Tag: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

The Obama administration is pushing Congress to adopt a so-called "privacy bill of rights," in order to offer greater protection for Americans concerned about online data gathering and targeted advertising. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence E. Strickling is expected to propose the legislation today during a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee. A source familiar with the matter told ...

The Obama administration has put together a new set of digital copyright laws aimed at cracking down on illegal downloads and other forms of online piracy. Yesterday, intellectual property enforcement coordinator Victoria Espinel released a 92-page report (PDF), outlining the White House's copyright proposals, which will be submitted to Congress "in the very near future." Although the report ...

The Obama administration is pushing for a new policy that, if implemented, would give the U.S. government the power to veto any top-level domain names submitted for approval. The process of approving suffixes like .com, .org and .net is overseen by a non-profit called Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which operates under a contract with the government. Current ...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials patrolling the Mexican border will soon have an extra set of eyes to keep watch over our frontiers with the launch of a new fleet of Predator drones. As Reuters reports, the first wave of unmanned aircraft will take off from Corpus Christi tomorrow, and will allow border protection agents to remotely conduct surveillance over the entire U.S.-Mexican ...

The Obama '08 campaign helped to pioneer the use of mobile applications in political campaigns. Now, the remnants of that grassroots group, Organizing for America (OFA), is releasing a new iPhone and iPad app that will connect voters with Democratic representatives and candidates -- just in time for the fall elections. The official OFA app has all the features you'd expect from a political ...

For the first time in U.S. history, the federal government has a coordinated strategy for protecting the intellectual property of American companies both here and abroad. The Department of Justice and the FBI will be working closely to enact 30 recommendations put together by the Obama administration, including closely monitoring foreign websites, especially in China, for pirated American music, ...

The Obama administration just keeps flexing its new media muscle and redefining what it means to speak to the people in a way that we haven't seen since the days of FDR's "fireside chats." The White House blog, its slick interactive website, weekly YouTube addresses and Twitter account are powerful, but they still feel like the tools of politics. A new White House video blog though, called 'West ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/04/14/us-claims-right-to-return-fire-against-cyber-attacks/'; Just a few days removed from President Obama's historic nuclear disarmament agreement with Russia, the Pentagon today struck a decidedly more retaliatory tone in asserting its right to return fire against cyber-attacks aimed at the U.S. -- even if an attacker's identity remains unknown. Lt. ...

Quantifying the effect that online piracy has on businesses and copyright holders has always been an inexact science. For years, suspicion has been brewing over the accuracy of estimated losses claimed by software companies, the MPAA and even governmental agencies. Yesterday, though, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finally admitted to the scientific shortcomings of many common ...

President Obama has attracted a devoted geek following because of his focus on science and technology. If early reports are accurate, though, his dork devotion will likely take a significant hit next week when a 2011 budget report is released. According to CBC News, a White House official has confirmed that money appropriated to NASA will be insufficient to maintain one significant, six-year-old ...

The White House has tapped cyber consultant Melissa Hathaway to conduct an extensive review of US Internet security. She will now be tasked with analyzing the effectiveness of programs she helped foster as the point person of former President George W. Bush's effort to check an increase in breaches of military and government sites in early 2007. The nascent Obama administration's unprecedented ...