It wasn’t too long ago that the notion of seeing and talking to someone thousands of miles away via a portable device was the stuff of science fiction. Today it’s as real as Team USA setting the record for the most medals won by any country ever in a Winter Olympics.

Most of us would have preferred to be in Vancouver rather than watching the Olympics on television, but if you can’t be there, video is the next best thing. Which is just what the founders of Skype were thinking.

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WASHINGTON: Microsoft launched an online forum January 6 for the academic community to participate in a dialogue about policy issues relating to the technology industry.

The company will not be participating in the forum, but is asking academics to submit articles, blogs, and event listings about intellectual property, cloud computing, antitrust, the knowledge economy, and privacy, said Kathryn Neal, academic relations director for Microsoft.

The forum is called Technology Academics Policy (TAP). It is aimed at journalists, Capitol Hill staffers, think tanks, and other decision makers.

“We thought it would be good to have a central site where people could be exchanging ideas,” she added. “The purpose was to highlight a lot of the good work that’s being done in academic institutions on technology policy issues.”

Academic institutions that are participating include UC Berkeley, Harvard University, Northwestern University, and Stanford Law School.

Microsoft, which hired Adfero Group in summer 2009 to support the program, also created a presence for TAP on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg, and Facebook. Academic participants can engage in each medium, including posting videos to YouTube, noted Neal.

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by Rob Margetta, CQ Staff

With the new year beginning, it’s time once again to take stock of how homeland security fared in 2009 and what could be in store in 2010. CQ Homeland Security contacted more than two-dozen leaders and thinkers in the field to ask three simple questions: What was the best move the Obama administration made in homeland security in 2009, what was the worst move, and what is the biggest challenge the administration faces in 2010?

The answers are as varied as homeland security is diverse. Some were colored by the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day.

In this first installment of a three-part series, respondents answered the question, what is the best move the Obama administration made in homeland security in 2009?

Christopher Battle, partner at the Adfero Group: “Appointing a cyberczar.”

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Homeland Security Experts Weigh in: Obama’s Worst Move in 2009?

by Rob Margetta, CQ Staff

In part one of CQ Homeland Security’s series kicking off 2010, we asked experts to define the Obama administration’s best homeland security move in 2009. Today, we’re taking the opposite tack, asking them to name the administration’s biggest misstep.

The answers varied, but a few themes emerged, including the administration’s handling of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 and the creation of the White House cybersecurity coordinator’s position. Many respondents had trouble picking just one.

Christopher Battle, a partner at the Adfero Group: “Worst: giving no power to the cyber czar to effect policy. Second worst: the decision to neuter the 287(g) program [which authorizes local police to enforce federal immigration laws]. It is unlikely that the administration is serious about tackling internal immigration enforcement without partnering with local law enforcement. The five [thousand] or six thousand agents at ICE, which also have a remarkably broad jurisdiction of other criminal investigations, cannot possibly locate and deport the ten-plus million illegal immigrations currently living in the United States.”

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Homeland Security Experts Weigh In: Obama’s Biggest Challenge in 2010?

by Rob Margetta, CQ Staff

In this third and final part of CQ Homeland Security’s series kicking off the new year, we ask experts to name the biggest homeland security challenge the Obama administration faces in 2010.

Christopher Battle, a partner at the Adfero Group: “Living up the promise to enact comprehensive immigration reform. It was only a couple of years ago that the Bush administration made an all-out push to do the same. The country is divided on this issue in nontraditional and complex ways. It’s not a simple matter of partisan opposition, and the Democratic Congress cannot steamroll the minority. There are conservatives vs. conservatives, liberals vs. liberals, Republicans vs. Republicans, Democrats vs. Democrats, cats vs. dogs — you name it.

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Online Grassroots Initiatives Continue to Accrue Supporters

by Jaimy Lee

Much attention during the 2008 presidential election focused on how President Barack Obama leveraged the Web and online organizing during his campaign.

In the year since his inauguration, online grassroots has become a key element to successful integrated public affairs programs and can be used to address any issue.

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