the-government
BT boss urges fines for filesharing customers
Corporate crusaders for free speech unite Mandybill Ian Livingston, the boss of Britain’s biggest ISP BT, is lobbying for the government’s proposed technical sanctions against filesharers to be replaced with fines.… ?
Continue reading »Educators, cable: more cash for public computer centers
As everybody waits for the government to announce the winners in the first round of broadband stimulus grant awards, nine advocacy groups and a Time Warner Cable executive are calling for the Department of Commerce to boost the amount of funding available for public computer centers in round number two.
Continue reading »Court Kills ‘Round-The-Clock’ Surveillance Case
Welcome to the tinfoil hat club. That’s what a federal appeals court is telling Scott Tooley of Kentucky in dismissing his civil rights lawsuit. Tooley believes the government put him under blanket surveillance after he said the word bomb to an airline agent.
Continue reading »Telco Spy Immunity Up for Grabs
Lawmakers are considering key changes to the Patriot Act and other spy laws – proposals that could give new life to lawsuits accusing the nation’s telecommunications companies of turning over Americans’ electronic communications to the government without warrants. President Barack Obama supported that telco-immunity legislation as an Illinois senator last year. President George W.
Continue reading »Uncle Sam’s infosec briefing gives short shrift to copyright
The US government’s annual information security briefing is making the rounds online thanks to a questionable slide or two that indicate that all music downloading is illegal and that government employees need to avoid it at all costs. The slideshow is required for nearly all employees and is meant to drive home the importance of everyone taking basic security measures, but the hyperbolic examples have drawn negative attention to the government’s view of downloading and the Internet. The music-related questions are found in the interactive portion of the presentation, where you are asked to help your buddy Miguel with some downloads on his computer.
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