itself on being the greatest democracy the world has ever seen, has been, according to the CIA, hacked to favor a particular candidate. And that particular candidate, by the name of Donald J. Trump, won. He won! This is is crisis mode.

 

---

Andrea Wong reports in Bloomberg that Apple is taking advantage of a massive tax loophole that allows it to earn free money from American taxpayers without paying any taxes. The loophole lets Apple stash its foreign earnings, untaxed, overseas, and then use the money to buy U.S. bonds. The Washington Post reports that this has yielded Apple some $600 million in payments from the U.S. Treasury over the last 5 years.

 

--

 

The Wall Street Journal reported that the State of Georgia allegedly sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security accusing the agency of attempting to hack the state's voter database. The State of Georgia opposes Federal efforts to declare election systems critical infrastructure, which would enable more robust federal monitoring for cyberattacks.

 

--

 

USA Today reports that the Trump transition team has scheduled a meeting with the tech sector for Wednesday, December 14th in New York City. Should be interesting since most of the tech sector essentially opposed Donald Trump during the campaign, with the exception of Peter Thiel who now sits on President-elect Trump's transition team. Interestingly, Google has posted a job posting for a conservative outreach manager. e

 

--

 

Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are partnering to weed on content posted by terrorists. The companies will be creating a shared database that will included "hashes" or digital encoding or fingerprints, which will enable the companies to alert each other as to the offensive content. Each company will retain the power to make decisions for themselves as to whether to take down the content.

 

-

 

The White House has announced further investments in science, technology, engineering and math education in 2017. The National Science Foundation will spend $20 million in addition to the $25 million it spent in 2016. Ali Breland has the story in The Hill.

 

--

 

John Horrigan at Pew  released survey results last week showing those who lack access to smartphones, broadband and tablets actually report more stress and lack of confidence accessing information than those who have access to the technologies. Conventionally, we tend to think of having all of these devices at our constant disposal as the contributing factor to information overload.

 

 

--

Finally, the FCC set letters to Verizon and AT&T about their so-called zero-rating practices. With zero rating, multichannel video providers select which programming their customers will have access to without it counting against their data caps.  Net neutrality advocates argue this is a Trojan horse against the net neutrality rules, allowing the companies to prioritize the content they choose over competing content. Colin Gibbs has the story at Fierce Wireless.