Fix Congress First!
Image via Wikipedia The Democratic leadership in Congress just announced its response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, the case that struck down limits on independent corporate campaign expenditures. As Lawrence Lessig put it: hopeless. The package the Democrats are proposing is filled with ideas that either won’t work or that, if they [...]
International Travelers Beware: We Will Seize Your Stuff
Fast on the heels of the Chinese government, the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security has officially announced that it is claiming new police powers this week: to seize travelers’ laptops, cell phones, cameras, PDAs, iPods, video tapes, books and even magazines … without any suspicion or probable cause and keep them as long as they [...]
Man with suitcases tackled, dragged, questioned…
A Chinese man got smashed to the ground and dragged around today, for standing around in front of the Capitol building with a couple of suitcases…
H-1B Visa Expansion, again!?
Before recessing for Thanksgiving, Congress approved legislation that once-again allows the tech industry to hire 20,000 additional foreign workers next year (bringing the total number of foreign workers eligible for H-1B visas from 65,000 to 85,000 next year). The measure was sneaked into an appropriations bill which has to be passed in order for the [...]
The SPY BLOCK Act
The SPY BLOCK (it’s a clever acronym: Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge) Act was introduced in February in the U.S. Senate, and it’s worked it’s way through commitee … basically, it establishes a few requirements for software applications that are great! Let me sum them up for you, and then … rush [...]
John Kerry’s real tech agenda (CNet)
I can’t help but chuckle most of the way through this article … Here’s a choice bit: Kerry did stand on principle in 1996 when he and other pro-choice senators announced they would seek to repeal sections of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that made it a crime to distribute information about abortion over the Internet. [...]