New law to create online budget database
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President Bush said Tuesday that Americans will now be able to "Google their tax dollars," as he signed a law to create an online database for tracking about $1 trillion in government spending on grants and contracts.
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Connecticut lawmakers unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require MySpace.com and other social-networking sites to verify users' ages and obtain parental consent before minors can post profiles.
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By Michael Cowden  A new Web site helps college suitemates or others who share expenses or living arrangements keep track of who owes what.
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New York's attorney general on  Thursday named a legislative leader for a nonpartisan  public-interest group to create an Internet database to track  links between elected officials and lobbyists and campaign  donors.
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By Kaplan, Jim  For Web-savvy auditors, vast online resources are just a mouse click away. THE INTERNET CAN BE A POWERFUL tool for auditors who know how to use it correctly.
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Online tools can help workers assess their planâs health.
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(InfoWorld) - 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. Senators Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, introduced the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act. In addition to requiring data breach notification, the bill would also require data brokers to disclose what information they hold on individuals. The bill would allow individuals to correct information held by data brokers, and it would require companies that have databases with personal information on more than 10,000 U.S. residents to implement data privacy and security programs. Representatives Bobby Rush, a Illinois Democrat, and Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican, introduced the Data Accountability and Trust Act this week. Their bill, with 24 co-sponsors, authorizes the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draw up data privacy requirements for businesses, including requirements that they have vulnerability assessments and policies for disposing of obsolete data. After a company reports a data breach, the FTC would conduct an audit of its security practices, and, like the Leahy-Sanders bill, the bill would require data brokers to disclose the information they hold on individuals and allow individuals to correct wrong information. Organizations have lost 100 million personal records belonging to U.S. residents in data breaches since 2005, Leahy said in a speech on the Senate floor. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, singled outÂ data breaches at the U.S. Department of Veterans AffairsÂ last May andÂ retailer The TJX Companies,Â announced in January, in his speech. "These data security breaches are compelling examples of why we need strong federal data privacy and security laws to protect Americansâ personal data and to address the ills of lax data security," he said. "In the information age, any company that wants to be trusted by the public must earn that trust by vigilantly protecting the databases they use and maintain." Members of Congress introduced about a dozen bills requiring data breach notification after a series of breaches in early 2005, but legislation stalled largely over committee jurisdictional wrangling. About 30 states have passed breach notification laws, most of them since 2005. The Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a trade group of IT security vendors, in January called on Congress to pass a comprehensive data protection bill, including breach notification. But some groups, including conservative think tank the Progress and Freedom Foundation, have questioned the need for a breach notification law, saying the cost to businesses may far outweigh the benefits to consumers. Other tech-related bills introduced this week: -- Two bills allowing the FTC toÂ investigate the practice of pretexting, when an investigator assumes a false identity to gain access to a person's telephone records. President George Bush signed a bill creating penalties for pretexting in January, but the two new bills would give the FTC the authority to investigate and prosecute pretexters. Many lawmakers became interested in the issue afterÂ Hewlett-Packard disclosedÂ in September that investigators it had hired used pretexting in an attempt to gain access to board members' and reporters' phone records. -- A bill targeted at spyware by establishing criminal penalties for a number of actions. The bill would prohibit keystroke logging, taking control of a computer without the user's consent, diverting Web browsers, using computers to create botnets and modifying a computer users' browser and security settings without permission. Two spyware bills passed the House of Representatives by overwhelming majorities in March 2005, but the Senate didn't act on them. Â
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Bills pending in both states call for a file format that is interoperable, available royalty free and implemented by multiple vendors.
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Says it'd 'cost too much' The government is obstructing a bill aimed at establishing a new website for information on public sector spending.â¦
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By ACHIM SCHMILLEN  DO YOU REMEMBER every Web site you visited, every e-mail you sent, and every word you Googled during the last two years? Probably not, but your Internet service provider might  especially if a proposal currently popular in Washington becomes law.
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New York state's attorney general and legislative leaders introduce legislation to protect people online.
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The nation's first state government portal  keeps getting better, thanks to an innovative new design unveiled last  week.
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Mortgage brokers and other loan sellers would be named in a national database under legislation introduced Thursday by the top Republican on a U.S. House of Representatives financial panel.
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Text of report by US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) website on 5 March  The proposed fiscal year 2008 budget for U.S.
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WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has launched a searchable online database that tracks the activities of foreign governments and companies lobbying the U.S. government.
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By HOWARD FISCHER, CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICE  PHOENIX - The deal on a new $10.6 billion budget, if adopted this week, finishes the one thing the state constitution requires lawmakers to do before ending this year's session.
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By The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.  Jun. 13--The merits of spending-transparency initiatives are not in  Washington anymore.    The concept of databases that put government expenses at citizens'  fingertips is not new.