House may vote on phone data privacy bill soon
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Legislation that would make it   illegal to obtain and sell consumers' telephone records could   come to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday,   said Rep. Joe Barton, one of the measure's authors.
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After agonizing for weeks, the House planned to vote Wednesday on legislation that would protect more than 20 million people from seeing their tax bill balloon this year as a result of the dreaded alternative minimum tax.
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SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that could allow criminal charges to be brought against individuals who participate in file-swapping Web sites or networks.
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The House passed legislation Tuesday to combat the criminal use of Internet spyware and scams aimed at stealing personal information from computer users
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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Wednesday approved bills intended to fight computer spyware and to protect wireless phone customers from potential privacy problems associated with a wireless phone number directory.
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Data privacy is likely to be among the hottest technology issues to face Congress this year, thanks in part to interest from the new chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee.
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Efforts stalled in the U.S. House of   Representatives to pass a bill that would make it illegal to   obtain private telephone records surreptitiously, as was done   in the Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N scandal.
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Democrats and Republicans take up fight over wiretapping measure.
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One bill safeguards wireless phone numbers; the other targets malicious snoops.
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Democrats have had since January to schedule a vote on a bill that would protect Internet users from access taxes. They still haven't done so, and a temporary moratorium expires in just a few weeks.
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(InfoWorld) - When the U.S. Congress adjourned in the early morning hours Saturday, it left a number of technology-related bills unfinished, including two bills addressingÂ fraudulent access to personal telephone records. Despite pressure from members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, the full House failed to act on the Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act. The law would have allowed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to seek civil penalties against businesses that obtain personal data under false pretenses. The committee has been looking into privacy concerns related to so-called pretexting since early this year, but the issue came to a head last month, whenÂ Hewlett-Packard revealedÂ it had used questionable investigative techniques in the surveillance of board members, employees, and reporters. With pretexting, private investigators or identity thieves pretend to be customers of mobile phone carriers or other companies in order to gain access to personal records such as call logs. Congress still has more time to act on the pretexting legislation or six related bills this year, however. After a month-plus break allowing lawmakers to focus on the Nov. 7 election, Congress will return for a lame-duck session Nov. 9. Democrats last week complained that the House Republican leadership had held up the pretexting legislation, but Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and Energy and Commerce chairman, said he'd continue to push for the legislation. Congress alsoÂ failed to pass a wide-ranging broadband billÂ that would replace local franchise rules with a national system for telecom providers launching Internet Protocol-based television services in competition with cable TV. And although U.S. President George Bush called on Congress to pass legislation authorizing a controversial National Security Agency (NSA)Â surveillance program, two bills making it easier for the government to conduct surveillance without court-ordered warrants also stalled. One piece of Internet-related legislation did pass early Saturday. The Senate passed a bill providing money for seaport security, and added to the bill was a provision prohibiting U.S. banks and credit-card companies from processing payments to online gambling sites. A group of professional poker players had asked Congress to reject the bill, but a group of House Republicans pushed for the legislation, saying offshore gambling sites were breaking U.S. gambling-control laws. Bush had called for legislation to authorize the NSA program, which has listened in on the electronic communications of U.S. residents without court-ordered warrants, as a way to head off multiple lawsuits targeting the program. He has argued the program is necessary to help keep U.S. residents safe from terrorism. The HouseÂ passed one surveillance bill, but the Senate failed to act. The House bill would allow federal law enforcement officials to spy on U.S. residents for up to 90 days without a court order in the period after a terrorist attack. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a civil liberties and privacy advocacy group, said it was happy to see the surveillance and broadband bills stall. Republicans supporting the surveillance bill were pushing it as a way to show they were focused on national security during the last weeks of the congressional campaign, said Nancy Libin, a staff counsel at CDT. "Now that they've gone home, I'm not sure what kind of priority it will be when they come back," she said. Several civil liberties groups had opposed the broadband bill as it lacked protections for so-called net neutrality. Net neutrality advocates want a law that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing service to Web sites offering competing content, and they have successfully halted the Senate version of the broadband bill, despiteÂ heavy lobbying from large broadband providers.
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The fate of a bill to reorganize the nation&#39;s intelligence agencies is likely to be decided Monday when the House of Representatives meets, key lawmakers and staffers said.
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Californians will have the right to decide for themselves whether their cell phone number is listed in a planned wireless 411 directory under a new bill signed into law last Friday (Sept.
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If House Republican leaders would allow a vote on post-Sept. 11 legislation to overhaul the nation&#39;s intelligence system, it would easily
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The Senate votes 68-29 to give amnesty to telephone and internet companies being sued for helping the government spy on Americans without warrants. The bill also largely legalizes future NSA domestic spying. The House must agree before the bill becomes law.
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The House is poised to vote Tuesday on an overhaul of the nation&#39;s intelligence apparatus, with the Senate likely to follow suit Wednesday.
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The House has scheduled votes this week on open-government bills. They would:  - Require organizations established for the purpose of raising funds for presidential libraries to disclose the sources of contributions of $200 or more.