News

Kick back a few and remember that today our great nation freed itself. Hopefully we can continue to be the exceptional nation that we are and always have been.

Amazon is once again threatening to cut off all its affiliates in CA if a new tax rule comes down. Instead of merely having a location in the state to collect taxes, the rule would force Amazon to collect sales tax if there was an affiliate in the state. This shouldn't be the case since Amazon has no presence in California. If Amazon cuts the affiliates in that state, I'm sure quite a few people will lose their jobs.

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"If any of these new tax collection schemes were adopted, Amazon would be compelled to end its advertising relationships with well over 10,000 California-based participants in the Amazon 'Associates Program,'" Misener wrote in the letter, dated February 24.

The letter is the latest move for Amazon in its battle with states over sales tax collection. Cash-strapped states claim online retailers that don't collect taxes are depriving states of revenue and enjoy an unfair competitive advantage over local retailers that must collect taxes. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that retailers can't be forced to collect sales tax on out-of-state shipments unless they have offices in those states.

Amazon has no physical presence in California, but some states have enacted laws that require retailers to collect sales tax if they have affiliates based in that state. Affiliates place ads for retailers on their Web sites and get paid when customers make purchases via the ads.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20038094-93.html

And the world keeps moving. I'm pretty sure that most people and companies want less regulation to get in the way. Sure, I think the FCC has overstepped its bounds. I thought the FCC was supposed to worry about frequency use? Why are they dabbling into content censorship and such?

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Meanwhile, in Europe, Vodafone's Colao said that he feels comfortable with how European regulators have handled the issue.

"The way that regulators have dealt with the Net neutrality issue in Europe is healthy," he said. "It recognizes the competitive environment. And I think it's something that U.S. regulators can learn from."

But he said that issues dealing with inter-carrier compensation, or the way operators compensate one other for accessing networks, need to be revisited. Specifically, the government tariffs that are charged to access networks between countries are too high, which leads to higher prices for wireless consumers.

I have no idea how the European phone systems work in terms of payments and fees, but the article mentions that growth of text messaging and interoperability. Since that time when texting was cheap/free, we've gone up to 20 cents per message for something that is basically free for the carrier. I'm not saying government regulation is the answer, but I thought price fixing was illegal? Where you see competition work is with the iPhone right now. VZW and AT&T are battling on prices and plans. This is the way it should work.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-20031937-78.html

It seems that the bill that would allow the President to selectively disable internet services to parties is coming back in the new Congress. Let's see if the new Republican majority in the house would allow a vote on it considering their rule that a bill must be grounded in the Constitution. The fact that this bill is even proposed is terrible. You can't give a single person (the President) the power to block communications. There is no judicial review! And what's to stop the government from declaring dissenting political views are illegal and block every single site they don't agree with. What are we now? China?

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The revised version includes new language saying that the federal government's designation of vital Internet or other computer systems "shall not be subject to judicial review." Another addition expanded the definition of critical infrastructure to include "provider of information technology," and a third authorized the submission of "classified" reports on security vulnerabilities. ...

Lieberman, who recently announced he would not seek re-election in 2012, said last year that enactment of his bill needed to be a top congressional priority. "For all of its 'user-friendly' allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets," he said.

Civil libertarians and some industry representatives have repeatedly raised concerns about the various proposals to give the executive branch such broad emergency power. On the other hand, as Lieberman and Collins have highlighted before, some companies, including Microsoft, Verizon, and EMC Corporation, have said positive things about the initial version of the bill.

But last month's rewrite that bans courts from reviewing executive branch decrees has given companies new reason to worry. "Judicial review is our main concern," said Steve DelBianco, director of the NetChoice coalition, which includes eBay, Oracle, Verisign, and Yahoo as members. "A designation of critical information infrastructure brings with it huge obligations for upgrades and compliance."

In some cases, DelBianco said, a company may have a "good-faith disagreement" with the government's ruling and would want to seek court review. "The country we're seeking to protect is a country that respects the right of any individual to have their day in court," he said. "Yet this bill would deny that day in court to the owner of infrastructure."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20029282-281.html

In another attempt to show that the government is "for the people," congress has approved the CALM Act. Don't you love the naming of these bills? The act gives more control to the FCC over TV commercials. They say that some commercials are so loud that people are annoyed by them and complain. BOO HOO! Congress is late to the party, again. Most TVs have a true volume setting that normalizes the maximum volume allowed. This means that the problem has already been solved without regulation.

With the increased power to the FCC, expect things to go horribly wrong. I'm sure Congress was happy to get this passed in such quick timing since there are no other lingering issues plaguing America like a looming tax increase and endless unemployment.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/12/02/calm-act-clears-congress-lowering-volume-on-loud-tv-ads/

As if it wasn't bad enough already, Schumer (the schmuck from NY-D) and Graham (the moron from SC-R) want to add in a national ID card to an immigration bill. This is how it starts, people! We have never, ever, been a nation of "let me see your papers" and this just flies in the face of that.

Schumer and Graham are both progressives, regardless of the party you see them in. Instead of fixing the problem (like not having wide open borders so illegal aliens come in), they try to put a bandage on it by throwing more government at the problem.

Do you honestly think that this ID card will stop at workers? There aren't many times I agree with the ACLU, but this is one of them. It is completely un-American and I hope the voters in NY and SC get rid of these two losers.

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A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said.

The card requirement also would be phased in among employers, beginning with industries that typically rely on illegal-immigrant labor.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't have a position on the proposal, but it is concerned that employers would find it expensive and complicated to properly check the biometrics.

Mr. Schumer said employers would be able to buy a scanner to check the IDs for as much as $800. Small employers, he said, could take their applicants to a government office to like the Department of Motor Vehicles and have their hands scanned there.

See. Now the government is in control of all the jobs in the private economy. That doesn't sound like a free market to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't want American jobs going to illegal aliens, period. Fix the problem, not the symptom.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575110124037066854.html

I don't hide the fact that I'm a libertarian and one of the tenets of that is to uphold personal freedoms and have a limited federal government. The Federal Government wants to intrude on one of the most basic rights that we are given when we are created, the ability to speak freely and openly; I mean, on the internet. The government wants power to oversee areas of the internet and wants to be able to control certain aspects.

Let's look at their comments.

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In the physical world, I associate the dynamics of a natural ecosystem with two important concepts: first, the presence of some set of biological laws such as natural selection, that second, leads to a balance or equilibrium state so that even when there is a disturbance these natural operations and laws bring the ecosystem back to a equilibrium state (maybe different than before, but an equilibrium).

Applying this concept to the online ecosystem could lead us to accept the idea that the Internet is self-regulating and there is some natural order that will always emerge no matter how the system may be disturbed. From this concept some argue that policymakers should just leave the Internet alone.

In fact, "leaving the Internet alone" has been the nation’s Internet policy since the Internet was first commercialized in the mid-1990s. The primary government imperative then was just to get out of the way to encourage its growth. And the policy set forth in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was: "to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation."

This was the right policy for the United States in the early stages of the Internet, and the right message to send to the rest of the world. But that was then and this is now.

That was then and this is now? What changed? You don't think that the internet has become a medium to allow political views to be disseminated to large audiences of like minded people would be the cause? No... Couldn't be. My question to you, why is it when something works does the Federal Government want to regulate it?

What's the purpose of the Federal Government regulating the internet? This is what the document says are problems.

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• If users do not trust that their credit card numbers and private information are safe on the Internet, they won’t use it.
• If content providers do not trust that their content will be protected, they will threaten to stop putting it online.
• If large enterprises don’t have confidence that their network will not be breached over the Internet, they will disconnect their network and limit access to business partners and customers.
• If foreign governments do not trust the Internet governance systems, they will threaten to balkanize the Domain Name System which will jeopardize the worldwide reach of the Internet.

People won't buy stuff on the internet? Please, what are the Feds looking at? The next three are FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) trying to evoke a emotional knee-jerk reaction. All the points are unfounded and even if they were, government needs to stay out and let the internet manage itself as it has done for a long time.

What are the goals of this new policy?

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• Privacy policy. Here’s the question: How can we enable the development of innovative new services and applications that will make intensive use of personal information but at same time protect users against harm and unwanted intrusion into their privacy? We are launching a series of listening sessions this spring with industry, advocates and academics in the field, and will follow up with a notice of inquiry and public outreach events.
• Child protection and Freedom of Expression: As more children go online, how do we ensure proper targeting of law enforcement resources against serious crime while remembering that most important line of defense against harmful content is the well- informed and engaged parent or teacher? Later this year, the Online Safety Technology Working Group, created by Congress and convened by NTIA, will issue a report on the state of the art in child protection strategies online.
• Cybersecurity: How do we meet the security challenge posed by the global Internet which will require increased law enforcement and private sector technology innovation yet respect citizen privacy and protect civil liberties. We’re participating in a Commerce Department cybersecurity initiative that will address these issues, particularly as they relate to improving the preparedness of industry for cyber attacks.
• Copyright protection: How do we protect against illegal piracy of copyrighted works and intellectual property on the Internet while preserving the rights of users to access lawful content? NTIA and our sister agency at the Department of Commerce, the US Patent and Trademark Office, are beginning a comprehensive consultation process that will help the Administration develop a forward-looking set of policies to address online copyright infringement in a balanced, Internet-savvy manner.
• Internet Governance: In our role administering the Federal government’s relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), how do we ensure that ICANN serves the public interest and conducts its activities with the openness and transparency that the global Internet community demands? Last fall, NTIA and ICANN set forth a framework for technical coordination of the naming and numbering system and I am looking forward to soon participating in the first of the administrative reviews to ensure that these commitments are carried out in full.

Slippery slope? No, it is a avalanche and we're in the face of it. If you let the Federal Government do this, it will be the end of the internet as you and I know it. What happens when the Feds find something they don't approve of on the internet? You think that child porn is the only thing? No political views would ever be suppressed? Hmm...

Read it for yourself: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/presentations/2010/MediaInstitute_02242010.html

The USA has finally switched to DTV and of course the FCC has mandated technologies that are patented by companies and those patents aren't released to the public. It is said that each DTV tuner costs $40 to the patent holders (strangely, the coupons are $40 for those converters... hmm?).

This sort of government forcing people to use non-free technology is terrible and those patents should become public domain. Oh, most people that have received over the air analog TV will probably notice many stations that they now won't receive. DTV doesn't die gracefully as analog TV did.

We need to stop how companies force these technologies on the market through the government. The FCC is horrible corrupt and needs to be disbanded.

If you still get over the air analog TV, that's it. Time to get a digital tuner.

If anyone is happy about the bill that cleared the house taxing bonuses given to people out of this AIG mess, you are sorely in for hurt. It is very scary when the government can target a group of people it doesn't like and assess a punitive tax on them. This bill is clearly unconstitutional.

If this law passes and the judicial system doesn't throw it out, what's to stop the government from taxes an individual person? What's to stop the government from using tax as a threat to every single business and individual?

The AIG bonuses are another issue. They are under CONTRACT. Contract law is the cornerstone of America. It is as important as the constitution. Government CANNOT void contracts. If the government voids contracts, our country is as good as done. What faith would I put in a contract that can be easily voided when it becomes unpopular? I'm sorry, this is one big slippery slope of ice.

Both parties are morally inept. Both Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of this bill in the House. Everyone that voted for this bill should be impeached as they have violated their oath of office. You know, the one that says they will uphold the constitution.

If the Senate does pass this bill, I HOPE that the people being targeted sue the government. This is a totally unconstitutional bill and a good example of how despair causes huge problems when you have a mob mentality and people in power that are totally moronic and don't understand the laws they are supposed to protect.

From: We The People...

To: The Federal, State, and Local Governments of The USA

Why is there concern over over $165 Million in bonuses being paid by AIG under CONTRACT? The government saw fit to give that company $170 BILLION dollars without strings. Now you are so concerned about how those billions of dollars are being spent? Why is that? WHY? Are the polls stating that all these bailouts are being hated by the people? I see, you now use some minor thing to "rally" the country around AIG bonuses...

Sorry, We The People don't agree with what congress is doing. AIG had these contracts in place. Contract law is PARAMOUNT in America. Once the government can void contracts, what good is anything in this country anymore?

To Chuck Schumer, your true colors are showing. I thought we weren't supposed to sweat the small stuff? Was that the gist of the argument for the so-called "stimulus" bill? Or the outrageous budget bill with 9000 in earmarks from both parties? So why do you want to go after one tenth of 1% of the money? That seems like a waste of resources. Oh, you're sweating the small stuff? I though so. Sorry Chuck, you failed. You failed America. We The People don't believe the government has the right to take away money earned. We need Change We Can Believe In! Where did that go?

The moment this country provided corporate welfare was our downfall. We are screwed. Welcome to the new socialist America, comrade. We The People are not amused. We The People will fight for what this country stands for. We The People are this country, not the government. We The People will show you how we feel.

When you have someone that can try to sue for an obvious business method patent, the system is flawed. It is worse than that. This dude thinks that he can patent the method of providing marketing for a company for a profit. Wow, marketing for a company? How novel... And how would that ever be patentable?

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There you go, folks. Reductio ad absurdum: a company is a machine, or at least analogous to one, kinda sorta like one. Therefore any process or method they come up with to do business would be patentable, presumably, in that universe. Well. Could someone please patent what Wall Street just did to the economy, and then refuse to license the "invention", so as to prevent those dudes from ever doing it again? Or just patent flaming greed, will you, somebody? Do the rest of us a favor and get it off the table or at least constrained.

The court rejected that claim about a company being analogous to a machine, but Justice Pauline Newman, while agreeing with the majority, nevertheless argued that it's good for the economy to have business methods patents, so we shouldn't go too far in limiting them. *Too far*?!

That's the problem with judges, they don't answer to anyone.

It turns out that everyone's fears about the RFID passport (the card, not the book) are true. A person can sit back with a cheap RFID reader and get enough info to clone your passport from far enough away. The US government does a good job of keeping Americans in check. That means that any person with a RFID reader can determine who is an American citizen. Do you feel safe now?

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Chris Paget, director of research and development at Seattle-based IOActive, used a US$250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna mounted in a car’s side window and drove for 20 minutes around San Francisco, with a colleague videoing the demonstration. During the demonstration he picked up the details of two US passport cards, which are fitted with RFID chips and can be used instead of traditional passports for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. “I personally believe that RFID is very unsuitable for tagging people,” he said. “I don’t believe we should have any kind of identity document with RFID tags in them. My ultimate goal here would be, my dream for this research, would be to see the entire Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative be scrapped.”

Many new security additions only serve to limit our rights. Stop allowing the government to take away our rights and privacy!

The new economic stimulus (which is a terrible idea by SPENDING instead of CUTTING to get out of a hole) will have loads of pork attached to it. Net neutrality makes a comeback. Government needs to step out of private matters. Do not give government control of internet use. Mark my words, too many people trust the government. I've ALWAYS said that we need smaller government and it looks like the next few years are going to make the government bigger than Bush did.

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The Bush administration has taken a dim view of Internet regulations in the form of Net neutrality rules, warning last year that they could "inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare, and there is reason to believe that the kinds of broad marketplace restrictions proposed in the name of 'neutrality' would do just that, with respect to the Internet." A report from the Federal Trade Commission reached the same conclusion in 2007. In addition, a recent study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that the absence of Net neutrality laws or similar federally mandated regulations has spurred telecommunications companies to invest heavily in infrastructure, and changing the rules "would have a devastating effect on the U.S. economy, investment, and innovation." Now, perhaps extensive Net neutrality regulations are wise. But enough people seem to have honest, deep-seated reservations about them to justify a sincere discussion of costs and benefits--rather than having the requirements stealthily injected into what supposed to be an emergency save-the-economy bill scheduled for a floor vote within a week or so.

Stop giving the government more control over private business. The other problem is the riders that keep getting attached to bills. This should be illegal to do since it has nothing to do with the initial bill. There's a reason it is called pork. It is legal spam.

Remember that issue? The EFF is still fighting against the retro-active immunity. Why does a so-called conservative person piss all over the Constitution?

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Nonetheless, last summer Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), a law that gives the U.S. attorney general the power to immunize telecom companies from lawsuits that accuse them of conducting unlawful spying at the bequest of the U.S. government.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Carl Nichols told Walker that the proper decision was to toss out the lawsuits and not second guess the Bush administration.

Nonsense, said Cindy Cohn, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for the rights of Internet users. EFF has brought a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on behalf of customers and accuses AT&T of turning over communication records to the National Security Agency. On Tuesday, Cohn and the EFF asked Walker to throw out the federal statute and to tell Congress to start over.

As if anyone didn't already know this... Indiana has proved it. We should kill off DST already. Stop changing the dates, just kill it.

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These findings are consistent with simulation results that point to a tradeoff between reducing demand for lighting and increasing demand for heating and cooling. We estimate a cost of increased electricity bills to Indiana households of $9 million per year. We also estimate social costs of increased pollution emissions that range from $1.7 to $5.5 million per year. Finally, we argue that the effect is likely to be even stronger in other regions of the United States.

And who's to blame? BANKS. And what do people want now? A huge world bank. Surprise! Deep recessions and depressions cause banks to become more powerful. In 1929, the US banking system grew out of that problem (artificially created by the bankers themselves). I can't believe that people are so blinded by the fact that banks WANT this. Why do you think they are hording all the capital they get? Every action screws people more and more.

This Emergency Economic Stabilization Act did absolutely nothing except give banks more power over the government (or I should say give the corruption in government grant more power to the banks). What a surprise that the markets went way down after the bill was passed.

If this whole situation isn't a farce, I don't know what is. Banks are taking over. It is time to step up and DEMAND that we take back control of our own currency!

DNSSEC will be imposed on all .gov sites by next year. Why this wasn't done sooner is beyond me. At least they are wising up to this stuff.

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DNSSEC prevents hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites. The Internet standard prevents spoofing attacks by allowing Web sites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses using digital signatures and public-key encryption. With DNSSEC deployed, federal Web sites "are less prone to be hacked into, and it means they can offer their services with greater assurances to the public," says Leslie Daigle, Chief Internet Technology Officer for the Internet Society. "DNSSEC means more confidence in government online services."

As a follow up to my previous post on this subject, it seems that the US Federal Reserve decided it would be good to bail out more companies and the Treasury will fund those bailouts. Why isn't anyone up in arms about this?

Lehman Brothers wasn't bailed out, yet AIG was? If this situation isn't a perfect example of saving their own buddies, I don't know what is. The US Federal Reserve needs to be disbanded and we need to turn back to a proper monetary standard. You can't keep injecting cash (were does that come from?) into the market. Our currency is taking a dump again thanks to the government-banking complex. It is time the people take control and speak to your politicians. If enough of you speak up, things might get done.

Stop complaining and start acting. These bailouts are the wrong choice and it is the financial corporations that are making out like bandits from our own money. These companies should just die and let the market bare the results.

Before you say anything, I have a load of money in the stock market and it does cause me grief. It causes me more grief to watch our government continue to march towards socialism. The Federal Reserve has failed and the Tax Act of 1913 really screwed up this country. Time to go back to gold.

I try not to really step into politics that much on ASE Labs except when it comes to freedoms and digital matters, but I'm truly appalled at what the US government is doing with the financial institutions.

Let me give my thoughts on what I THOUGHT the USA was: I thought the the United States of America was a capitalist society. Granted, I understand that a pure capitalist society may harbor problems such as monopolies and such, which is why we have limits on such activity. Even so, business in America is capitalistic. Private entities own them and run them. Government DOES NOT own or run them. They may regulate some industries (utilities or things that provide life giving services like power and water), but all in all, they stay out of the way.

What the government proved when they decided to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is that it is a SOCIALIST entity. These two companies ARE private entities and as such the government should not get into their affairs to help them when THEY SCREWED THEMSELVES. Think about this, the government now owns those companies. See a problem with this? Or are you blinded by how well your stocks are doing now?

When big businesses don't need to worry about falling under due to bad choices or risk, what is the point of providing a good service to the market? The problem is the US government, not the closing of these two companies. If these two companies were destined to close, then so be it. They are private and it is their problem, NOT THE TAX PAYERS. Do not throw me the line about how the economy will suffer. What you need to understand is that the people that decided to bail these companies out ARE IN BED with the group that controls the money. Everyone on the board of those companies should be indicted and the Treasury secretary needs to be removed and perhaps charges be brought against him. This is absolute lunacy when the people let things like this slip by unnoticed. The board of those companies should not walk free.

Letting these things pass by is the start of very, very bad things for this country. Call your politicians now and let them know that you are NOT in favor of turning America into a socialist country. I know I'm making the call to all of them in my state.

I do not enjoy watching my country that I grew up knowing that it is the best country in the world fall by the government-banking complex. Break this trend now, let the country go back into capitalism and stop these banking bailouts.

Seriously. Can someone explain how the country got so screwed up that we started taxing everything? This country was founed on individual NOT paying income tax and the greedy bankers and corrupt politicians made the tax act of 1919 that forced an income tax on everyone. Now we've got all these sales taxes from different states and the like. Now they want to try to tax digital downloads. This is really appalling. The government should really butt the hell out and start repealing taxes. I guess since that jerk Corzine took office in NJ, we'll never see 6% sales tax ever again. Thanks for your big help with our budgets. You really helped everyone out by raising those taxes... Have there been any states that lowered their sales tax? This country is really heading down the toilet. The government thinks it's okay that most of our paycheck goes to pay it's salaries. That's utter crap. You get taxed on income, taxed on goods you purchase... Ohh, if it is luxury goods, that gets extra taxing. Don't forget the use tax (the way the states try to recoup the lost sales tax from out of state purchases, greedy bastards). Social Security, Medicade/Medicare, An average person probably loses 50% (or more) of their wages to some form of tax. This is truly a problem that no politicians care about since they are all greedy and corrupt. We are heading into an economic crisis (not there yet) and all they want to do is raise taxes.

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Russian troops in the South Ossetian capital said their artillery had begun firing at Georgian forces, Russian news agencies reported.
Russia's president earlier promised to defend his citizens in South Ossetia.
Moscow's defence ministry said more than 10 of its peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia had been killed and 30 wounded in the Georgian offensive. At least 15 civilians are also reported dead.

Amid international calls for restraint, Georgia's president said 150 Russian tanks and other vehicles had entered South Ossetia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili says he is willing to agree an immediate ceasefire
He told CNN: "Russia is fighting a war with us in our own territory."

Linky.

I hope this can be ended soon, though I'm not optimistic of that happening. This is the result of 15 years of stress between the two countries, and I think Russia will use it to prove a point (make an example, if you will) before they agree to a cease-fire.

So much for the IOC saying that internet access would be unrestricted to reporters. Anyone else see a huge problem bringing the Olympics to a place like China now? The fact that they are censoring a public forum really leads one to wonder how the IOC decided to host in China (among thousands of other things). Come to think of it, the guise of child pornography is going to be the start of censorship in America... Oops, already is. Nice job USA.

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"I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on Web site access during games time," IOC press chief Kevan Gosper told Reuters, referring to Beijing's Olympic organizers. "I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered games related."

The revelation came a day after journalists learned that organizers had backtracked on earlier guarantees that journalists would have access to an uncensored Internet at the Main Press Center and athletic venues. The announcement meant that thousands of reporters working in Beijing during the next several weeks won't have access to a multitude of sites deemed embarrassing to the Chinese government, such as Amnesty International or any sites related to the crackdown in Tibet or the banned spiritual group Falun Gong.

Sorry, IOC. You failed. You didn't hold up to your end of the bargain. If you had any balls, you would have said no games for you to China if they stopped meeting your terms. Walking away is one of the best negotiation tools and you morons couldn't see that.

Have a good time and enjoy celebrating the birthday of our great nation. Remember to thank those who are currently fighting and have previously fought for our country and remember to be safe.

It still figures that the government doesn't know how to stay away from technology it doesn't under. And PARENTS need to learn how to stop their kids from doing stuff they don't want them to do. It really isn't hard to say NO to your child. This new generation of parents are becoming so weak and so helpless that they are crying for the government to take control of their lives so they don't have to raise their own kids anymore. These laws take away freedoms we've had on the internet. Do not give government more power just because you can't do your job. You brought a new life into the world, you should take care of it.

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Lawmakers are seeking to address cyberbullying with new legislation because there's currently no specific law on the books that deals with it. A fairly new federal cyberstalking law might address such acts, according to Aftab, but no one has been prosecuted under it yet. The proposed federal law would make it illegal to use electronic means to "coerce, intimidate, harass or cause other substantial emotional distress."

When signed, the Missouri state law will update existing regulations on harassment and stalking to include instances of those acts over the Internet, text message, or other electronic device. It will make cyberbullying punishable by up to four years in jail.

So you can't get into debates anymore because someone's feelings might get hurt. It is pretty sad when this country has become a bunch of whiny, spineless sheep.

The title was a bit finicky, but the NJ Supreme Court (that means only the state of NJ) has ruled that an ISP cannot give information without a warrant from a grand jury. Basically that means that in NJ, you are safe from the state institutions against privacy violations. Sadly, this does nothing about the federal level.

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"The New Jersey Supreme Court is the first in the nation to recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy when using the internet anonymously," said Trenton-based attorney Grayson Barber, who represented six privacy rights organizations as a friend of the court. "'I think this reflects the reality that most people do expect a measure of privacy when they are using the internet anonymously."

The unanimous seven-member court held that police do have the right to seek a user's private information when investigating a crime involving a computer, but must follow legal procedures. The court said authorities do not have to warn a suspect that they have a grand jury subpoena to obtain the information.

That's a reminder. If you are committing a crime, the authorities just need to get a warrant for the information.

As if you didn't need more proof. The FBI caused a delay in getting information to say it needs more power. More power meaning no warrants and the like... you know, 1984.

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Counterterrorism officials in FBI headquarters slowed an investigation into a possible conspirator in the 2005 London bombings by forcing a field agent to return documents acquired from a U.S. university. Why? Because the agent received the documents through a lawful subpoena, while headquarters wanted him to demand the records under the USA Patriot Act, using a power the FBI did not have, but desperately wanted.

When a North Carolina State University lawyer correctly rejected the second records demand, the FBI obtained another subpoena. Two weeks later, the delay was cited by FBI director Robert Mueller in congressional testimony as proof that the USA Patriot Act needed to be expanded.

The strange episode is recounted in newly declassified documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents shed new light on how senior FBI officials' determination to gain independence from judicial oversight slowed its own investigation, and led the bureau's director to offer inaccurate testimony to Congress. The revelations are likely to play a key role in Capitol Hill hearings Tuesday and Wednesday on the FBI's use of so-called national security letters, or NSLs

Here we have direct evidence that our subpoena system works and the information was obtained, yet the FBI thought that wasn't good enough. This is supposed to be America. Citizens are supposed to have rights, you know, like that piece of paper called the Constitution?

I'm really appalled at what I'm hearing in the news. We are going to use our own satellites against us. This follows a report that the administration pushed a bill through that retroactively stops people from suing telecoms for ILLEGALLY wiretapping them. Hey America, 1984 called...

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The charter and legal framework for an office within the Homeland Security Department that would use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites is in the final stage of completion, according to a department official who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about it. The future of this program is likely to come up Wednesday when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff goes to Capitol Hill to talk about his department's spending plan. Last fall, senior Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee asked the department to put the program on hold until there was a clear legal framework of how the program would operate. This request came during an ongoing debate over the rules governing eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists inside the United States.

The DHS is one of the worst bureaucracies we have. There is too much cruft in government. We need to have a much smaller government. Where are the true conservative Republicans when we need them? Bush is NOT a conservative in this regard.

I thought we weren't living in Soviet Russia? The DHS wants to increase the Real ID provisions to include buying some OTC drugs. Do not let this kind of crap fool you. More security provisions (which don't secure a damn thing) like this keep eroding our privacy and freedoms till we have nothing. Don't let the government do this.

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His comment came five days after the agency released final rules implementing the REAL ID Act of 2005 that made no mention of such requirements. It mandates the establishment uniform standards and procedures that must be met before state-issued licenses can be accepted as identification for official purposes.

Beyond boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings or nuclear facilities, there are no other official purposes spelled out in the regulations. And that's just what concerns people at the Center for Democracy and Technology. They say Baker's statement underscores "mission creep," in which the scope and purpose of the REAL ID Act gradually expands over time.

What a scary time we live in thank to the 'terrorists.' The people have to fight against the government because of them taking our rights away. Terrorists have won?

The copyright cartels worked their lobbying magic and weeded a clause into a federal student aid bill. The bill DENIES any college that doesn't install filtering software on their internet connection, as well as brainwash their students into how copyrights are totally good for society, any federal funding. The MPAA says that that's how it should be. Sorry, college is about learning. Don't bring corporate policy into government spending on education. Call your congressmoron and say no to HR4137 or remove the copyright mandate.

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The bill also would hang an unspoken threat over the heads of university administrators. In response to concerns that potential penalties for universities could include a loss of federal student aid funding, the MPAA's top lawyer in Washington said that federal funds should be at risk when copyright infringement happens on campus networks. Moreover, earlier versions of "Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention" proposals nakedly sought to make schools that received numerous copyright infringement notices subject to review by the US Secretary of Education.

Japan may be taking a step closer to restrictive content and such on the Internet. America is already heading down that path, we might as well drag everyone with us.

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While the cases of Internet regulation and mobile phone filtering primarily revolve on concerns over content, the third government policy proposal advanced this month in the domain of online communication targets the area of content transfer. On December 18th, the Private Music and Video Recording Subcommittee of Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, an advisory body under the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (Monbukagakusho), held a meeting to re-examine Article 30 of Japan's Copyright Law. With respect to online file transfer, the existing law currently bans uploading of copyrighted material onto public websites, while permitting copies for personal use only [12,13,14].

The quote I picked was done because of the RIAJ (which is the Japanese counterpart to the RIAA, of course).