WebProNews previously reported how Kentucky State Representative, Tim Couch, proposed a bill that would not allow Kentuckians to comment anonymously on the Internet.

First rule of politics for incumbents: During an election year, try not to highlight your general uselessness, especially if you share a name with a famous football player, because people will notice.

Second rule of politics for incumbents: If you go to the trouble to introduce a bill, be prepared to defend it until the bitter end, even if you know in your heart it will never pass, not in a million years, unless futility somehow becomes a desired legislative virtue.

No elected official is going to vote against something called "the KIDS Act," especially when it aims to curb sex offenders’ access to children online. It’s like voting against anti-kitten-punting legislation. In a perfect policy world, though, lawmakers would not just agree on terms, but would also address limitations.

Torrents and peer-to-peer networks have had a rough couple of weeks lately. In addition to Cox and Comcast’s recent blocking of torrent sites, file-sharing has been under assault in France and Canada, not to mention from billionaire Mark Cuban.

The latest contribution to the Google Public Policy blog, on the topic of patent reform and Google’s stance, received a pointed rebuttal from a Brookings Institution guest scholar.

It’s comforting to know the previous Congressional idiots were replaced by fresh Congressional idiots from the other side of the political fence. Really? This is the best we can do?

Something very cool is happening. Something historic. For the first time in American history the people are being directly consulted about legislation, and it’s being done via the Internet.

Sunday, July 15, 2007. Remember that date if you’re an Internet radio fan. It could be the day independent stations go offline. The RIAA wants its money, and it wants it by Sunday.

The I-SPY legislation that made it through the House of Representatives lacks consent provisions that could help protect consumers.

House Passes Weak Spyware Bill

Yahoo’s efforts at heightening awareness of global warming has drawn a question from a very high-profile person for the Yahoo Answers audience.

Utah lawmakers are at it again, mulling a legislative crackdown on open wi-fi connections because they make it easier for children to access online pornography.

The state of Utah has been in the news a lot lately for its heavy-handed approach to Internet regulation. The most recent curfuffle was over a law banning the use of competitor keywords in search advertising.

A bill, not written by Congress, requiring that US representatives actually read legislation before voting on it, under penalty of perjury, has been around a couple of years, but hasn’t received much attention. The authors of the bill aim to remedy that through an online viral campaign, leveraging the sudden power of social networking.

Senator Ted Stevens has already achieved a certain kind of blogosphere and Internet infamy for his comments about teh Internets being "a series of tubes" (click the image for a dance remix of his address to the Senate). Now, he seems to want to compound that infamy by passing legislation that would block most social networking sites – including not just MySpace, but virtually any site that allows user contributions, including Wikipedia – from any school that receives federal education funding.

Copyblogger has been digging around a new statement made by the Federal Trade Commission and reported by the Washington Post.

A dozen high-powered companies inside and outside of the technology industry jointly requested Congress pass a law to protect the privacy of consumers, while insulating them from being “brought to their knees” by class-action lawsuits.

An important issue facing companies today is Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, but, as the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) is relatively new, the implementation of the regulation has not been fully established.

Motivated by the lack of Australian government legislation and limited options available concerning the disposal of computer e-waste, IT Recyclers has initiated a much needed computer recycling service aimed primarily at Sydney business who wish to play an essential part in reducing computer landfill.

AOL released a statement regarding adoption of the nation’s newest state antispam bill by the Ohio legislature.