US Congress

Sheila Bair, a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman, said that US Congress has to raise the federal debt ceiling to prevent a "calamitous" government debt default.

"But as strongly as I feel about this issue, I feel just as strongly that a technical default on U.S. government obligations would prove to be calamitous," she said.

US Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the Congress is considering a new $1trillion project in deficit-cutting measures as part of a possible deal that would allow America to increase its borrowing authority before August 2 deadline.

"I think we're in a position where we'll be able to get well above $1 trillion pretty quick in terms of what would be a down payment on the process," Biden said after a three-hour meeting on Capitol Hill with top lawmakers.

Espionage prosecution legislation is being considered at the US Congress. The bill would target WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and all others who do similar things.

Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, proposed this week the Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination, or SHIELD. Under the terms of the proposed statutes it will be an act of espionage to publish the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the U.S military or intelligence community.

A congressional official told media sources under the terms of anonymity that in fact the US government considers the damages brought by the release of the US cables by WikiLeaks websites as limited which is contrary to the formal statements made by the Obama administration in public.

The law to distribute waste and used laptops among small business owners is being promoted to the US Congress. Two US senators on Monday introduced their bill to help small businesses that want access to broadband services and new technologies.

The bill pushed by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is based on the recommendations from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's broadband plan, released in March.

As the US Trade Representative's official reported to the US Congress, China's extensive Internet filtering regime for political, social or religious content is complex and ambiguous that creates risky conditions for providers.

This report was compiled before moved its Chinese search portal to Hong Kong from China this month in a censorship dispute.

The USTR official thus announced “changes to Internet filtering can occur without warning or public explanation."

US Congress will have to assign US$12 billion to $16 billion to cover expenses related to building and maintaining a nationwide mobile broadband network for emergency response agencies, including police and fire departments. The US Federal Communications Commission will ask the lawmakers to provide financing and recommend that mobile carriers that paid billions of dollars for spectrum in the 700MHz band be required to share their spectrum with public safety agencies.

 Last may the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation started an investigation into the thousands of consumer complaints from online shoppers about three post-transaction marketing companies: Webloyalty, Vertrue, and Affinion. The complaints reported about fraudulent transactions that left many of these customers with unauthorized charges. Perhaps as many as 30 million people were affected, according to a government report.

 After the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission presented its report to the US Congress last week and said that China is the most aggressive country in the world in cyber-spying against the United States Beijing released its disclaimer calling the US allegations groundless and insulting. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the report was a twisted attack on China.