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No viable auto industry bailout plan: Democrats

Argentine Congress passes pension nationalization law

Motor industry bail-out halted by Congress

China Targets U.S. Computers For Espionage, Report Warns

Unemployed? More help for you

Congress extends jobless benefits

For many CEOs, private jets the only way to fly

Michael Moore mixed on Big 3 bailout

Autoblog

- 1 days and 2 hours ago

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/government-legal/" rel="tag"Government/Legal/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/chrysler/" rel="tag"Chrysler, LLC./a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/ford/" rel="tag"Ford/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/gm/" rel="tag"GM/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/celebrities/" rel="tag"Celebrities/a/pa href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081120/AUTO01/811200428/1148"img width="200" vspace="4" hspace="4" height="200" border="1" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/michael-moore.jpg" //aWhile there is definitely a huge rift between those who favor a Detroit bailout and those who would rather see the Big 3 fade away, you'd think that someone like Flint-native and documentary maker Michael Moore would be all in favor of helping the Big Three succeed. After all, Moore rose to fame for his first documentary entitled "Roger and Me" that featured then-CEO of General Motors Roger Smith. According to this piece in the emDetroit News/em, however, Moore doesn't profess unconditional support for a Big 3 bailout. It seems he has mixed feelings about the whole situation.br /br /Moore was on Larry King last night saying that the automakers ignored the wishes of consumers by continuing to build bigger vehicles just to maximize profits. Foreign automakers, on the other hand, built SUVs emand/em more fuel-efficient vehicles in other categories. Moore elaborated by saying that br /the current managers don't deserve a dime, but that it would be terrible if so many people lost jobs because of them. He went on to suggest that Congress should demand change for any money given out, including building up alternative fueled vehicles and mass transit in the country.br /br /[Source: a href="http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081120/AUTO01/811200428/1148"Detroit News/a]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/michael-moore-doesnt-even-support-big-3-bailout/"Michael Moore mixed on Big 3 bailout/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:21:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081120/AUTO01/811200428/1148Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/michael-moore-doesnt-even-support-big-3-bailout/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1378262/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/michael-moore-doesnt-even-support-big-3-bailout/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lRWstEwk7PWoiLjRRFAjSUHrhNk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lRWstEwk7PWoiLjRRFAjSUHrhNk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=wg2RuK3h"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=wg2RuK3h" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=dR6gdONz"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=dR6gdONz" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/2_bzXNM_xTc" height="1" width="1"/

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Congress rushes to extend jobless benefits

Dems delay auto bailout vote, seek plan from Big 3

Democrats want Big Three spending plan

Aw Snap! Congressional Democrats undercut compromise bailout bill

Autoblog

- 1 days and 4 hours ago

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/government-legal/" rel="tag"Government/Legal/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/earnings-financials/" rel="tag"Earnings/Financials/a/pimg vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" align="right" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/billhopeless_opt.jpg" alt="" /Wow, what an amazing piece of political theater that just went down. As we reported, four senators from auto producing state (two Democrats and two Republicans) led by Michigan Senator Carl Levin have a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/breaking-automaker-bailout-agreement-reached-in-senate-still-n/"reached an agreement on a compromise bailout bill/a for automakers. They were set to announce details of the compromise bill at 2:30PM, but before they could, a team of Congressional Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid walked into the room in which the press conference was to be held and announced that they didn't support the compromise bill and that CEOs of the Big 3 would have to come back after the Thanksgiving holiday and present a plan on how any loans that might be given would be used.br /br /Back to that compromise bill. The big stalemate, other than whether U.S. automakers should get a bailout at all, is where the money would come from. Democrats want to take $25 billion from the $700 billion bailout fund for financial institutions while Republicans and the White House want to re-appropriate $25 billion in loans that have already been approved for investments in green technology. Levin revealed the compromise to be a version of the Republican's plan, with concessions made to Democrats in that certain environmental restrictions would remain in tact and that loan repayments would go directly back to replenish the $25 billion fund for green investments. br /br /What do we take away from all this? The Big 3 will get no assurance of federal aid before Thanksgiving, and there's still no guarantee they'll get help after the break. The ball is again back in the court of the Big 3 CEOs, who need to show up in December with detailed plans of how each would use any federal aid. The Democrats are calling for "accountability" and "viability" in their proposals, which are due to Congress by December 2.p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/aw-snap-congressional-democrats-undercut-compromise-bailout-bil/"Aw Snap! Congressional Democrats undercut compromise bailout bill/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:16:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/aw-snap-congressional-democrats-undercut-compromise-bailout-bil/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1378516/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/20/aw-snap-congressional-democrats-undercut-compromise-bailout-bil/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/kWU6k5KxXcEkiBYnGLONBospjKI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/kWU6k5KxXcEkiBYnGLONBospjKI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=9Tmn94mW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=9Tmn94mW" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=X6CVGRPk"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=X6CVGRPk" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/34LD9eJyyeE" height="1" width="1"/

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house speaker,senate,republicans,tact,email

Deadline for Detroit

Dems Put Crucial Auto Bailout Vote On Hold

Congress scrambles on auto bailout

China winning cyber war, Congress warned

Guardian Unlimited

- 1 days and 6 hours ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/58153?ns=guardianpageName=Technology%3A+China+winning+cyber+war%2C+Congress+warnedch=Technologyc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Computer+security%2CChina+%28News%29%2CUS+news%2CHacking+%28Technology%29%2CUS+Congress%2CObama+White+House+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Elections%2CCorporate+IT%2CConsumer+Electronicsc6=Ed+Pilkingtonc7=2008_11_20c8=1121483c9=articlec10=GUc11=Technologyc12=Computer+securityc13=c14=h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FComputer+security" width="1" height="1" //divpChina is aggressively developing its power to wage cyber warfare and is now in a position to delay or disrupt the deployment of America's military forces around the world, potentially giving it the upper hand in any conflict, a panel of the US Congress has warned./ppThe panel's report discloses an alarming increase in incidents of Chinese computer attacks on the US government, defence companies and businesses. It notes that China now has both the intent and capability to launch cyber attacks "anywhere in the world at any time"./ppThe conclusions reached in this year's US-China Economic and Security Review are far more dramatic than before. In 2007, it says, about 5m computers in the US were the targets of 43,880 incidents of malicious activity â€” a rise of almost a third on the previous year./ppChina's ability to wage cyber warfare is now "so sophisticated that the US may be unable to counteract or even detect the efforts", the report warns.br /Given the dependence on the internet of key sectors of US public life, from the federal government and military to water treatment, social security and the electricity grid, "a successful attack on these internet-connected networks could paralyse the US"./ppThe review's six Democrat and six Republican commissioners travelled to China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, and heard testimony from US intelligence agencies for their 393-page report./ppThere has been concern about Chinese computer espionage since 2002, when a large-scale series of cyber intrusions was launched on US military and government computer systems. In that attack, codenamed Titan Rain by the US, the Chinese downloaded up to 20 terabytes of data â€” twice the amount stored in the entire print collection of the Library of Congress./ppMuch of the activity is likely to emanate from groups of hackers, but the lines between private espionage and government-sponsored operations are blurred. Some 250 hacker groups are tolerated, and may even be encouraged, by Beijing to invade computer networks. Individual hackers are also being trained in cyber operations at Chinese military bases./pp"China is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from US computer networks, said Larry Wortzel, the commission's chairman./ppAccording to the report, Beijing is investing huge resources in cyber and space missions because it sees America's computer networks and space assets as its "soft ribs and strategic weaknesses". The extent of its activities gives it the potential to beat the US in military conflict. Technologically, China has improved its range of satellites, so it can now accurately locate US aircraft carrier battle groups quickly, and from a great distance. Such information could be used to guide Chinese missiles to their targets./ppThe Chinese government has given no response to the accusations, but in the past has complained of cyber attacks coming in the opposite direction./ppIn addition to cyber warfare, the panel warns that Beijing is taking an increasingly aggressive stance in its rapidly developing space programme. The panel believes China has concluded that space will in future be an essential arena of warfare./ppIt notes that China tested an anti-satellite weapon last year, giving it the ability to destroy US satellites, in addition to its existing capability to "blind" them by using lasers. So far this year, 15 rockets and 17 satellites have been put into space./ppChina became the third country to explore space in 2003, after the Soviet Union and the US. Until 2002 Beijing opposed the militarisation of space, but it has quietly dropped its opposition since./ppChina's growing military power, running parallel to its increasing economic might, is likely to present challenges to the incoming administration of Barack Obama. The president-elect has said that "China is rising and it's not going away", although he prefers to characterise the US-Chinese relationship as one between "competitors" rather than enemies.br //pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/security"Computer security/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china"China/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/hacking"Hacking/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/congress"US Congress/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/li/ul/divdiv class="guRssAdvert"a href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Technologycountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227209466249112019321752401"img src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Technologycountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227209466249112019321752401" border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a

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missiles,beijing,republicans,conclusions,extent

UAW to Congress: Get a deal done

US warns of China 'cyber-spying'

Congress Puts Off Auto Deal

AT&T Controls the Future of Privacy — Seriously

GigaOM

- 1 days and 8 hours ago

I’ve spent the past few days pretty immersed in the SC 08 conference here in Austin, Texas, but I’m still embarrassed that I missed the formation of a new lobbying organization think tank called The Future of Privacy that’s being funded by AT&T. The group hopes to help policy makers and business leaders figure out how to manage online privacy.

A big source of irony from the group, other than its purported focus on online privacy to benefit consumers and the industry alike, is that Co-chair Christopher Wolf also headed up one of my favorite astroturfing efforts, Hands Off The Internet, the phone company think tank dedicated to Net Neutrality. Somehow, that connection isn’t mentioned in his FOP bio. Wolf is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Proskauer Rose LLP, a firm that does work for AT&T. The other co-founder of FOP, Jules Polonetsky (here’s a great interview on his views on Internet privacy), was the former chief privacy officer at AOL. Prior to that he worked at DoubleClick, which was bought by Google.

The creation of the FOP is both a good thing and bad thing. It’s a sign that consumers worried about how their private information is collected and used on the Internet have been taken seriously. On the other hand, the backer and members of this particular organization are highly likely to influence legislators in a direction that will keep consumers’ data in their hands.

I hope that some of the more privacy focused representatives can cut through the corporate double-speak that I have seen firsthand from the telecommunications companies on other issues. Perhaps Google, which is not represented on the board, can start its own privacy think tank and we can watch the fight unfurl between caching private data for later use, and profiting from data as it travels through the ISPs’ pipes.

This issue of Internet privacy has gained more momentum in the last few months after ISPs contracted with a startup called NebuAd to monitor where a consumer surfs the web and serve ads against those visits. Other companies are trying this as well. Since then, Congress has held two hearings on online privacy, with one related to data collection and the other related to deep-packet inspection as employed by NebuAD and its ISP customers.

As the online experience becomes more interactive, the rules around of who’s watching us as we’re watching the web need to be defined. But in addition to worries about corporate spying, legislators and lobbying organizations should also take a close look at what governments can now access and use. For those of you following this space, the advisory board includes:

Dorothy Attwood, Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer, AT&T, who went before Congress to decry NebuAd’s tactics but noted that perhaps in exchange for lower rates a consumer might be willing to share more data with the ISP
Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy, Facebook, the company that brought you the privacy nightmare known as Beacon
Simon Davies, Director, Privacy International
Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, who is advising President-elect Barack Obama on technology

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chairs,embarrassed,collections,startups,nightmares

ATT Controls the Future of Privacy — Seriously

GigaOM

- 1 days and 8 hours ago

I’ve spent the past few days pretty immersed in the SC 08 conference here in Austin, Texas, but I’m still embarrassed that I missed the formation of a new lobbying organization think tank called The Future of Privacy that’s being funded by AT&T. The group hopes to help policy makers and business leaders figure out how to manage online privacy.

A big source of irony from the group, other than its purported focus on online privacy to benefit consumers and the industry alike, is that Co-chair Christopher Wolf also headed up one of my favorite astroturfing efforts, Hands Off The Internet, the phone company think tank dedicated to Net Neutrality. Somehow, that connection isn’t mentioned in his FOP bio. Wolf is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Proskauer Rose LLP, a firm that does work for AT&T. The other co-founder of FOP, Jules Polonetsky (here’s a great interview on his views on Internet privacy), was the former chief privacy officer at AOL. Prior to that he worked at DoubleClick, which was bought by Google.

The creation of the FOP is both a good thing and bad thing. It’s a sign that consumers worried about how their private information is collected and used on the Internet have been taken seriously. On the other hand, the backer and members of this particular organization are highly likely to influence legislators in a direction that will keep consumers’ data in their hands.

I hope that some of the more privacy focused representatives can cut through the corporate double-speak that I have seen firsthand from the telecommunications companies on other issues. Perhaps Google, which is not represented on the board, can start its own privacy think tank and we can watch the fight unfurl between caching private data for later use, and profiting from data as it travels through the ISPs’ pipes.

This issue of Internet privacy has gained more momentum in the last few months after ISPs contracted with a startup called NebuAd to monitor where a consumer surfs the web and serve ads against those visits. Other companies are trying this as well. Since then, Congress has held two hearings on online privacy, with one related to data collection and the other related to deep-packet inspection as employed by NebuAD and its ISP customers.

As the online experience becomes more interactive, the rules around of who’s watching us as we’re watching the web need to be defined. But in addition to worries about corporate spying, legislators and lobbying organizations should also take a close look at what governments can now access and use. For those of you following this space, the advisory board includes:

Dorothy Attwood, Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer, AT&T, who went before Congress to decry NebuAd’s tactics but noted that perhaps in exchange for lower rates a consumer might be willing to share more data with the ISP
Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy, Facebook, the company that brought you the privacy nightmare known as Beacon
Simon Davies, Director, Privacy International
Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, who is advising President-elect Barack Obama on technology