Politics and Law

Should NSA take over federal cybersecurity efforts?

Political pressure is mounting to eliminate the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's lead role over cybersecurity, a move that that would effectively admit the agency's failure to adequately perform its assigned duties.

But that invites the obvious question: Who should take over? One option would be, as we heard earlier this week, the White House itself. Another choice would be the more shadowy world of intelligence agencies such as the CIA or National Security Agency, which already is responsible for protecting government computers through its "information assurance" arm.

All week, members of a cybersecurity commission … Read more

New taxes on your monthly cell phone bill?

In an economy gone sour, local governments seeking new sources of tax revenue have begun hungrily eyeing their residents' monthly cell phone bills. But some members of Congress would like to block that, which has sparked a debate in Washington about federalism, tax policy, and fairness.

Introduced in April by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the Cell Tax Fairness Act would impose a five-year moratorium on what the bill describes as any "new discriminatory tax" on wireless services and providers. Foes and supporters of the measure showed up Thursday in front of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on … Read more

EFF sues U.S. over NSA surveillance program

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Bush administration on behalf of AT&T customers to halt what it called the "massively illegal" warrantless surveillance of Americans' Internet and telephone communications.

In addition to suing the National Security Agency, the nonprofit Internet advocacy group also names President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as well as others.

"For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T's domestic networks and … Read more

Congress eyes restrictions on exporting e-waste

WASHINGTON--Electronic waste is still being exported to other nations, a move that has negative environmental consequences and may run afoul of federal law, government auditors told Congress on Wednesday.

Environmental Protection Agency regulations over e-waste exports are very limited, according to a new report (PDF) from the Government Accountability Office, and the existing regulations are not well-enforced.

E-waste is "a low priority for EPA," John Stephenson, director of natural resources and environment for the GAO, told politicians on Wednesday at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs' subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment.

The EPA'… Read more

Comcast exec: Expect more Web regulation

WASHINGTON--Web companies had better get used to more government interference, intervention, and regulation targeting their businesses, Kevin Kuzas, vice president and general counsel for Comcast Interactive Media, said on Wednesday.

Kuzas gave a keynote address at a Web 2.0 forum on Wednesday hosted by business and legal publisher Pike & Fischer.

There's a myth among Web entrepreneurs, Kuzas said, that the government is irrelevant to their business.

"There's a little bit of truth to this idea that policy makers are undoubtedly far behind," he said. "Government regulation can take years, while a Web 2.… Read more

Feds probe hack of Palin's e-mail account

Now we know the real reason why John McCain doesn't use e-mail.

Hackers have broken into the Yahoo e-mail account of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin. And, as you might expect, some snippets have appeared on Wikileaks.org in a convenient ZIP file.

"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement on Wednesday.

It's still unclear exactly what happened, … Read more

Sarah Palin winning the Wikipedia popularity contest

Updated at 10:50 a.m. PDT to clarify that Michael Phelps' career gold medal tally hit 14 in August. He won eight golds in the 2008 Olympic Games.

Sarah Palin's Wikipedia page underwent thousands of edits the day her vice presidential candidacy was announced--and it received an equally overwhelming number of hits, unsurprisingly.

Nearly 1.2 million people read Palin's Wikipedia page in the first 36 hours after Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced she was his VP choice, according to Web analytics company Compete.com. Palin's page was the most popular Wikipedia page for all … Read more

Critics: Homeland Security unprepared for cyberthreats

WASHINGTON--When politicians got together six years ago and decided to glue together a medley of federal agencies to create the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, one of the justifications was a better focus on cybersecurity.

"The department will gather and focus all our efforts to face the challenge of cyberterrorism," President Bush said when signing the 500-or-so-page bill into law in November 2002. "This department will be charged with encouraging research on new technologies that can detect these threats in time to prevent an attack."

That was then. Now, Homeland Security is weathering a deluge … Read more

John McCain helped to create the BlackBerry? Really?

John McCain doesn't use e-mail. So it was downright odd to see one of his aides hold up a BlackBerry on Tuesday and claim that the Arizona senator somehow deserves credit for its existence.

"He did this," economic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters, referring to a BlackBerry, according to a report on Politico.com. "Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that's what he did."

This may join … Read more