[119176] in Cypherpunks
NYT Story: Digital Contracts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Tue Oct 19 02:52:59 1999
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 08:20:23 +0200 (CEST)
Message-Id: <199910190620.IAA08410@sofuku.monster.org>
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Reply-To: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
Fight Over Electronic Contracts Heads to House
Also: U.S. Shut Out in First Round of Internet Board Elections
ASHINGTON -- With the clock ticking toward adjournment for the year, Congressional leaders and the Clinton Administration are working to eliminate political infighting and pass legislation that would give electronic contracts the same legal weight as their traditional paper counterparts.
The legislation is considered crucial for the future of electronic commerce, and it is part of an effort by the Commerce Department both domestically and internationally to make the standards for such contracts, with their "digital signatures," as simple as possible.
But Republicans and Democrats in the House are still battling over how far the legislation should go, a fight that could play out on the House floor this week.
The House is scheduled to take up digital signature legislation as early as Tuesday, but first leaders must decide how to proceed. At issue are states rights, and whether individual states should have the power to make their own rules for recognizing digital signatures.
The White House and most Democrats are pushing for a bill that would make digital signatures legal only in those states that don't already have laws recognizing the validity of electronic contracts.
But Republican leaders in the House have been pushing for more sweeping legislation that would not only pre-empt state digital signature laws but would also eliminate some of the paper-record keeping and notification requirements that some states impose on financial institutions and insurance companies.
The House Judiciary Committee last week narrowly approved a version of the bill backed by Democrats that would recognize current state laws on both electronic signatures and record-keeping. The bill is similar to a White House-endorsed Senate proposal by Senator Spencer Abraham, a Michigan Republican, that is awaiting passage in that chamber.
The House Commerce Committee, meanwhile, in August approved a bill by Chairman Thomas J. Bliley Jr., a Virginia Republican, that would establish a uniform national standard for authenticating electronic signatures, and require that states pass laws based on the national model.
The Clinton Administration strongly opposes what it calls unnecessary preemption of state laws.
In a letter last week to Representative Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the general counsel for the Commerce Department wrote that the "legislation should be limited to a temporary federal rule to ensure the validity of signatures entered into before the states have a chance to adopt" their own versions of a uniform electronic signatures law. The counsel, Andrew J. Pincus, wrote that the broader Republican proposals would "pre-empt state law unnecessarily, both in degree and duration; invalidate numerous state and federal laws and regulations designed to protect consumers and the general public; and otherwise create legal uncertainty where predictability is the goal."
