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This story just hit the Drudge Report’s front page.  Declan McCullagh at CNET writes today about the latest revision of S.773, a bill that would give the president “emergency control” of the internet in case of a “cybersecurity emergency.”  Wayne Crews, CEI Vice President for Policy,  released a statement on the naming of the cybersecurity chief and wrote an article on this back in May.  See an excerpt below:

Policy makers should avoid collectivizing and centralizing risk management, especially in frontier industries like information technology.…

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Your host Richard Morrison brings you Episode 51 of the LibertyWeek podcast, along with special guest co-host Jeremy Lott and Fellow in Regulatory Studies Ryan Young. We start with Judge Sotomayor in the Senate hot seat, a privacy threat from “smart” passports and why Rep. Dan Lipinski has decided your suitcase is too big. The discussion continues with Rep. John Murtha’s expanding corruption scandal, beer news from the Beaver State and the arrival of Wal-Mart in India. We wrap up with…

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There are more  developments on the charity front-not exactly related to the budget issue I posted on previously–but interesting nonetheless.  Apparently, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (do not miss this link!)-NCRP, wants to work with legislators to push this agenda.  At first glance, its goals laid out here seem harmless enough:

It attempts to answer the questions: What differentiates an exemplary foundation from the rest of its peers? What can foundations do to improve its relevance to nonprofits, the economically and socially underserved…

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The prevention of regulation and the Rule of Law pounding its mighty fist within a medium or sector of business is generally something that is lauded around these parts.  On occasion, though, an industry will find that it is possibly pushing the envelope ever so much over the line and chooses to act on its own behalf.  This self-supervision, for the most part, tends to deter government involvement and the creation of legal regulation, which can in many cases be…

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Apple's 1984 "Big Brother" ad

An article over at Ad Age brings up an angle on the whole auto industry bailout probably not considered much before.  The fact that a yet-to-be-appointed “car czar” will have control over a multibillion dollar advertising budget for the big three.  Under the guise of “oversight,” this would effectively “Create World’s Most Powerful Marketing Exec[utive].”  

The draft rescue plan for Detroit sent to the White House by Congress yesterday calls for the appointment of a “car czar”…

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As yesterday’s New York Times reports. Lost in the universal focus on the credit crisis, we have seen a somewhat troubling change taking place in Switzerland’s longtime bank secrecy laws.

Switzerland’s tax authorities, under pressure from a growing United States investigation into the Swiss bank giant UBS, are expected to hand over confidential data on wealthy American clients of UBS to the Justice Department, two people briefed on the matter said Tuesday.

The move would represent a significant shift in Switzerland’s banking…

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From our good friends at FreedomWorks comes a video alerting viewers to a proposal from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) that would create a new federal database of e-commerce transactions:

Do you use Ebay, PayPal or Amazon? Senator Charles Grassley wants to know. Grassley plans to create a new government database that tracks businesses online sales. His law would require companies to report sensitive detailed information about millions of online purchases.

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