CNET News - Politics and Law

President signs broadband data collection bill

Stephanie Condon — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:59:00 GMT

President Bush on Friday signed into law a bill that would facilitate the collection of data regarding broadband access in the United States, though most of the actions required by the law have already been accomplished by federal regulators.

The Broadband Data Act directs the Federal Communications Commission to redefine ...

Will Senate actually investigate NSA spying on Americans?

Declan McCullagh — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:30:00 GMT

The U.S. Senate is investigating allegations by two National Security Agency whistleblowers who have described widespread monitoring of innocuous telephone conversations by the Bush administration's clandestine program.

The reports fill in some details about how the NSA's program works in practice. The two whistleblowers, Adrienne Kinne and ...

Former software execs charged with wire fraud

Stephanie Condon — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:46:00 GMT

Two former top executives from Seattle software provider Entellium were arrested on Tuesday night after allegedly inflating their company's revenues to attract investments.

(Credit: Entellium)

Former CEO Paul Thomas Johnston and former Chief Financial Officer Parrish Jones face charges in a U.S. District Court in Seattle for wire ...

Social application builds possible electoral map

Stephanie Condon — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:37:00 GMT

A number of nifty applications have popped up in response to the 2008 elections, like Google's tool to search political speeches and the Obama iPhone application. One more social-networking application is attempting to gain from the current political fever with a very speculative electoral map. For an application with ...

Business, labor urge Bush to sign RIAA-backed copyright bill

Stephanie Condon — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:23:00 GMT

Business leaders discuss promoting IP protection at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.

(Credit: Stephanie Condon/CNET)

WASHINGTON--With only five days left for President Bush to decide whether to sign into law a controversial copyright bill, business lobbyists and even the AFL-CIO are pushing for it to become ...

Feds propose consolidation of personal info in databases

Stephanie Condon — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:45:00 GMT

WASHINGTON--The federal government is trying to find better ways to standardize and coordinate personal information about American citizens that is currently spread across thousands of databases, according to a White House official.

There are more than 3,000 programs or databases in the federal government that hold personal information--Social Security ...

Candidates agree on clean tech, differ on details

Martin LaMonica — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:22:00 GMT

When it comes to energy policy, both presidential candidates want carbon regulations, better efficiency, and more renewable energy. The biggest differences lie in emphasis--drilling, nuclear energy--and what role the federal government should play.

During the second presidential debate on Tuesday, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama both cited the need ...

Originally posted at Green Tech

CBS Webcast: Examining McCain-Obama debate No. 2

Jonathan Skillings — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:12:00 GMT

With just four weeks to go until Election Day, John McCain and Barack Obama met again Tuesday night in the second of three presidential debates.

The White House hopefuls covered familiar ground on topics ranging from the economy and the government's financial rescue plan to how to handle complex ...

Alleged Palin hacker indicted

Stephanie Condon — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:56:00 GMT

A 20-year-old college student suspected of hacking into one of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail accounts was indicted Tuesday, a district court has announced.

David Kernell, a University of Tennessee student and son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell, turned himself into federal authorities and will be arraigned ...

Govt. biometrics use still raises privacy concerns

Stephanie Condon — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT

WASHINGTON--Is the idea of widespread biometric data collection still too spooky to win over the American public?

At some level, it's already becoming commonplace: California and some other states demand fingerprints from driver's license holders. The Verified Identity Pass program includes iris scans, as does the U.K'...