Senate Approves Bill On Victims&#39; Rights
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The Senate gave final approval yesterday to long-stalled legislation to expand access to DNA testing for rape victims and prison inmates, as Congress struggled to finish pre-election
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The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill authorizing $23 billion in water resource projects, including $3.5 billion in work for hurricane-ravaged Louisiana.
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The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to approve a landmark bill to restructure the nation&#39;s intelligence community, completing Congressional action intended to
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New York&#39;s attorney general and state legislative leaders presented a bill on Tuesday aimed at protecting people from sexual predators on the Internet, aand Facebook, MySpace, and Yahoo backed the effort.In a press conference, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced legislation they called &quot;groundbreaking&quot; in its proposed restrictions and controls of sexual offenders&#39; online activities.&quot;Today I believe we&#39;re proposing the most comprehensive, smartest, toughest law in the nation to keep people safe online, especially minors,&quot; Cuomo said.The Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP) responds to the widely documented use that sexual offenders make of the Internet, in particular social-networking sites, to stalk and victimize people, particularly minors.Specifically, e-STOP would require convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses, instant message screen names, and any other online identifiers with the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. That data would then be made available to social-networking companies and other online services so that they can then block access to sexual offenders and remove them from their sites.The bill also calls for allowing sentencing courts and the state&#39;s Parole Board to restrict the online activities of sex offenders who used the Internet to commit their crimes, victimized a minor, or are considered highly likely to repeat their offenses. In particular, the bill would ban many sex offenders from using social-networking sites.There are more than 627,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S., about 25,000 of whom are in New York, according to Cuomo&#39;s office.State attorneys general have been very vocal about their concerns over online safety, in particular of minors who are preyed upon by sexual offenders on social-networking sites, which are widely used by teens.The attorneys general have often criticized Facebook, MySpace, and other sites for, in their view, not doing enough to protect minors, but the two sides have recently seemed to get on better terms and have rolled out several joint security initiatives, partnerships and agreements.The e-STOP bill is needed to help social-networking companies keep their sites safer and will complement these companies&#39; in-house security efforts, Cuomo said.MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam agreed and said laws need to keep up with the times and technology. &quot;We hope [e-STOP] becomes a model for other states to follow,&quot; Nigam said.&quot;As Facebook and other Internet companies do our best to exclude [from our sites] those who would do our users harm, we need help from the government,&quot; said Chris Kelly, Facebook&#39;s chief privacy officer.Ideally, legislation like e-STOP would get enacted widely in U.S. states and also at the federal level, Cuomo said.
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The Senate passed legislation yesterday that would make Federal Housing Administration loans available to subprime borrowers facing foreclosure.
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A bill aimed at curbing class action  lawsuits advanced on Thursday as the Senate Judiciary Committee  approved the measure 13-5, voting it out to the Senate floor.
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Rape victims and convicted felons would have greater access to DNA testing under legislation the House passed Wednesday.
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The House passed a bill Wednesday to establish a new division of federal prosecutors and FBI agents focused strictly on cracking unsolved murders from the civil rights era.
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The Senate on Thursday gave President Bush the first legislative victory of his second term by approving legislation to help shield businesses from major class action lawsuits.
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The Senate yesterday approved a sweeping measure that would expand the government's clandestine surveillance powers, delivering a key victory to the White House by approving immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that cooperated with intelligence agencies in domestic spying after...
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KABUL , Afghanistan -- The country's lower house of Parliament voted into law yesterday a revised resolution calling for an amnesty for groups suspected of perpetrating war crimes during a quarter-century of fighting, but also recognized the rights of victims to seek justice.
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Gender rights activists Thursday hailed the legislature's approval of an anti-rape law that widens the definition of the crime and makes it illegal in Thailand for a husband to have sex with his wife without her consent.
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LAWSUITS BILL: The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill curbing multimillion-dollar class action lawsuits by a vote of 72-26 on Thursday. The House will take it up next week and send it to the president to sign into law.
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Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Senate that would require sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses with authorities.  Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen.
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Senators aim to tighten cybercrime law Senators on both sides of the House have backed a bill that would allow American victims of identity theft to seek restitution for the money and time they waste repairing their credit histories.â¦
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A city law passed in late March would, for the first time in China, give victims legal recourse.
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Senate Republicans and Democrats  said on Friday said they were ready to act quickly to boost  survivor benefits for U.S. military families who lost a member  on active duty.