Done deal...analog broadcasting switch on hold

Congress has finally put a hold on the switch from analog to digital broadcasting.

"House Votes to Delay Switch to Digital Television"

February 4th, 2009

The Associated Press

Congress voted Wednesday to give consumers four more months to prepare for the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting.

The House voted 264-158 to postpone the shutdown of analog TV signals to June 12, to address growing concerns that too many Americans won't be ready in time for the Feb. 17 deadline that Congress had set three years ago. The Senate passed the measure unanimously last week and the bill now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The delay is a victory for the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, who maintain that the previous administration mismanaged efforts to ensure that all consumers -- particularly poor, rural and minority Americans -- will be prepared for the switchover.

The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals still are not ready. People who subscribe to cable or satellite TV or have a newer TV with a digital tuner will not be affected.

"The passage of this bipartisan legislation means that millions of Americans will have the time they need to prepare for the conversion," the White House said in a statement. "We will continue to work with Congress to improve the information and assistance available to American consumers in advance of June 12, especially those in the most vulnerable communities."

Wednesday's vote came one week after House Republicans blocked the bill when it was in a special fast-track vote that required two-thirds support to pass. This time, the bill passed the House under a regular floor vote, which only requires a simple majority.

"Digital TV Delay"

Jeffrey Brown and an analyst examine the impact of renewed efforts to delay the U.S. switch to digitally transmitted television signals.

PBS Newshour


The House negates digital delay

FBI firm on conclusion on anthrax case

Robert Mueller

[FBI director]

caricature

by

Kerry Waghorn

It still isn't clear and suspicion of FBI tactics will remain.

"FBI's Mueller tells Congress anthrax inquiry conclusive"

by

Kevin Johnson,

September 17th, 2008

USA TODAY

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday defended the long federal inquiry into the 2001 anthrax attacks, expressing confidence that Army scientist Bruce Ivins was responsible for the assaults that killed five people.

Mueller, in his first appearance before Congress since Ivins was publicly identified last month as the lone attacker, also said the National Academy of Sciences is conducting an independent review of the FBI investigation.

Some congressional leaders have raised questions about the FBI's conclusions in the case against Ivins, who committed suicide in July as federal investigators built their case against him.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., publicly rebuked Mueller on Tuesday for what Conyers called a belated response to the committee's requests for additional information about the case and about the government's plans to expand the FBI's authority in national security investigations.

"When are we going to get some straight answers?" Conyers asked Mueller. "These are serious and important questions."

Mueller later told the panel that investigators had made a "clear identification," tracing the deadly anthrax contained in a series of letters to the substance found in a vial controlled by Ivins, an anthrax scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md.

The FBI director said investigators "eliminated every other person" who might have had the skills to produce the material.

Federal investigators initially focused largely on Ivins' colleague Steven Hatfill. Hatfill later sued the government for violating his privacy. In June, the Justice Department paid $5.8 million to settle the legal action.

Tom Daschle, one of two U.S. senators targeted in the attacks, has described the bureau's inquiry implicating Ivins as "complete and persuasive." Paul Kemp, Ivins' attorney, says the scientist was innocent.

Mueller is likely to face additional questions today in Senate testimony about new Justice Department guidelines that would allow FBI agents to conduct surveillance and interviews and use other methods without specific suspicions or suspects.

"These new guidelines open the door to using race and ethnicity in the name of national security," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said. Mueller says the additional powers are needed to combat terrorism.


Congress desires answers from FBI on anthrax case

Congress desires answers from FBI on anthrax case

And so Congress has doubts and wishes answers too.

"Lawmakers Seek Anthrax Details"

by

Scott Shane and Eric Lightblau

September 7th, 2008

The New York Times

A month after the F.B.I. declared that an Army scientist was the anthrax killer, leading members of Congress are demanding more information about the seven-year investigation, saying they do not think the bureau has proved its case.

In a letter sent Friday to Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Democratic leaders of the House Judiciary Committee said that "important and lingering questions remain that are crucial for you to address, especially since there will never be a trial to examine the facts of the case."

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, committed suicide in July, and Mr. Mueller is likely to face demands for additional answers about the anthrax case when he appears before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on Sept. 16 and 17.

"My conclusion at this point is that it’s very much an open matter," Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate committee, said of the strength of the case against Dr. Ivins, a microbiologist at the Army's biodefense laboratory who worked on anthrax vaccines. "There are some very serious questions that have yet to be answered and need to be made public."

Bureau officials say they are certain they have solved the nation's first major bioterrorism attack, in which anthrax-laced letters killed five people, after a long and troubled investigation that by several measures was the most complex in the bureau's history.

But in interviews last week, two dozen bioterrorism experts, veteran investigators and members of Congress expressed doubts about the bureau’s conclusions. Some called for an independent review of the case to reassure the public and assess policies on the handling of dangerous pathogens like anthrax.

Meanwhile, new details of the investigation, revealed in recent interviews, raised questions about when the bureau focused on Dr. Ivins as the likely perpetrator and how solid its evidence was.

In April 2007, after the mailed anthrax was genetically linked to Dr. Ivins's laboratory and after he was questioned about late-night work in the laboratory before the letters were mailed, prosecutors sent Dr. Ivins a formal letter saying he was "not a target" of the investigation. And only a week before Dr. Ivins died did agents first take a mouth swab to collect a DNA sample, officials said.

Justice Department officials, who said in early August that the investigation was likely to be closed formally within days or weeks, now say it is likely to remain open for three to six more months. In the meantime, agents are continuing to conduct interviews with acquaintances of Dr. Ivins and are examining computers he used, seeking information that could strengthen the case.

But bureau and Justice Department officials insist that the delay, which they say is necessary to tie up loose ends in a complex investigation, reflects no doubts about their ultimate verdict. "People feel just as strongly as they did a month ago that this was the guy," said a department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Even the strongest skeptics acknowledged that the bureau had raised troubling questions about Dr. Ivins’s mental health and had made a strong scientific case linking the mailed anthrax to a supply in his laboratory.

But they said the bureau's piecemeal release of information, in search warrant affidavits and in briefings for reporters and Congress, had left significant gaps in the trail that led to Dr. Ivins and had failed to explain how investigators ruled out at least 100 other people who the bureau acknowledged had access to the same flasks of anthrax.

In interviews, F.B.I. officials said they knew their findings would face intense scrutiny after the bureau admitted that for years it had pursued the wrong man, Steven J. Hatfill, whom the government paid $4.6 million in June to settle a lawsuit that accused the government of leaking information about him to the news media.

Officials also acknowledged that they did not have a single, definitive piece of evidence indisputably proving that Dr. Ivins mailed the letters — no confession, no trace of his DNA on the letters, no security camera recording the mailings in Princeton, N.J.

But they said the case consisted of a powerfully persuasive accumulation of incriminating details. Dr. Vahid Majidi, head of the F.B.I.’s weapons of mass destruction directorate, said the accumulation of evidence against Dr. Ivins was overwhelming: his oversight of the anthrax supply, his night hours, his mental problems and his habit of driving to far-off locations at night to mail anonymous packages.

"Who had the means, motive and opportunity?" said John Miller, assistant F.B.I. director for public affairs. "Some potential suspects may have had one, some had two, but on the cumulative scale, Dr. Ivins had many more of these elements than any other potential suspect."

Mr. Miller said the bureau ultimately planned to release much more information from its investigative files, including notes of F.B.I. interviews with Dr. Ivins and other suspects and witnesses and surveillance logs detailing his movements and actions. But those disclosures, requiring a detailed review to remove private and classified information, are likely to be months away.

Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director, is likely to face tough questions at next week's scheduled oversight hearings, not just about the case against Dr. Ivins but about the prolonged pursuit of Dr. Hatfill. Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and frequent critic of the bureau, said he was frustrated by the delay in closing the case and answering questions.

"If the case is solved, why isn’t it solved?" Mr. Grassley asked. "It's all very suspicious, and you wonder whether or not the F.B.I. doesn’t have something to cover up and that they don’t want to come clean."

Investigators have not reviewed three boxes of papers left by Dr. Ivins marked for the attention of his lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, because the records must first be reviewed to see whether they should be kept confidential under attorney-client privilege, Mr. Kemp said. A government lawyer not involved in the investigation will soon review the papers with Mr. Kemp, who said some might be given to investigators or made public.

What is clear is that the disclosures have not closed the matter.

"They took their shot," said Representative Rush D. Holt, a Democrat who holds a doctorate in physics and has followed the case closely because the letters were mailed in his New Jersey district. "They hoped and maybe believed that the case they laid out would persuade everyone. I think they’re probably surprised by the level of skepticism."

Many scientists who have tracked the case, too, have found the evidence less than decisive.

"For a lot of the scientific community, the word would be agnostic," said Dr. Thomas V. Inglesby, an expert on bioterrorism at the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "They still don't feel they have enough information to judge whether the case has been solved."

Mr. Holt and Dr. Inglesby were among a number of outsiders who said that only an independent review of the investigation and the evidence against Dr. Ivins — either by Congress or a commission like the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks — could give the public confidence that the case was over.

Dr. Ralph R. Frerichs, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles who has created a Web site detailing the anthrax case, said that such a review was critical to establishing how the lethal powder was made.

"There's no clarity on the simplest aspect: is this hard to do or easy to do?" Dr. Frerichs said. If the powder could be made with basic laboratory equipment and no sophisticated additives, as the bureau maintains, laboratory security and background checks for workers may have to be tightened, he said.

Skepticism toward the bureau's case remains especially pronounced among Dr. Ivins's former colleagues at the Army laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md.

"Despite the F.B.I.'s scientific and circumstantial evidence, I and many of Dr. Ivins's former colleagues don’t believe he did it and don't believe the spore preparations were made at Detrick," said Dr. Gerry Andrews, a microbiologist who worked at the Army laboratory for nine years and was Dr. Ivins's boss for part of that time.

Laboratory records obtained by The New York Times show that the anthrax supply labeled RMR-1029, which the F.B.I. linked to the attacks, was stored in 1997 not in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory, in Building 1425, but in the adjacent Building 1412. Former colleagues said that its storage in both buildings at different times from 1997 to 2001 might mean that the bureau’s estimate of 100 people with physical access to it was two or three times too low.

Some microbiologists question the time records documenting Dr. Ivins's night hours, pointing out that one F.B.I. affidavit said he was in the secure part of the laboratory for exactly 2 hours and 15 minutes three nights in a row — an unlikely coincidence that they said raised questions about the accuracy of the records.

Confusion remains about silicon found in the mailed powder. Some F.B.I. critics say it shows that there was a sophisticated additive that might point away from Fort Detrick as a source, but the bureau concluded that it was merely an accident of the way the anthrax was grown.

Dr. Majidi said that many technical details would be cleared up by the papers published by bureau scientists and consultants over the next year or more. "It's the collective body of evidence that’s really strong," Dr. Majidi said.

Without witnesses or forensic experts linking the killings directly to Dr. Ivins, the Justice Department's public case against him relies largely on "opportunity evidence," said Robert J. Cleary, the lead prosecutor a decade ago in the Unabomber attacks.

"What prosecutors have to do to persuade the public that this was the guy is to show the uniqueness of the strain of anthrax and to eliminate everyone else who had opportunity and access to it." That, Mr. Cleary said, "is a challenge."


FBI's methodology in the anthrax case

Rush Holt--will he assist science?

Rush Holt

Will Rush Holt be a significant spokesperson for the sciences in congress? Time will tell.

Rush Holt, 59, is a resident of Hopewell Township, N.J. Born in West Virginia, he inherited his interest in politics from his parents. Hisfather was the youngest person ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate, at age 29. His mother served as Secretary of State of West Virginia and was the first woman to hold that position.

Rep. Holt earned his B.A. in Physics from Carleton College in Minnesota and completed his Master’s and Ph.D. at NYU. He has held positions as a teacher, Congressional Science Fellow, and arms control expert at the U.S. State Department where he monitored the nuclear programs of countries such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union. From 1989 until he launched his 1998 congressional campaign, Holt was Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the largest research facility of Princeton University and the largest center for research in alternative energy in New Jersey. He has conducted extensive research on alternative energy and has his own patent for a solar energy device. Holt was also a five-time winner of the game show "Jeopardy."

An active Member of Congress and a strong voice for his constituents, Rep. Holt serves on the Committee on Education and Labor, the Committee on Natural Resources, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Holt is the only scientist and only Member from the New Jersey delegation to sit on the Intelligence Committee. Holt is also the Chairman of the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. Created at the start of the 110th Congress in January 2007, the Panel is working to strengthen oversight of the intelligence community by ensuring that policymakers receive accurate assessments, civil liberties are safeguarded, and the intelligence community is protecting Americans.

Holt was honored to serve on the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century chaired by former Senator and astronaut John Glenn. He is co-chair of the Research and Development Caucus, and sits on Congressional caucuses concerning Children's Environmental Health, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Development, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, Biomedical Research, Internet, Community College, Farmland Protection, Human Rights, and a Women’s Right to Choose. Rep. Holt is also a member of the New Democrat Coalition.

Rep. Holt has won several significant victories in Washington. He helped secure more than $700 million in new federal funding for science and technology research. He passed an amendment to the Land and Water Conservation Fund providing millions in funding for protecting open space and he was instrumental in adding the lower Delaware River to the National Wild and Scenic River program. He has led the effort to increase rail/transit security funding, most recently succeeding in doubling federal funding to $400 million in 2008. As a member of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Holt helped write the College Cost Reduction Act – the largest college aid expansion since the GI Bill – which cuts student loan interest rates in half, increases individual Pell Grant amounts by $1,090 over five years, and forgives loans for graduates who provide 10 years of public service. The bill also includes Holt's provision to provide upfront tuition assistance – up to $16,000 per year – for math, science and foreign language teachers – supporting Holt's effort to strengthen such education in the U.S.

Scientists in Congress--a difference?

The token scientists will make no difference in congress save perhaps on a very small scale. The task of convincing other congressmen to follow dictates of science when it would drastically conflict with constituents's expectations based not on sound science but economics is nearly impossible. I cannot envision any ground swell changes based on science or the congressional scientists.

Two articles:

"Physicists in Congress Calculate Their Influence"

by

Cornelia Dean

June 10th, 2008

The New York Times

Washington:

According to the Congressional Research Service, there are only about 30 scientists among the 535 senators and representatives in the 110th Congress, and that is counting the psychologist, the psychiatrist, a dozen other M.D.’s, three nurses, an engineer, two veterinarians, a pharmacist and an optometrist.

But physics is on a roll.

"Go back 15 years, and there weren’t any physicists," said Vernon J. Ehlers, a Republican who taught the subject at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., until he was elected to Congress in 1993.

His was a lone voice until 1998, when Rush Holt, assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics laboratory, won election from New Jersey as a Democrat. And today there are three, adding Bill Foster, a physicist at Fermilab and another Democrat, who won a special election in March in Illinois.

"If we continue to reproduce in this manner," Mr. Foster began, and Mr. Ehlers finished the thought, "the entire Congress would consist of physicists!"

They were joking — probably. But a Congress full of physicists might solve some worrisome problems, the three-member physics caucus argued one afternoon when they met for a joint interview in the Capitol.

There are 435 people in the House, Mr. Holt said, and "420 don't know much about science and choose not to." He recalled his exasperation when anthrax spores were discovered in the Capitol in 2001 and colleagues came to him and said, "You are a scientist, you must know about anthrax," a subject ordinarily missing from the physics curriculum.

"The difference," he said, "is we would be perfectly happy to pick up a copy of The New England Journal of Medicine and read about the etiology of anthrax."

"In fact, we basically did that," Mr. Ehlers said.

"We know more than our colleagues," Mr. Holt said, "but not more than they could know."

Unfortunately, Mr. Foster said, "unless things play to their advantage in the next election, they are not interested."

Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Sherwood L. Boehlert, the upstate New York Republican who until last year was chairman of the House Science Committee, said that what citizens should expect from their elected representatives is not knowledge of science per se, but rather "an ability to reach out to experts in any given field and then do what is oftentimes hard for elected officials to do, listen instead of talk."

(For his part, Mr. Boehlert said, his last exposure to science was in a high school physics class, "and I got a C.")

Problems arise not just in obviously science-related issues, but also, as Mr. Holt put it, in "those countless issues, and it really is countless, that have scientific and technological components but the issues are not seen as science issues."

He cited the debates over electronic voting machines that caused problems "that would be obvious to any computer scientist but went right past some people here in Congress."

Mr. Foster mentioned the debates over electronic border fences, which he said lacked "fundamental concepts of what radar can or cannot do."

What is needed is not more advanced degrees, the physicists said (they all have Ph.D.'s), but a capacity to take the long view, what Mr. Ehlers called the scientists’ ability to see from the pre-Cambrian era to the space age.

But sometimes, he said, the problem is just old-fashioned ignorance. Several times he has found himself “rushing to the floor” to head off colleagues ready to eliminate financing for endeavors whose importance they did not understand.

Once it was game theory. The person seeking the cut did not seem to realize that game theory had to do with interactions in economics, behavior and other social sciences, not sports, Mr. Ehlers recounted.

Then there was the time he rose to defend A.T.M. research against a colleague who thought it should be left to the banking industry. In this case the initials stood for asynchronous transfer mode, a protocol for fiber-optic data transfer.

"'The Two Cultures' is not a myth," Mr. Holt said, referring to a 1959 lecture by the British chemist and novelist C. P. Snow, who bemoaned a growing gulf between the sciences and the humanities.

Mr. Ehlers agreed, saying he had as much right to expect that his colleagues would understand basic physics concepts as they had to expect that he would be familiar with Shakespeare. "It’' utterly stupid that we have to fight that," he said.

But there are barriers to drawing more scientists into politics. For one, Mr. Holt said, many researchers have the idea that "politics is somehow dirty."

That was never an issue for him or Mr. Foster — both came from political families. Mr. Holt’s father represented West Virginia in the Senate from 1935 to 1941, and Mr. Foster’s parents met when they worked on Capitol Hill. And Mr. Ehlers came up through the Republican ranks, finally winning the seat once held by President Gerald R. Ford.

When Ford was in Congress, Mr. Ehlers gathered a committee of scientists to meet with him from time to time on difficult scientific questions. These days, though, there is less "comity" in Congress, he said, and fellow scientists tell him they wonder why he stays involved. "They say, 'I am glad you are there, but I think you are crazy.'"

All three physicists had the same advice for whoever wins the White House this fall. Move quickly to appoint a science adviser and keep that person in the presidential inner circle.

"I would say that's No. 1," Mr. Ehlers said.

Mr. Holt said: "Proximity counts. You want face time."

Among other things, they said, a science adviser should be someone who will remind the next administration what science can and cannot do.

For example, Mr. Ehlers said, it is irksome to encounter people who ignore the scientific consensus that human activity contributes to global warming yet count on science to produce new sources of energy magically. "They sort of reject our reasoning," he said. "But they will come back and say, 'Science will find a way.'"

All three say they have thought about returning one day to full-time physics. When life in Congress becomes unusually frustrating, Mr. Ehlers said, "I think, well, it would be great to be in the lab today."

Still, they say, they manage to overcome any intellectual disconnect between the more or less orderly laws of physics and the sausage-making aspects of legislation. "Physicists are versatile," Mr. Ehlers said. "We live in the real world."

After all, their caucus is growing.

"We’ve done the calculation," Mr. Holt said. "By midcentury, I think, we’ll have a functioning majority."

Lesley Stone

"A physicist’s place is on the ballot"

by

Lesley Stone

March/April 2008

Volume 5, Issue 2

Symmetry

Few elected officials, from the President to members of the local school board, have strong backgrounds in science or engineering. Yet, many of the complex problems we face—in areas such as innovation and competitiveness, health care, energy, climate change, education, and even our physical infrastructure—have policy solutions that depend on an understanding of the sciences.

It's time more scientists got involved in politics. Scientists have a contribution to make to public life. They have a way of thinking that is transferable to the policy realm; problem-solving, evidence-based thinking and testing hypotheses are all likely to generate good policy.

Just as important, scientists have specific knowledge that policymakers from other disciplines lack. Training in law (the background of many of our legislators) is useful for thinking rationally and weighing evidence, but it does not enhance understanding of the importance of nanotechnology, public health strategies, or the processes at work in climate change. These are all areas of knowledge critical to finding solutions to the obstacles we face. Further, the more diverse the expertise and experience a legislature has to draw on, the more likely it is to come up with innovative solutions that will keep us on the right track.

Eight members of the US House of Representatives hold doctoral degrees in science, including the newest addition, Bill Foster of Illinois, who is the third physicist. These scientists have contributed to law and policy in important ways, as have many who serve in state and local government. They are proof that it is possible to serve one’s community not only in the lab, but also in civic life.

It’s easier than you think to get involved. The local school board is a great place to start. There are about 15,000 school boards in the United States, the vast majority of them elected. Most campaigns cost less than $1000—though in bigger cities the cost is closer to $10,000—and serving may mean a commitment of about five hours a week. Yet this commitment is minor considering the important contributions a scientist can make.

Who better than a scientist to evaluate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curricula? In some parts of the country, people are searching for innovative ways to insert creationism into science classes. A scientist can keep this from happening by explaining the difference between a scientific theory and an untestable hypothesis. Even in localities where intelligent design is not an issue, we are struggling to find effective ways to help our students learn cutting-edge material so they are prepared for an increasingly competitive world. Study after study shows children in the United States are falling behind in critical areas of math and science; publicizing this issue has not made it go away. But, serving on a school board where you can help evaluate your community’s educational programs and options could be a step in the right direction.

For those interested in learning more about running for office, Scientists and Engineers for America, along with a group of scientific societies, scheduled a May 10th workshop in Washington, DC, to teach scientists and engineers the nuts and bolts of running a campaign.

Even if running for office is not on your horizon, it is important to take action. Most scientists believe science should have a place at the table when important policy decisions are made; scientific advisory boards should include the best scientists available; scientists working for the government should be free to discuss their research, regardless of the political implications; and when science is misrepresented by the government, people who speak out should not fear retribution. Yet, well-documented breaches of these principles have become all too common. To ensure that our government values science, we must demonstrate that we value it, both by asking candidates for office hard questions and through the ballot box.

If scientists invest time and energy in politics, whether by running for office or by making sure that potential representatives know what their constituents value, policy will change for the better. Not getting involved means accepting the status quo.

Lesley Stone is executive director of Scientists and Engineers for America.