Well, I guess we'll file this one under "better late than never." The White House has finally responded to a Petition signed by over 100,000 people asking the Administration to oppose the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. While the bill easily passed the House, the Senate has decided that it will not create a counterpart to the bill in this year's session.

The American Civil Liberties Union is calling its recent efforts to petition President Barack Obama to veto CISPA a smashing success, with 49,513 signatures so far. The civil liberties group also took out a full page ad on popular political website (found here) Politico yesterday urging members of Congress to oppose the controversial cybersecurity bill.

The deadline for a petition submitted to the White House's "We The People" site to stop the passage of the newest version of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is March 15, but the petition has already passed the 100,000 signature threshold needed for the White House to recognize it. The petition expresses concerns that citizens and privacy groups have over the privacy implications of the bill sponsored by Reps.

Earlier in the week reported on a petition over at WhiteHouse.gov asking the administration to direct the Librarian of Congress to rescind the October 2012 decision that removed unlocking mobile phones (commonly referred to as jailbreaking) as an exception to the DMCA. The petition went on to ask the White House - if it could not compel the Librarian of Congress to change that decision - to champion a bill that makes unlocking phones permanently legal.

A new petition on Whitehouse.gov asks the White House to direct the Librarian of Congress to rescind the October 2012 decision that removed unlocking mobile phones (commonly referred to as jailbreaking) as exceptions to the DMCA. The petition already has 80,838 of the 100,000 it needs to get some attention from the Administration. It needs 19,162 more signatures as of this writing.

Two U.S. lawmakers have asked federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice to answer a series of questions about the prosecution of Reddit co-founder and internet activist Aaron Swartz. In a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) want to DOJ to explain why federal prosecutors sought up to 50 years in prison and $1 million in fines for Swartz, who committed suicide prior to his trial. Swartz was arrested in 2011 for downloading 4.8 million documents from the academic archive JSTOR.

On January 18, 2012 something amazing happened: the Internet community, advocacy groups, internet personalities, popular websites, and even some brave politicians banded together to send a message to lawmakers and special interests that backed the poorly crafted SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) legislation.

While it might be funny that Anonymous now has a petition up on the official website for the White House, it is doubtful at the Obama Administration finds it all that humorous. The loose-knit Internet hacking collective has taken some time out of its busy schedule of attacking various government agencies and other organizations it hates to launch a petition asking the Administration to make DDoS attacks a form of protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

While we're not sure if it will ultimately sway the publisher and developer of Dark Souls II, we applaud the efforts of the people behind a petition on Change.org, who managed to get 10,000 signatures on a petition asking From Software and publisher Namco Bandai to bring the game to the Wii U.

While Grand Theft Auto V is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year, Rockstar Games has said that other platforms such as the PC and Wii U are still "under consideration" at this time. This is apparently not a strong enough response from PC gamers who want the game on their preferred platform and in a timely fashion. To that end a petition on Change.org has been launched. So far that petition has over 50,000 signatures from gamers who want to see GTA V on the PC.

Last week the creators of a Skyrim mod inspired by The Lord of the Rings called Middle-Earth Roleplaying Project (MERP) found itself staring down the barrel of a cease and desist letter from Warner Bros.

In an attempt to save the mod, the team behind MERP set up a petition urging fans and followers to convince Warner Bros. to rescind the order and make an exception for what they think could be a most exceptional mod... From the petition:

Yesterday we reported that NCsoft was closing its Paragon Studio and shutting down its Super Hero MMO City of Heroes. Fans of the game, who are obviously not happy with the news, have decided to launch an online petition to protest the move. City of heroes Player Meggan Russell put together a petition. She says in the text of the petition that the community and the game's developers want the game to continue on as it has been:

Gamers Against Bigotry, a site that asked gamers to take a pledge promising not to use bigoted language while playing games online, announced that it has lost 1500 signatures due to repeated attacks from hackers. The site has faced some tough challenges from months of repeated attacks from hackers who have done everything from posting "grotesque images" on the website's signatures page, to making it impossible for new visitors to sign on to the pledge.

Fans really want a new TimeSplitters title from Crytek and they have taken their fight to Facebook to make their voices heard. The group has asked Crytek to bring the project to Kickstarter so that the community can fund the newest TimeSplitters game. So far the group has support from more than 3,000 Facebook users.

"We are a group trying to convince Crytek to finish developing TimeSplitters 4! Even if it means doing a Kickstarter," the group has said. "Even though the page is to gain 100k, we'll probably need much more. So don't give up at 100k!"

Former Radical Entertainment employee Brian Vidovic is trying to launch the EXP Restaurant + Bar in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was well on his way in doing so - having already raised $31,737 of its $50,000 goal via IndieGoGo - but ran into some serious red tape.

A new petition is online to protest the release of DLC for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. More specifically protest organizers are urging the CoD community not to download and buy any DLC for the game until Infinity Ward and Activsion fix a number of problems with the core game. So far the petition has 240 signatures, the Twitter feed dedicated to it has 1183 followers and a YouTube video explaining what the protest is all about has been viewed 2400 times.

A handful of TERA European subscribers are quite angry about blood in TERA and they have launched an online petition to complain about the lack thereof in the European version of the massively multiplayer online fantasy RPG world from Frogster.

The petitioners are upset that Frogster decided to cut down the amount of blood that appears in the European version of the game, though - as The Escapist points out - they don't seem to be upset at the other features omitted from the European release like adjustments to the game's classes, the leveling system and more.

UPDATE: Eurogamer has confirmed an even more alarming fact for fans of this release: 24 out of the 53 teams featured in the Euro 2012 expansion are "generic" unlicensed squads.

A spokesperson for the company said it would have been ideal to license all those teams but "the realities of negotiating terms with 53 separate national football associations meant that was impossible to achieve." Here is what they told Eurogamer:

What inspired From Software and Namco Bandai Games to bring the popular PS3 action RPG Dark Souls to the PC - an online petition - is being used to dissuade them from including a certain feature. Around 12,184 gamers have signed an online petition ("Namco-Bandai and From Software: Release Dark Souls PC Edition without Games for Windows Live") asking both companies to reconsider putting Games For Windows LIVE support into Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition for Windows.

Have you heard?

Some gamers don’t like Mass Effect 3’s selection of endings and are petitioning Bioware to release new and better ones as DLC.

While some may disagree with a group of gamers who have created a petition asking for alternate endings for Mass Effect 3, it's a little easier to like those that support it because they have managed to raise $37,533.12 for the Child's Play charity through a ChipIn donation drive. Organizers of the charity drive and the petition explained their reasoning for raising funds for Child's Play:

In a recent interview with Politico, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian said that the protests last month against SOPA proved that democracy can still work if enough people get involved.

"It’s motivating because this was a decentralized movement. Lots of people with great ideas started contributing and it started to get momentum," Ohanian added. "This idea went viral. It’s powerful when you think we’ve now hit this critical mass. We can get a message out there that actually affects politicians."

The Entertainment Consumer Association has issued an action alert, a call to arms to let lawmakers in Canada know that C-11, an act to amend the Copyright Act, must remove a provision that makes "jailbreaking" illegal. While the amendment to existing copyright law in Canada isn't as strict or over reaching as SOPA and PIPA, it does contain some questionable provisions that could hurt consumers.

Another petition launched at the White House's official site asks the Obama Administration to end its support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. From the text of the petition created on January 21:

A new petition asks the Obama Administration to investigate the MPAA and its president Christopher Dodd for comments he has made publicly about paying politicians to do what the trade group representing the entertainment industry want when it comes to legislation. Dodd is a former Senator from Connecticut. Here's the exact wording of the petition:

Craigslist has added a section to its About Page dedicated to fighting against the Stop Online Piracy Action and Protect IP Act worth taking a look at. The page offers an exhaustive list of resources and points out efforts from the ECA, EFF, OpenCongress, and more. It also features its opposition prominently on its front page. The page also includes a rant which calls out Monster Cable as just one example of why it opposes both SOPA and PIPA:

The White House has finally responded to a petition submitted by citizens expressing everything from concern to outright opposition to both SOPA and PIPA. Today the official web site for the White House has a rather lengthy post on these bills. The short story is that it seems like good news for those who oppose these bills in their current forms. From the Whitehouse.gov site:

A petition urging Namco Bandai Games to bring the popular action-RPG Dark Souls to the PC has apparently caught the attention of someone at the company. Responding to it in the game's official forums, Namco Bandai Games' community manager Tony Shoupinou expressed his amazement at the accomplishment.

A petition on Change.org that we mentioned on January 10 has caught on fire and now enjoys more than 120,000 virtual signatures. The petition was aimed at Electronic Arts and its top executives and it urged them to publically oppose SOPA and PIPA. EA does not have an official position on either bill, but it was one of several signatories on a Chamber of Commerce letter back in September of 2011 urging lawmakers to pass tough anti-piracy legislation.

A new petition on Change.org, which already has over 1,800 signatures, is asking Electronic Arts to publicly come out against the Stop Online Piracy Act. The petition was created by New York University student and gamer Shashank Kasturirangan. The petition is directed at Tammy Levine - VP of Worldwide PR, Joel Linzner VP of Business and Legal Affairs, EA CEO John Riccitiello, and SVP of Corporate Communications Jeff Brown.