Newsitem List

Saturday, June 14, 2008 :Today The Hill and Congressional Quarterly are reporting that a deal has been reached on legislation to amend FISA, which will include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. Under the guise of a compromise, the legislation is designed to ensure that the only issue the courts will review is whether or not the President told the telecoms that their conduct was legal, but not whether the conduct actually was legal....

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 : Congressional Republicans have new legislation they're pushing as a "compromise" on telecom immunity. One of their central talking points has been that the bill would allow a court to review whether the telcos acted legally when they cooperated with the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. For instance, this morning's New York Times reported:...

Friday, June 6, 2008 : Senator John McCain's presidential campaign has strong connections to the high-powered lobbyists employed by AT&T and other telecommunications companies to escape from responsibility for violations of federal law, with paid lobbyists occupying prominant positions in the upper echelons....

Friday, June 6, 2008 : This week, the Stanford Center for Internet and Society's Fair Use Project struck a telling blow in the battle to protect fair use. A US District Judge issued an opinion holding that the producers and distributors of the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed are likely to prevail on their fair use defense in a copyright infringement suit brought by Yoko Ono. As part of the film's commentary on the treatment of "intelligent design" in academia, the filmmakers inc...

Friday, June 6, 2008 :Lawmakers are urging the Federal Communications Commissions to investigate the Pentagon's propaganda program to determine if the major TV networks or the Pentagon-backed analysts violated federal law. We speak to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps....

Monday, June 2, 2008 : The telecoms who are being sued for their cooperation in the government's illegal warrantless surveillance program have received billions in government contracts. According to Washington Technology magazine, Verizon received $1.3 billion, Sprint $839 million and AT&T $505 million in federal prime contract revenue for fiscal 2007, for a total of $2.6 billion. While the companies have been government contractors for a long time, it still represents a significant increase ...

Friday, May 30, 2008 :Have you ever wanted to test whether an e-commerce website is keeping your data secure? The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- and state statutes modeled on that law -- are so overbroad and vague that your curiosity could get you in deep legal water. When you access your account with an online retailer, the URL often contains a series of numbers. What if those numbers, instead of being randomly generated, appear to be unencrypted personal information, like the last ...

Friday, May 30, 2008 :Over the past four decades, veteran reporter Robert Scheer has built a reputation as one of the leading journalists in this country - from his time as a war correspondent during Vietnam to his widely-read columns today. Over the years, he has interviewed Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Clinton. Author of seven books, his latest is "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America."...

Friday, May 30, 2008 :More than 30,000 people representing 80 countries are in Los Angeles this weekend for BookExpo America, the publishing industry's annual three-day gathering. Among the groups is the American Booksellers Association, or ABA, the national trade association for independent booksellers. We speak to former ABA president Lawrence Russell....

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 :In a stunning blow to what very little remains of the Bush administrations political credibility, the presidents former press secretary Scott McClellan has published a book indicting the White House for launching an unnecessary war in Iraq based on false propaganda....