2009 June InfoTech & Telecom News: Cybersecurity Bill Would Empower Federal Government

The June 2009 issue of InfoTech & Telecom News describes efforts by two U.S. senators to give the federal government broad new powers to set and enforce cybersecurity standards for private industry.

Also in this issue:

* A Swedish court sentenced the four proprietors of The Pirate Bay, a popular P2P file-sharing Web site, to a year in jail and a fine of $3.6 million for breaching copyright law.

* A bill introduced in the Illinois House of Representatives would require social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to obtain parental consent before allowing minors to create accounts.

* The technology corridor of northern Virginia is uniting against a labor union bill backed by President Barack Obama.

* A West Virginia state senator has introduced a bill to make it a crime to send harassing or abusive emails.

* A new mandate by the California Air Resources Board singles out the state’s semiconductor plants, implementing rules intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half by 2012.

* Plans for ensconcing into law the concept of “net neutrality” continue to percolate in the background in the Obama White House and on Capitol Hill, but information technology experts hope the idea stays on the back burner.

Requiring Sirius XM to lease part of its satellite radio spectrum to minority programmers is unfair and would unfairly burden the already-struggling firm.

An appeals court deemed unconstitutional Gov. Steve Beshear’s seizure of 141 online gambling Web sites, and the state supreme court is expected to affirm that decision.