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A Republican congressman who has sponsored legislation banning access to social-networking Web sites in schools and libraries has found a new target of displeasure: Second Life.

Rep. Mark Kirk, who is seeking re-election this year, staged a press conference at a library in his suburban Chicago district on Tuesday to highlight what he called the "dangers" of the virtual world to children. Flanked by local officials, he also released a letter asking Federal Trade Commission Chairman William E. Kovacic to "take action to warn parents of the similar dangers and sexually explicit content found on Second Life."

Kirk said he was appalled that Second Life has no age verification features built into its registration process, and he claimed that there are "countless locations" outside of the service's teen-designated area where virtual prostitution, drug deals, and "other wholly inappropriate activities" occur.

According to a Chicago Tribune report, Kirk recounted an aide's failed attempt to create an avatar on the site as a 10-year-old--and a subsequently successful attempt to log in as an 18-year-old.

"Sites like Second Life offer no protections to keep kids from virtual "rape rooms," brothels, and drug stores," Kirk said, according to a press release. "If sites like Second Life won't protect kids from obviously inappropriate content, the Congress will."

Second Life creator Linden Lab, for its part, released a statement, according to various local news reports, saying, "Members of the Second Life community, including Linden Lab staff, actively monitor against minors accessing the (adult portion of the) service." But Kirk said company officials have acknowledged that it's possible for teens to get into the adult portion of the service, and vice versa.

Kirk's comments were yet another attempt to drum up support for a bill, which he reintroduced last year, known as the Deleting Online Predators Act.

That proposal would require schools and libraries that receive federal subsidies through a program called E-rate to certify that they've put in place a "technology protection measure" on all of their computers that "protects against access to a commercial social-networking Web site or chat room, unless used for an educational purpose with adult supervision."

The definition of "commercial social-networking Web site," however, appears to be broad enough to sweep up blogging and online-journaling services, as well as any site that allows users to create public profiles, from Amazon.com to Slashdot to Yahoo.

The bill would also require the Federal Trade Commission to issue a "consumer alert" outlining the potential "danger" of such Web sites because they can be accessed by child predators.

Similar legislation passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives by a 410-15 vote in 2006 but died in the Senate.

Despite the overwhelmingly favorable vote two years ago, the bill is not without controversy. The American Library Association is staunchly opposed to the proposal, arguing that it ignores the value of interactive Web applications as a learning tool, could block helpful sites, and would inhibit librarians' ability to teach youngsters about how to use the Web safely.

After all, even police agencies--including the Arlington County Police Department outside of Washington, D.C., just this month--are launching MySpace.com profiles these days.

WASHINGTON--Net neutrality has returned to Capitol Hill.

The saga of Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent file-sharing traffic--and intense interest from the Federal Communications Commission, including a hearing at Stanford University last week--has appended the topic onto at least some politicians' to-do list.

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing entitled "The Future of the Internet" on Tuesday, Democratic politicians argued for passage of a law designed to prohibit broadband operators from creating a "fast lane" for certain Internet content and applications. Their stance drew familiar criticism from the cable industry, their Republican counterparts, and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who said there's no demonstrated need for new rules, at this point.

Much of the discussion revolved around whether the FCC already has sufficient authority to take action against network operators found to be interfering unreasonably with their customers' Internet use. Comcast, for its part, has argued that the federal agency doesn't--and the Democrats present said their legislation is necessary to clarify the FCC's enforcement role.

"To whatever degree people were alleging that this was a solution in search of a problem, it has found its problem," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). "We have an obligation to try and guarantee that the same freedom and the same creativity that was able to bring us to where we are today continues, going forward."

Kerry is one of the backers of a bill called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, chiefly sponsored by North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan and Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, which resurfaced at the beginning of 2007 but has gotten little attention since. A similar measure failed in a divided Commerce Committee and in the House of Representatives nearly two years ago.

Chairman Martin told the committee that he continues to believe that the FCC doesn't need to write new regulations because it already has the authority to enforce its existing broadband connectivity principles, which say consumers have the right to access the lawful Internet content and applications of their choice.

He acknowledged, however, that based on Comcast's interpretation, his agency could face litigation if it opts to act on a complaint against the cable operator's throttling of peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic, which he characterized on Tuesday as "a relatively inexpensive, blunt means to reduce peer-to-peer traffic by blocking certain traffic completely."

Martin said the agency hadn't yet reached a conclusion about whether those actions violated its principles. Comcast, for its part, reiterated in a statement Tuesday that it "does not, has not, and will not block any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services," and it repeated its plans to migrate to a "protocol-agnostic" way of managing data flows by the end of the year.

"To whatever degree people were alleging that this was a solution in search of a problem, it has found its problem."

--Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)

With the threat of litigation looming, a number of Democrats questioned why Martin isn't asking Congress to grant the FCC new authority (or, perhaps, to clarify its existing authority) by rewriting the law.

"I believe what you are saying is that you believe you need authority to take action on these areas, and one of the biggest content providers says you don't have that authority, so shouldn't you be asking us to do something, in the event this is unclear, and you spend the next three to four years in court?" Dorgan asked.

Martin said he wasn't deterred by Comcast's implicit legal threat. He repeatedly cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 Brand X decision that, in his judgment, stated that the FCC has legal authority to "adopt any rules we deem necessary to adequately protect consumers' broadband rights."

"Almost every action the Commission takes, we get taken to court," he told the committee. "That's probably why I'm not as hesitant, in that sense."

Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, argued against any new regulations, saying there's no evidence that any of his member companies have ever engaged in content blocking or "anticompetitive conduct." He added that the NCTA, which counts Comcast among its members, fully supports the FCC's broadband policy statement.

But as for whether the FCC can stop companies from violating those principles, "it's not even a close call; the answer is no," McSlarrow told the committee.

"You support (the principles) but don't think they should be enforceable?" Dorgan asked him.

McSlarrow said he believes that there are other rules on the books to combat any unfair or anticompetitive practices, should they arise.

Republican senators, for their part, said the public outcry over the Comcast-BitTorrent incident and the ongoing FCC probe further demonstrates that there's no need for Congress to intervene. Committee vice chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) called new rules "entirely unwarranted," contending that the Comcast situation "showed the system will right itself, if someone really tries to interfere with the fair access and right treatment of everyone using Internet systems."

A prominent representative of the entertainment industry disputed those assertions. Writers Guild of America West President Patric Verrone told the committee that without Net neutrality laws, the Internet will be "be turned into a walled garden of content control," making it harder for new voices to emerge and distribute their creations openly.

Stanford Law School Professor Larry Lessig, who also flew to Washington for the event, said politicians must enact laws that are as "minimal and (as) clear as possible." Without such measures in place, he said, Silicon Valley investors will be discouraged from devising applications because they won't know what the network will look like in five years. On the other hand, a future Congress can rewrite laws too.

WASHINGTON--An influential congressional committee is once again showing support for using U.S. antitrust laws to force broadband providers to treat network traffic in a nondiscriminatory manner.

Under Republican control in 2006, a U.S. House of Representatives panel threw its support behind a bill rewriting antitrust law in a way that would have embedded "Net neutrality" obligations. That proposal, however, never ultimately went any further toward becoming law, and has not been reintroduced.

At a Tuesday afternoon hearing, a House antitrust task force composed of many of the same members indicated the Democratic-controlled chamber may try to revive it. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the antitrust task force and the House Judiciary Committee, said he believes antitrust laws should be used to stop broadband providers from exercising business models that give "favored treatment" to certain Internet content.

"If Congress acts, it will not be because we have decided to regulate," Conyers said. "It will be because the Internet service providers have imposed their own new regulation on the Internet and are interfering with its healthy growth."

Antitrust law is the "most appropriate way to deal with this problem," he went on, because it corrects "distortions of the free market where monopolies are cartels have cornered the market and competition is not being allowed to work."

Net neutrality, of course, is the controversial idea that network operators shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against content or applications or charge extra fees. Debate over whether new regulations are necessary to safeguard those principles has been raging since 2005.

The concept has drawn increasing attention, however, ever since Comcast acknowledged it delays peer-to-peer file-sharing uploads, particularly on the BitTorrent protocol. The Federal Communications Commission is weighing whether to take action against the cable giant.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley, said she was quite concerned about the effects of Comcast's network management practices on free speech--that is, peoples' ability to upload content they've created without undue restrictions.

Net neutrality turf wars
Part of the Judiciary Committee's interest in putting its own dog in the Net neutrality fight, however, is clearly political--specifically, a longstanding turf war with the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Last month, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a leader in that committee, reintroduced a bill that would encourage Internet service providers not to play favorites and direct the FCC to consider making more heavy-handed regulations in that area.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee when it passed the antitrust-oriented Net neutrality bill, said Tuesday that he continues to believe antitrust law is the right vehicle for such disputes.

"If we allow our jurisdiction to go to Energy and Commerce, I think we'll see a regulatory structure over the Internet that is not going to be good for the American public and is not going to be good for the Internet," Sensenbrenner said.

Instead, he suggested it's more productive to give people the right to sue Internet service providers for treble damages if they're found to be engaging in anticompetitive practices.

Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), ranking member of the antitrust panel, seemed less inclined for Congress to act in any way, saying he is "concerned that the heavy hand of government could deter investment in innovation and technology that will enable networks to advance in the future."

Content providers like Google and Amazon.com and a slew of consumer advocacy groups have been lobbying for legally binding Net neutrality protections, while network operators like Comcast and AT&T have long opposed any new legislation or regulations in this area. On Tuesday, a prominent entertainment industry voice added to that outcry.

Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America, told the committee that the songwriting profession is like a person "drowning in quicksand" and that Net neutrality proposals would speed that drowning process.

"We need new technologies to detect and deter illegal file sharing," said Carnes, who has written songs for popular country artists like Garth Brooks and Reba McEntire.

Carnes criticized the House Judiciary Committee's previous proposal to enforce Net neutrality through antitrust law. Acknowledging that he is not an antitrust lawyer, he said the bill raised alarms because it would have threatened the efforts of broadband operators, such as AT&T, to filter out and detect transfer of pirated content.

Damian Kulash, lead vocalist and guitarist for the band OK Go, which achieved a cult YouTube following for a snappy choreographed dance routine featuring treadmills, took the opposite view.

Without open, nondiscriminatory access to Internet applications and services, he told the committee, his band may have never become "among the first to have truly found success on the Internet."

Sensing the difference in opinion between the two musicians, Conyers quipped: "Is this new school versus old school?".

ANNAPOLIS, Md.--Hybrid cars may be on every environmentalist-cum-trend setter's hot list, but their surging popularity is raising alarms among the blind and their advocates, who fear the near-silent vehicles could endanger lives.

In recent months, the National Federation of the Blind has launched what is becoming an international lobbying campaign for legislation that encourages--or flat-out requires--automakers to install noisemaking technology to address those potential perils.

Top NFB leaders focused their efforts Tuesday on this quaint state capital on the Chesapeake Bay, where legislation creating a state "Quiet Vehicles and Pedestrian Safety Task Force" is pending. If Maryland passes the bill, it would be the first in the nation to take action on that front, although other states are considering similar proposals.

"As we increase the number of quiet vehicles on our streets, we increase the risk that blind and other pedestrians face," Jim McCarthy, the National Federation of the Blind's director of government affairs, told members of the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee at a hearing about the bill. "We potentially lose our independence if these become ubiquitous."

Ideally, blind advocates would like to see states pass laws that would set minimum sound standards for hybrid and electric vehicles, but they've run into resistance from automakers on that front. McCarthy said his group views the Democratic-sponsored Maryland bill as a good "first step," although he noted that legislatures in Virginia and Hawaii are poised to consider bills that would go further.

The Maryland state bill, which also has a counterpart in the state House of Representatives, would not set any particular rules for cars bought and sold in the state. But, if passed, it would instruct a task force to make recommendations by the end of the year on "a minimum sound level and the nature and characteristics of the minimum sound to be required for all vehicles sold and licensed in the state."

The blind community is also taking its push to Congress--and abroad. On Tuesday, the NFB president was in Geneva, Switzerland, testifying about the dangers of hybrid vehicles to the blind at the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations, a United Nations body, according to NFB spokesman Chris Danielsen.

McCarthy and other NFB leaders sought to dispel any accusation that they're hostile to environmental progress. They said they're as pleased as anyone else about states like Maryland that have passed laws requiring a certain percentage of vehicles sold in the state by 2011 to produce low emissions.

The trouble, from their perspective, is that the growing number of vehicles that cannot be heard while operating in electric-power mode throws a wrench in a blind person's ability to negotiate street traffic confidently and independently. And, in an effort to win broader support, they're emphasizing that this isn't just a problem for blind people: All pedestrians and bicyclists should be concerned for their safety.

Carmakers, not surprisingly, have bristled at the notion of regulations requiring them to adopt a specific technology in their hugely successful hybrid vehicles. The Maryland bill clearly attempts to blunt some of those gripes by specifying that task force members are not "required" to specify a certain technology that car manufacturers must use to meet recommended noise levels.

No car industry representatives were present at Tuesday's hearing here, but in a letter to the state senate committee, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said it supported the bill, albeit not without reservations.

The trade association--which represents BMW, Ford Motor, General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, and other major carmakers--said it would be pleased to take a seat on the task force but worried the bill puts too much emphasis on noise-generating technology alone.

The car makers encouraged legislators to be open-minded about the range of technologies that could be used to resolve the blind community's concerns and also noted that a committee established within the Society of Automotive Engineers, an industry-sponsored group, is already researching such approaches.

For instance, they pointed to the potential use of a forthcoming wireless warning system that will allow cars to talk to each other and to roadway infrastructure. That system, known as Dedicated Short Range Communications, or DSRC, could be used to warn pedestrians, blind or otherwise, of oncoming cars with "far more specificity, meaning, and context" than a simple noise generator, but the wording of the current Maryland bill seems to preclude the task force from considering that option, the AAM suggested.

It wasn't immediately clear what the bill's chances of passage were. Legislators on the Senate committee had few questions for the bill's advocates and did little to show their leanings. The Maryland Department of Transportation, for its part, said in a statement that it supports the measure because it views quiet vehicles as an "emerging" safety issue that warrants more research. (There was no mention from the various stakeholders of what role that drivers could or should play in ensuring pedestrian safety.)

Michael Gosse, president of the National Federation of Blind of Maryland, said all his group wants is a cost-effective solution based on the sounds that cars are already capable of making.

"I don't know about you," he told the state senate committee, "but I don't want cars going down the street beeping like those little carts do in the airport. I think that would be pretty annoying."

Comcast, AT&T, and other network operators would be expected to refrain from "unreasonable discriminatory favoritism" of content on their pipes under a recrafted Net neutrality proposal introduced Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But this time around, the new bill (PDF) sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of a House Internet and telecommunications panel, isn't directly forcing Internet service providers to follow specific rules. The new bill is an apparent effort to be less prescriptive than his previous efforts, which failed in a Republican-dominated Congress two years ago.

"The bill contains no requirements for regulations on the Internet whatsoever," Markey said in a statement upon introducing the bill. "It does, however, suggest that the principles which have guided the Internet's development and expansion are highly worthy of retention, and it seeks to enshrine such principles in the law as guide stars for U.S. broadband policy."

Rep. Charles "Chip" Pickering (R-Miss.), who has argued against Net neutrality regulations in the past, is now co-sponsoring the rewritten measure, which is being called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act.

The modified approach is an apparent attempt to address the howls of protest from network operators, who have argued that previous Net neutrality bills in Congress amount to unnecessary Internet regulations.

The old bill decreed that broadband operators have certain duties: not blocking or degrading content, not prioritizing some applications over others, and not imposing "surcharges" for premium placement, to name a few. Violators would have been subject to penalties. A pending Senate bill, which hasn't yet seen any action in this session of Congress, takes a similar approach.

The new Markey-Pickering bill, by contrast, proposes adding four broadband policy statements to existing federal communications law. Those statements build upon a set of broadband policy principles that the Federal Communications Commission adopted years ago, including recommendations that the government allow consumers to reach the lawful content and applications of their choice and hook up whatever devices they please, provided that they don't harm the network.

Violation of those principles would not carry any penalties under the new bill, according to a Markey aide. The bill does, however, leave open the possibility of tougher rules later. One principle dictates that the government should adopt and enforce "baseline protections to guard against unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degradation of, content by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination on the Internet."

The bill would direct the FCC to study broadband providers' current practices and whether "enforceable" rules governing Internet openness are necessary. The FCC would also be required to stage at least eight public "broadband summits" at "geographically diverse locations" around the United States to discuss the state of competition, consumer protection, and consumer choice in broadband.

The bill's introduction arrives amid a recent stepped-up focus in Washington on network management practices. The FCC for companies to slow down peer-to-peer traffic on their networks, as Comcast has admitted to doing in what it argues is an attempt to keep all its subscribers surfing smoothly.

The same consumer advocacy groups that support Net neutrality legislation have asked the FCC to declare that such practices aren't, in fact, "reasonable," and should be forcibly stopped.

The FCC also announced on Tuesday that it's holding a February 26 public hearing at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass., to hear from experts on network management issues.

Fans of Net neutrality laws--including Amazon.com, Google, and a number of consumer advocacy groups--support Markey's latest proposal, heaping praise on the new language before the congressman had even formally introduced it. They have long argued that without strong Net neutrality principles enshrined in law, there will be nothing to stop network operators from, say, charging YouTube additional fees to be delivered to consumers faster than a rival video-sharing Web site.

The Markey bill is "an important step in ensuring the Internet remains open for consumers and innovators," said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, whose members include major search engines, electronic retailers, librarians, and public-interest groups.

Network operators, by contrast, have long opposed Net neutrality regulations because they argue that they need the freedom to manage their networks as they see fit and that new obligations could discourage investments in building out their pipes.

Scott Cleland, the chairman of NetCompetition.org, a group whose members include all the major cable, telephone, and wireless companies, said Markey's new approach doesn't blunt those concerns. While the "letter" of the new Markey bill may not include those new regulations, he said, the "spirit" of it does, creating the same heartburn for opponents as the earlier version.

Updated at 9:53 a.m. PST: Comcast declined to comment on the measure, and cable industry representatives were not immediately prepared to comment.

The U.S. Telecom Association, which represents large Internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon Communications, blasted the new bill. Group president Walter McCormick said it would "blindly legislate a new national broadband policy, without regard to its implications, and then require the FCC to spend the next year determining whether the Internet is being constructed, managed, and operated in conformance with this new government mandate."

In the lingering fallout from a damning report on steroid use by Major League Baseball players, the sport's top executive is calling on Congress to help in leading a crackdown on Internet pharmacies.

"Sen. Mitchell's report identified the difficulties inherent in any attempt, whether by baseball, by other professional sports, or by the Olympics, to stop by itself the use of illegal performance-enhancing substances," MLB Commissioner Bud Selig told members of a U.S. House of Representatives panel at a hearing on the topic on Tuesday afternoon, according to prepared remarks (PDF). "We welcome your participation in attacking the problem at its source."

Selig, of course, was referring to 304 pages' worth of findings by George Mitchell, a former U.S. senator whom MLB hired in 2006 to investigate past steroid use by its players. The resulting document implicated star players, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, brothers Jason and Jeremy Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Kevin Brown, and David Justice, and it described alleged illegal Internet-based purchases of performance-enhancing substances by 16 other players.

Selig told the committee that baseball executives "wholly support" a sweeping crime bill introduced last October by Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) that attempts to rein in online pharmacies that dispense prescription drugs without valid permission from a doctor.

Biden's broader bill incorporates a standalone online pharmacy proposal, co-sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), that was already approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.

Among other things, that proposal would require that Internet sites dispense "controlled substances," such as many widely used pain-killing narcotics, only after processing a valid prescription from a doctor who has given the patient at least one in-person evaluation. Pharmacies would also be required to display certain identifying information on their Web sites and state their compliance with the law. Failure to comply would carry steep fines and up to 20 years in prison.

It's hardly a new idea. Congress has been trying to pass legislation regulating online pharmacies since before the dot-com bust.

Feinstein first drafted such a bill shortly after a California high-school honor student and athlete named Ryan Haight died in 2001 from an overdose of the painkiller hydrocodone. According to Feinstein's office, Haight had purchased the drug from an online pharmacy after filling out a questionnaire, claiming he was a 25-year-old with back pain, and securing a prescription from a doctor who had never examined him in person.

It's not entirely clear whether the new legislation is needed. A federal law called the Controlled Substances Act already makes it illegal to dispense certain classes of drugs without a valid prescription from a physician.

Backers of the new Internet pharmacy bill say their measure would "clarify" that the law also applies online, but prosecutors already appear to be shutting down Internet pharmacies on a regular basis using existing laws. Mitchell's own report also describes past raids on online steroid dealers by state and federal authorities.

There's also the international enforcement conundrum: About half of online pharmacy sites reside overseas, according to research described before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year by Joseph Califano, the chairman and president of Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. About a fourth of the sites are based in the United States, and the remaining ones have unknown origins, he added.

Still, Biden, Sessions, and Feinstein each pointed to Selig's testimony as proof that their legislation should be passed promptly.

"Rogue online pharmacies have become the street corner drug dealers of the Information Age," Sen. Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday evening. "Whether it's a superstar or a teenager, we must ensure that they cannot obtain controlled substances without a valid prescription."

The pro-Net neutrality lobby hasn't seen much action on legislation billed as necessary to "save the Internet" this year. But a key congressional Democrat says to expect a new push in 2008.

Rep. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads a key House of Representatives Internet and telecommunications law panel, had previously said he planned to revive his anti-discrimination bill from last year this December.

But a spokeswoman told CNET News.com on Wednesday that life for her boss has been hectic in recent weeks with pressing other issues, such as the Federal Communications Commission's recent move to relax media ownership rules.

The plan now is to introduce a new bill in January. The language is likely to be similar, although not identical, to an effort that was twice defeated by a Republican-dominated Congress in the last session.

Net neutrality, of course, is the idea that broadband operators shouldn't be allowed to charge content providers extra fees for premium placement or delivery, nor should they be permitted to prioritize or discriminate against content.

Markey's previous bill, which drew backing from consumer groups and prominent Internet companies like Google and Amazon.com, would have required, among other things, that a network operator "not discriminate in favor of itself in the allocation, use, or quality of broadband services or interconnection with other broadband networks." "Interference and surcharges" on outside content and applications would be prohibited, as would installation of "network features, functions, or capabilities that thwart or frustrate compliance with the requirements or objectives" of the law. Violations would have resulted in fines or other punishments.

The jury's still out, however, on whether a bill like Markey's would prevent behavior that landed Comcast infamy in the blogosphere in recent weeks--the prominent cable operator's reportedly aggressive management of BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic.

Just in time for presidential primary season, a key Democrat who championed Net neutrality laws during the last Congress is finally planning to try again.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), the chairman of a House of Representatives Internet and telecommunications panel, is readying a new version of his Network Neutrality Act, which was twice defeated by the Republican-controlled Congress during its consideration of a sweeping broadband policy bill last year.

Markey plans to introduce the new effort, which will "closely follow" the old one, during the next two to three weeks, shortly before Congress adjourns for the year, a spokeswoman told CNET News.com on Tuesday. Further action, including hearings, is expected in the new year.

National Journal's Technology Daily reported Markey's plans on Monday.

Net neutrality, of course, is the idea that broadband operators shouldn't be allowed to charge content providers extra fees for premium placement or delivery, nor should they be permitted to prioritize or discriminate against content.

Markey's previous bill would have required, among other things, that a network operator "not discriminate in favor of itself in the allocation, use, or quality of broadband services or interconnection with other broadband networks." "Interference and surcharges" on outside content and applications would be prohibited, as would installation of "network features, functions, or capabilities that thwart or frustrate compliance with the requirements or objectives" of the law. Failure to comply could result in fines or other punishments, including payment of damages to the complaining party.

Consumer groups and major Internet companies like Google and Amazon.com argue it's necessary to enact new regulations barring such activity, while broadband operators like AT&T and Comcast counter that the market will solve any perceived problems. Opponents of new laws also claim there's no evidence that broadband providers are throttling content in devious ways, although the recent brouhaha over Comcast's reportedly aggressive management of BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic has reignited Net neutrality advocates' calls for antidiscrimination rules.

Views on the need for new laws have tended to split along party lines, with Democrats generally supporting them and Republicans opposing them. Even so, virtually no action has occurred in this year's Democratic-controlled Congress--aside from the early-January reintroduction of last year's Senate proposal, which hasn't gone anywhere since--leaving some to ponder whether the debate is dead.

Along with recent pledges from Democratic presidential candidates like Barack Obama to enact Net neutrality laws if elected president, Markey's planned reintroduction indicates the sleeping beast may awaken yet.

Identity theft victims would be allowed to request monetary compensation for the time they spent getting their lives back in order under a bill approved by a U.S. Senate panel.

The Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act of 2007 would allow those who fell prey to identity fraud to seek "criminal restitution"--that is, payouts from the offender in a particular case--for time "reasonably" spent correcting "actual" or "intended" harm.

While potentially significant, it's unclear exactly how much of an impact the legal changes would make, should they be made law (and they're a few steps off from that yet).

According to a Javelin Strategy and Research survey of 5,000 American adults released earlier this year, the number of identity theft victims has declined in recent years, as has the amount of time spent dealing with those harms.

In 2003, there were about 10.1 million adult victims of identity fraud in the United States, but that number dropped to about 8.4 million this year. Meanwhile, the average number of hours each victim spent resolving those issues declined from about 40 hours in 2003 to 25 in 2007.

Threaten to steal data, end up in prison?
The Senate bill transcends identity theft-related issues, crossing over into cybercrime. It also includes rewrites to federal computer crime laws that are designed to make it easier for police to punish hackers, keyloggers, and spyware purveyors whose acts may not do quantifiable damage.

Under current law, federal prosecutors can go after only computer crimes that result in at least $5,000 in damage or losses to a victim's computer. Current law also requires that hacking cross state borders, immunizing from federal prosecution crimes in which the hacker and the victim are in the same state. But the approved Senate bill would remove those requirements in criminal cases.

The bill would also make it a felony to damage 10 or more computers with spyware or keyloggers, regardless of how much damage is done. It would create a new crime: threatening to steal or release information from a computer, with the intent to extort money or anything else of value from the person being threatened. Those offenses would carry up to five years in prison, fines, or both.

The Senate bill also adds additional penalties for cybercriminals. They'd be forced to give up any property used to commit their crimes or obtained in the process of those activities.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who sponsored the bill along with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), said the proposal contains "important and long-overdue steps to protect Americans from the growing and evolving threat of identity theft and other cybercrimes."

The measure doesn't appear to be particularly controversial. It's backed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Secret Service, and it has also drawn support from a diverse set of groups, including the AARP, the Consumers Union, the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, and the Business Software Alliance, Leahy said. The BSA, for its part, said it would be pressuring the House of Representatives to act this year on a similar proposal, as well as pressuring the full Senate to bless the bill approved in committee Thursday.