Stupidity

Only a few years ago, a member of Congress serving up an inane comment in a congressional hearing would have merited a brief gossip column mention, or more likely gone unnoticed.

Unfortunately for Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, his bizarre question about the island of Guam possibly tipping over--he used the word "capsize"--if additional troops were stationed there became a YouTube sensation on Thursday.

It's no April Fools' Day joke: the 55-year-old congressman and member of the House Democratic leadership told a naval officer who was testifying on March 25 that: "My fear is … Read more

Updated throughout with comments from co-founder Peter Kazanjy

A new site called Unvarnished launched in beta today, and aims to do for individual people what Yelp does for restaurants and local businesses: let anyone create a profile about you and then post "reviews" about your job performance, management style, reputation, behavioral quirks, and so on. Or, put another way, it'll let co-workers or relative strangers subject you to anonymous and potentially defamatory attacks that are completely outside your control, can't be removed or edited, and are ripe for abuse. So, that sounds like a super idea. … Read more

President Obama broke the Internet's collective heart last week, cheering on strict intellectual-property laws, dampening our hopes for meaningful copyright reforms and, worse, announcing that "we must" move forward on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Now, ACTA covers a lot of ground that the president is concerned about, such as physical copying of goods--the actual counterfeiting in the Counterfeiting name. But as you may know by now, it also contains some seriously disturbing, broad-stroke IP law that could have a devastating effect on the way the Internet works--on research, content creation and innovation, search and seizure, and much … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Larry Downes' bio below.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

In 1996, Congress passed the landmark Telecommunications Act. The last major reform of communications law, the 1996 act ended Judge Harold Greene's 10-year effort to run America's telecommunications industry from his judicial chambers after the forced breakup of AT&T.

Since then, consumers have lived in two very different worlds.

One is the land of unregulated "information services." It includes, among other innovations, the World Wide Web, voice over Internet Protocol … Read more

I know this isn't the most important issue affecting the world right now. But I can't take it anymore. It's a really good time for TV right now, and Twitter is totally ruining it. "Lost" is back on, "Survivor: Heroes and Villains" is one episode in, the Olympics are not even one night old as I write this. And Twitter, bless its little heart, has spoiled each and every one of them for me at some point this week.

The straw-breaker for me came from the CNN Breaking News Twitter feed, which delivered … Read more

Police Blotter is a regular CNET report on the intersection of technology and the law.

What: California man appeals his murder conviction, saying incriminating Internet searches should not have been introduced as evidence.

When: State appeals court rules on February 5.

Outcome: First-degree murder conviction upheld.

What happened, according to court documents and other sources: On October 19, 2006, Alia Ansari was walking with her four-year-old daughter to pick up her other children at Glenmoor Elementary School in Fremont, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area.

At approximately 2:30 p.m., witnesses heard a gunshot-like noise, followed by … Read more

I once went to a wedding in which a British High Court judge was the bride's godfather.

Having made a deeply insincere speech, he then proceeded to get blind drunk and attempt, for no clear reason, to remove his trousers. He left the proceedings with his pants around his ankles, his wife around his torso, and a deep hush around the marquee in which the wedding was being held.

People stared, so frozen at the lips that the wine enjoyed no sips. And this, I imagine, is a posture many have experienced upon viewing a campaign video made on … Read more

Everyone is talking security these days. Does this include Facebook?

I ask because a group called "Kill Obama" was on the social-networking site for more than a month before Facebook's attention was drawn to it by CNET late Monday evening.

The group, which appears to have been created in Alberta, Canada, had 122 members and five administrators. Its existence originally caught the eye of Brian Cuban, brother of tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

Brian Cuban, who has long criticized Facebook for its attitude toward Holocaust denial groups, used his blog, the Cuban Revolution, to point out the apparent … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Larry Downes' bio below.

Wednesday's announcement that the Federal Trade Commission had filed a complaint against chipmaker Intel came as quite a surprise.

Not because of the allegations themselves, which focus on illegal tactics the company allegedly uses to maintain its dominance in the market for PC and server CPUs. Nearly all of them have already been cited in regulatory actions in the United States and abroad.

Earlier this year, the European Union fined Intel nearly $1.5 billion for conduct similar to that alleged in the FTC complaint (an appeal … Read more