Congress moves to ease access to records
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Congress is moving to reverse one area of the Bush administration's trend toward secrecy since the 2001 terrorist attacks by expanding the Freedom of Information Act, increasing penalties for noncompliance and making records held by government contractors subject to the law.
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The Texas House of Representatives approved a bill to allow local courthouse clerks to disclose &#8220;in the ordinary course of business&#8221; Social Security numbers contained in public records maintained by their offices.
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Security weaknesses have left millions of elderly, disabled and poor Americans vulnerable to unauthorized disclosure of their medical and other personal records, federal investigators said yesterday.
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Prosecutors and investigators building a bribery case against Rep. William Jefferson have been unable to examine the documents and computer files seized in a search of the lawmaker&#039;s Capitol Hill office.
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The Texas House of Representatives has approved a bill that would allow local courthouse clerks  to disclose "in the ordinary course of business" Social Security numbers contained in public records maintained by their offices.
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Congress is close to making it easier for corporations to dodge many of the class-action lawsuits that businesses say are bankrupting them while rewarding lawyers and doing little to help victims.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A Congressional committee on Monday asked Hewlett-Packard Co. to turn over records related to the company's possibly illegal investigation of media leaks, as the company's board planned to meet again to discuss the fate of embattled Chairwoman Patricia Dunn.
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Members of Congress are learning the complexities of copyright law in the wide world of blogging and video clips.
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Efforts are intensifying in Congress to pass legislation that would require electronic touch-screen voting machines used in federal elections to provide paper trails that could be checked in the case of a recount.
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(InfoWorld) - A new bill in the U.S. Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would "legalize hacking," the Recording Industry Association of America said. The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and John Doolittle, a California Republican, would allow customers to circumvent digital copy restrictions in six limited areas when copyright owners' business models are not threatened, Boucher said in a press release. So-called fair use doctrine allows customers of copyright works to make limited numbers of copies, particularly for reviews, news reporting, teaching and research. The bill would allow exemptions to the anticircumvention restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998. The bill is revamped from similar bills introduced in the last two sessions of Congress, Boucher said. "The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before," Boucher said in a statement. "Historically, the nation's copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use." But the RIAA said the bill would effectively repeal the DMCA. The bill would "allow electronics companies to induce others to break the law for their own profit," it said in a statement. Advances such digital music sales, online games, on-demand movies and e-books can be traced to DMCA protects, the RIAA said. "The difference between hacking done for non-infringing purposes and hacking done to steal is impossible to determine and enforce," the RIAA said in its statement. The Boucher bill would limit the availability of statutory damages against individuals and firms who may be found to have engaged in contributory infringement, inducement of infringement, or other indirect infringement. The bill would allow libraries to circumvent digital locks or secure copies of works that have been damaged, lost or stolen. The Consumer Electronics Association applauded the bill, saying it would give protections to consumers, educators, and libraries. Without fair use protections, consumers couldn't use devices such as VCRs and digital TV recorders, the trade group said.
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Company turns over thousands of documents to House panel.
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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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Members of the U.S. Congress introduced a flurry of new technology-related bills this week, including two bills that would require companies with data breaches to notify affected customers.
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The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill that would require a paper record for electronic voting machines.
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The Justice Department is urging federal courts to make fundamental changes in access to electronic court files.
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The 108th Congress passed into history Wednesday after dealing with one last piece of business, freeing up money for a program that links schools and libraries to the Internet.
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The new rules finally acknowledge a clear distinction between electronically stored information and other types of discoverable material. The rules allow for the potential exclusion of data from sources that are identified "as not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost."