Looks like I better post the entire article. It was on Wired's frontpage this afternoon. It appears that it is no longer there (I wonder why it disappeared?).
So, I guess I better post the entire article before it completely vaporizes.
Madcap Maneuvers Halt MS Hearing
By Declan McCullagh and Ben Polen
Copyright Wired wired.com
Declan McCullagh • Enlarge image
Justice Department antitrust chief, Charles James.
2:05 p.m. Dec. 12, 2001 PST
WASHINGTON -- A highly-anticipated Senate hearing on the Justice Department's antitrust settlement with Microsoft came to an abrupt end soon after it began Wednesday morning.
The session before the Senate Judiciary committee was intended to be an opportunity for congressional critics to jab at the deal, and the first chance for Charles James, the Justice Department's antitrust chief, to tell Capitol Hill what the Bush administration thought of Microsoft.
Joining him was Stanford University law prof Lawrence Lessig, who flew in to testify, as did Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat.
They didn't even get a chance to speak.
The hearing, which began around 10:10 a.m. EST, first halted when Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) called a recess a few minutes into the show so senators could attend a floor vote.
That's not especially unusual, but what happened next was.
Upset at what the Senate Finance committee was doing with a trade bill, the crafty Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) tried a procedural gambit that pulled the plug on all committee hearings. It was the political equivalent of Windows' blue screen of death.
Byrd is one of the Senate's crusty old men, elected to the Senate in 1958, and a wily parliamentarian. He's a former majority leader and even co-authored a two-volume history of the Senate, called The Senate 1789-1989.
He also, for the record, is the guy who objected to laptop computers on the Senate floor in 1997.
Byrd knew that a Senate rule prohibits committees from meeting for more than two hours while the main chamber is in session, but this is usually bypassed daily with unanimous consent. On Wednesday, Byrd refused to consent, which required committees to halt what they were doing after 11:30 a.m.
Leahy, who was just getting started in the Judiciary committee a block or two away, was visibly peeved. "This committee will be recessed because of a motion made on the Senate floor to stop hearings," he said.
A judiciary aide said afterward that the hearing won't be rescheduled until sometime next year.
The snafu also limits Leahy's ability to file a report on the hearing with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, which he said he had hoped to do. The comment period required under federal law for a settlement -- which Kollar-Kotelly must approve to be final -- will expire before the Microsoft hearing can be reconvened.
In his opening remarks, Leahy indicated he thought the proposed Microsoft settlement was somewhat, well, brain-dead. "I find many of the terms of settlement to be either confusingly vague, subject to manipulation or both," he said.
"I am concerned that the enforcement mechanism in the proposed decree lacks the timeliness necessary to inspire confidence in its effectiveness," Leahy said.
James, from the Justice Department, replied that the decree's conditions "fully and demonstrably resolve" any continuing problems.
"Even assuming that we could have eventually secured a breakup of Microsoft -- a very dubious assumption in light of what the court of appeals and Judge Kollar-Kotelly have stated -- the time it would have taken to continue litigating the breakup and the inevitable appeals could easily have delayed relief for another several years," James said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) read portions of a letter written by James Barksdale, ex-CEO of Netscape, that blasted the proposed settlement. Barksdale complained that the agreement gives Microsoft permission to continue adding programs to Windows and warned that the decree does little to prevent Microsoft from retaliating against competitors.
"If the proposed final judgment goes into effect, it will subject an entire industry to dominance by an unconstrained monopolist, thus snuffing out competition, consumer choice and innovation in perhaps our nation's most important industry," Barksdale wrote.
During his floor remarks Wednesday morning, Byrd said, "I'll put the Senate on notice, I will object to that committee's meeting after 11:30 today, while the Senate is in session."
The Senate Finance committee had met at 10 a.m. to vote on the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act.
"I would like to have an opportunity to appear before that committee and speak against fast-track. That's all I'm asking for," Byrd said. "And I made that personal request of the chairman of that committee yesterday. And he said, well, I could appear before the committee after it had acted on fast-track, after it had marked up the bill."
Byrd added: "Well, there's no point in my appearing before the committee after it's marked up. That's really a silly suggestion, if I may say so. I'll make my proposal -- my impassioned plea to the Senate after the committee has met and marked up the bill. Why should I go over and appear before that committee after they've marked up the bill? What a silly proposition."
He was almost too late. By the time Byrd snarled the usual Senate business, the committee had already approved the bill. A finance committee aide, however, said that it could be reworked at a scheduled 10 a.m. hearing Thursday. |
