Good morning tech

Hill notes

House Republican says White House falling short on transparency. Speaking at the AMP Summit on Friday, Rep Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) said the public’s appetite for government transparency is growing faster than the Obama administration’s ability to keep up. Roskam argued the public’s tolerance for poor performance from elected officials is decreasing thanks to the plethora of information available on the Web, making it harder than ever for the administration to live up to the expectations created during the 2008 presidential campaign. http://bit.ly/9caM51

Industry notes

U.A.E. will likely avoid BlackBerry ban. Bloomberg reports the United Arab Emirates is “very optimistic” about reaching a deal with Research in Motion regarding BlackBerry messaging services in the country, according to a senior government official. The official said the government expects to have an agreement in place before the October 11 deadline. U.A.E. has requested the ability to monitor messages sent using the devices for national security purposes; RIM has reached agreements with the governments of India and Saudi Arabia last month over similar concerns. http://bit.ly/amxnPM

Executive notes

High-tech companies settle Justice probe of hiring agreements. Several of Silicon Valley’s leading companies including Intel, Apple and Google reached a settlement with the Justice Department that will prevent them from entering into any agreements that restrict employee recruitment over the next five years. Justice alleged that the firms agreed not to solicit each other’s employees in an effort to keep wages manageable. The firms did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, and both Google as well as the thinktank Tech Policy Institute have argued the agreements were not inherently anticompetitive. http://bit.ly/dlNVy5

Schedule

11 a.m. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md) and members of the Maryland Congressional delegation will give remarks at SAIC Cyber Innovation Center for its opening. Franklin Center, 6841 Benjamin Franklin Drive, Columbia, Md.

Watercooler

AG—Facebook outages late last week had some Internet sages wondering whether the the downtime wrought havoc on the virtual agriculture sector. Farmers, worried their crops would go untended and their pets unfed, turned to Twitter to register their panic about “the drought of September 23, 2010.” But Zynga, the Farmville developer, took immediate steps to limit the damages: the company urged farmers to to access their crops at Farmville.com and shut off the the “wither” and “puppy hunger” functions, preventing plants from dying and animals from running away.