amendment
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House amendment would require warrants for web history searches
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren announced an amendment that would prohibit the collection of Americans’ internet search history and web browsing data without a warrant.
Senate bill proposes stricter privacy controls for children
Some politicians don't believe the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act does enough to protect kids in the modern era, and they're hoping to update it accordingly. Senators Ed Markey and Josh Hawley have introduced a bill that would amend COPPA with stricter controls on kids' data. It would ban ads targeted at kids, and would require an "Eraser Button" that would let kids and parents wipe data. The measure would still ban the collection of personal data for kids under 13 without their parents' consent, but it would also ban collecting data from the 13- to 15-year-old crowd without the user's permission.
Russia's new anti-extremism law targets online communications
What is "extremism"? That's up to Russian president Vladimir Putin to decide, according to a new amendment to Russian law announced this week by the Kremlin. The law gives Putin more flexibility to punish what he deems as "extremist" behavior -- on par with terrorism, legally -- and it works hand-in-hand with a redefinition of online activity. Previously, Russia defined such activity as "international computer communications"; that definition was amended to also include, "information telecommunication through the internet." This distinction is important, because it means not just websites, but also any form of online communication can be considered under Russia's "extremist" label.
House passes amendment to cut NSA's 'backdoor search' funding
Following a push from several Representatives, the House has pushed through an amendment -- tagged on to the Fiscal Year 2015 Department of Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 4870) -- to stop at least some of the surveillance programs at the National Security Agency. Mark Rumold, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said "the House of Representatives took an important first step in reining in the NSA." On Monday, Representative Justin Amash said the bill was a chance to stop the security agency's "unconstitutional spying on Americans." The backdoor searches that the amendment would stop includes emails, browsing and chat history, which can currently be parsed and searched without a warrant. The amendment would curb this in two ways: it would cut off funding for the search of government databases for information on US citizens while also prohibiting both the NSA and CIA from requiring "backdoors" in online services and products. It's not a done deal just yet: now that it's passed the House, it needs to go through the Senate before it can become a reality.
Amendment
Long time readers of TUAW are sure to back me up on this: I'm a horrible speller. It is no shock, given this fact, that I welcome any application that is designed to correct my mistakes before thousands of people read them. Enter Amendment which bills itself as 'Spell checking, reinvented.'This $16 app is available now for $12. It only works in Cocoa apps (though not in Mail or Pages) where it gives you a Quicksilver-esque interface for correcting spelling errors.
