Law enforcers may see gains under House spending bill

Federal law enforcement efforts stand to gain a hefty funding boost under a spending bill the House passed Thursday, while the Commerce Department and related agencies would see declines in funding from the previous fiscal year.

Programs important to the technology community would receive slightly more money under the mammoth measure, however. And the federal judiciary system received a slight boost in funding to help it cope with an all-time high of criminal cases and bankruptcy filings.

Under H.R. 4754, the Patent and Trademark Office would receive $1.52 billion to help it cope with the backlog of patent applications. The amount is a $300 million increase over the previous year's funding level. The Commerce Department would receive $5.8 billion-$186 million less than last year and $301 million less than the administration's request.

Overall, the bill's $39.8-billion funding for fiscal 2005 is more than the Bush administration's request of $39.6 billion and last year's funding of $37.6 billion.

Of particular interest to the technology community is that the FCC receives an additional $6 million increase to $280 million for fiscal 2005, while the FTC would receive an $18 million increase to $203 million to help fund its do-not-call program designed to curb telemarketing calls. The Justice Department received $20.6 billion in discretionary funding, a billion dollars above the fiscal 2004 level and $900 million above the president's request. The FBI received a $624 million boost to revamp and enhance its intelligence, counterterrorism, cyber crime and counterintelligence activities, which brings its funding level to $5.2 billion. The bill also provided $690,000 for new employees in Justice's office of the deputy attorney general who are responsible for reviewing civil rights and civil liberties issues. The funding accounts for two additional support staff for the office.

Projects targeted at protecting children online and offline against sexual exploitation as well as cyber crime and intellectual property enforcement received additional funding. In assigning the funds to increase intellectual property enforcement, the House Appropriations Committee focused on software. It noted that 25 percent of all software in the United States had been illegally copied, tallying the losses to the software industry to $30 billion annually. The committee allotted $10 million to the U.S. Attorney's office to pursue intellectual property violations and directed the office to report to the committee by April 2005 on its progress in pursuing the copyright violations.

The Business Software Alliance praised the allocation of funds.