Khyber writes in with a story from Montana, where residents of Missoula County voted in a referendum intended to advise county law-enforcement types to treat marijuana offenses as low-profile. The referendum would not have changed any laws, but was advisory only. After voters approved it, county commissioners overturned it by a 2-to-1 vote. They were swayed by the argument of the county attorney, who had a "gut feeling" that Missoula's electorate had misinterpreted the ballot language. The move has resulted in a flood of disaffection among voters, especially young voters. "Is there even a point to voting any more if the will of the people can so easily be subverted by two people?" one voter posted on a comment blog.

An anonymous reader writes "DMCA architect Bruce Lehman has admitted that "our Clinton administration policies didn't work out very well" and "our attempts at copyright control have not been successful". Speaking at conference in Montreal (video at 11:00), Lehman lay much of the blame at the feet of the recording industry for their failure to adapt to the online marketplace in the mid-1990s."

Billosaur writes "ICANN is once more set to vote on the creation of the .xxx Internet address. Though the proposal has been voted down by ICANN's board twice before the group behind those previous proposals resubmitted after they 'agreed to hire independent organizations to monitor porn sites' compliance with the new rules, which would be developed by a separate body called the International Foundation for Online Responsibility.' Once more the proposal has led to pornographers and religious groups finding themselves on the same side of an issue, the porn industry worried that the domain would lead to government controls, the religious groups worried it would make access too easy and allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet."

twitter writes "The Register is reporting on an effort to bring order to the wild world of Windows patching, at least in the US Federal Government. The White House has issued a directive to federal CIOs throughout the country, issuing a call for all new PCs to use a 'common secure configuration.' 'Registry settings and which services would be turned on or off by default [are specified and] the directive calls for suppliers (integrators and software vendors) to certify that the products they supply operate effectively using these more secure configurations. "No Vista application will be able to be sold to federal agencies if the application does not run on the secure version of Vista," explained Alan Paller, director of research at The SANS Institute.'"

fstyke writes "An article in the Washington Post (anonymous for obvious reasons) describes the trauma the president of a small US IT company faces after receiving a National Security Letter. This is sent by the FBI demanding information (140000+ have been sent between 2003/2005 according to the article). Makes for an interesting read of the side effects of receiving such a letter and its requirements for the recipient to remain silent about even the fact he/she has received it.'The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.'"

InfoWorldMike writes "EU commissioner Neelie Kroes has lashed out at Microsoft in comments to European parliamentarians Thursday, saying it is 'unacceptable' that the company continues to gain market share using tactics that were outlawed in the Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against the software vendor. 'Three years later Microsoft still hasn't complied with the main demand imposed by the European antitrust ruling: that the company share interoperability information inside Windows at a reasonable price to allow rival makers of workgroup servers to build products that work properly with PCs running Windows.'"

WSJdpatton writes "WSJ's Walt Mossberg takes a look at what's wrong with the DMCA and DRM given the recent lawsuit brought against Google's YouTube by media giant Viacom — 'Under fair use, as most nonlawyers have understood it, you could quote this sentence in another publication without permission, though you'd need the permission of the newspaper to reprint the entire column or a large part of it. A two-minute portion of a 30-minute TV show seems like the same thing to me. But why should I have to guess about that? What consumers need is real clarity on the whole issue of what is or isn't permissible use of the digital content they have legally obtained. And that can come only from Congress. Congress is the real villain here, for having failed to pass a modern copyright law that protects average consumers, not just big content companies.'"

Aaron writes "Broadband Reports notes how Maryland was working on a law that would force ISPs to show exactly where they offer service and at what speed. The goal was to help map coverage gaps, since FCC broadband data is worthless for this purpose. Cable and phone company lobbyists have scuttled the plan, convincing state leaders the plan would bring 'competitive harm,' 'stifle innovation,' and even close local coffee shops. Of course the real reason is they don't want the public to know what criteria they use to determine the financial viability of your neighborhood — as they cherry-pick only the most lucrative areas for next-generation services. The Center for Public Integrity is trying to obtain the unreleased raw FCC penetration data, but these companies are also fighting this tooth and nail."

Braedley writes "Some members of the European IT industry are unhappy with a proposed law that would penalize various parties, from software companies to ISPs, to even some hardware manufactures, but not the end users for infringing on intellectual property. Penalties for this aiding and abetting could include jail time for employees if found guilty."

GamePolitics reports on yet another attempt by lawmakers to make the world safe from the dangers of electronic entertainment. Entered by Representative Fred Upton, the bill spells out penalties for game companies that try to 'sneak' something past ESRB raters. Says Upton, "I guess I thought the FTC would have had some more teeth than they apparently have... I'm not at all happy... In essence there are no consequences. None... I would like to have thought that (Take-Two and Rockstar) would have been able to be fined for millions of dollars for the trash they put out across this country. I am going to be looking to write legislation giving the FTC the authority to impose civil penalties."

An anonymous reader writes with word that Redmond Developer News is reporting that Microsoft has given in to EU threats of further fines. The company has opened up a whole host of protocols, including the Exchange protocol, under a license, the terms of which are not known. No other news outlet has picked up this story so far.

WerewolfOfVulcan writes "According to this Washington Post article, the FBI says that it doesn't have to comply with even the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act when asking for phone records. Apparently that whole due process thing doesn't include them. Funny thing is, they've apparently already been doing it for years." Quoting: "Under past procedures, agents sent 'exigent circumstances letters' to phone companies, seeking toll records by asserting there was an emergency. Then they were expected to issue a grand jury subpoena or a 'national security letter,' which legally authorized the collection after the fact. Agents often did not follow up with that paperwork, the inspector general's investigation found. The new instructions tell agents there is no need to follow up with national security letters or subpoenas. The agents are also told that... they may make requests orally, with no paperwork sent to phone companies. Such oral requests have been made over the years in terrorism and kidnapping cases, officials said."

An anonymous reader passed us a link to a Forbes article discussing dire news for fans of Internet radio. Yesterday afternoon saw online broadcasters, everyone from giants like Clear Channel and National Public Radio to small-fry internet concerns, arguing their case before the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). The CRB's March 2nd decision to increase the fees associated with online music broadcasting will have harsh repercussions for those who engage in the activity, the panel was told. "Under a previous arrangement, which expired at the end of 2005, broadcasters and online companies such as Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit could pay royalties based on estimates of how many songs were played over a given period of time, or a 'tuning hour,' as opposed to counting every single song ... [They] also asked the judges to clarify a $500 annual fee per broadcasting channel, saying that with some online companies offering many thousands of listening options, counting each one as a separate channel could lead to huge fees for online broadcasters." There was also a previous provision for smaller companies that allowed them to pay less, something the March 2 decision did away with; in the view of the royalty holders, advertising more than pays for these fees, and they're ready for higher payments.

Reader Actual Reality sends us to Business Week for a tale of the strangest political coalition to be seen in a while — greens, hippies, libertarians, and livestock producers uniting to get ethanol subsidies reduced or killed. The demand for the alternative fuel is driving up corn prices and having big impacts on other parts of the economy. Not many other issues are capable of getting left-leaning economist Paul Krugman and the Cato Institute on the same side.

jcatcw writes to mention that Japan-based businesses are prepping for new requirements, called J-SOX, similar to Sarbanes-Oxley in the United States. Even though details are not expected until next month, many IT managers are already working on implementing controls to handle the expected regulations. "Marios Damianides, an IT risk management consultant and partner at Ernst & Young LLP in New York, said he expects that the relaxation of some Sarbanes-Oxley requirements by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the U.S. late last year should help ensure that the J-SOX rules won't be excessive for businesses."

Radon360 writes "There are countless patents that are promising but sitting idle, stowed in the corporate file room. In fact, about 90 percent to 95 percent of all patents are idle. Countless patents sit unused when companies decide not to develop them into products. Now, not-for-profit groups and state governments are asking companies to donate dormant patents so they can be passed to local entrepreneurs who try to build businesses out of them. "

News.com has a piece up looking at a set of gas-powered boots that were developed during the cold war. While the technology itself is interesting, article author Andrew Kramer uses it as a launching point for a discussion of Russia's technological stagnation during the cold war. Outside of military applications, many of the innovative ideas developed in the former USSR during the 80s and early 90s were left to rot on the drawing board. The boots were eventually brought to market, but failed sometime last year. They do, of course, also go into how the boots work: "Taking a step down will compress air in the shoe--as in a typical sneaker, said Enikeev, who was a designer on the project. But then, a tiny carburetor injects gasoline into the compressed air and a spark plug fires it off. Instead of fastening a seat belt, the institute's test runner, Marat D. Garipov, an assistant professor of engineering, strapped on shin belts at a recent demonstration. Then he flicked an ignition switch."

RockDoctor writes "Northern Ireland has for decades been using sniffer dogs to detect bombs and bomb-making materials. According to the BBC, a dog trainer in the Province has trained two dogs to sniff out some of the chemicals used in the manufacture of optical discs. While this has an obvious risk of false positives (polycarbonate plastics and their associated plasticizer additives are used in many other industries, for example), it does seem to be effective at locating discs which are not declared in customs manifests, and doing so much faster than human inspection of the cargo can do."

tmk writes "Russian minister Leonid Reiman has announced new legislation to fight software piracy. According to official information the share of pirated software in the Russian Federation decreased in the last years from 90 to 60 percent. Reiman dismissed as a myth the impression that many viruses originate in his country: 'Viruses are written all over the world. Russia is waging a consistent and successful war on malicious software.' Reiman calls for an international organization to fight Internet crime. Last year Russia agreed to take down Allofmp3 after the United States intervened."

gollum123 writes "Time reports the guardians of decency are warning about new trouble, with a capital T, which rhymes with V, which stands for violence. The Parents Television Council (PTC), the group at the vanguard of the TV-sex wars, has lately focused on prime-time blood: power-tool torture on 24, serial killing on Criminal Minds, vivisection on Heroes. And the FCC has prepared a draft report suggesting that Congress authorize it to regulate broadcast violence, as it now does obscenity, and possibly force cable companies to let subscribers opt out of paying for channels that run brutal content. In short, torture is the new sex. Jack Bauer is the new Janet Jackson."