Reader Ant wrote to mention the article entitled Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican? The author argues that media companies are systematically ruining the MuniWiFi efforts across the country, likening the community initiatives to a form of communism. From the article: "Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists to protect their Internet fiefdoms from these municipal internet initiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise"

Fox Cutter writes "Today in the House of Representatives, Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) introduced a companion piece of legislation to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's bill (S.678) to exclude the Internet from the definition of 'public communication' in the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002." If the bill passes, this would free the internet from FEC regulation.

Will Affleck-Asch writes "According to an article on Infoworld today, France may require her citizens pay for new identity cards that hold their biometric information in electronic format. The French government outlined its plan last month to replace the identity cards and passports offered to French citizens with new ones that carry a microchip containing digitized photographs and fingerprints. The plan is to introduce the passports in 2006, and the identity cards a year later. Citizens haven't been forced to carry ID cards since 1955."

GrumpyDeveloper writes "As reported in this Wired story, China's prime minister said Sunday that China and India should work together to dominate the world's tech industry, bringing together Chinese hardware with Indian software.

Matthew Skala writes "Last month we heard that the Canadian government is rejecting some of the worst features of the DMCA (more analysis here), but with Heritage Minister Liza Frulla parroting the media-cartel lobby with a promise to "give the tools to companies and authors to sue" and persuade children that downloading music for free is morally wrong even though it's presently legal in Canada, the battle is far from won. Yesterday, Member of Parliament Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster, NDP) introduced the first batch of signatures on Digital Copyright Canada's Petition for Users' Rights. This isn't just a Web click-through petition that politicians can freely ignore; more than a thousand real hardcopy signatures have already been collected from Canadian residents opposed to further expansion of copyright privileges, and the campaign is hoping for many more. Additional coverage on p2pnet.net."

rhythmx writes "Details of this bill have been previously covered on Slashdot. SBC has since put up TV ads and a website saying that our telecom laws need to be changed. From their propaganda, "The Texas legislature has the opportunity to modernize telecom regulation and promote innovation to finally reach our goals for new technologies and enhanced consumer benefits." They hardy even mention the bill itself, basically only that it is "Good for Texas -- Good for Texans." This bill has already passed through the House and is now in the Texas state Senate."

pmike_bauer writes "Microsoft and Canadian authorities on Thursday launched a software program designed to help police worldwide hunt down child porn traffickers. Police departments can use it free of charge." From the article: "The program was developed by Microsoft Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Toronto police, with the help of the Department of Homeland Security, Scotland Yard and Interpol." Update: 04/08 18:09 GMT by Z : Modified to reflect the fact that it's not Open Source.

CaptScarlet22 writes " VideoLAN is seriously threatened by software patents due to the numerous patented techniques it implements and uses. Also threatened are the many libraries and projects which VLC is built upon, like FFmpeg, and the other fellow Free And Open Source software multimedia players, which include MPlayer, xine, Freevo, MythTV, gstreamer."

AveryRegier writes "CNN is reporting that Congress has added an amendment to the Energy Bill to extend daylight-savings time by two months. They expect to "save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day." How long it would take for the associated energy savings to overcome the cost to make, test, and deploy the necessary code changes? How would the cost of this change compare with Y2K? Does most date routines' reliance on GMT make this just an issue of presenting the right time to the user?"

Slashback is back after a long absence being devoured by gnomes. Read on below for updates on past Slashdot stories about the continuing Washington election brouhaha, the FBI's latest hunt for server logs, Photoshoppified GIMP, and more.

darylb writes "NASA is proposing ending the 28-year old Voyager program, which costs a paltry $4mil per year to operate. One of the two Voyager probes is approaching the edge of what can be thought of as the sun's atmosphere (where the solar wind bumps up against interstellar wind), a place where no probe has gone before. Canceling this project means saving almost nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent so far. The craft will be out of juice by 2015 in any case, so the marginal cost for the extra, invaluable, data would be minimal." From the article: "NASA officials said the possibility of cutting Voyager and several other long-running missions in the Earth-Sun Exploration Division arose in February, when the Bush administration proposed slashing the division's 2006 budget by nearly one-third -- from $75 million to $53 million."

miguelitof writes "According to the TheDenverChannel.com, Colorado cities may soon be able to provide wireless internet service to their citizens. The state Senate will vote today (April 5th) on Colorado Senate Bill 152, which would allow cities to provide wireless internet access. The only proviso would be that cities would have to get approval from voters to use tax dollars. The cost to provide internet access to a 16 square mile area is about $600k. A city could charge as little as $16 a month and cover expenses."

Dazan writes: "The Washington Post has an interesting op-ed piece on its website today, Mr. Wolfowitz and the Bank. The Post, a popular liberal paper, says that now that Paul Wolfowitz is heading the World Bank, 'People... should think carefully before they damage [the Bank] by attacking its new boss,' and that bringing up Wolfowitz's record is unhealthy. Of course it doesn't hurt for us all to watch what we say, expecially our newspapers. What does the Slashdot community think?"

Orangez writes "Wired.com reports that 'business travel groups, security experts and privacy advocates are looking to derail a government plan to insert remotely readable chips in American passports, calling the chips homing devices for high-tech muggers, identity thieves and even terrorists.' and that 'The 64-KB chips will include the information from the photo page of the passport, including name, date of birth and a digitized form of the passport picture.'"

Joining the ranks of such luminaries as Jack Thompson and Governor Blagojevich, GamesIndustry.biz has the word that Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences. From the article: "Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them...This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's OK to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place." Commentary available at The Australian. Update: 03/30 02:22 GMT by T : Thanks to reader mantle_etching, here is a link to the entire speech as delivered, so you can judge its content for yourself.

InklingBooks writes "Redstate has a chilling description of the FEC's original March 10 proposal to regulate political speech on the Internet. It would have been a 'regulatory minefield for bloggers' and may yet return." CNet has a view of this earlier language as well. It's important to note that the regulation has changed much since the initial draft. The FEC began consideration of more developed regulation language on Thursday. From the article: "So, the original attempt to regulate started with the premise that everything was to be regulated except that with limited distribution or on password-protected sites."

efp writes "Mark Liberman posted over in the Language Log that, in considering alternatives to Google's library initiative in Europe, French President Jacques Chirac would consider a partnership with Microsoft 'since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates'. This comes out of talks between the French president, the head of the French National Library and the Minister of Culture, in in part 'building an alter ego to the American project, before thinking of an eventual collaboration with Google, so as not to negotiate from a position of weakness' as they plan to digitize their cultural resources."

eschasi writes "Groklaw has an article up reporting that Microsoft is going to open up their XML representation of the DOC format in response to Massachusetts' demand for open formats. According to Groklaw there are some interesting caveats involved in the move. From the license: 'We are acknowledging that end users who merely open and read government documents that are saved as Office XML files within software programs will not violate the license'. While opening up the format even partially is a good idea, it's still a far cry from folks being able to write programs that create DOC-compatible files."

Kadin2048 writes "The FCC today announced that it was once again rolling back the date (PDF!) for the eventual ban of "integrated set-top boxes" distributed and leased by cable companies to consumers, from 2006 to 2007. The move was a slight nod to the cable providers, who wanted the ban removed altogether, and a minor setback to the consumer electronics industry, who would have preferred that it stay on schedule. The ban would prevent the largest cable companies from integrating their digital content security devices with their navigation devices, allowing consumers to 'mix and match' the navigation or DVR set-top-box of their choice with a standard CableCARD security interface device. Currently, most digital cable set top boxes combine these two functions, meaning that digital cable customers who want DVR functionality must rent one from their cable company. By preventing the cable companies from leasing them to end-users, the FCC hopes to foster competition in the set-top-box market and allow more consumer choice. A statement from FCC Commissioner Johnathan Adelstein (PDF) was released simultaneously. The battle has been carefully watched by all the major players in the entertainment and electronics markets, including Microsoft, which had previously weighed in on the side of the consumer electronics camp (pro-deadline), but then later agreed with the one-year extension."

Throtex writes "Orin Kerr, Associate Professor of Law at George Washington University writes at The Volokh Conspiracy that the Department of Justice is having trouble finding abuses of the USA PATRIOT Act. This follows from the fact that what the media originally aired as abuses were merely allegations of abuse at the time. Could it be that there has just been a lot of fuss over nothing?"