senate

Sen. Joseph Lieberman spent years fighting unsuccessfully for a so-called Internet kill switch that would grant the president vast power over private networks during a "national cyberemergency."

Now Lieberman (I-Conn.), who did not seek re-election, is hoping a more modest version of his proposal will be approved before he leaves office in January. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has inserted the cybersecurity bill into the Senate's post-election calendar, and a vote could happen as early as this week after debate on a proposal to open more public land for hunting and fishing.

That move has reignited … Read more

Weathered by debates and endless political advertisements? We're in the home stretch of the 2012 U.S. election season now. Whether you've already voted or are still mulling politicians and propositions, there are plenty of apps to tap for an up-to-the minute perspective on the various battles.

Scan our brief list of mobile apps that can help you vote and stay in tune with the rapid-fire developments sure to occur tomorrow. Got a favorite app you're leaning on for election information? Let us know in the comments section. … Read more

Police must get warrants to access Americans' e-mail and track their cell phones, according to new privacy legislation that promises to spark a political spat between high-tech firms and law enforcement.

The bill, introduced today by Rep. Zoe Lofgren -- a Democrat who represents the heart of Silicon Valley, including the home turf of Apple, Google, and Intel -- would generally require law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant signed by a judge before they can access cloud data or location information.

It's backed by a phalanx of companies, including Amazon.com, Apple, AT&T, eBay, Google, … Read more

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman sent a letter to President Obama today urging him to use his executive power and publish "advisory" guidelines on a cybersecurity order.

"Countless national security leaders from your Administration and the previous Administration have made clear that the threat from cyber attack is similar to the threat we faced from terrorism on September 10, 2001 -- the danger is real and imminent, yet we have not acted to defend against it," Lieberman wrote. "We know our adversaries are already stealing valuable intellectual property and exploiting our critical infrastructure … Read more

A Netflix-backed bill to update an antique 1988 privacy law, crafted a generation before social networks and cloud computing became popular, was derailed today because of last-minute opposition from law enforcement officials.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Judiciary committee, postponed discussion on the proposal to update the dialup-era privacy law, likely pushing a final vote into the new Congress that will convene in 2013.

The delay comes two days after a phalanx of law enforcement organizations objected to the legislation, asking Leahy to "reconsider acting" on it "until a more comprehensive review of … Read more

In 1988, when President Reagan signed a video privacy bill into law, computer users were sipping bandwidth through the tiny straws of 2400 bps modems, IBM was selling mainframe databases for over $200,000, and musician Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" was topping the charts.

Well, it turns out that politicians are no better at prognostication than the rest of us are. The clutch of lawyers and their aides on Capitol Hill failed to anticipate the rise of Netflix and Facebook, and their well-intentioned but brittle video privacy law is now at odds with modern … Read more

Two Democratic senators are urging President Obama to direct his administration to publish "advisory" guidelines through an executive order on cybersecurity.

In a letter (PDF) sent to the White House today, Delaware's Christopher Coons and Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal say it's time for an executive order "directing the promulgation of voluntary standards" by the Department of Homeland Security.

It's hardly clear that the vast Homeland Security bureaucracy -- which has received plenty of failing cybersecurity grades from congressional overseers -- is best-equipped to advise the private sector on how to secure networks and … Read more

After more than 25 years since the passage of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), Sen. Patrick Leahy is hoping to get the out-of-date privacy law up to speed by introducing a new bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee today, according to Ars Technica.

The key component of this new bill is that law enforcement officials would no longer have the ease of freely being able to read people's personal e-mail and online communication -- they'd need a warrant first. As the law now stands, police are allowed to get individual's private correspondence by simply asking e-mail … Read more

A Democrat-backed cybersecurity measure that the Obama administration calls necessary to protect the nation's infrastructure was blocked by Republicans opposed to what they considered to be undue regulation.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 needed 60 votes to move to a vote by the full Senate, thanks to a Republican filibuster of the measure. It mustered only 52 votes in favor, which in the Senate's upside down world allowed a minority of 46 opponents to defeat the measure. The vote mostly fell along party lines, according to Bloomberg. Senate Democrats had hoped to have a vote on the measure … Read more