Senate Says Amateur Journalists Don't Deserve Shield Protection

from the and-why-not? dept

Congress has been working on a federal "shield" law that that allows journalists to protect their sources. This is an important concept, and many states already have local laws on that front. Unfortunately, as the Senate was working on its version of the bill, it's apparently decided that the law should only apply to professional journalists who make their living that way. If you happen to just write a blog post that exposes some sort of wrong, you'll have no shield protections. Or if you write for a participatory media site and blow a whistle, again, you'll have no shield protection for your sources. While not all that surprising (do you really think our Senators understand the value of participatory journalism), it's still disappointing.

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Senate Opening Up? Offers Up Vote Data In XML Format

from the fun-to-watch dept

There's been a big push lately to get the gov't to be a lot more open with its data, and both the new federal government CTO and CIO have spoken up about the importance of opening up more data. While it may take some time, we are starting to see things happen -- and happen quickly in some cases. Apparently, the Senate agreed (despite some reservations) to make the data from Senate votes available in an open XML format, and just a few days later that data is available. This is absolutely a good thing, but the real test will be seeing what people do with this and other open government data sources. It's nice to report on the government doing something right every once in a while....

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Senate Gives The White House A Copyright Czar

from the have-fun-with-it dept

The Senate has now unanimously passed the new entertainment industry-approved copyright legislation that was proposed by Senator Leahy earlier this year. After the Justice Department complained about the provision that would grant it the ability to take on civil cases, that provision was removed, but there's still plenty to be worried about by the bill -- such as the creation of a "copyright czar" position in the White House. While some of the worst provisions were removed, this still remains a bill that has one purpose: to protect an obsolete business model, rather than letting more innovative models proliferate.

The House still needs to vote on its version of the bill, but it's quite likely to pass quickly.

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Senate Panel Approves Bill To Make The Justice Dep't Hollywood's Private Police Force

from the travesty-of-justice dept

We were just talking about how a huge number of public interest groups had explained to the Senate why the new Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act was a such terrible idea since it would add a Copyright Czar in the White House and let the FBI file civil charges against people caught infringing on copyrights. After all, there's simply no logical explanation for why the FBI should be propping up the obsolete business model of an industry that refuses to change with the market.

However, it appears that public interest groups don't fund campaigns like the entertainment industry does. The Senate Judiciary Committee has gone ahead and approved moving the bill forward by a 14-4 margin, basically handing over Justice Department resources to Hollywood to protect its business model with no real justification.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy's explanation is pretty stunning in its ignorance:

"We all know that intellectual property makes up some of the most valuable, and most vulnerable, property we have. We need to do more to protect it from theft and abuse if we hope to continue being a world leader in innovation."

Can someone send him a copy of Against Intellectual Monopoly so he can understand how nearly every part of that sentence is wrong. First off, intellectual property, despite the name, is not "property" at all. It's also not "vulnerable" except if you mean that there are better business models out there for dealing with. He gives no convincing reason why we should "protect" it, other than a factually untrue statement about "theft," when infringement and theft are two totally different things and should be dealt with in two totally different ways. Finally, studies have shown that the more "protected" IP is, the less innovation results, so his final clause is simply backwards. This bill will serve to limit American innovation, and open up more foreign innovation instead. But, as long as it means the RIAA doesn't need to innovate...

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Groups Urge Senate Not To Turn The Justice Department Into Hollywood's Private Police Force

from the bad,-bad,-bad-ideas dept

As we noted earlier this summer, Senator Patrick Leahy had introduced a companion bill to the House's dreadful Pro-IP bill, except that Leahy's bill went further. Beyond just adding a "Copyright Czar" position to the White House, it would authorize the Justice Department to start prosecuting civil copyright infringement lawsuits. In other words, it would have the government act as the private police for of the entertainment industry. This is scary stuff. Beyond already handing out unnecessary gov't granted monopolies, the gov't would now be using taxpayer money to settle business disputes from an industry that was only in trouble because it stubbornly refused to update its business model.

It's difficult to see why taxpayers should be paying FBI agents to protect one industry's obsolete business model.

A bunch of special interest groups made that argument to Senators this week, noting that it was a pure gift to Hollywood -- pointing out that all of the companies and groups in the industry already have their own enforcement arms, and it made little sense to have the FBI take part in private business disputes. Hopefully, there are still enough Senators who haven't been convinced by the propaganda provided by the entertainment industry on this issue to recognize what's actually at stake here.

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Feingold Points Out That DHS's Chertoff Is Misleading On Border Laptop Searches

from the reasonable-cause? dept

Following the release of Homeland Security's policies for searching laptops at the border, where the rules are, effectively, "anything goes," DHS boss Michael Chertoff claimed that laptop searches were only done when the border guard had a "suspicion" and placed that individual in "secondary inspection." However, Senator Russ Feingold has now hit back, pointing out that the official DHS policies say absolutely nothing about there needing to be a suspicion or that laptop searches only happen on secondary inspection. If Chertoff were being honest, why wouldn't those things be in the official policy? And, if Chertoff insists that DHS will only do searches when there is a real suspicion, what's wrong with following the "probable cause" standard that it insists it should be allowed to ignore? It's nice to see Senator Feingold asking these questions.

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Senator Introduces Unconstitutional Bill To Ban Sale Of Certain Video Games To Minors

from the apparently-wants-to-challenge-the-constitution dept

We were just talking about how New York State was about to become the latest in a long line of states to waste taxpayer money fighting for an unconstitutional law requiring video games to be labeled and also banning the sale of certain video games to children. Nearly a dozen states have tried to introduce similar legislation, and every time they've been rejected by courts as unconstitutional. Every time. There is simply no excuse for politicians to introduce another one of these laws. The courts have been clear that those laws aren't just unconstitutional, but can even be harmful to children.

Now we've got the federal government getting in on the game as well. I was just looking over some of the latest bills introduced in Congress via the always excellent Washington Watch and what do I see, but a newly introduced bill in the Senate that would require "age-based content rating labels" and ban the sale or rental of games with adult content to minors. Of course, video games are already rated via a voluntary rating system (same as movies), and most video game stores already ban the sale of such games to kids. Plus, oh yeah, there's that whole First Amendment issue.

So, what, exactly does Sen. Roger Wicker hope to accomplish in introducing such a bill, other than to potentially waste taxpayer money in a lawsuit that will clearly be lost?

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Now The Senate Wants To Add A Copyright Czar To The White House

from the business-model,-not-a-legal-issue dept

The House of Representatives passed the highly questionable Pro IP bill a few months ago. This bill, which would strengthen copyright law, just as many are realizing it should be headed in the other direction, would also establish a "Copyright Czar" position that would be part of the Executive Branch. Why we need a special Czar to prop up an obsolete business model has not been explained, beyond the usual propaganda from those who rely on that business model. It's quite clear from all the companies we see who are succeeding by changing to new business models that don't rely on copyright that this is a business model issue, not a legal one. But, Congress receives plenty of donations from Big Copyright, so it's no surprise that we see laws protecting it.

The Senate has now weighed in with its version of the law. The bill was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, who has received plenty of campaign contributions from Big Copyright. His explanation of the bill is basically the talking points of the industry, showing that Senator Leahy is clearly out of touch with what's really happening with copyright these days:

"The time has come to bolster the Federal effort to protect this most valuable and vulnerable property, to give law enforcement the resources and the tools it needs to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and to make sure that the many agencies that deal with intellectual property enforcement have the opportunity and the incentive to talk with each other, to coordinate their efforts, and to achieve the maximum effects for their efforts. This bill does just that."

Except, of course, the only thing "vulnerable" is an unnecessary business model built on gov't granted monopolies, and there's no explanation why such a commercial issue can't be dealt with by civil lawsuits, rather than criminal ones. As it stands, Leahy is basically making the Federal government the private police of a particular industry, granting it much more power than is reasonable or needed.

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Senate Sells Out The Country: Approves Telco Immunity

from the sickening dept

Well so much for the attempts to filibuster and block telco immunity from being approved. The Senate has granted the telcos immunity with a 69 to 28 vote, effectively handing the President a "get out of jail free" card to not just protect the telcos, but to hide any evidence that the administration's warrantless wiretapping program may have been illegal. This is a total capitulation, and goes against every concept of checks and balances our government was established under. The link above quotes Senator Orrin Hatch saying:

"Congress should not condone oversight through litigation."

That is, perhaps, one of the most ridiculous statements to come from a politician, and should destroy what little credibility Sen. Hatch may have. The Founding Fathers established three branches of government for exactly that reason: so that there was oversight. What Hatch is saying is that the judicial branch no longer should have any oversight. The idea that Congress should not condone the very basic purpose of the judicial branch of government suggests that Senator Hatch needs a civics lesson in the principles that this country was founded under.

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Bush Administration Admits That Telco Immunity More Important Than Increased Spying Power

from the doesn't-that-say-something? dept

While we had thought that Congress was going to easily roll over on the so-called (but not really) compromise bill on new surveillance powers that included telco immunity from potentially illegal acts committed in the past few years, there has been some pushback in the Senate, where the bill is finally about to come up for vote. Some Senators have put together an amendment stripping telco immunity from the bill, but leaving the increased surveillance powers in place. Amazingly, the Bush Administration has now said that if telco immunity is stripped from the bill, Bush will veto the bill, even if everything else is identical. In other words, all the talk you hear from politicians about how this bill is necessary to protect Americans is hogwash. If it were true, then it is simply unforgivable to veto the bill without telco immunity.

What has been made abundantly clear by this statement is that the US government does not need these extended surveillance powers at all. Its existing surveillance powers are quite sufficient. The entire purpose of this bill then, has absolutely nothing to do with security, and everything to do with making sure that the telcos (and the administration) do not have to defend their potentially illegal actions in court. If that were not the case, then the President would still be willing to approve the bill without telco immunity.

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Senate Vote On Telco Immunity Pushed Back

from the good-news dept

While the initial reports on the so-called "compromise" bill on FISA suggested that it would breeze through Congress, it appears that public outrage over this issue may have some Senators thinking twice. While the House did pass it, concern from some Senators has now delayed a vote on the bill until sometime after July 7th. That would suggest that a few Senators were serious about filibustering the bill unless telco immunity was taken out -- and those in favor of letting telcos off the hook didn't have enough votes to kill the filibuster. That doesn't mean this is over, however. You can rest assured that telco lobbyists will be pushing hard over the next week to get Senators over to their side. Hopefully, there will be enough public outrage over this issue that Senators will recognize that handing telcos "immunity" for potentially illegal acts is not the way Americans believe in due process. Even if you think the telcos did the right thing in obeying the government, isn't it only fair for that to be established by the courts?

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Senators Not Thrilled About Laptop Searches At The Border

from the back-off,-customs dept

It would appear that the EFF's efforts to get Congress to look into laptop searches at the border has worked. This is over the question of whether or not it's legal, with no suspicion of wrongdoing, for customs officials to take your laptop and search through the contents. Even if the courts have said it's legal, it still seems quite troubling to many people who believe it's an unreasonable search. Some Senators have now asked Customs to reconsider its stance on this, with Senator Russ Feingold noting:

"If you asked [U.S. residents] whether the government has a right to open their laptops, read their documents and e-mails, look at their photographs, and examine the Web sites they have visited, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing, I think those same Americans would say that the government has absolutely no right to do that. And if you asked him whether that actually happens, they would say, 'not in the United States of America.'"

Somehow, I doubt that these hearings will lead to much, but at least someone in DC is concerned about this issue.

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Senate Tries To Roll Back FCC Ownership Rules; Apparently Still Hasn't Heard Of The Internet

from the media-options dept

Late last year, the FCC decided to relax media ownership rules in a really minor way. Basically, with the FCC ruling, a newspaper could purchase an also-ran TV station. It could only buy a station that wasn't in the top 4 in the market. Yet, this got people up in arms over some nefarious "media consolidation" claims. Yet, these claims make no sense. There are more media outlets than ever before in history, and there are more ways and more sources to get your news from than ever before in history. Yes, many of them are online, but that doesn't change the fact that they exist. But apparently, the Senate is unaware of that. It has started a process to invalidate the FCC's changes, claiming that it's "not healthy for this country" to only have a few major media outlets. That might be a point worth debating if it were true, but it's not. Meanwhile, no one's explained what's so problematic about a newspaper company owning a TV station at the same time. Considering that it only applies to 5th ranked or beyond TV stations, it's not as if it will somehow block out the voices from other stations.

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Unnecessary Anti-Phishing Law Potentially Even Worse Than First Thought

from the totally-unnecessary-and-totally-damaging dept

Last month, we wrote about a bill proposed in the Senate that would outlaw phishing even though phishing is already illegal. If it merely restated that phishing was illegal, that would be one thing (a basic waste), but it also added some other points that were problematic, including taking away the right to anonymity in registering domain names. It turns out the bill may actually be much worse than that -- but it may depend on how it's read. The EFF has gone through the bill and claims that the bill would also outlaw the use of a trademark in a domain name. Thus, things like "sucks sites," which are currently legal, could now be considered illegal. The EFF also claims that it would not allow you the use of someone else's domain name in an email, web ad or on a website. As the EFF notes, if the domain name is used in a confusing manner, that's already a trademark violation. To completely ban it seems not just over the top, but dangerous. If you look through the text of the bill, it does seem to grant some leeway in determining what actually constitutes phishing, but it's certainly broad enough that the law can be abused. Considering that it isn't at all necessary since existing laws cover phishing, is there any reason to allow this bill to go forward, other than to have some Senators get a headline in their local newspapers about how they're tough on phishing?

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Senate Wants To Exempt Banks From Patent Infringement Lawsuit

from the why-an-exception? dept

The Senate seems to be really into granting immunity these days. Most folks know about the decision to grant telcos immunity for possible violations of the law, but in a much less well publicized situation, the Senate has moved to grant banks immunity from an ongoing patent lawsuit (found via Against Monopoly). While I agree that the patent seems questionable, and the impact on banks would be burdensome, it's ridiculous that the Senate would carve out a special exemption for banks (and apparently, as it stands now, taxpayers would have to pay the patent holder instead -- though, the Senate is trying to change that). It's nice that Congress has noticed that the patent system is broken here, but rather than fixing the actual patent system, their response is just to exempt one class of companies from one particular lawsuit? As reader Rich (who also submitted this item) pointed out: "If this goes through, every big industry will just pay off/lobby their friendly neighborhood Congressman to exempt them from specific patents. Too bad Vonage didn't do this before being forced to pay millions for weak patents."

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Senate Approves Intelligence Reform And, With It, Telecom Amnesty

from the oversight-is-for-your-phone-calls dept

The Senate has just approved controversial legislation reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by a vote of 68–29. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), empowers the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to authorize warrantless surveillance of foreign parties whose communications pass through U.S. switches, even when they are communicating with Americans. It also grants retroactive amnesty to telecom firms alleged to have illegally provided the government with access to their customers' data without a court order -- a provision some Democrats tried and failed to have stripped from the legislation earlier today.

Several other amendments that would have provided additional checks on surveillance also failed in the Senate, including language reasserting FISA's status as the "exclusive means" by which intelligence surveillance may be conducted, a provision barring indiscriminate "bulk collection" of telecom traffic, and a compromise measure that would have allowed civil suits against the telecoms to continue, but substituted the federal government as the defendant. The one victory for civil libertarians was the approval of an amendment offered by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) permitting the secret FISA court to review intelligence agencies' compliance with "minimization" rules meant to limit the retention of communications involving innocent Americans. Following a vote to invoke cloture, bringing debate on the bill to a halt and foreclosing any attempt to mount a filibuster, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) delivered impassioned speeches condemning the legislation as an affront to both privacy and the rule of law.

The Senate bill must now be reconciled in conference with the House version, known as the RESTORE Act, which lacks the controversial immunity provision and provides for greater judicial oversight of surveillance. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is seeking to further extend the stopgap Protect America Act, which this reform bill is meant to supplant, in order to provide time to reach agreement between the two chambers.

Julian Sanchez is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Julian Sanchez and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Senate Nixes Clean-Tech Investment Incentives

from the ouch-that-hurts dept

The clean-tech sector -- along with every other sector, company, and person who uses energy -- suffered something of a setback today at the hands of the United States Senate. By a vote of 40-59, federal tax incentives for clean-tech investments will be left to dry up at the end of next year. Using the 2007-2008 Senate math that most of us missed in 8th grade civics class, it now takes 60 votes to get anything done, including an extension of current renewable energy investment tax credits set to expire. These tax credits have played a big role in the surge of investment into wind, solar, and other clean energy technology. The votes of 40 Senators certainly don't reflect the feelings of their constituents (Americans are almost unanimous in their support for developing new sources of renewable energy) but the issue is more complicated than 39 Republican and one Democratic congresspeople who are sour on solar. The clean-tech incentives ran into a roadblock when supporters insisted on -- you'd better sit down for this -- paying for them. Specifically, the tax incentives would be paid for through the year 2016 by repealing billions of dollars of long-standing subsidies to fossil fuel companies. The escalating costs of energy are being felt by Americans who are paying significantly more to fuel their car, heat their home, and keep their lights on. Higher energy costs will eventually work their way into just about every product that we purchase and every service that we have come to enjoy. A near-decade-long extension of the federal incentives would have significantly leveled the playing field versus legacy energy systems and paved the way for continued acceleration of investment into clean-tech. The sector has seen false starts before as incentives have come and gone. Today's inaction dampens hopes that energy consumers will have alternatives any time soon, and leaves individuals, companies, and entire industries at the ongoing mercy of an aging and unstable fossil fuel infrastructure.

Daniel DiPasquo is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Daniel DiPasquo and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Senators Ask Justice Department To Become Hollywood's Private Enforcement Agency

from the the-gov't-works-for-hollywood dept

In 2004, Senator Orrin Hatch introduced the Pirate Act, which would allow the Justice Department to go after people for file sharing in civil cases. Civil cases, of course, are between two private entities, rather than the gov't and a person. In other words, the government shouldn't be a part of it at all. Just because the legacy entertainment industry can't figure out a new business model, it doesn't mean they should be able to use the FBI and the rest of the Justice Department to enforce their old business model. Even folks in the Justice Department thought it was a bad idea, as they had no desire to be Hollywood's private enforcement arm. Luckily, that bill died off, and we thought it was all gone... until Senators Patrick Leahy and John Cornyn brought it back to life on Wednesday, introducing a very similar bill, also called the Pirate Act, which again would task the Justice Department with handling the entertainment industry's civil cases. It's difficult to see how anyone can justify having the Justice Department act to prop up the obsolete business models of a single industry, but that's exactly what's happening. Not surprisingly, the RIAA and the MPAA are thrilled to find out that your tax dollars may go towards artificially keeping their business model on life support.

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Senate Proposes Giving The FCC Authority To Regulate Internet Content... For The Children

from the but,-of-course dept

Long ago politicians figured out that the way to get controversial or overly broad legislation through Congress was to simply say it's to protect the children. No politician wants to see a commercial from opponents in their next election about how he or she voted against protecting the children. However, it's for that reason that you should look extra carefully at such legislation, as it very rarely actually does much to protect any children, and quite often sneaks in things that are quite dangerous (not just to children). The Senate Commerce Committee has passed a bill, for the children of course, that would push the FCC to investigate next generation "v-chip" technology to allow parents to block their kids from seeing certain content. Now, it's a noble idea -- but in practice... it can be quite troublesome. As Sean Garrett highlights, the law actually is a backdoor way to allow the FCC to regulate online content. Right now, the FCC can only regulate content broadcast over the airwaves, though there have been some efforts underway to give them regulatory say over other content as well. However, doing that directly would be controversial, so this bill lets them sneak the FCC's regulatory authority into the internet tent, for the sake of the children, of course. One section would require the FCC to look into new content controls for all "wired, wireless, and Internet platforms." In other words, it would open the door to the FCC having some regulatory power over all forms of content. That's well beyond the FCC's charter and should be seen as quite problematic, especially since there's a huge difference between broadcast content and communications. Unfortunately, this legislation seems to think that communications networks are no different than broadcast systems.

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