U.S. House of Representatives

Reddit to go silent in SOPA protest

All across Twitter these days, you can find people who are standing up to the bipartisan Congressional coalition behind the Stop Online Piracy Act. But one news site is taking its protest a whole lot further than simply plastering a "STOP SOPA" banner across its Twitter profile picture.

Reddit, a popular news aggregator, said today that it will be "blacking out" its entire site for 12 hours on January 18.

"The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy," Reddit's editors posted this afternoon. "Congress is considering legislation … Read more

Congressional sites defaced after Obama speech

Someone defaced the Web pages of nearly 50 members of the U.S. House of Representatives with an explicit insult to President Obama after he gave his State of the Union address on Wednesday night.

The 49 House Web sites, representing both Democrats and Republicans, were managed by a company called GovTrends, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.

The hacking occurred while GovTrends was performing an update, Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the House chief administrative officer, told the AP.

Last August, 18 House sites managed by GovTrends were also defaced, according to Ventura, who added that the House is reconsidering … Read more

Congress to probe P2P sites over 'inadvertent sharing'

The main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has reopened a probe of Lime Wire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing companies over the issue of "inadvertent sharing." The move comes nearly two months after it was alleged that Iran took advantage of a computer security breach to obtain information about President Barack Obama's helicopter.

CNET News has obtained copies of the letters written by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission asking them for help investigating the recent rash of security breaches caused when people … Read more

iPhones not on House 'must-have' list

Reports of the iPhone's imminent arrival in Washington appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

Jordan Golson of the Industry Standard has debunked a report last week by TheHill.com suggesting that the U.S. House of Representatives was seriously considering switching its mobile computer of choice from the BlackBerry to the iPhone based on strong demand. Golson followed up with Jeff Ventura, director of communications for the Chief Administrative Officer of the House, and Ventura said that the CAO is merely testing a small number of iPhones to see how they might fit into the organization.

That's not … Read more