Worse, they even knocked down two proposed amendments that would have at least paid lip service to holding them responsible for their actions. Now we'll never know just how it deep went, how thoroughly they violated any number of things that just shouldn't be fucked with—rights, laws, etc. [NYT]

P.S. How'd our potential prezzes vote? Unsurprisingly, Obama voted against immunity, Hillary didn't vote (too busy crying) and McCain doesn't like anything with wires, so he okayed the spying.

Mark Klein explained the situation a bit in this video and why he was lobbying against immunity for the telcos—which the FCC declined to investigate. It's this exact bill that's about to pass the Senate, as they've voted to limit debate on it "all but assuring" it gets the rubber stamp. Also included are provisions to essentially legalize the government's actions, effectively expanding its ability to spy within our borders. Scary stuff. [Threat Level, Threat Level]

The Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act intro'd last month, for example, would force carriers to prorate termination fees, prevent them from calling their own fees government taxes, and keep their coverage maps up-to-date and easily available to customers. Also at issue are termination fees for military personnel shipped overseas and automatic extensions forced on customers seeking small changes in their contract.

Naturally, the industry's against increased regulation, with Verizon, for instance, saying it already follows many of the proposed provisions. Some Republican Senators also argue that the competitive market provides enough protection for consumers. On the other hand, having more transparency and fairness seems like it would benefit consumers, and at least on paper, a mobile bill of rights doesn't sound like a bad thing. What do you guys think? [InfoWorld/Yahoo!, Flickr]

As sponsoring Sen. Mark Pryor correctly surmises, content is increasingly slippery, sliding from device to device with relative ease—if you want to strap blinders on children, you have to think outside of the box in your living room. But his goal is wholly unrealistic. The reason he wants a super V-chip—the infinitude of content that needs to be managed across a vast array of devices—is the very reason why any kind of super V-chip would fail. It's like trying to hold back an ocean with a fishing net.

Beyond that, forcing manufacturers to shove chips into TVs is relatively easy compared to equipping essentially every consumer electronics device with one, which is what would be necessary to filter content at the absolute end user level. And there's no point in worrying about that until every piece of content itself is tagged in a way for the chip to identify it. Finally, there's that little problem the first V-chip ran into: no one used it.

It would probably be easer to make a super-duper V-chip that's implanted at birth which would screen everything a kid sees and hears, not just TV or the internet. Real life probably has the most inappropriate content of any medium, so it's high time we started screening it, too—we don't want kids exposed to any of that dirty business. [Yahoo!/Reuters, Image via Flickr]

Basically, if a school gets enough subpoenas in the mail from the MPAA and/or RIAA to make the top 25, they go on "probation." At that point they have to prove to the Secretary of Education that they're going to foist a "technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property" upon its hapless student body.

Naturally, provisions aren't laid out in the amendment for how the data provided by copyright holders is collected or verified at all. But it's not like the RIAA's ever been wrong or anything. [Ars Technica]