senate

Correction 2:40 p.m. PST: The original version of this story incorrectly stated the vote count. It was 76-10.

In a preliminary victory for the likes of AT&T and Verizon, the U.S. Senate has ventured a step closer to passing a law that would crush lawsuits accusing telecommunications companies of illegal cooperation with government spying programs.

By a 76-10 vote on Monday, the senators agreed to cut off the possibility of a filibuster that would delay final action on the so-called FISA Amendments Act, which the Bush administration argues is necessary to remove supposed hurdles to … Read more

Comcast's reportedly aggressive filtering of BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic is drawing calls for a U.S. Senate hearing--and a renewed push for Net neutrality laws.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) on Friday sent a letter asking Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) to convene a hearing as soon as possible to investigate "the topic of service discrimination by phone and cable companies."

The request isn't new: Dorgan and Snowe both made a similar plea after reports that Verizon Wireless had initially refused to carry a reproductive rights group's text messages.

The senators … Read more

Scarcely a week before an existing ban on Internet access taxes is set to expire, the U.S. Senate late Thursday voted to let the prohibition live on for seven more years.

The compromise bill, which was approved by a voice vote, would prohibit state and local governments from taxing any service that enables users to connect to the Internet and some related services through 2014. That's three years longer than the version passed by the House of Representatives last week.

The bill won't go to the president's desk just yet. First, the House must approves the … Read more

Anyone regularly engaged in "journalism," which would seem to include some bloggers, wouldn't generally be forced to divulge confidential sources in federal cases under a bill approved Thursday by a U.S. Senate committee.

By a 15-2 vote, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee backed an amended version of the so-called Free Flow of Information Act. Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) cast the "no" votes.

Some form of "reporter's privilege," either through laws or court decisions, already exists in 49 states and the District of Columbia. This bill would … Read more

With only weeks to go before a federal halt to Internet access taxes expires, a handful of Senate Republicans is applying a new form of pressure on the Democratic leadership.

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) on Wednesday reintroduced an identical version of his bill from January that would make permanent an existing moratorium set to end November 1. Unless Congress passes his proposal--or at least another temporary extension--there won't be anything stopping most state and local governments from taxing Internet access, including DSL (digital subscriber line), cable modem and BlackBerry-type wireless transmission services.

The difference this time is … Read more

Democrats in the U.S. Congress failed on Thursday to protect Internet users from higher taxes.

The Senate Commerce committee, chaired by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), mysteriously killed a vote on an Internet tax bill that was supposed to take place at 2:30 p.m. ET. With a laugh but no explanation, Inouye simply told the hearing room it wasn't going to happen.

Normally postponements of votes would be mere congressional background noise. This is different because, as we wrote about earlier this month, a temporary federal moratorium on Internet access taxes expires on November 1.

If a … Read more

Wednesday night, my colleague Anne Broache and I posted our article previewing the U.S. Senate hearing Thursday where Microsoft and Google will face off regarding the search company's attempt to purchase DoubleClick.

The hearing is about to start and can be watched via Webcast. Anne is there and will be writing about the hearing later Thursday.

That article previewed Google's arguments. Now we have a copy of Microsoft's prepared remarks by Brad Smith, the company's general counsel, and we're sharing this excerpt. Smith, no newcomer to antitrust fights, says the merger would be bad … Read more

From my vantage point in the peanut gallery, it's oh so tempting to hold our elected officials up to ridicule. But truth be told, it's sometimes impossible to resist. And when it comes to that increasingly busy intersection between the worlds of politics and technology, it seems the hits just keep on coming.

So it is that California State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) introduced a bill that would "prohibit any person from forcing any other person to undergo an implant in their body of a radio frequency identification device."

I kid thee not.

His fellow … Read more

It's official: a key U.S. Senate Democrat leader has escalated his committee's ongoing quest for more answers about a once-secret warrantless wiretapping program, issuing subpoenas on Wednesday to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and three other Bush administration officials.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) formally requested an avalanche of documents describing the legal basis for the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program and any other ongoing classified surveillance programs. Besides Gonzales, the senator targeted high-level attorneys at the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the National Security Council. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Leahy heads, authorized the court orders … Read more