Five Rhode Island lawmakers have issued a public rebuke of a letter from Rhode Island Statewide Coalition chairperson Harriet Lloyd. Lloyd's letter said that lawmakers who expressed dismay over the current trouble concerning the state and Curt Schilling's 38 Studios were being disingenuous and that their support for the Job Creation Guaranty Program gave the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation carte blanche to spend the $75 million given to the untested game company.

Last month the Australian Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy announced that the government would investigate high game and technology prices in the country and this month the Australian government is calling for public submissions on the matter.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-ORE.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade Customs and Global Competitiveness, introduced legislation this week that would clarify the USTR’s obligation to share information on trade agreements with Members of Congress. Wyden, who spoke on the floor of the Senate about why this is necessary, has been a critic of the Administration’s handling of international treaties including ACTA and most recently the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

A New York State Assemblymen wants to fight cyberbullying and “baseless political attacks" with a new bill that would ban anonymous web posts. The bill would make it so that all New York-based websites have to "remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post," according to Wired's Threat Level.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said on Monday that the Senate's cybersecurity legislation being pushed by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) is an overreaction to cyber threats and would undermine the privacy rights of American citizens.

Wyden said that both the House and Senate bills "subordinate all existing privacy rules and constitutional principles to the poorly defined interest of 'cybersecurity.'"

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) has sent out an action alert calling on its members and the general public to take action against the House bill CISPA and its Senate counterpart the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Both are bad news for anyone that uses the Internet because the laws would allow corporations like Facebook and Google to share your Internet habits with government agencies without fear of being sued by you for doing so.

Earlier this week the Center for Democracy & Technology sent a letter to the Senate expressing its grave concerns over the cybersecurity bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT.) and Susan Collins (R-ME.). The letter was signed by 21 organizations and individuals that see the Senate’s version of CISPA (SECURE IT) as deeply flawed and dangerous to Internet freedom, individual liberty, and privacy.

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I- CT.) cybersecurity bill - a counterpart of sorts to the House's Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) - is running into plenty of opposition from Democrats in the Senate who say the bill does not do enough to protect the privacy of citizens. Adding to the fact that most Senate Republicans don't like Lieberman’s bill is that several prominent Democrats don't like it either.

If you need further proof that Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT.) is not going to give up on the idea of a SOPA or PIPA style law, then you need look no further than a letter he sent to a constituent, who also happens to be a regular GamePolitics reader.

Vermont resident Brad Williams sent his senator a letter expressing his deep concerns about the Protect IP act.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) can't let the defeat of his bill go, and continues to insist that most of the provisions in his Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are still needed. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week the Senator from Vermont bristled at the comments made by White House IP Czar Victoria Espinel, who said before the committee that maybe the problem of online piracy was solving itself through voluntary action.

It's bad enough that Congress pushed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) through to a floor vote without much of a change to its original language or hearings from experts on what the impact of the bill would have on privacy, but this next story is downright infuriating to any citizen that believes we have a right to privacy and that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution is a sacred right.

Appearing on the C-SPAN program "The Communicators," White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt reiterated the Administration’s concerns with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) that was recently passed in the house and promised the President would veto it if it crossed his desk in its current form. The Administration's concerns with the bill relate to how loosely worded it is, its lack of provisions to ensure privacy, as well as its amnesty provisions for companies that turn over user data to government agencies.

Over at Business Insider, The DL Show host and new media advocate David Seaman offers four things you can do right now to fight against the "legislative nightmare" that is CISPA. 

In what can only be described as a dirty hat trick, U.S. House of Representatives quickly amended the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act(CISPA) and then brought the bill to the floor for a vote a day earlier than was scheduled. The fast and dirty vote on the bill led to it being approved by a vote of 248-168 (15 no votes). You can see if your representative voted for the bill by checking out this document.

The White House has warned lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives that if they send him the current version of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) it will be vetoed by the President. While Politico says that House Republicans are preparing to take it to the floor for a vote, it should be noted that CISPA has plenty of bipartisan support. The House Rules Committee held a session this week to weigh amendments to the bill, led by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.).

We are not ready to say that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is in trouble, but around 18 lawmakers are concerned enough about its loose language and its ability to pass private information around like a pack of smokes in prison that they have written the bill's sponsors a letter.

Even though many have declared the Republican nomination process for selecting a presidential candidate over and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney the de facto winner of the contest, some candidates have not stopped running like soon-to-be-retired Texas congressman Ron Paul. We don't really care one way or the other about that race, but we do find the Libertarian-leaning candidate's take on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) interesting.

Libertarian-leaning publication Reason Magazine offers a new episode of Reason TV called, "Too Much Copyright?" in a brand new video featuring Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger; law professor Tom Bell; and MPAA's head content protection counsel, Ben Sheffner. Host Zach Weissmueller asks all three about the current state of copyrights laws, their effectiveness, and the push for new laws like SOPA and PIPA. Check out the video to your left.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) has issued a call to action concerning the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. We've talked about CISPA here, and while it's not quite as overreaching as SOPA, PIPA, or ACTA, the bill is so vague in its language that it could prove to be dangerous if interpreted the wrong way by individuals and groups that don't give two shakes about privacy, Internet freedom and free speech.

According to a SiliconValley.com report, the U.S. House of Representatives will take up a revised version of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) at the end of April. The revisions to the bill should address concerns about privacy, according to its sponsors, but details on what has been changed in the language are unknown at this time.

CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) is something that opponents of SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA should be paying attention to. While the goal of the bill purports to be about "cybersecurity," the bill contains vague language that allows companies to spy on Internet users and collect and share this data with third-party companies or Government agencies. The loophole for companies is that they can simply say that violating users' privacy rights were necessary to protect against cybersecurity threats, to gain immunity from civil and criminal liabilities.

A new bipartisan bill wants to combat online bullying but is so poorly defined in its wording that it goes too far, according to some critics. The legislation is co-sponsored by Arizona State Reps. Ted Vogt and Vic Williams, both Republicans representing Tucson, along with strong support from House Minority Leader Chad Campbell (D-Phoenix), Assistant House Minority Leader Steve Farley (D-Tucson) and Rep. Terri Proud (R-Tucson).

Stardock announced that it will release its latest election year strategy simulation game, Political Machine 2012, this summer. The game will let you pick from various candidates including President Barack Obama, Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich, or a politician that you create from scratch. The game can be played in a one-on-one election year match up against the game's AI or against a human opponent via the Internet.

South Australia will introduce a new law that would ban anyone under the age of 18 from purchasing a game with a rating of MA15+, according to a report from Gamespot Australia. A spokesperson for South Australian Attorney-General John Rau told GameSpot that this move is "a more practical measure" than Rau's previously announced plan of removing the MA15+ category altogether.

The Georgia Senate has voted to limit the amount of the 30 tax credits the video game industry gets to $25 million and to restrict the credit allowed to individual companies to a maximum of $5 million. Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers said that the change allows for funds to spread around to smaller outfits rather than being used up by bigger companies. The new cap is a compromise from the original bill which sought to eliminate the tax credit altogether.

Remember when European Union trade chief Karel De Gucht said that Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) would be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in February? Well it turns out that the infamous treaty will not go to the highest court in Europe after all. According to a report from TorrentFreak, the road to the EJC has been blocked in the European Parliament.

It’s been a long time coming but Australia is finally getting the adult rating for video games that Aussie gamers have been clamoring for.  You know, the adult rating that movies and books in that country already have.

Ahem.

Today members of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) and a handful of supporters are in Washington to talk to member of Congress and their staff about the issues the group cares about. While the ECA champions a lot of causes the biggest issue may very well be the most recent - HR 4204: The Video Game Health Labeling Act of 2012. Since it's on the ECA's mind, you can bet that the bill sponsored by Rep. Baca (D) and Rep. Wolf (R) will be a hot topic.

Paris, France-based game development studio Quantic Dream is thankful for yesterday’s announcement that the United Kingdom will offers its development community much-needed tax relief. Quantic Dream CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière went so far as to say that the UK games industry was facing a "tangible risk of collapsing" if the government hadn't intervened. de Fondaumière, who is also the chairman of the European Game Developers Federation, hopes that this will cause other governments in Europe to follow the UK's lead.

Australia's R18+ legislation has passed the House of Representatives, with advocates hoping that it will be adopted by the Senate at some point. This puts the adult classification that most Australian citizens have been asking for multiple years on track to becoming law by early 2013. In order for it to pass through the Senate, the bill will require the support of either the coalition or the Greens (both support the R18+ classification). Once it passes the Senate, the R18+ legislation will become law.