shouting loudly

On Thursday, the US House passed a FISA reform bill without granting immunity to telecommunications companies accused of assisting illegal eavesdropping on US citizens.
As we noted last month, the White House and telecoms pressed for retroactive immunity. This pressure has not worked–at least not yet–despite Bush’s threat of a veto.

As mourned at the Citizen Media Law Project, the final House version of the bill (HR 2102) to protect reporters from revealing confidential sources was amended specifically to exclude unpaid journalists.
Sadly, this amendment was proposed by the bill’s lead authors, Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Mike Pence (R-IN). Boucher is generally one of the few members [...]

Here is a letter I just sent to Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), my elected representative, with added links:
Dear Rep. Sires,
I am a voter in your district, and I am writing in regards to H.R. 3773, the RESTORE Act. I urge you not to support this legislation unless it meets two key conditions.
First, the bill must [...]

In its latest attempt to block the FCC from imposing modest interconnection requirements on the 700 MHz spectrum auction, Verizon filed suit this week in the DC Circuit.
The Commission wants end users to be able to use the device of their choosing and the applications of their choosing–what Tim Wu calls “Wireless Carterfone.”
For more on [...]

In a series begun yesterday, the Seattle Times is taking on the sorry state of the media industry and media policy.
Editorial Page Editor James Vesely has a brief introduction. Yesterday, they ran an opinion piece by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. Today, it’s Penn Law School luminary Ed Baker.
Today, they also ran a scathing condemnation of [...]

Game Politics reports that another video game sales restriction law has been overturned in court. This time, it was the long-awaited decision on California’s 2005 law, upon which some other (since stalled or overturned) bills and laws were built. Game Politics is also hosting a PDF of the judge’s ruling, which looks a lot like [...]

In an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig describes the legal uncertainty surrounding the Viacom suit as impending “copyright chaos.”
Lessig blames the 2005 Grokster decision for inviting Viacom’s lawsuit of YouTube. The Supremes overstepped their bounds, usurping Congressional authority to damn new technologies, heightening the risk for innovators and reducing [...]

In a child porn case in Texas, a federal judge dismissed Yahoo! as a defendant on the grounds that service providers are not responsible for the content posted by others.
The case, Doe v. Bates (pdf), involves a man who moderated a Yahoo! group that traded in the illegal content. In addition to going after the [...]

The Slamdance Festival runs alongside the Sundance Film Festival, styling itself as an edgier sort of independent event. It also hosts a “Guerilla Gamemaker Competition,” featuring digital games created by independent designers. Slamdance may have called its indie cred into question this year, however, by dropping a controversial game from its finalists: Super Columbine Massacre [...]

Generally, I leave commentary on video game legislation to Game Politics and The Video Game Law Blog because there’s so much to keep up with. Now, however, anti-game attorney Jack Thompson has been asked to draft up a bill that would restrict the sale of violent games to minors in my home state of Massachussets. [...]