No Subject

["CATHRYN M. MERCIER" <CMERCIER@VMSVAX.SIMMONS.EDU>]

   JUNE 19 UPDATE   JUNE 19 UPDATE   JUNE 19 UPDATE   JUNE 19 UPDATE
************repost************repost*************repost************

                          A L E R T

                       YOU CAN HELP SAVE

              THE OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT

                     W. Curtiss Priest, CITS

WHY?

Informed Congresspeople make better decisions!

OTA has informed congress on issues ranging from
technology against terrorism, validity of forensic DNA,
information security and privacy in network environments,
adult literacy, and educational technology.

As you know, decisions involving technology are complex
and there is no other source of high quality information
for Congress.

WHEN?

Now.  The House Appropriations subcommittee zeroed out
OTA's budget last week.  The budget will be voted on tomorrow, by the
full house, June 20th.  So act TODAY.

HOW?

There are several Congresspeople who want to offer "floor
amendments" to restore OTA's budget.  Representative Houghton,
a Republican member of the OTA board, has been in full support
of retaining OTA.  His staff say the next key event is this
Friday when the Rules Committee considers what amendments
will be permitted to the floor.

TO DO?

Now is the time to get each House Representative contacted.

1.  Call your local office, ask for the Washington FAX number
or telephone number (FAX is preferred!)   Fax or call the
Washington office -- there is no time for your home office to
get involved.

2.  Think of a personal account when OTA has been important to
you and say how important that was.  If you don't have a direct
personal story, you might say how important the recently released
study -- Teachers & Technology: making the connection is to
the education future of the country.

_______________________________________________________________________________
|           W. Curtiss Priest, Ph.D., Director       *********************** |
|      Center for Information, Technology, & Society *  Improving humanity * |
|                                                    *  through technology * |
|                  466 Pleasant Street               *********************** |
|                Melrose, MA  02176-4522         BMSLIB@MITVMA.MIT.EDU       |
|                  Voice: 617-662-4044  Gopher or WWW to our publications:   |
|   Fax: 617-662-6882      gopher.eff.org (under similar organizations, CITS |
| WWW: http://www.eff.org, under Documents & File Archives, under Gopher     |
_____________________________________________________________________________|