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Senators work on what might be the most anti-encryption bill yet
The White House might have avoided serious backlash by refusing to back an encryption bill being worked on by the offices of Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein. Kevin Bankston, director of New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, told Wired that in his 20 years working in tech policy, "this is easily the most ludicrous, dangerous, technically illiterate proposal" he's ever seen. Wired even notes that privacy experts thinks it's so bad, it's good, because it's very unlikely that the bill will become law as it is.
Virginia sends nation's first daily fantasy bill to the governor
As DraftKings and FanDuel make their case for daily fantasy sports in each state in the US, the Virginia legislature approved a framework to regulate the games. The Fantasy Contests Act (SB 646) passed both the Senate and the House in the state, making the Commonwealth's General Assembly the first to approve guidelines for the sports gaming craze that has taken the US (and UK) by storm. Of course, the bill still has to be signed by Governor Terry McAuliffe.
16 states unveil privacy protection measures
While US lawmakers and Congress beg tech companies to give them encrypted user data access, many states are going in a different direction. With help from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sixteen of them including New York, Alabama, Illinois and Alaska are launching bills to protect residents' private data. The proposed laws differ from region to region, but focus on several areas. Most states want to prevent schools from gathering private student data, and Hawaii wants to ban employers from accessing workers' private social media info. Other measures are aimed at limiting "stingray" cellphone snooping and license plate data collection.
Sprint's unlimited data plan increases to $70 a month on October 16th
If you're been eyeing Sprint's Unlimited Plan for an endless supply of data, you'll want to act quickly. The carrier is increasing the cost of its unlimited data option by $10 a month on October 16th, upping it from $60 to $70. The announcement comes in the form of an "act now" promo of sorts from Sprint, offering those who are interested a chance to opt in before the price hike. The company says that in addition to those who switch over by October 15th, customers who are currently on the $60 unlimited tier will be able to keep the current rate after the changes go into effect. What's more, the monthly cost will stay put, even when getting a new phone, as long as plan requirements are met and selected financing options are available with the data option. Sprint is offering the iPhone 6s for $1/month when you trade-in too, pairing it with unlimited data for $61 for a limited time. [Image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
New bill would extend Patriot Act surveillance until 2020
In case you haven't heard, the Patriot Act's Section 215 is set to expire June 1st. That's the provision that National Security Agency uses to justify its bulk data collection practices. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is working to make sure the current rules remain in place. McConnell introduced a bill earlier this week that would extend the Patriot Act's justification of post-9/11 surveillance until 2020. What's more, the senator already put the bill on the Senate calendar using a rule that allows him to bypass the usual committee process.
Musicians and Congress join forces in fight for royalty reform
Fair artist compensation from internet radio and streaming services is quite the hot topic of late, and now members of Congress are joining the debate. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, alongside the musicFIRST Coalition, introduced the Fair Play Fair Pay Act today that would end regulations that don't require terrestrial radio stations to pay royalties to artists and labels. As it stands, those AM/FM stations available in your car only pay licensing fees to songwriters and publishers. Organizations like ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) handle those agreements, collecting fees every time a copyrighted song is played on the radio or during a public performance. For its part in managing those agreements, ASCAP brought in over $1 billion last year.
UK makes 'revenge porn' illegal with punishment of up to two years in jail
Posting "revenge porn" in England and Wales is becoming a criminal offense. It's thanks to an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which was passed last year by the House of Lords and due to receive Royal Assent later today. Anyone found guilty of distributing explicit images to force victims into sexual activity or to humiliate them will now face up to two years in prison. It's designed to cover photos and videos that are shared without permission both on and offline, including those posted to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other social networks.
Senators kill bill aimed at ending NSA's mass phone surveillance
Back in May, the US government began to process a bill aimed at reining in the NSA's powers of surveillance -- if Google, Apple and Microsoft are sending group letters, you know it's an important bill. However, it's been left on Capitol Hill, rejected by the Senate. It failed a procedural vote, after senior Republicans said it would affect efforts to defend the country from enemies. It fell short of the 60 votes needed, gathering 58 to 42 votes. It's now unlikely to become law, as Republicans (who made up most of the opposition), will hold a majority in the Senate in the new year.
California limits schools' social media monitoring
In California, school officials are now required to be more transparent when tracking a student's online activity. Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill earlier this week requiring parents to be notified when a school is peering at their kids' online activity. What's more, schools have to delete collected social media posts within a year of the student leaving or their 18th birthday. The law comes in response to the Glendale Unified school district hiring an outside firm to monitor Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds in 2013 -- without informing students or their parents that they were being watched. "I believe that as the world changes and this type of monitoring becomes more commonplace, legislation like this is critical to protecting the privacy of our children," said California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto. Glendale Unified says it doesn't keep posts that it's alerted to via the monitoring service. [Photo credit: Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images]
President Obama signs cellphone unlocking bill into law
After getting the approval of both the House and the Senate, the US cellphone unlocking bill needed just one more signature to remove the carrier-swapping restriction. Today, President Barack Obama signed the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act into law, making it once again legal for smartphone owners to unlock their device without direct permission from the carrier it's locked to. If you'll recall, the effort began as a petition, and is what the White House is calling "an example of democracy at its best." Should you be in need of refresher on the finer points, we explain the whole thing right here. [Photo credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
Cellphone unlocking bill passes through the House, heads to the Oval Office
Well, it seems like the US cellphone unlocking bill didn't get held up legislation after all: the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act just passed through the House of Representatives with unanimous support. The measure reverses the 2012 decision that made phone unlocking a violation of copyright law and frees consumers from the mercy of their cellular provider, but it's not law yet -- the bill still needs the signature of President Obama. Still, that's almost a formality: the "bulk unlock" measure portion of the legislation that caused waves in the Senate has since been removed from the bill. Its text is clean and simple: unlocks can be "initiated by the owner" of any device or "by another person at the direction of the owner" with the express purpose of connecting to the wireless network of their choice. Sounds good here. [Image credit: Mondo3, Flickr]
Australian bill would jail those who report on leaked spying operations
Journalists in the US and UK may be relatively safe from the government's wrath when they report on surveillance leaks from the likes of Edward Snowden, but the Australian press may have to tread carefully before too long. Attorney General George Brandis has presented a bill that would make it a crime to reveal information that might "prejudice the effective conduct" of "special intelligence operations," such as those from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). It also creates new charges specific to people who might become whistleblowers, such as contractors and the spies themselves.
Senate passes a bill that legalizes cellphone unlocking
The US is now that much closer to a law that makes it legal to unlock your phone. A few months after the House of Representatives passed a bill that would authorize unlocking, the Senate has passed its own measure accomplishing mostly the same thing. The biggest difference is their attitude toward bulk unlocking; unlike the House, the Senate has no major objections to resellers unlocking devices en masse. Both legislative branches still have to harmonize their bills before the President can sign something into law, and it wouldn't be surprising if the volume unlocking issue holds things up. However, it's good to know that the government is largely on the same page -- and that you might not have to rely on the kindness of carriers to get more control over the phone you bought. [Image credit: Mondo3, Flickr]
California's smartphone kill switch bill passes a second senate vote
Perseverance pays off, it seems. Just weeks after California's senate shot down a bill that would require a remote kill switch feature on smartphones, the legislature has passed an amended version of the same would-be law. Senate critics dropped their opposition after changes were made to both give companies more time to implement the technology and explicitly left tablets out of the regulation. Apple and Microsoft are also onside after initially objecting to the measure, too. There's still no certainty that the kill switch will become official and let you disable a stolen phone from afar, but it's now a realistic possibility -- much to the chagrin of big US carriers.
Georgia passes law giving $25 million in video game tax breaks
Georgia governor Nathan Deal today signed a bill that will grant local video game developers $25 million in tax credits, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The legislation, part of House Bill 958, will give tax breaks to Hi-Rez Studios, Tripwire Interactive, and other Georgia-native development studios. The state previously courted developers in 2008 with the similar Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which provided a 20% tax credit to local film, TV and game development studios. [Image: City of Atlanta]
Proposed GOP bill excludes violent software makers from tax credit
The recently revealed Tax Reform Act of 2014 by House Republicans has caught the attention of some folks in these here parts for preventing makers of violent video games from qualifying for tax credits. The Washington Examiner correctly points out that in the bill's executive summary (a fancy term for overview) that violent video games are specifically called out. The Entertainment Software Association, the US trade organization that puts on the annual E3 show in Los Angeles tells Joystiq, "This industry, like all software developers who would be impacted under this proposal, invests billions of dollars every year in research and development and this proposal threatens American technological advancement and economic growth. We look forward to continuing to educate policymakers on our societal and economic contributions and the need to preserve and expand this unique industry." Although the executive summary mentions video games, the actual bill's language doesn't. However, it does exclude software development from the tax credit, which would be an even bigger issue. [Image: Pixel-3D via Shutterstock]
Kentucky law could let kids swap foreign language classes for coding lessons
Concerned that not enough is being done to help kids with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects? Kentucky's Senate has just passed a bill that would count computer-programming classes as foreign language credits. That way, if students wanted to learn to code in favor of, say, French or Spanish, they'd be able to count that study toward their high school graduation. Senate Bill 16 will now pass to the Kentucky State House, but it seems like the sort of sensible policy that we'd expect from the home of Bourbon.
New Zealand Parliament bans software patents with a 117-4 vote
After five years of debate and a 117-4 vote, New Zealand's Parliament has passed a bill that says computer programs are not considered inventions and are therefore ineligible for patents. However, the phrasing of the bill is flexible enough to provide some leeway. Since "products or processes" are understood to be patentable inventions, software that is integral to the implementation of a process designed to improve hardware can be included in the terms of a patent application. The text of the bill, intended to replace the outdated Patents Act of 1953, states, "Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no 'inventive step' in software development, as 'new' software invariably builds on existing software." You can come to your own conclusions on the matter by checking out the bill at the source link below.
House bill proposes fines on retail games without ESRB ratings, prohibition of some sales to minors
Bill H.R.287, or the "Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act" as it will likely be more widely known, seeks to accomplish three goals: To make illegal the act of selling or renting video games that have not been evaluated by the ESRB, to legally prohibit the sale of Adults Only/Mature games to anyone under the age of 18/17 respectively, and to institute a fine not in excess of $5,000 in the event of noncompliance.The bill's second and third provisions aside, mandating that all games be rated doesn't sound too wildly outside the scope of reason, save for the fact that the industry's current architecture supports that already. Granted, indie games that end up on Steam or other PC/Mac distribution platforms may not seek out ESRB evaluation, but any game released for any console must have an ESRB rating, as Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft will refuse licensing otherwise.If the rest of what VGREA is attempting to accomplish sounds familiar, it's because the Supreme Court of the United States already declared such legislation unconstitutional way back in June of 2011. So, unless time is cyclical and this bill is actually what the court ruled on in 2011, the chances of this new one getting off the ground are pretty slim.
President Obama signs Video Privacy Protection bill, now Netflix can share to Facebook
Netflix has been lobbying hard for changes to a law that it believed barred it from sharing the videos users watch on social media services, and now the law has changed. After H.R. 6671 passed through Congress last year without objection, President Barack Obama signed it into law today. As it previously existed, the Video Privacy Protection Act would have required users to approve sharing of each title watched in writing. The amendment removes that restriction, and should see the Facebook features already on Netflix internationally available in the US, soon. Hit the source link to read the bill itself, whether you're increasingly wary of the reach of social media, or an Open Graph addict.
