News - Politics and Law

Now that the House and Senate have adopted rules allowing congressmen to join the Web 2.0 world, they can tweet to their hearts' content. Accordingly, a new widget released by a government transparency group allows people to follow their favorite politicians' latest micro-blogs.

The Sunlight Foundation's "Capitol Tweet" widget provides updates every 10 minutes from the latest tweets from members of Congress.

Before both chambers of Congress adjusted their respective Franking rules, which govern how Congressmen can communicate with their constituents, members of Congress were not allowed to use third-party sites, such as Twitter or YouTube, to convey official political messages. Many congressmen, however, simply ignored the rules. Congresspedia counts 7 senators and 31 House representatives who currently have Twitter accounts.

The Sunlight Foundation advocated for the rules regarding the use of third-party sites to be changed as part of its Open House Project, which examined how the House uses the Internet. The foundation started a "Let our Congress Tweet" campaign, which featured a Twitter-based congressional petition.

"The revisions (to the rules) should cause a renaissance in official political Web use, with eager new media staff and savvy members now able to confidently engage with their constituents," John Wonderlich, a Sunlight program director, wrote in a blog post.

First Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail account was hacked, and now a laptop with strategic information to help the Republican ticket in a critical swing state has been stolen.

A Dell laptop belonging to the Republican party's regional coordinator in Independence, Mo., was stolen on the night of September 30 out of the party's "Kansas City Victory Office." The Independence-based office supports Republican party operations at all levels, from the presidential ticket down to candidates for regional state representative seats.

The laptop contained "information you'd expect the coordinator for a GOP national campaign to have," such as information on areas to target for support, said Tina Hervey, communications director for the Missouri Republican party. Hervey could not say whether the information on the computer, issued by the Missouri Republican party, was encrypted or not.

Tom Gentry, the public information officer for the Independence police department, said a digital recorder and a satchel were also reported missing. Police arrived at the campaign office, which is located in a strip mall, just before 6 a.m. on October 1. A window had been broken, and a desk drawer had been ransacked, Gentry said. However, 22 Eee PCs were left behind in the office.

"One of the tiny, white computers was actually removed from the table where it was sitting and placed on the desk where the Dell was," Hervey said. "Somebody clearly had some time and was able to move things around."

Both Hervey and Gentry said the incident ... Read more

The Supreme Court announced Monday it is refusing to take up EchoStar Communications' appeal against a patent infringement suit filed against it by TiVo.

A jury in 2006 found that EchoStar's Dish Network digital video recorders infringed upon a patent held by TiVo and ordered it to pay TiVo $73.9 million in damages. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling in January, as did a second U.S. appeals court in April.

The Supreme Court's decision to deny EchoStar's appeal leaves the company responsible for paying full damages plus interest to TiVo--for a total of $104 million--and upholds a permanent injunction against EchoStar's infringing digital video recording products.

"We look forward to the expeditious receipt of damages awarded by the District Court covering the period through September 8, 2006 and remain confident that the District Court will enforce the injunction and award further damages from EchoStar's continued infringement of our Time Warp patent," TiVo said in a statement.

EchoStar said the court's decision was expected but that it does not affect its customers since the Dish DVRs in question have been equipped with a software design-around.

"We believe that the design-around does not infringe Tivo's patent and that Tivo's pending motion for contempt should be denied," the company said in a statement. "We look forward to that ruling in the near future."

TiVo first filed suit against EchoStar in 2004.

Just months after its launch, the magazine-sharing Web site Mygazines.com is largely cutting back on the free content it offers, after reaching a settlement agreement in a suit filed by a group of magazine publishers.

Launched in late July, Mygazines allows users to upload and share magazines and originally offered clear, complete digital copies of popular magazines such as People, Esquire, and Allure. A number of publishers, including Time Inc., Hearst, and Newsweek, filed suit in a New York district court on August 21, asking the site to be shut down in the U.S.

(Credit: Mygazines.com)

A settlement was reached on September 8, under which Mygazines agreed to remove the publishers' copyrighted content and review uploaded content for unauthorized material, according to Folio.

The suit was filed against Budd Salveo, run by a Canadian named Darren Budd, which registered the site in the Caribbean island of Anguilla. On September 9, a Toronto court issued an order to uphold the settlement.

Mygazines still offers digital copies of magazines like Today's Bride and Computer Graphics World.

Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Sarah Palin are both winners when it comes to spam.

Does her name inspire you to download spyware?

(Credit: State of Alaska)

The amount of spam that mentioned Obama beat out that of his rival, Sen. John McCain, by a ratio of 6 to 1 during the month of September, according to a study released by Secure Computing. Likewise, Palin outranked her opponent, Sen. Joe Biden, by a ratio of 6 to 1. The results were published Friday in a PC Magazine report.

The numbers don't mean much in terms of who actually wins the election, but they do show that spammers are staying on top of what names are hot among Internet users. A "surge" of Obama spam apparently occurred around September 3, about the time of the Republican National Convention, according to PC Magazine.

"Though the spam message content itself is nonsensical, the basic themes of the Obama e-mail content does tend to revolve around the shallow factors that are espoused in the mainstream media as central campaign issues: race, disputes with Clinton, messianic oratory, and Fox news smears," Secure Computing said in its study. "The McCain spam subjects are equally driven by shallow media propaganda, revolving around age and wealth."

Also last month, security firm Sophos warned that a malicious e-mail was making the rounds which claimed to have a link to a sex video of Obama but which was instead spyware. Clicking on the link downloaded an executable file that ... Read more

Members of Congress can finally use Web sites like YouTube, after committees in both the House and Senate adopted new rules allowing members to post content outside of the .gov domain, as long as it is for official purposes.

The House Rules Committee approved the change for the House of Representatives on Thursday, while the Senate Rules and Administration Committee adopted the new rules on September 19.

"In addition to their official (house.gov) Web site, a member may maintain another Web site(s), channel(s) or otherwise post material on third-party Web sites," the new House rules read. They also allow members to provide links to or embed outside content on their official sites, provided they include an exit notice indicating the visitor is leaving the House.

The Senate rules also allow for links to be added to official sites. They allow senators to use any third-party site of their choice, but the senators will have an "approved list" of sites for reference.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the change "a significant step forward toward bringing House rules into the multimedia age and allowing for members to effectively communicate with their constituents online."

Many members of Congress have, in spite of the rules, already been posting content to YouTube. Relying strictly on the official House and Senate sites can prove insufficient at times, as it did this week as Congress considered the bailout bill.

WASHINGTON--For someone not interested in politics, Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark spends quite a bit of time these days working with people in Washington.

"Most people, including myself, don't want to be bothered with politics," Newmark said Friday at Google's Washington, D.C., headquarters. "They just want to call 311 to get a pothole fixed."

Yet as a proponent for policy ideas like Net neutrality and government transparency, Newmark has found himself an unlikely advocate for career lobbyists--just the good kind, though.

Google Communications Director Adam Kovacevich interviewed Craigslist founder Craig Newmark at Google's D.C. office on Friday.

(Credit: Stephanie Condon/CNET)

While lawmakers should embrace the online tools to make democracy more widespread, he said, industries like telecommunications have to play their part by steering away from deceitful lobbying practices.

"There are some bad actors in the lobbying business, but the vast majority are just people trying to get a fair shake for their clients in the sausage factory," said Newmark, who belongs to boards for groups like the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for government transparency.

However, he said industries like telecom, finance, and oil often resort to using "unsavory" lobbying tactics such as fake grassroots--or "Astroturf"--campaigns. Some of those groups have taken aim at Google on issues like Net neutrality.

Newmark said the telecom industry's use of Astroturf groups creates an "artificial" conflict.

"Regarding telecoms, the first thing to do is listen to your employees," he said. "I work with abuse ... Read more

Last week, the Bush administration proposed a three-page bill to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. It died in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week.

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The first and only debate between the two vice presidential candidates, Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin, covered a broad array of subjects, including the economy, war, taxes, and their readiness to help govern the country.

Neither technology nor the tech industry came up in the 90-minute debate, which took place Thursday night at Washington University in St. Louis. However, the issues of alternate energy and oil dependence were brought up several times.

Although many pundits had predicted a verbal battlefield and the possibility of gaffes from Palin, the two were generally cordial to one another, and Palin made no major mistakes.

For a recap of the debate, see the Webcast presented here from Katie Couric and the CBS News political team.

For more stories about the debate, including fact checking of the veep candidates' statements and a post-debate poll of uncommitted voters, see the complete coverage of the campaign from CBS News.

The final two presidential debates are set for Tuesday and October 15, respectively. CNET News will likewise feature links to the live streaming of those debates and the wrap-ups from CBS News.

The Senate on Wednesday unanimously voted in favor of providing parents with more control over the content their children receive through various technologies.

The Child Safe Viewing Act, introduced last year by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., requires the Federal Communications Commission to issue a notice of inquiry to examine what advanced content-blocking technologies are available for various communication devices and platforms. It also calls for the FCC to consider how to develop and deploy such technologies without affecting content providers' pricing or packaging.

The bill defines "advanced blocking technologies" as technology that enables parents to protect their children from "indecent or objectionable video or audio programming, as determined by the parent, that is transmitted through the use of wire, wireless, or radio communication."

The legislation still must go through the House of Representatives before being sent to the president.

While the bill does not empower the FCC to do anything other than to produce a report on its findings for Congress, it is one of a handful of steps Congress has taken in recent weeks to address threats new technologies can expose children to.