Politics and Law

It only took a few days after politicians returned from their summer holidays for Hollywood and the major record labels to resume their legislative push to rewrite and expand digital copyright law.

The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America are lobbying for a pair of bills that enjoy bipartisan support. Both are designed to give the federal government more power to police copyright violations, and both are likely to run into opposition from political foes of the RIAA and MPAA.

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the so-called Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, … Read more

WASHINGTON--The Department of Homeland Security's "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border is inoperable in the one location it has been deployed, and plans to replicate the technology along the rest of the border have been completely changed or abandoned, government auditors told Congress on Wednesday.

As part of the DHS Secure Border Initiative established in 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is responsible for deploying SBInet, a border protection system that utilizes a mix of surveillance and communication technologies--such as radars, sensors, and cameras--along with traditional fencing. In February, the deployment of SBInet was … Read more

The price of text messaging has doubled industry-wide in the last three years, and Congress wants to know why.

Sen Herb Kohl, chair of the Antitrust Subcommittee in the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter Tuesday to the four major wireless carriers--AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile--asking them to explain the dramatic price increases for text messaging services.

"Some industry experts contend that these increased rates do not appear to be justified by any increases in the costs associated with text messaging services, but may instead be a reflection of a decrease in competition, and an increase … Read more

About this time a decade ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was praying that the U.S. Justice Department would file an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

"I've competed against Microsoft for years, but I never quite appreciated how big Microsoft has become, not just as a company, but as a brand and as part of the national consciousness," Schmidt said in 1998, four months before the suit was filed. "It's the products, the Microsoft marketing juggernaut, Bill Gates's wealth, all those magazine cover stories. It's everything."

That was when Schmidt was the chief … Read more

The U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly hired a well-known antitrust litigator for a possible court challenge to a planned advertising deal between Google and Yahoo.

Former Walt Disney Co. Vice Chairman Sandy Litvack has been hired to head any legal challenge to the ad deal, according to an article published Monday by Dow Jones News Service.

It was not clear, the article said, whether any eventual lawsuit would target only the Google-Yahoo deal--or represent a broader assault on the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's business practices. Lawyers have been reportedly deposing witnesses and subpoenaing documents to support … Read more

MINNEAPOLIS--Republican partygoers in the Twin Cities this week may have been sporting slightly more formal attire than their counterparts in Denver--think more suits and pearl necklaces--but that doesn't mean their parties were any less bumping.

The Google/Vanity Fair party Thursday night in Minneapolis for the Republican convention largely measured up to, and in some respects surpassed, the Google party in Denver.

The two parties were the same in concept--well-known politicians, unknown aides, and a smattering of Hollywood celebrities moved through rooms sporting colored themes, finger foods, and open bars. However, the lines at the bars in Minneapolis were … Read more

With Thursday night's finale at the Republican National Convention, the preliminaries of the 2008 presidential contest are over and done with--on to the general election in November.

The centerpiece of the Republican event Thursday in St. Paul, Minn., was the acceptance speech by nominee John McCain. The senator from Arizona offered up his vision for what the country can expect if he and running mate Sarah Palin are sworn into office in January.

Get the full lowdown on the night's proceedings from Katie Couric and the CBS News team:

Watch CBS Videos Online

John McCain's announcement last week that he has chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate left the public thirsting for information about the Alaska governor-- and inspired hundreds of commentators, entrepreneurs, and Palin imitators to try to fill in the gaps.

A would-be Palin shares her inner-most thoughts on "The PalinDrome: Sarah Palin's Blog". A faux Levi Johnston (that'd be Palin's soon-to-be son-in-law, for those of you out of the loop) can also be found online.

You can join one of the hundreds of new Facebook groups passing judgment about Palin-- ranging from "… Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn.--John McCain formally accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination here on Thursday in a speech extolling the virtues of both oil drilling and green energy.

The Arizona senator received one of his loudest rounds of applause when he lashed out at his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, and characterized the dispute over oil drilling as a matter of international relations and security as well as economics.

"We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much," McCain said. "We will attack the problem on every … Read more