The Entertainment Consumer Association (ECA) has issued an alert urging members of the community to let the U.S. Senate know that you think Senator Rockefeller's bill to study violent video games is a misguided mistake. Why?

Because the Senator has publicly stated that this bill and the result of it are simply a step towards government regulation of video games. The bill, S. 134, calls for the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study on the connection between the "exposure to violent video games and video programming and harmful effects on children."

It looks like Connecticut Sen. Toni Harp (D-New Haven) and Rep. DebraLee Hovey (R-Newtown) are not the only Connecticut lawmakers that proposed bills related to video game violence in the January session. Sen. Scott Frantz (R-Greenwich) and Sen.

Connecticut State Representative Debralee Hovey (R-112th District) isn't the only one that introduced a bill in the January session apparently. Connecticut State Senator Toni Nathaniel Harp (D-10th District) introduced S.B. No.

The Escapist reports that Connecticut State Representative Debralee Hovey (R-112th District) has introduced H.B. No. 5735, or "an act establishing a sales tax on certain video games." The bill would add a ten percent tax in Connecticut on video games rated "Mature" by the ESRB, which would then be redirected to the State's department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) went to Washington D.C last week to talk to members of Congress and their staff about the connection between video games and violence, and their conclusion was that Congress does not have the best interests of the millions of gamers in America in mind. The ECA says that when they tried to talk to lawmakers about the connection between video games and real-world violence they came away from those meetings feeling like lawmakers were not interested in the facts and instead were relying on their own biases and preferences about the video games.

US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are pushing lawmakers to pass some sort of cybersecurity bill to protect critical infrastructure in the United States. Both say that waiting much longer could prove to have devastating consequences.

Napolitano said the lawmakers should not wait until we have a "cyber 9/11" to act:

In direct response to last month’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the following has happened:

Today members of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) are heading to Washington, D.C. to talk to lawmakers about a recent spate of bills that call for new research, add government mandated labels to video games, and add fines for selling mature games. If you feel a sense of déjà vu, it is because these kinds of bills have been proposed before and they have always managed to fail to be passed or enforced because they are unconstitutional or trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) introduced legislation this week echoing what President Obama asked for earlier in the month: extensive research on the effects of violent video games and other media on children. The study would be overseen by the National Academy of Sciences. Rockefeller introduced the bill before the end of the last Congress's term but ran out of time to get a floor vote. Now it seems that his bill has a lot more support from both parties.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) issued an action alert asking the Internet community and ECA members to let Rep. Jim Metheson's colleagues in the House of Representatives know that his proposed bill, the "Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act" (H.R. 287), is a big mistake for a number of reasons.

On this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the President's call for research on the effects of violent video games on youth (as they related to gun violence) two horribly conceived state laws related to video games, and the latest GamePolitics poll. Download it now: SuperPAC Episode 37 (1 hour, 1 minute) 56.1 MB.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a proposal to make it illegal for pilots and flight attendants to use wireless electronics during flight operations including mobile and hand-held devices and laptops. The proposal is meant to conform to guidelines established last year in the Modernization and Reform Act. The proposed rule change does not apply to electronic devices directly related to flight operations, communications devices used for safety, or devices used during an emergency.

UPDATE: Read the bill here.  (Credit: The Hill)

IGN has a pretty interesting feature on the video game industry taking part in Vice-President Joe Biden's Gun Violence Commission called "The Politics of Violence." What is interesting about this feature is that it solicits the opinions of "20 of the top game writers" in the United States including Adam Sessler from Rev3 Games, Ben Kuchera from Penny Arcade Report, Ben Silverman from Yahoo!

President Barack Obama unveiled measures today to curb gun violence in America that he wants Congress to pass as soon as possible, and issued executive orders calling for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to conduct a study on whether there is a correlation between gun violence and "violent video games" and other forms of media.

House lawmakers are criticizing federal prosecutors involved with the Aaron Swartz case, who killed himself in New York City after the U.S. Government refused to give the internet activist a plea deal. Earlier in the week the Justice Department officially dropped the case. Lawmakers blasted prosecutors for pushing aggressive hacking charges against Swartz, and vowed to look into the details of the case.

Missouri State Rep. Diane Franklin (R-Camdenton) put forth a bill on Monday proposing that the state charge a 1 percent tax on "violent video games," with the funds to be used for mental health programs and law enforcement efforts related to the prevention of mass shootings. This tax would apply to games rated Teen, Mature, and Adults Only by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

Jay Rockefeller's bill to have the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission conduct a study in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences about the effects of violent video games on America's youth died when the 112th session of Congress ended on January 2. And while that might be good news for the very short term, there's no doubt that the Democratic Senator from West Virginia plans to introduce the exact same bill to the Senate later this month.

Trade organization the Business Roundtable issued a 32-page report this week backing the approach taken by the House of Representatives to fight cybersecurity threats. That approach, the bill called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), passed the House. The Senate proposed another bill called the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. The House bill passed, but the President didn't think it offered enough protections for American Internet users' privacy rights.

New research from Boston’s Northeastern University shows that blocking or censoring sites has no long-term effects on combating the proliferation or availability of pirated materials. If anything it has a short-term effect. Researchers monitored thousands of files across several of the most frequented file-hosting services and found that DMCA notices are a ripple in an ocean.

Drawing conclusions based on a lack of evidence is not mutually exclusive to politicians in America and in Europe, as evidenced in this Peninsula report. According to the publication, one politician in the Philippines is indirectly blaming video and arcade games for the recent rash of shootings in the country.

A Republican House staffer who penned a memo on a different kind of approach to copyright law in November of last year found himself out of work as the new Congress was seated last Thursday and the new head of the Republican Study Committee - Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) - decided not to keep him on. He finally broke his silence on the whole ordeal to Ars Technica.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced legislation Thursday that would regulate the use of data caps by internet and mobile service providers. Wyden has been a longtime champion of net neutrality rules and internet freedom. He opposed SOPA, PIPA and other bills that would put rules or regulations on the Internet and has been a strong supporter of the FCC's net neutrality rules.

In a segment that aired during Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto's show this week, Daniel Greenberg joined in to discuss Senator Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) bill to study the effects of violent video games on children. Greenberg is the IGDA Anti-Censorship Committee Chairman and game developer at Washington D.C.-based Media Rez.

Late last night the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) broke its silence on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, offering its condolences to the families of the victims, but urging lawmakers to include a mountain of research that has shown no correlation between playing video games and real-world violence. The statement was likely a response to a bill in the senate sponsored by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) that calls for the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an 18-month study of the effect of violent video games compared to other entertainment mediums.

New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued a press release today announcing that five additional companies including Gaia Online, NCsoft, Funcom, THQ, and one company that was not disclosed at press time, have agreed to participate in Operation: Game Over, an initiative to identify and remove registered sex offenders that live in New York state. These companies join Microsoft, Apple, Blizzard Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Disney Interactive Media Group, Warner Brothers and Sony.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D - West Virginia) has introduced a bill that would have the U.S. National Academy of Sciences study how video games and other media like films and television affect children. The bill would also expand studies already conducted by the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission.

Npeaches offers an excellent interview with Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) discussing some pretty important topics including the importance of net neutrality and intellectual property as it relates to the Internet.

The interview is 10 minutes 32 seconds long. You can watch it to your left in its entirety.

Source: Culture Cache Blog

GameSpot is reporting that the government of Queensland, Australia will not sell games marked with the new R18+ rating in the state until sometime after February 7, 2013.

The Inquirer reports that the the Business Software Alliance (BSA) is lamenting the death of Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) after its Senate counterpart - the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 was voted down in the Senate. Prior to that the bill could not get past a filibuster because it didn't have the required 60 votes to overcome it. The latest action on the bill puts the issue to bed for 2012 - at least.