Lawmakers Introduce Breach Notification, Other Bills
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A flurry of new technology-related bills was introduced this week in the U.S. Congress.
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Some lawmakers are warning of a voter backlash against members of Congress &quot;trying to protect their own&quot; if party leaders keep escalating a constitutional dispute over the FBI&#039;s raid of a representative&#039;s office.
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A bill approved Thursday requires new disclosure of lobbyists' role in 'bundling' checks from many contributors, destined for lawmakers' war chests.
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Two bills take different approaches toward the tricky concept of how to regulate what happens if a company has a data leak.
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U.S. lawmakers wrote to regulators on Monday expressing concern that some banks are processing unsigned checks used by fraudsters seeking to drain money from the accounts of vulnerable people.
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A BILL seeking to classify phone calls made over the Internet separately from conventional voice calls has been filed in Congress.
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(InfoWorld) - When the U.S. Congress adjourned in the early morning hours Saturday, it left a number of technology-related bills unfinished, including two bills addressingÂ fraudulent access to personal telephone records. Despite pressure from members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, the full House failed to act on the Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act. The law would have allowed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to seek civil penalties against businesses that obtain personal data under false pretenses. The committee has been looking into privacy concerns related to so-called pretexting since early this year, but the issue came to a head last month, whenÂ Hewlett-Packard revealedÂ it had used questionable investigative techniques in the surveillance of board members, employees, and reporters. With pretexting, private investigators or identity thieves pretend to be customers of mobile phone carriers or other companies in order to gain access to personal records such as call logs. Congress still has more time to act on the pretexting legislation or six related bills this year, however. After a month-plus break allowing lawmakers to focus on the Nov. 7 election, Congress will return for a lame-duck session Nov. 9. Democrats last week complained that the House Republican leadership had held up the pretexting legislation, but Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and Energy and Commerce chairman, said he'd continue to push for the legislation. Congress alsoÂ failed to pass a wide-ranging broadband billÂ that would replace local franchise rules with a national system for telecom providers launching Internet Protocol-based television services in competition with cable TV. And although U.S. President George Bush called on Congress to pass legislation authorizing a controversial National Security Agency (NSA)Â surveillance program, two bills making it easier for the government to conduct surveillance without court-ordered warrants also stalled. One piece of Internet-related legislation did pass early Saturday. The Senate passed a bill providing money for seaport security, and added to the bill was a provision prohibiting U.S. banks and credit-card companies from processing payments to online gambling sites. A group of professional poker players had asked Congress to reject the bill, but a group of House Republicans pushed for the legislation, saying offshore gambling sites were breaking U.S. gambling-control laws. Bush had called for legislation to authorize the NSA program, which has listened in on the electronic communications of U.S. residents without court-ordered warrants, as a way to head off multiple lawsuits targeting the program. He has argued the program is necessary to help keep U.S. residents safe from terrorism. The HouseÂ passed one surveillance bill, but the Senate failed to act. The House bill would allow federal law enforcement officials to spy on U.S. residents for up to 90 days without a court order in the period after a terrorist attack. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a civil liberties and privacy advocacy group, said it was happy to see the surveillance and broadband bills stall. Republicans supporting the surveillance bill were pushing it as a way to show they were focused on national security during the last weeks of the congressional campaign, said Nancy Libin, a staff counsel at CDT. "Now that they've gone home, I'm not sure what kind of priority it will be when they come back," she said. Several civil liberties groups had opposed the broadband bill as it lacked protections for so-called net neutrality. Net neutrality advocates want a law that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing service to Web sites offering competing content, and they have successfully halted the Senate version of the broadband bill, despiteÂ heavy lobbying from large broadband providers.
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Editor and Publisher - NEW YORK Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) on Friday introduced a federal shield law that would provide an "absolute protection" for confidential sources. The legislation is in response to a slew of recent court actions demanding reporters reveal sources.
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As more details emerge about the recently disclosed security breach at TJX Companies, lawmakers in Massachusetts are considering new laws that would put the onus for paying for such breaches on retailers and merchants, rather than banks and credit unions, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
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Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed legislation yesterday that would require companies to notify consumers if their Social Security numbers or other personal information were accidentally made public.
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Congress was pushing on Friday to finish legislation that would boost security at U.S. ports, but at the last minute lawmakers added provisions to prohibit Internet gambling.
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Two U.S. senators said on Thursday  they would introduce legislation that would potentially protect  users of popular social networking sites like News Corp's   MySpace from registered sex offenders.
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Certainly no one likes spyware so since mid-May, a trio of bills have been introduced before Congress.  All three will face the Senate next week, including two competing versions passed by the House, and an entirely new Senate bill whose ink isn't even dry enough for its prototype language to enter the Congressional Record.
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The US House of Representatives passed a bill this week that could allow criminal charges to be brought against individuals who use file-swapping Web sites or networks.
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Intelligence agencies came under sharp attack today from lawmakers, as did Congress, where a bill to put in place recommendations from the Sept.
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Blog: New legislation has been introduced in the Senate that could help expedite the process of transferring your existing phone number to another voice provider.
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A top homeland security lawmaker has called for an investigation into possible cyber attacks on computer systems at the Homeland Security Department.