liberty

Troubled Sirius XM Radio announced Tuesday, following reports, that it will accept an investment from cable giant Liberty Media.

The investment, which will save the satellite radio company from bankruptcy or a hostile takeover, will take the form of $530 million in loans in exchange for an equity stake.

The first phase of the investment will consist of a $280 million loan, $250 million of which will be funded immediately on Tuesday, a statement from Sirius XM noted. The second phase, a $150 million loan, will be aimed specifically at the company's XM Satellite Radio subsidiary. Liberty, which owns … Read more

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're very interested in a video game being released Tuesday, April 29, called Grand Theft Auto IV (actually something like the eighth game in the series, depending on how you count).

We previously tried the game out a couple of times while it was still in development, and now that we've had a chance to give the final shipping version a serious run-through over this past weekend, here are our initial thoughts on the final game's pluses and minuses.

The MIT Kerberos Consortium, a security authentication and authorization group, announced Monday that Microsoft has joined its shindig.

The consortium, which launched in September with Google, Apple, Sun Microsystems and a collection of universities, noted Microsoft is coming aboard as a founding sponsor.

Kerberos aims to offer consumers the same single sign-on authentication and authorization system that corporate America has been using to allow employees to access network services with one log-on. Kerberos is an offshoot of MIT's Project Athena, which was developed back in the 1980s.

Microsoft uses the Kerberos network authentication protocol in such products as its … Read more

Congressional Democrats on Tuesday dug in on their refusal to pass a revamped surveillance law that could wipe out some 40 lawsuits accusing telephone companies of illegal cooperation with government spies.

According to summary documents provided by U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office, Democratic leaders are preparing to debate yet another new bill that would not offer so-called "retroactive immunity" to companies that allegedly opened up their networks to the National Security Agency without a court order. At least in theory, that means cases like the one the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed against AT&T … Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to intervene in an appeal of a lawsuit accusing the National Security Agency of illicit spying on millions of Americans communicating with foreigners.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit in 2006 on behalf of journalists, scholars, criminal defense attorneys and Islamic-Americans, had sought review of a 2-1 decision last summer by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to throw out its case.

The ACLU obtained a victory at the trial court level in August 2006. A federal judge in Michigan ruled that the NSA's once-secret … Read more

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:23 p.m. PST to add more information about the Senate votes and the upcoming House action, and at 2:56 p.m. PST to add information about the final vote.

In a setback for privacy and civil liberties groups, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to protect telephone and Internet companies from lawsuits alleging illegal cooperation with government spy agencies.

By a 31-67 vote, senators failed to approve a Democratic-sponsored amendment that would have allowed lawsuits against AT&T and other telecommunication companies accused of illegal activities to … Read more

It's no secret that InterActiveCorp is facing a corporate hurricane. But CEO Barry Diller's plan to split the company in five parts might not calm the waters.

In the fall, the sprawling new media conglomerate announced a plan to spin off many of its brands into a total of five publicly traded companies, focusing its core business on ad-supported media, in order to revive investor confidence. It needs that revival: on Wednesday morning, the company posted its 2007 fourth-quarter earnings, reporting a net loss of $369.9 million as revenues rose eight percent to $1.86 billion.

IAC … Read more

In what may shape up to be one of New York media's most colorful feuds of 2008, IAC/InterActiveCorp Chief Executive Barry Diller and one of its most high-profile stockholders, Liberty Media head John Malone, are at each other's throats Mean Girls-style. And they've brought both their legal and PR teams along for backup.

A vicious press release from IAC on Tuesday morning said that Liberty "has gone off the deep end" in its attempt to control the company's board and oust Diller from his role, and that Malone's cable giant "will … Read more