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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
--- http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1015475.html Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said enacting (an anti-gambling) law was necessary to protect America's children. "These sites specifically target preteen-age children. They're becoming addicted to it, and they turn to crime...If dogs, cats, rabbits, any animal--if they protect their youth, at least we can rise to that level and protect the youth of our country." --- http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1015475.html Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, chairman of the Financial Services committee, said restricting offshore gambling was necessary to thwart al-Qaida and other terrorist cells. "Internet gambling services (are) a haven for money launderers," Oxley said during the floor debate. "Offshore Internet gambling sites can be a haven for terrorists to launder money." --- http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1015948.html Subcommittee Chairman Gordon Smith, R-Ore., suggested that "grossly pornographic" files on P2P networks are a "deceptive trade practice which seems to be under the FTC's jurisdiction." Under the Federal Trade Commission Act, the agency has power to punish "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce." Smith asked the FTC what actions it was taking to protect "young people from what is clearly deception when it comes under the heading Harry Potter and is clearly pornography." FTC Chairman Tim Muris, who testified along with three other commissioners, replied by saying his staff's research shows that P2P pornography is typically labeled correctly. "We find that in many cases, unfortunately, they're quite explicit about what they're leading you to and are not deceptive," Muris said. Smith also raised privacy concerns, warning that anyone installing P2P software could leak sensitive files. "In tapping into these things, they expose their own private materials--health information--into the public domain," Smith said. --- http://news.com.com/2100-1028-1015469.html (Rep. Lamar) Smith called for greater disciplinary action against peer-to-peer pirates at universities, saying that research showed 16 percent of the files available on Kazaa are located at schools and universities. "It's unlikely that this amount of file-sharing activity is in furtherance of class assignments," Smith said ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------