Having been in this tech industry for 20 plus years I am no longer surprised when I read about lawmakers who, with little or no knowledge of what they are seeking legislate try to control video games but one would think that since the US Supreme Court provided video games with 1st Amendment rights lawmakers would call it quits.

Needless to say lawmakers continue to try and return to the well as we can see by this latest attempt from Oklahoma Democrat Will Fourkiller who wants to levy a special tax that is focus specifically against the sale of ‘violent’ video games. The problem is that his proposition is that he wants to use the ESRB rating system as the bases around which to levy the tax.

The one percent excise tax would be applied against all games that get an Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) of “Teen, Mature, or Adult’ which might be fine on the surface until you start looking at all the games out there with those ratings.

Games like Ultimate Card Games for the Nintendo DS or the Wii’s Robocalypse: Beaver Defense would fall directly under this plan as would probably the majority of the most popular games on the market right now.

The bill is being proposed under “emergency” rules because it is “immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety,” according to the text. After being read on the House floor next week, the bill will need majority votes in both the Oklahoma House of Representatives and Senate before being sent to the governor. After that, if it doesn’t receive a three-fourths majority in both houses, it will be put on a November ballot to be approved or rejected by Oklahoma voters

via Ars Technica

If this passes the countdown to the first court challenge would start within seconds.

Oklahoma lawmakers wants to tax any games with an ESRB of ‘Teen’ or above is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’m of two minds here- on one hand I miss the decreasing grittiness of New York City and increasing nanny-statism that seems to be gripping it, but on the other, eating on the subway pretty much deserves crotch punching if you are over the age of two.

It’s a common sight, particularly- it would seem- in the neighborhoods that produce foods likely to be extremely offensive in an olfactory sense. If you regularly ride the New York City subways, chances are you regularly spot someone eating stewed cabbage and eggs and durian out of a tupperware, which is mind-boggling on so many levels. The ubiquity of street food in Manhattan and the Boroughs doesn’t help the situation, and it’s so horrifically offensive to be on a crowded express train next to someone who apparently hasn’t eaten for days and is tearing into a nostril-assaulting container of soup. (And who are these people who can comfortably eat on the subway? Do they dine from troughs at home?)

Now that smoking on the streets is outlawed- a circumstance I personally seem to only remember exists now when I pass a cop and I’m halfway through a cigarette- lawmakers have turned their attention to eating on the subway and banning it to increase the quality of life for millions of straphangers in the city. Of course, you can’t really make a good case for regulation based on “because I don’t like the food they eat in Flushing,” so Senator Bill Perkins has wrapped the initiative in some fancy scarelore:

“Those rats feed off of what we eat or discard in the system. You feed them, you breed them. Not only are they on the tracks, they’re on the seats. Sometimes they even come off out of the subway.”

Rats outside the subway system? Madness! Perkins is proposing a $250 fine for subway eating, which could greatly reduce your exposure to F train falafel binges. Do you support a ban on subway eating? Have you seen the infamous clip below, where a fight broke out because a woman was eating spaghetti on the subway?

Eating on the Subway Latest Proposed Ban in Nanny State NYC is a post from: The Inquisitr

The reason we call politicians “lawmakers” is because they love to make laws, some we need, many we don’t and others that are just plain ridiculous. In 2012 the lawmakers will bring about nearly 40,000 new laws throughout the 50 United States. Those laws will range from possibly necessary but annoying (voter restrictions) to the absurd (a ban on happy hours at bars and restaurants).

MSNBC was kind enough to hunt down some of the laws, some are scary and some have just left us scratching our heads.

For example in Illinois anyone under 18 must wear a seat belt in a cab, but only when traveling for school related purposes. While another law in Utah says daily drink specials can not be given during happy hours.

Another law in Georgia is requiring that all new golf cards have brakes, a horn and other safety options because golfers were driving their carts out into traffic.

Other laws we can completely get behind, for example anyone 11 or under in Colorado who appears to have sustained a head injury during an sporting event will be forced to sit out the rest of a game until they can be examined. While a law in California will require gay and lesbian history to not be overlooked in public schools.

Other laws simply take away rights, such is the case in New Hamsphire where Republicans passed a law over gubernatorial veto that requires underage girls to tell a judge or their parents before they get an abortion.

Do you think lawmakers have went overboard when it comes to creating new laws?

40,000 State Laws To Become Reality In 2012 is a post from: The Inquisitr

A federal study conducted by the National Highway Transportation Safety Association has found that text messaging while driving has jumped by 50% over the last year. That increase comes despite federal and state campaigns to bring awareness to the dangers of text messaging while driving.

To conduct their study officials stood on intersections and discovered that nearly 1% of drivers were text messaging while stopped, up from .06% in 2009.

The organization also performed a phone survey in which they discovered 18% of drivers say they text message while driving. When interviewing drivers from the ages of 21-to-24-years-old that number increased to nearly 50%.

A representative for the Governors’ Highway Safety Association says that it has become clear that texting won’t be stopped by:

“It is clear that educational messages alone.”

The agency hopes that their findings will lead to stronger laws that enforce putting the phone down while driving. The agency says:

“Many drivers won’t stop texting until they fear getting a ticket.”

One such law can be witnessed in Pennsylvania where texting while driving was banned in November after 32,885 deaths were witnessed in 2010, a drop of nearly 3% from the year prior.

In my state of Illinois texting or talking on a cell phone in a school zone comes with a first time fine that increases with each offense and more than 35 other states now have texting and cell phone use laws enacted and more states continue to add and change their texting and calling laws on a regular basis.

Do you think more severe texting while driving laws need to be enacted to end the dangerous practice?

[Image via ShutterStock.com]

NHTSA Study: Texting While Driving Increases By 50% is a post from: The Inquisitr

Over the years of the Harper Conservative government in Canada there has been a constant push to give the police more power when it comes to getting information about you from your ISP. For the most part they have failed in being able to push any legislation through the House of Commons but for the last four years or so that was because they didn’t have a majority government.

Well as of the last election that changed and now Harper is back trying to push a revamped “Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communication Act” through the Parliament; and you should be really afraid.

C-52 requires all telecommunications company to provide to law enforcement “any information in the service provider’s possession or control respecting the name, address, telephone number, and electronic mail address of any subscriber to any of the service provider’s telecommunications services and the Internet protocol address, mobile identification number, electronic serial number, local service provider identifier, international mobile equipment identity number, international mobile subscriber identity number and subscriber identity module card [SIM card] number that are associated with the subscriber’s service and equipment.”

To get that information, law enforcement won’t necessarily need a warrant. Each agency can designate up to 5 percent of its total employees as authorized to request the information, and it can ban telcos from admitting that they have provided any such information. Bill C-52 looks to be a key part of the upcoming “omnibus” bill that will include a host of other security-related material.

via Ars Technica

Even our country’s Privacy Commissioner considers this to be a bad bill saying that it is too broad and gives the police too much power.

We are concerned that clause 16 of Bill C-52 would give authorities access to a wide scope of personal information without a warrant; for example, unlisted numbers, email account data and IP addresses. The Government itself took the view that this information was sensitive enough to make trafficking in such ‘identity information’ aCriminal Code offence. Many Canadians consider this information sensitive and worthy of protection, which does not fit with the proposed self-authorized access model.

Given that Harper has a majority government now things don’t look very good at this point for Canadians when it comes to their privacy on the web.

Canadian internet privacy getting another screwing by the Harper government is a post from: The Inquisitr

The amount of money spent every year in the US to target, arrest, prosecute, and jail small-time pot users is incredible.

Philadelphia was one city that decided to take a second look at what it was costing the city against the benefits and decided that rather than treat people caught with 30 grams or less as criminals face misdemeanor charges they would instead face a “summary offence”.

Though the misdemeanor charge wasn’t particularly harsh—maximum penalty: 30 days in jail and $500 fine—it required the city to prosecute, costing the district attorney’s office money and time. It also left those busted with a criminal record.

The summary offense meanwhile, allows people to “pay $200 for a three-hour class about drug abuse, and their record is expunged,” with “[n]o trial, no judge, no court-appointed defense attorneys, no prosecutor, no lab tests.” Cops say that the new policy “doesn’t appear to be having any noticeable impact on the city’s quality of life,” too.

via Gawker

By not prosecuting small-time potheads Philadelphia saved $2 Million is a post from: The Inquisitr

Cats in Sydney, Australia have a curfew. After attacks on native wildlife the city has imposed a “dusk to dawn” curfew on the animals. The decision to place the curfew on the cities feline friends came after a deputy mayor’s son had to protect a parent and baby possum from an attacking cat.

According to Reuters there have been 564 reported cat attacks in the last year.

According to a local official it’s only fair that the cats give way to the local wildlife becasue:

“After all, they were here first, we’ve introduced domestic pets, so we have a responsibility to control them.”

Cat owners are also being asked to place a bell on their cats collars to warn people and animals when those cats are approaching.

When asked why Dogs were not put on the same curfew the deputy major said:

“Dogs will do terrible damage to a possum, but they don’t get them quite as often because they don’t climb trees.”

Sydney Places Curfew On Cats [Australian Law] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Let me just say right up front. This is yet another incredibly stupid idea courtesy of meddling politicians who don’t have the first clue about gaming, gamers, or digital living and yet persist in foisting yet another nanny-state piece of legislation in order to get votes come election time.

The newest bit of stupidity comes from Congressman Joe Baca who wants all video games to carry warning labels on their packaging similar to the kind you find on cigarette packages. This attempt at goodie-two-shoes vote getting is going by the name of Video Game Health Labeling Act and the proposed text reads something like this:

WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior

This of course is a claim made without any absolute scientific proof as pointed out by Chris Pereira at 1UP.com, a major gaming blog, where he writes:

There have indeed been several studies which have claimed something along those lines, but there have also been numerous studies that suggest the exact opposite. Gamasutra notes a recent review by the Australian government which was summed up by Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor when he said, “Evidence about the effect of violent computer games on the aggression displayed by those who play them is inconclusive.”

While the chances of this bill actually making it through is pretty slim it is just another repeat try and trying to exert government control on the gaming industry.

Good luck with that bill.

image courtesy of 1UP.com

Cigarette-like Warnings Coming To Video Games? is a post from: The Inquisitr

While much of attention of security minded tech bloggers has been focused around ACTA which is basically the entertainment business’ latest attempt to control the Web it seems that three has been a move by the Canadian government to change how the Internet will work in our country.

According to a post by Professor Michael Geist,Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, there is a concerted push for new Canadian Internet surveillance laws.

The new bills are a part of a three prong attack that focus on information disclosure, mandated surveillance technologies, and new police powers.

While the information disclosure part is bothersome it is the remaining two items that are insidious and would change how the Internet is managed in Canada. As Prof. Geist writes:

The second prong requires Internet providers to dramatically re-work their networks to allow for real-time surveillance.  The bill sets out detailed capability requirements that will eventually apply to all Canadian Internet providers.  These include the power to intercept communications, to isolate the communications to a particular individual, and to engage in multiple simultaneous interceptions.

Moreover, the bill establishes a comprehensive regulatory structure for Internet providers that would mandate their assistance with testing their surveillance capabilities and disclosing the names of all employees who may be involved in interceptions (and who may then be subject to RCMP background checks).

The bill also establishes numerous reporting requirements including mandating that all Internet providers disclose their technical surveillance capabilities within six months of the law taking effect.  Follow-up reports are also required when providers acquire new technical capabilities.

Add to that the data warrants that would allow law enforcement real-time access to all information generated during the creation, transmission or reception of a communication. This would include the type of communication, time, duration, origin and destination.

If these new laws do pass the Internet in Canada will never be the same.

Canada’s version of a police state Internet is a post from: The Inquisitr

Martin Bryant over at The Next Web had a rather interesting post this morning where he asked; in relation to Facebook and the Raoul Moat tribute pages popping up, if the British government had any business asking Facebook to take the pages down.

It was widely reported on Wednesday that the UK government had asked Facebook for the page to be removed and that Facebook had refused. The page was later removed by its creator for reasons unknown and the controversy died a death.

Story over? Well only kind of. The really worrying part of the whole affair was that in the media storm over Facebook’s refusal to remove the page, it wasn’t once asked whether it really was acceptable for the government to censor social media at will.

There’s some debate over the exact role the government played in this whole storm. Reporting varied over exactly who asked for what to happen, but as Paul Clarke notes in an excellent post about the affair, it doesn’t really matter what the truth is. The fact is that the news media failed to question whether the government had any right to decide something online should be taken down simply because it didn’t like it.

This is a very important question being raised but not just in relation to Facebook and the British government but rather in relation to all governments and social networks. On one hand it is possible that social networks own by companies within the borders of the countries in question could be subject to the laws of the land.

In this case services like Facebook would be subject to US laws but not the governments of foreign countries but then this would apply as well to services like Friendster which is owned by a Malaysian company – except that its servers are in the US. So who really has authority to ask questions or request actions like the one that the British government did of an American based, both corporate and server-wise, company.

As companies like Facebook, Twitter and other social media service become more global in nature they are going to increasingly bumping up against these same type of problems that occurred between Facebook and the British government. It is going to be interesting to see how thorny issues like this will be dealt with but you can be assured that issues like this one will happen.

image courtesy of The Next Web

Do foreign governments really have any say about Facebook content? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Have you ever had to rely on the word or recollection of law enforcement against you in court? How did that work out for you?

A 5-1 decision issued by the Ohio Supreme Court this week ruled that an officer’s guess at a driver’s rate of speed is good enough to secure a speeding conviction, a move met with skepticism by both drivers in Ohio and local law enforcement. Clermont County Sheriff A.J. “Tim” Rodenberg spoke to Cinncinati.com about the controversial ruling:

“This is going to create a lot of controversy and potential for abuse by some police officers,” Rodenberg said. “Most officers take their duties seriously, but there are always a few rogues, just like in any profession. This is basically a blank check for them.”

The decision comes as the result of a speeding ticket issued to Mark Jenney in Copley, Ohio. A lower court initially threw out the conviction because the officer was unable to prove that he had been properly trained on use of the radar gun. But Jenney was ultimately found guilty by the State’s Supreme Court when they ruled that the officer “had the background and training to make an educated guess of Jenney’s speed.”

Ohio court rules police guesstimates are good enough to convict you of speeding is a post from: The Inquisitr

Four months ago grandmother Sally Harpold went to a drugstore and bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband and then less than seven days later at a different drugstore she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter. This meant she had purchased 3.6 grams of pseudoephedrine in less than a week’s time.

Then on July 30 she was arrested by by the police on a Vermillion County warrant for a class-C misdemeanor, which carries a sentence of 60 days in jail and up to a $500 fine.

Her crime?

She had broken a law that is designed to stop people buying large quantities of drugs that can be used to make methamphetamines – of which pseudoephedrine is one of the ingredients. As a result of being arrested her mug shot ran on the front page of her local paper with a headline of “17 Arrested in Drug Sweep”.

Vermillion County Prosecutor Nina Alexander quite proudly says that the law doesn’t make any distinction when it comes to who is buying cough medicine, whether they be a drug dealer or a grandmother taking care of their family. Alexander states that she is just enforcing the law as it was written and that if you take these products you should know what is in them.

Part of the excuse for continuing with the charges of Sally Harpold are as pharmacist Ron Vencel, JR Pharmacies in Terre Haute, is that many drug manufacturers are getting family members to go out and do the buying of the ingredients that they need. It should be noted as well that Sally Harpold works at the Rockville Correctional Institute for women.

The morning she was arrested, Harpold and her husband were awakened by police officers banging on the front door of their home at Midway along U.S. 36. She was allowed to get dressed, and was then taken in handcuffs to the Clinton Police Department, where she was questioned about her cold medicine purchases. She was later booked into jail, and her husband had to pay $300 bail to get her released.

Harpold said she did go talk to the prosecutor about the situation, and Alexander offered her the deferral program, in which Harpold is required to pay the court costs, abide by all laws and not be arrested for 30 days. At the end of 30 days, the class-C misdemeanor will be erased from her record.

Alexander said she is working with Harpold about the charge, but the prosecutor asserts that Harpold did break the law with her purchases and is being held accountable.

Source: TribStar.com – Wabash Valley woman didn’t realize second cold medicine purchase violated drug laws

hat tip to Boing Boing and The Agititor

Grandmother could go to jail for buying cough medicine is a post from: The Inquisitr

Well it turns out that the French National Assembly has indeed passed the law, even if it was with an almost empty assembly. For those that don’t know about this law – that many other countries are looking at copying – it means that you get three warnings if you or your IP is connected with downloading illegal movie files, music files or other types of files that someone might deem as being copyrighted. On the third warning you lose your access to the Internet – bing bang you’re done.

Now as much as this may suck rotten lemons I noticed something else in the post by John Ozimek of The Register that while it doesn’t affect me it still chilled me to the bone with it’s implications to the French people. John noted that the new law had a future – broader – implication (emphasis is mine)

The law is also referred to as the loi Hadopi, because it creates a "High Authority" (Haute autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet), which will in future be charged with monitoring and regulating the use of the internet in France.

So under the guise of protecting copyrighted works the French government has just created a law that will allow them to completely monitor all Internet activity within France, and I would imagine any traffic coming into the country. Talk about a backdoor trampling of privacy rights.

The new French 3-strikes law hides a bigger threat is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is a growing group in the United States that is facing an increasing number of charges for creating and distributing pornography and contributing to child abuse but it isn’t who you think it is. As exampled by three cases going to trial in Pennsylvania this section of our society is our very own children. These type of charges are all being based around something that is getting the catchy buzzword of – sexting and it would appear that it is more of a common practice among young girls than we realize.

For those of you who might not know what sexting is here’s a quick little primer. Sexting is the act of taking a picture of yourself nude or semi-nude with your camera phone and then sending that picture to whoever you want. Normally this is suppose to be only between dating partners but as the case of the young girl in Cincinnati who hung herself after the picture she took of herself made it past her boyfriend and was spread around the school it can end up getting out of control.

Now I am pretty sure we all agree – at least those of us who are parents – that this isn’t exactly what we would like our little girls; or boys, to be doing but does this mean that they should be charged and prosecuted as child abusers and pornographers? An action that will end up with them having a felony conviction on their record for life and not just any felony but that of being a sexual offender.

Well this is what District Attorney George P. Skumanick in Pennsylvania wants to do to three girls who were caught sexting after their camera phones were confiscated by their school during an investigation by the school after boys at the school were caught with pictures of girls who had been sexting them.

At issue in the Tunkhannock case are two photos depicting the three girls. One photo of Marissa Miller and Grace Kelly shows them two years ago at age 13 lying side by side while one talks on the phone and the other makes a peace sign with her fingers, according to the ACLU complaint. The two are photographed from the waist up and are wearing white opaque bras. A second photo shows a girl referred to in the court document as "Jane Doe" photographed outside a shower with a towel wrapped around her waist. Her breasts are bared.

Last year, Tunkhannock school officials discovered that male students had been trading these and other photos on their phones. Officials confiscated the phones and turned them over to county prosecutors who began a criminal investigation.

Skumanick then threatened to charge the three girls with producing child porn unless their parents agree to place them on a six-month probation and send them to a five-week, 10-hour education program to discuss why what they did was wrong and what it means to be a girl in today’s society. The girls also must agree to subject themselves to drug testing.

Skumanick told an assembly of students that possessing inappropriate images of minors could be prosecuted under state child porn laws. Anyone convicted under the laws faces a possible seven year sentence and a felony conviction on their record. Under a state sex offender law, they must also register as a sex offender for 10 years and have their name and photo posted on the state’s sex offender website — the latter requirement will include juvenile offenders when the law is amended later this year.

Source: Threat Level

Granted these type of actions might not be the smartest thing for girls to be doing but I find the threats and bullying of the District Attorney far more reprehensible than anything these kids have done. The fact is that the world our children are use to to isn’t the same one we are living in. For them there is nothing wrong in what they have done – their world has a different set of morality judgments being made, just as mine or yours were different than our parents.

Should the kids be spoken to about the danger of what they are doing – from our points of view; which is radically different than theirs – you betcha but that is the responsibility of the parents not something that some dickhead looking for re-election an a couple of months can make headlines out of. As far as I am concerned Skumanick has abused his position of power by literally blackmailing parents into forcing their children into state sanctioned behavior training.

According to the Threat Level post the ACLU has stepped in to defend the three girls and their parents as well as filing a lawsuit against the District Attorney

The ACLU of Pennsylvania is representing the girls and their parents. In its lawsuit –  filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania — the organization charges that the prosecutor violated the girls’ First Amendment rights. The lawsuit says the photos do not constitute child pornography under Pennsylvania’s criminal code since they depict no sexual activity and do not display the pubic area of the girls’ bodies.

"Skumanick’s threatened prosecution chills Plaintiff’s First Amendment right of expression, causing them concern about whether they may photograph their daughters, or whether the girls may allow themselves to be photographed, wearing a two-piece bathing suit," the ACLU wrote.

The lawsuit also claims the demand that the parents agree to place their girls in an education program violates the parents’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to direct the upbringing of their own children.

According to the ACLU filing, Skumanick told Miller’s parents that the photo of their daughter constituted child pornography because she and her friend were posed "provocatively." When lawyers for the parents asked for a copy of the photos that would be used to charge their children, Skumanick reportedly refused on grounds that he would be committing a crime by sharing child porn.

Personally I think the DA should hand in his resignation and let parents get back to being parents; or perhaps he should be far more diligent in sending actual pedophiles to jail instead of making political hay out of natural childhood curiosity and exploration.

[photo courtesy of Threat Level]

Protecting our children by turning them into felons is a post from: The Inquisitr

Many of the laws that are in place to protect our children from abuse and as objects of child pornography are a good thing. Unfortunately though those same laws are being called into question because some of those people creating this type of photographs are the kids themselves. In fact there seems to be a rising number of charges being brought against children of both sexes because of them taking and sharing pictures of themselves in the nude.

This week, prosecutors in Greensburg, Pennsylvania charged six teens ranging in age from 14 to 17with creating, distributing and possessing child pornography, after three girls were found to have taken photos of themselves in the nude or partially nude and e-mailed them to friends, including three boys who are among the defendants.

The case is only one of the latest in a spate of similar prosecutions and investigations. In Florida, officials similarly charged a 16-year-old girl and her 17-year-old boyfriend with producing, directing or promoting child pornafter they photographed themselves having sex. Neither of the teens shared the images with anyone else.

Source: Threat Level

As Mark Rasch a former federal cybercrimes prosecutor said recently – “the problem is that that the child porn laws were really designed for a situation where an adult abuses a minor by forcing the minor – psychologically as well as physically – into taking these pictures. But here when the person takes the pictures herself or consents to the picture being taken it turns the whole statute on its head.”

some authorities argue that bringing child porn charges against these kids should be looked at as a education against the dangers of taking these types of pictures others argue that charges like these won’t achieve the desired effect. Which makes sense considering that just about every kid around considers themselves invincible and above the law in every regard. I have never understood why children who can’t even afford to pay for things like cell phones on their own are being given the tools to spread themselves around the Internet before they can even understand; or care, about the implications.

As Kim Zetter wrote in the post on Threat Level

In the case of teens charged with child pornography, they simply don’t see a difference between posting provocative pictures on MySpace and sending nude photos to friends.

"These kids are now seeing stuff on MySpace and other places online where other kids are posing in sexual poses in the nude performing real or mock sex, and to them it’s just their 15 megabytes of fame. They think it’s the norm," she said.

So what do we do when the laws that have been created to protect our children are the same laws being used to prosecute our children for exploring their personalities and lives with the tools that we the adults hand over to them.

Child porn laws being turn on their heads – by the kids themselves is a post from: The Inquisitr